EDINBURGH 2023: NOMAD Q&A

BWW catches up with Gözde Atalay to chat about bringing Nomad to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about NOMAD.

When I was a little girl, I thought one could go anywhere, that there were no borders. I soon learnt this was not possible for me, because of my nationality. NOMAD is a physical theatre performance based on my own experience of being an immigrant in Europe as a Turkish-born woman. Through Ayşe's character, I bring to the stage the emotional, cultural and legal challenges of an immigrant, and the struggles of bureaucracy that come with being brown, female and an artist.

This performance is inspired by migrants’ lived experience of paperwork, clerks and survival in a foreign country (finding work, learning the language etc.). Whether work, marriage or refuge is the reason for migration, the period of waiting administrative limbo can last years, and the bureaucratic encounters become the shared experience of all migrants.

NOMAD uses humour and tragedy as pathways in storytelling and explore Ayşe’s life experience through the eyes of three characters: Ayşe, the heroine, and the two institutional monsters, Eric (policeman and immigration officer) and the Paper Creature (an absurd embodiment of bureaucracy).

Why did you feel this was an important story to tell?

We have been watching many performances on the topic of immigration in recent years. However, very few performances address the difficulties of the immigrant once they are settled in the new country. When I arrived in Europe to establish a new and free life, I thought that everything would be beautiful from now on. But the real difficulties began after that; learning a new language, finding a job, adapting to another culture, the endless work of collecting immigration papers... and most of the people in Europe don’t have any idea about those difficulties. It is a story which is extremely common but at the same time invisible. NOMAD aims to make these stories visible and open up this topic for audience discussion.

How crucial is the physical element of the show?

We decided to make a performance with no language (or actually about ten words) to reflect the barriers of communication an immigrant faces when arriving in a new country. We also wanted it to be accessible to everyone regardless of the language they speak.

Who would you like to come and see NOMAD?

It is a show for everyone. The topic of “migration and bureaucracy” is a huge part of our lives right now. We cannot ignore it, whether we are immigrants or not.

What would you like audiences to take away from NOMAD?

A shared experience of the immigrant struggle, not just the lies that newspapers print. A shared moment with a migrant telling her own story. Ideally, we would like the audience to understand what happens to migrants. For the audiences to engage with this issue and hopefully come out having learnt something new, with a new sense of solidarity and activism to support immigrants.

Photo credit: Petros Kolotourous 

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