 Come everybody back to a seagull talks here from the Markney Seagull Theater Center, the Graduate Center CUNY in New York City, which is a ghost town, everything is closed. All theaters are closed, bars, restaurants, shops, ambulances on the street. We are in the epicenter in a way of most of the world also and the situation is unprecedented. Around the world, mosques in Egypt have closed for the first time in a thousand years and it's one of the great interruptions in the life of societies in the history of the world, I think, very unique and unprecedented. And so we are asking, of course, what does this mean to all of us and what does it mean for theater and performance? And we hear so much from politicians, from barologists and economists, but I feel it's a time and we feel it's time to really also hear from the artist and listen to them. One of the few things we can do is to listen and of course, perhaps also use the time to think and I know that you all are thinkers, a lot of our participants have been thinkers. So Brecht famously said that new times need new forms of theater and what are those new forms? And what has been new perhaps is no longer new. If we don't criticize them, don't change them as Hannah Miller said and it's treason if we just go on that's already has been done. So what do we do? We are in the middle of it and the place will come later, the Netflix series about the time, but it is a time to think. And so we had fantastic, significant artists with that. We started off with Taylor Mack and Kristen Martin from the Hearth Center. Taylor started TrickleUpNYC.org, an organization a little bit like Netflix, everybody pays $10 and you get the work of 50 billion New York City artists and many more who create online content and the money actually goes to them at this commission. We heard from China and from Hong Kong at places where when the coronavirus might be all over, still theater artists are facing great, great challenges. Thomas Ostermayer joined us from the Schöneberg apartment in Berlin where he talked about that we should stay sober and not read meaning into it. That is not really there, I say the world is chaotic. There is no sense to this, that's something we have to go through. And he said, let's prepare, let's prepare well for the fights ahead of us. Have we really been prepared for that post hyper capitalist world we all live in and have we really done a good job as artists? He has, a lot of us have done, but we can and have to rethink what we are doing. We had Toshiki Okada with us who talked from Japan. He's writing a ghost play about no theater inspired by it and so he called us in the middle of the night, as you guys call us, it's midnight in Korea now. And we had, we heard from Egypt and Lebanon very touching incredible stories of how theater in the country is already almost impossible to do theater with now what it means to go on and think about it. And so now I have with us three representative from Taiwan, Taiwan is one of the great nations where culture also is and always has been at the center. And we have with us a Tong Yan who is a multidisciplinary artist with work in performance, installation and music video. And he created an international also platform, a digital platform with us also as a Wukong who's a choreographer and performer. And they will tell a little bit about his company and also Kathy who's the chairperson of the Performing Arts Network Development Association. So they all will give us a little insight. Marco and Armana from the theater, the Albin Ramana said it's a time for them to live like monks. They get up at 12 noon, study eight hours and read and write and then watch movies and feel it's like the earth in a farm is lying, vacant, it's freezing, but of course everybody misses terribly what we are doing yesterday. Also, colleagues from Italy did say Mass Gazziano and Valeria and Lucia, the playwright said the time is a real change. All of a sudden people are ahead of the economy they're ahead of the production always. So we can't stop. This is more important our economy but everybody now is stopping and perhaps this will be a rethinking. We don't know yet. Only when we look back in 50 years from now we will exactly know what it meant out of the day of like today. We really don't know it's chaotic. We don't know how long it's going to last but we will know and we do know there will be a vaccine might be a year and a half they will come to an end. And then perhaps the world has changed and theater that always creates meaning that tells us where we come from, where we are, where we are going to. And as the sun squid said also has to entertain the drunk. So this is what makes us different that we all do that. We would like to hear from Taiwan. And so may I start with Wukong? So tell us a bit what's going on on the streets in Seoul? In Taiwan. In Taiwan, yes. Sorry, in Taiwan, of course. Yeah, it's okay. I just actually finished a performance this evening and it was improvisational performance and audience are packed even though we reduced the number of audience and we only have 50 in the house and we kept them very far away from each other, a meter away, it was under government's regulation. They suggest a meter away indoor with mask. And everybody just show their love and then they cherish the moment because it's not easy to see performance these days. So the performer, they even though it's