Welcome to our teaser for our first live show recording, and a recap! We hosted our first Welcome to Romanistan Festival in New Orleans, featuring six events that brought together incredible queer and trans Romani performers from across the country. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME! The festival showcased Romani culture through academic panels, live performances, fortune telling, ancestral rituals, and traditional cuisine. It also celebrated the release of our first book, Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling!
• Kicked off with "Romani Tropes and Contributions in Pop Culture" panel at the Hotel Monteleone as part of the Tennessee Williams Festival
• Hosted "Tales from Romanistan" live show featuring Millie Raccoon (fiddle/vocals), Moon Bear (drag), Serena Hellfire (burlesque), and Ylva/Bimbo Yaga (ritual performance)-- soon to be released!
• Conducted "Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling" pop-up at the Mystic Resource Center
• Led "Stewarding Traditions" with Lilith Dorsey, featuring a literary panel and blessing ritual with a community fire
• Taught our "Tarot and Ancestor Communication" workshop! You can take more workshops online and/or in person here!
• Concluded with "Bibi's Kitchen" featuring traditional Romani cooking, music, and tea leaf reading as part of the Tennessee Williams Festival
Special thanks to our sponsors: Weiser Books, Emerald Comics Distro, Cottage Magic, and especially to Bimbo Yaga (Ylva) who was instrumental in making the festival happen. AND THANK YOU TO DONORS AND ATTENDEES! Photos from the events are available on our Instagram @romanistanpodcast
Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast.
You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @romanistanpodcast, and on Twitter @romanistanpod. To support us, Join our Patreon for extra content or donate to Ko-fi.com/romanistan, and please rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us so much.
Follow Jez on Instagram @jezmina.vonthiele & Paulina @romaniholistic.
You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcast.com for events, educational resources, merch, and more. Please support our book tour fundraiser if you can.
Email us at romanistanpodcast@gmail.com for inquiries.
Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens
Conceived of by Paulina Stevens
Edited by Viktor Pachas
With Music by Viktor Pachas
And Artwork by Elijah Vardo
Episode Transcript
I don't know if we should do a regular welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Ramonistan.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I don't think we need to.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, you're right, we're talk show hosts.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
now everyone we are here with just a quick little
chat and or trailer about ourfirst Welcome to Ramana Sun
Festival and how it went.
Now that we're back, how areyou feeling?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Paulina and I literally love New Orleans.
Every time I visit somewhereI'm like I want to move there.
But like New Orleans, I do wantto move there.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I absolutely love it so much and I love everyone and
everyone there yes, everyone.
Well, it was really specialbecause not only is it a
beautiful city and we had agreat time, but we got to meet
all these amazing queer transRomani performers who we never
met in person before.
We hung out with Millie Raccoonand Moon Bear.
(01:11):
I mean, we already knew Ilva.
We have to say so many thankyous to Ilva who, honestly, we
could not have done the festivalwithout her, y'all gotta follow
and support Bimbo Yaga onInstagram.
Just throw money at her feet.
(01:32):
She's an incredible producerand I just feel like we just
didn't say it enough in ourrecording, and so I had to pop
in and be like, by the way,please worship Bimbo Yaga
monetarily, platonically, withall the love you have.
(01:52):
We couldn't have done itwithout her.
You hadn't met Ilva in personbefore, had you?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
No, it was.
Yeah, definitely meetingeveryone in person felt so nice
and we did so many fun eventsand everybody helped.
How are you feeling?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I feel so good.
Oh, and we got to meet SerenaHellfire, the May West of the
French Quarter, which I think issuch a great title For reals.
No, I feel amazing.
It was such a whirlwind becausewe did listeners.
I mean, I know we werepromoting it for a while, but we
did six events in a weekend,which is crazy.
(02:30):
Like we don't do it small, butI mean we started off with the
romani tropes and contributionsin pop culture at this beautiful
hotel.
What was it?
The haunted hotel monteleone.
