Sebastiano Spinella, 52 years, Rome (Italy)
Musician, art-educator, clown, actor. He has Roma origins but he discovered it only few years ago. So he decided to work with Roma youngsters in education projects.
“My life story is particular. I didn’t know me and my family have Roma origins. My grandmother told me this truth only some years ago. My family come from a city in Sicilia Region, Catania, where they live working as merchants. They were integrated and my grandmother decided to keep our origins hidden. But I didn’t like working as merchant, I preferred playing music, theatre, art. Relationship with my father was bad, for my family I have always been as a ‘black sheep’ (Note: black sheep is a typical Italian expression to describe a person who doesn’t fit with parents, family and social context expectations). My father divorced from my mother and his new wife was Danish: when I was young I had the opportunity to travel in Denmark and enter into contact with new lifestyle, new methods to grew up children, less repressive and more careful with the needs of youngsters. Then I moved to Milan, Italy, where I lived with my mother. I increased my interest in music and theatre and lived in the atmosphere of students’ contestation, during the famous Italian 1977.
I started travelling and working as clown, circus artist, musician, living with travelling people, moving from country to country. Little by little I learned to play guitar, clarinet, accordion, trumpet, bass tuba.
In the ‘90s I moved to Rome where I worked as street artist, so I had the opportunity to meet Roma people. It was such as a puzzle: little by little I found small pieces and I was able to build the path of my life and my family, also because my grandmother told me the truth. I discovered something I didn’t know but I ‘felt’ in my heart. It was a good period in my life: I worked as a mime artist with the famous playwright Dario Fo, who won the Nobel prize in theatre sector. But…something missed me. I moved to Brazil where I met people who worked with meninos de rua, children who lived in the favelas. They were trying to save them from the street life, drug, organized crime by art-education. I understood that I had found meaning in life.
After two years I came back to Rome and decided to work in this field, also because I was strongly interested in the projects that clown Miloud was carrying out in Bucharest with the children living in the streets, without parents or family. So in 2002 I started working in my first projects with children in Roma camps. I focused on art-education by music. Music can teach Roma children the ways to express their own feelings, keep their mind focused on an objective, teach a right way to build relationships with other people (not Roma people too), give them body awareness and so on.
I carried out various projects, working both with public bodies and with associations and NGOs. I think that children are as a white paper: it’s up to adults to write the right words, to grew them up in the right way. What I teach? I don’t teach a job, also because I don’t believe that, given the current situation, Roma people will have a lot of opportunities to find a job. But I try to teach them the importance of ‘living’ the street in the right way: no mendicants, but artists. With pride, but also giving respect. Bringing dignity and beauty. Discover their ancient jobs, habits, handcrafts, music: what their grandfathers knew and youngsters have lost.
But I am not only a teacher but also a students, I learnt a lot by Roma children. Four things above all. First, to be able to teach I must study too. I study music. I learnt to repair instruments because often Roma people bring me musical instruments to be repaired. Second, by working with Roma youngsters I learnt the meaning of ‘hic et nunc’, that in old Latin means here and now. Don’t think to the future, but try to be happy now. Third, the concept of family. Mutual help. Hospitality. When I have no money, no money for lunch and dinner, Roma families hosted me. They gave me food and hospitality. It wasn’t a favour, it was normality for them. In Roma communities no-one was left behind.
Four, the most important thing: if you work only for yourself you won’t be ever happy. But if you work for helping the other people, life will give you a lot of things”.
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