improvisational but you can feel their hunger to perform and there's no tomorrow. And I asked them what are the shows that has been canceled and they just keep numbering this show, this show, this show and they don't know if the future project is going to continue or that's it. So everybody cherish the opportunity that can stay together and enjoy a performance. So in Taipei, in the capital, shows are going on? Private run, small scale, under 50. Under 50 and with social distancing. Yes, so we can still do that because our government really was very cautious in the beginning, like in December, we start noticing people start to warning each other. There was the virus starts to show and because in January, I went to Bangkok and that was when Bangkok start to have the first case. We heard the news and my friends start telling me oh, you better be careful, wear a mask, blah, blah, blah. And then things got really serious and our government prepared, very well prepared, I think. As far as I know, and Yuchen Liu, who helped also to put this together, you should give me the dates. You only have 376 cases and five deaths in Taiwan. How is that possible? What did you guys do differently? Maybe Kathy, you can... Okay, as of today, we have a total of 379 cases. So there was an increase of three more, which is actually miraculously very low compared to everywhere else in the world. And like you said, five deaths. Like Wukong just said, the government actually sent out a bunch of health professionals to China in late December. So actually, and they started to notice that this might spread out, might have an outbreak. So the first confirmed case was actually in, I believe it was 20th of January. But before that, the government has been issuing warnings already. So actually the society is aware and because we've experienced something very similar. 11 years ago, I believe, the SARS, or 13 years ago. I believe it was 13, 2003. So I think the public is very aware of pandemics like this. And so the public, the society actually are very cooperated with the government's procedures or measures that are drawn out. And I believe we were the first, the government actually stopped any flights from Wuhan. That was the first thing. And then from major cities in China. Because it was during the Chinese New Years where all traveling was tremendous traffic for Chinese New Years. And the amount of people who work in China all come back to Taiwan during that the most important holidays. And so with flights canceled, no one from China and then travel groups were canceled to Hong Kong and to China as well. But also then face masks were rationed. So there can't be panic buying or stocking. So and with that, I think the public with more trust and with all these measures, it's helped to sort of bring down the speed of the outbreak. But also the, I believe the public, the society, the people, the precautions people take really, really contributed to this a lot. And after the SARS virus, I think it was taken very, very serious and prepared. So Liu Kang was a choreographer. And how was the mood between artists is that impacting the work now as everybody is still rehearsing and what is on people's minds at the moment? Is it being taken as serious as perhaps as it is here on Italy and others or do you feel you can still operate? I think all the artists are stimulated by the situation, by what's happening in the world and by how we can still doing what we're doing. So we can still in a way rehearsing even though there's no performance, but they can generate idea. And also the government have support coming in to a certain area that if you come up with something, they can support you to do it in different ways. So artists are trying to get together and trying to find a form to do it, like I do also. Like your work already a lot has been based I think on multidisciplinary work on the digitalizing your piece, Virtual Intimacy Went to Australia, but it deals with the relations between the new technology and audiences between people and each other. For you, this corona crisis, is it something where you say, yes, this is actually something where I now can deepen my work. Have you thought that this might one day be a reason that your work would become more at the forefront of what could be even seen around the world right now at the moment? We can't hear you, is your sound just not on? Yes, I am on now, sorry. So I think this situation has definitely effect in every aspect of our life. And especially as an artist, I have a few international collaboration that is going on and luckily I managed to present the work in Melbourne right before all the theater in Melbourne and Australia closed down. And then I managed to fly back and did 14 days of quarantine myself and also come back to my daily life. I think from now on, we will actually see our work and the world in a very different point of view. Like, what is theater when people have to be at home and how do we, and what I feel is how much we want to be connected, how much we want it to be, want to be together. Like a lot of people maybe before this will say they will be happy to stay at home for a week or even longer, they are out of queue. And but now you just desperately want feeling like you wanting to be connected to someone, you want to sit beside someone. And that's what I already find very amazing. And then I started to see things with this future, this