Rodrigó Balogh (39), Simonfa, Hungary
Balogh Rodrigó is the founder of a social enterprise, which aims to support young marginalized talents, who are interested in the art of acting.
Rodrió Balogh, the child of labourers was raised in a small village in South-West Hungary. As his family produced its own meat and vegetables, he also had to be involved in agricultural work, no different than his relatives or schoolfellows. Nonetheless Roma and non-Roma children were playing together on the fields of the settlement, the ethnic origin of the pupils severalized them into different schools. After the change of the political regime in 1989, at the age of 13 he lost both of his parents. His siblings started to work right after their graduation from primary school, while he enrolled in vocational high school.
“Racism among my schoolfellows was differentiated” – said Rodrigó Balogh, while he also expressed, that the situation among parents and teachers were rather different. “My teachers did not like the idea, that I wanted to attend a school which gives a high school degree, more of them tried to talk me out several times, but I did not believe a single word they said.” As his teachers gave him bad grades to deteriorate his chances for better education, he could only be enrolled in a vocational school. Therefore he started to learn horticulture, and continued to experience similar atrocities. “I used to perform work that my father did in his whole life, but I did not even get paid for it”.
After 3 years he changed to a high school, where he finished at the French-drama pedagogy department, and met some supportive people who left a great impact on him. For instance, one of his teachers, who taught him everything about theatre, and even if he pushed Balogh really hard, he knew that it serves his own development. Or the principle of the school, who did her best to get him into higher education, and who later devoted her life to introduce more Roma to the institution, fighting her way through the teachers and the parents in order to do so.
In terms of programs aiming to help Roma, Balogh Rodrigó has superficial experiences. As he said, “I have always been an outsider, and I approached everything according to my own concepts”. Now, he is working for over two decades in the show-business, and he cannot imagine changing it at all.
In the field of (Roma) theatrical arts, the term of success is rather subjective, and can be measured only at a local level. Nonetheless, his work contributed to the development of a great number of young talents, who were introduced to the world of theatre or film production, which is an immense achievement. However, success does not necessarily mean the lack of difficulties. “Whatever I do as a Gypsy in the field of arts, will always remain a social cause, it cannot be just artistic-professional, the mainstream field would not allow it (either).” His plan for the future is, to go on with what he is doing, introduce more and more Roma actors to the mainstream, and pass on the knowledge he worked hard to gain.
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