Billie & Maria is a performance about survival through love and music. It tells the stories of Billie Holiday and Maria Tănase, two iconic singers of the 20th century whose paths never crossed, but whose experiences intertwine across time and space.

The show follows real events documented from their lives along with imagined encounters between them, in a space created mostly by sound and light, where the fiber of reality dissolves and leaves room for imagination. Billie, the American jazz singer, was confronted with the harsh reality of racism, while Maria, the Romanian folklore legend, had to endure oppression by the fascists and then a communist dictatorial regime. These two lives happened at the same time in history in the 1900s, with only two years difference between them, but in completely different worlds. How can a Black woman from the Western world and a white woman from Eastern Europe share such similar destinies? None of them got to turn 50, both of them struggled with addictions, none of them had children, both of them sang to the wounded soldiers in the war. And, most importantly, both of them loved with passion and fought for their rights, in a period when women were so widely silenced. Billie & Maria is an exploration of how real talent can be so easily re-shaped or even crushed by political regimes or social circumstances. We bring in the same room the American black soul jazz and the spirit of Roma musicians, giving voice to hope.

Director: Iulia Grigoriu
Maria Tănase: Ioana Elena Urda
Billie Holiday: Maimouna Sow