understanding of what if this is not possible? What, whatever we see. Years ago, you started thinking about how what could the theater be if you don't sit in a room together? No, no, because I think during the SARS era, it wasn't this serious, it wasn't the global situation. So, and also theater weren't closed down. So maybe there was show canceled, but it's not so long and so such a pandemic around the globe. And, but I mean for now, for example, my collaboration with the Netherland Group, which is supposed to perform in Nordic Song Festival this August. And we are still uncertain whether it can happen. And we are kind of think that, no, it's not gonna be able to work. But in the installation, we had like 99 screens, installed in the space. So they are like blinking and then communicating to each other. They are little flashing screen. Originally, they are supposed to be communicating devices. But now that I look at it or think about it, I immediately feel that they are virus. They can be virus. They can be, there can be another meaning of it. So it's been already, yeah. Yeah, especially when so many shows are canceled, you start to wonder why are we are researching for the dreamlike or for many extantial questions in our work, all these philosophical things we have been exploring for years. But we are now facing some like philosophical question. The reality, the world is probably more extreme than our theater, than are we doing? Then all these kind of things start to happen, yeah. What are the ethical or moral questions you are exploring at the moment? You just mentioned it for me. At the moment, I'm more thinking about it. I'm not dealing with it. I'm not really producing anything. But to make one example will be like, I have a show that collaborate with a Danish institution that was going to perform in the Tyzone National Opera House next week. But it got canceled. However, the Ministry of Culture and the Performing Arts Center has been very supportive. They say we can still use the space to do try out, make experiments and they can still support the basic funding for that. So I took the chance. So actually I have been quite productive doing new setting and then preparing to go into the theater for a week. Which I also doubt my like to, I also question myself like should I actually do it? Should I actually let everybody stay at home? But initially I was like if everybody can still come to theater and work people will feel better, people will get paid and I should do it. And I would love to have an empty great theater to spend a week. Yeah. So that's the personal ethical question that I'm dealing with. Yeah. And Wukong, are you in quarantine at all then you guys? Wukong and also Dong Yan, are you going out like everyday life? Yes, I go out every day and my parents live far away from me. They live in the south. So in order to have them with me, I have to drive to Gaoshuang to pick them up because I don't want them to spend their time in public transportation. So I went down to Gaoshuang to pick them up and slowly, it's a five-hour drive, it's not far, but we can do camping in the middle. So the lifestyle has changed. So you meet in the middle, both of you was the car two and a half hours away and you do camping? No, no, no, I went down all the way down. All the way down. And on the way back to Taipei, we camp in the middle. So you have a tent, you have a tent and you do grilling and they sleep in a tent, you have a tent. So we can enjoy it. Like in the old days, yeah. Yeah, it's really in the old days, like reminds me of my childhood, how my father did do camping with me. So it was very interesting time for us. We're just very lucky that we can still do things and but stay away from people, like a large group of people. And Dong Yan, how does your day look like? Is it any different than it was before or is it? The day I got back from Melbourne, I actually didn't need to stay at home for 14 days. But I thought like 24 hours later or 20 hours later, those flights that came after that day will always need to stay at home for 14 days. But I thought I would be extra careful. So I stay at home for like 12 days. I actually wanted to go to a dentist but they wouldn't allow me, like I couldn't do it. So a lot of painkillers stay at home. But then after I walk on the street during these few days for a week already, I felt that people are a lot more relaxed than I thought. Like I started to be a bit scared. I feel, okay, it can be very serious if we are this relaxed now. Because in February, we are extra cautious. Like everyone is just buying masks and buying all the eco sanitizer and anything. But now, all the coffee shop are quite packed. So I'm actually a bit worried. And we just have a four days holiday and everybody sort of went out after such a long time, say staying home. So yeah. It's just incredible how different the situations are in the world. Maybe Kathy can tell us a bit, even so it looks like there's so incredibly low number of cases, 380 cases and five deaths, which almost sounds like normal numbers of a seasonal flu or influenza. But still your government, is it prepared as it was prepared for the virus? Is it prepared to help artists? Performing art scenes? What are the initiatives? Right, okay. I think the cultural ministry is very responsive. And actually started talking about a relief package mid-February. And it was rolled out early March. So