It was gorgeous and I mean Ithink we both were like, oh wow,
(02:52):
we're like doing a big part ofour book tour right now.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It felt very real yeah, and also like whatever we
were doing, I feel like it madeus realize where we are also in
our activism work, being able tojust educate so many people
about whatever it is that we'redoing.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You know, I hope it worked yeah, it was amazing to
have that platform because,although we did technically put
on the festival ourselves withthe help of sponsors Wiser Books
, emerald Comics, distro Cottage, magic and us and Bimbo Yaga
Ilva Although we did that, thisparticular panel was part of the
(03:38):
Tennessee Williams Festival andit was really it felt very
official to collaborate withthem and we had a big audience
and, yeah, it was this reallylovely opportunity to share with
people and Victor played musicduring part of it too, and I
really like that.
We were just bringing our, ourvibe to everything, even though
we were technically doing likean academic literary panel.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
It it was crazy, but it felt super cool yeah, and I
mean then that night we didtales from romanistan.
It was our first live show andthat was just incredible.
It was like a whirlwind.
I like I.
It was both incredibly engagingand emotional and also I feel
like I blacked out on stage Iwas so nervous.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I'm honestly afraid for you all to hear this live
episode.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So Victor's editing the live episode.
This is also part of why wewanted to share.
We are going to release thelive episode.
It just takes a little extrawork to edit, but Victor says it
sounds really good.
Like we did, well, I think.
But yeah.
Yeah, that was really specialbecause that's when we got to
perform with Millie Raccoon,who's this incredible um fiddle
(04:47):
player and vocalist.
Moon Bear did beautiful andpowerful drag and Sarina is a
burlesque performer and Ilvaperformed a cord cutting ritual.
That was really fun to open theshow and you and I read our
poetry at the end.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, I'm not going to talk about that anymore.
No, you did amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, we hosted the show and we got to do like
little interviews with eachperson.
We just asked one question andit was just a very fun format.
It was like a variety showslash interview.
And then we did um secrets ofromani, fortune telling pop-up,
where we read at um the mysticresource center, which if y'all
are in new orleans and youhaven't seen it, it's the
(05:34):
cottage magics, um new place Iguess I didn't know what to call
it, but it's a much biggerstore out in the suburbs in
Metairie and it was so fun.
And that night we didstewarding traditions then and
we got to meet Lilith Dorsey,who's such a badass.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, and we were able to do rituals together like
ancestral rituals and it justfelt like a really crazy
experience.
There was a lot of energyflowing that night.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah, we started off.
Yeah, because we had our chatabout ancestral tradition and
what it means to carry that on,and we just turned it into this
ritual.
We had a fire outside and wedid a blessing for everyone
there and it was just reallycool because we all brought our
own style to it.
And then we rounded out theweekend with a tarot and
(06:26):
ancestor communication class,which we have taught before and
I'm sure we'll teach again.
And, um, I'm actually teaching.
I'm not sure exactly when thisis coming out, but I am teaching
tarot and ancestorcommunication through deadwix,
which is going to be online, butI also teach it sporadically on
my own as well, so keep an eyeout for that.
(06:48):
And then we finished with BB'skitchen and everyone did so much
more cooking and cleaning thanwe ever imagined, but it was an
incredible event.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
We wanted to die.
No, I'm just kidding.
It was so fun and the food wasamazing.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, so Ilva and Moon Bear hosted that, or Bimbo
Yaga and Moon Bear, and they didthe majority of the cooking,
although Victor, our editor andpodcast musician, and your
partner Arianne, helped Ilvacook and rap sarma and all these
wonderful things and then wegot our cool pictures and two,
(07:28):
which you guys should checkthose out on our instagram where
you can see how all of thisrolled out yes, arianne took
amazing photos, and so if youhaven't seen those on our
instagram, please do.
Yeah, it was just a reallywonderful time, and millie and
victor both played.
People got to experience Romanicuisine and storytelling, and
then we led them through tealeaf reading.
(07:50):
So damn, we're just so excitedto share this little moment that
the Tales from Amranistan withyou, and so stay tuned for it.
We've been a little slow onproduction because it was a lot,
but we're getting back into theswing of it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, and we are overwhelmed some days.
Some days we are Some days weare overwhelmed.
Okay, everyone, we love you alland we hope you enjoy it soon.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, thank you so much for being here.
Bye.
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