we're actually in the process of the first phase of applications for the Relief Fund, which I believe the first one, which we call the 1.0 Relief Fund is about, I think it's about 48 million US. So it's for individuals, freelancers, as well as theater companies. So it ends this week, this Friday, I believe it will go out very soon because already the 2.0 Relief Fund has been approved. And that adds another, I believe 120 million for the arts and culture. So that means a total of 168 million US for this stage, for this year. We're not really sure what happens after the 2.0, but at this stage, we're just very grateful. And the process, like in Berlin, it's super easy, maybe not as easy as Berlin, but compared to what we had to deal with in the past, this is super easy. You basically file either for individuals, for a work date, yeah, and then you get it. It's pretty easy. So we're looking forward to seeing how that plays out. And like you said, like we touched on earlier, the theaters are not closed fully, but definitely the bigger public theaters, the three major national theaters in Taiwan are actually working together to bring different initiatives to help the artists and the art groups, which I believe will be rolling out very soon. So that coupled with the Relief Fund for the arts, I believe that would be further helpful for the sector, at least to bring shows either for live streaming or like Dong Yan is using the theaters. The funds are still going to the artists, definitely. Maybe not in full, but they're trying. Yeah. That is extraordinary. Under 400 cases, five deaths, but the amount of $160 million right away in the phase one and the phase two artists. If I remember right, the National Endowment for the Arts in the US, the budget, which has been growing larger even to just $146 million. So the National Endowment of the Arts of America for all the arts, painting, poetry, filmmaking, theater, sculpture, and so on, and is under the amount of Relief Fund that has been rolled out within four or five weeks. This is absolutely stunning compared also to what we heard from our friends in Egypt, in Lebanon, and I think Sahara Sa from the American University in Beirut, where she works, said there's also, I don't know if you can call it, an idea to help artists. The idea is you can apply for a $20 support and there's one landline where you have to call by phone. Everybody can just access one landline. You have to wait for hours online and then fill out a large complex form. Basically, it's not existing. And so this is quite stunning. Your performing arts network already gives money, so the money what you will give to the artists in a fast and bureaucratic way is additional money, right? It's not part of the existing budget. No, no, it's additional. Yes, you're correct. So, Wukang, what would you have to do to get that money? Did you apply for it and what did you have to do? So what did you do? Tell us. I don't, we're still writing the proposal. It has three different stages and the main idea is if this situation continues, what can we create as a maker? As a maker, you have a need inside to make something or to gather people to make something. So we only set up a rules. So I have my a lighting designer I work with and the stage designer I work with and the video artist I work with and the musician I work with and stage manager. So we try to stay at home and try to make something. I have to add to what Wukang just said for the first phase of the relief fund. Okay, so half of that is for operations for any burdens on operations or lost on production costs and that. But half of it is actually channeled into encouraging artists and arts groups to come up with initiatives that they could actually experiment with or explore with digital content or actually with training because you can use this time for additional staff training. So there's more to the entire relief fund is not only to pitch in on what's lost but actually help and encourage what may be in the future. Whereas in, I believe all of us in the art sector in Taiwan have been somewhat not so prepared in the digital world coming up with digital content because we've always liked funding and investments in that field, but this is actually a good, I would say this is a very bad time but it's also provided us with time to think about the future and to think about things and options that we've never had time or funds to think about and definitely to explore the digital world and how what we did in the past can actually branch out to reach more people in this time and also in the future as well. And part of the relief fund is actually contributing to that development as well. So the idea to find a new form of theater we were last week also asking, will there be big theaters? Will there be ballet, opera, drama? Will there also be a digital section? The response from many like Ostromiles as well as we do theater, we don't do it. That's not our field there, museums of us would do it but who knows that perhaps for these, I call it the children of the digital age. Brett used to say his theater is for the children of the technological age but now we are in the digital age and the children who have grown up like you guys have a different approach. So Tong Yang, you have been thinking ahead even before the crisis. Now you're getting money to find a new form, to do something new. What's on your mind? What are you gonna do? What are you thinking about? What have you seen that works? I think just like Kathy say that we are finding new possibility and then the whole world has been knowing and really knowing that the big med venues are releasing free online video to see performance as a solution for now. And then I think for a traditional theater goer like me I will always think that's a backup option. Like I'll never want to watch a theater performance from video but then we actually realize it's actually quite good. Like we know anti-life for a long time and then sometime we go because we didn't go to London but I think just two, three days ago that last weekend, Taiwanese company did a live broadcasting of their show and then everybody in our Facebook bubble is talking about it and people really do enjoy it. And then so Wukong and I and Kathy we did a pre-chat before this and then they are thinking this really can be a model of how we make the experience wider, how we make people who is not in the city experience theater. But how is that different from existing recordings that we already have? Let's say a National Theater in London broadcast, New York City Opera broadcast site, that already is there. What is the difference? What's new? I think there's nothing new. It's just that we rarely do it. We only think that the big theater with big founding on that like National Theater in London can do that. And they have like a camera or 11 camera with very professional grips that can do that. But then we realized with quite basic thing that and then the online feedback is not as bad. So all the theater, none of the theater company would spend a part of their budget on this in our previous production, even though we know this technology for a long time and live stream is not hard and not even that expensive but we wouldn't do that. We think it's a compromise for theater experience. But now we have a, what's new is that we're experiencing and we have to experiencing and then we can prepare and then we can make it better. But on the other side, what I have been talking in a smaller group with some younger artists that what if we are making a theater work that everybody's staying home using their screen? How can that be a theater experience? And then we are only at the very beginning we have a few topics that we want to achieve. First of all, we need to use the nature of the internet like big data. So we can use big data to search for our audience. So we can put a very different audience together in the group. And so instead of like broadcasting to the whole world for free or to make or actually to broadcast and then kind of find a mechanism of buying tickets online that kind of thing. We are more thinking about make a different online experience that is that use the nature of internet. Other than that, it would be like, how do we code? How do we share this moment together? How can we feel that we are in this moment together? Yeah, that will also be the other challenge. And then there are other points that we have been starting to draft. And then yeah, hopefully maybe next year or at some point we will do some better try. Yeah. Wukong, do you have ideas of your choreographer or your dancers? They have bodies of body on the stage at what makes theater theater. Like people in the room, you watch them you have bodies we see. So now they are no longer there, they are screened. So do you have an idea? Are you applying with an idea to be Taiwanese fun? What's your idea? Just to stay home. So we're trying to make work. Artists stay home isolated and the audience stay home. So everybody stay at home with your screen to participate. So how is that gonna look like? What are you gonna see when you participate? I don't know, I'll be the first try will be the end of this month. We will do an online live stream. And we'll do the... So dancers will be of your company will be in their apartments? Yeah, I'll be the only dancer. You'll be the only dancer. So you're living in your living room now where you are? I'll be in my studio so I can move around bigger because in my living room my daughter and my wife is running around. So I have to stay in studio. So you're gonna be dressed up in a dance outfit? And what's your idea? What you're gonna do now a little bit? What you will be doing? What movement or music? I don't know because throughout the... We've been rehearsing for a few weeks and every rehearsal was a lot of discovery of technology on internet. Like how people use internet, how people use YouTube and how to use the chat room on the side how you use the material chat room on the side and input into the video and all that stuff. You just try... It's a totally another theater. You just need to find a new way. And we were looking for it. And this morning for you was last... Yesterday. Yesterday. It was big, pink full moon. There was a opera, six hours opera. Did anybody see it? No? Okay. Livestream. So there were 250 people in Zoom. They did an opera. It was quite interesting. So you had 250 Zoom windows on your screen? Yeah, in YouTube. They did livestream opera on YouTube. So you can see the Livestream in two naked body. I'm not sure what they were going to do. It feels like they are about to fuck. And on the other screen, there was one lady start to tell a story. And so there's the... Because the voice activated. So the screen jumped to the center. You listen to the story. And when she finished the story and it goes back to all the windows. And so you do little things. And so it's just rediscovering new tools, new stage. I think... And the chat room is going on on the right side. People will be able... Audience members chat and communicate. I think that one was only the performer. The one I saw this today from America, the pink full moon opera. And the one I did will be... I hopefully they will chat. I don't know if they want to chat or they will... I don't know if anybody would chat or participate. But hopefully at the end of this month, our first live stream performers will have some audience to experiment. And since it's a new stage for us, it's like site-specific performers. And internet is the site. And we start to explore how music, how video, how light designer can use this technology. Gives a whole new meaning to site-specific. It will be on the internet. I'm excited. I know it's also in Taiwan, as in the rest of the world, digital dating services like Tinder and others also now encourage no longer just for hookups rather say go out and meet people. Is that something you observe? Or is it something you participate in? Or is your work involved in that? Yeah, apart from working in your theater, I also make documentary. And then I brought this documentary looking for, question mark, to New York in 2017 and 2018 to the New Fest. So it's a documentary that interview gay queer society that use online dating apps. And then I found that it's so amazing how can these apps function now? And they really need to send our message. There will be pop-up windows to say, stay at home or if you need to be with someone, what else can you do? So there are all these healthcare and mental care advice on these apps. And this really goes back to how much we're learning for be connected to people. We have never seen so many people posting their Zoom meeting, their Skype meeting, their Skype drinking parties, Skype karaoke ever before. And then it's quite amazing how positive we try, how hard that we try to be so positive, especially using these few Seagull talk that all artists have been quite, stay home, cook and reset, use this time to relax. And yeah, so actually what I'm working next week in National Theater in Taichung will be actually doing a VR work. So I guess it's somehow connected to a long but connected experience that you are alone with your Google. And it's kind of a dying, not so successful. It was once a rising star, kind of everybody's looking upon on VR, but nobody really, really want to put it on at home for another hours after whole day with your mobile phone. But I'm gonna film something to start with. And just a little bit feedback for the body movement and dance using internet. I realized I can probably share the work in progress that I did in the Netherlands. I don't know how good this will look, but I will share my desktop. If it doesn't work, it will be one minute or two. So... Shortly, yeah. Yeah, here. Can you see? Ooh, yeah. Yes, yes. So we were in Groningen and then we actually call someone in Taipei, the other dancer in Taipei and then we actually have then had a duet on the stage together. And then we also call someone in Paris while they are also in a theater. So you see another theater on the stage with just a ghost. It's really not even a trick, but for this one, we kind of key out the dancer in Taipei's background. This has been, this is nothing too new. I think people in the 70s also use Satellite to combine dancers from the East Coast to the West Coast. But then we are also asking the dancer's mom that, so she also called her mom and then the mom also go to the family mart, the convenience shop in Taipei. Like how do we bring the other time and movement and color and video in theater? So that's just, I thought while you talk about that, I thought I can probably share this. No, that really is an example of work like you and many others are trying to find how to use the digital roles, the screen, also the additional space of that black box where we're in or there's Italian stage theaters. I think it is a good question. We are, if it's the time for we are now, I mean projections from Facebook that owns, you know, the big ones are that there will be millions and millions of users that we once had TR Warsaw from Poland as guests at the Segal Film Festival. They showed us a project when they filmed an existing show but used VR as a tool, almost as a democratic tool. You were sitting on different places where watching the show, sometimes you were even in the middle and you could see that intentionally kind of bad quality. So they said, we want to see, we want to make sure that people think it's not reality like the scenes of cuts were visible. I thought it was a convincing thing. Also the full length of the show. So VR and 360 for sure might be something that the new technologies will produce. Cathy, are you seeing? What are you seeing? I guess you are the one that looks at the projects like Wukong and Duyeng are putting in. What are you seeing? What projects are people proposing with this incredible generous, highly admirable plan of the government to really take care of the artists? What do you see? What's coming out? Well, I have to see what Dongyan just showed us was super interesting. I don't think I've seen that work, Dongyan, or maybe I have. We show different parts every time we did our presentation. Okay, okay. Do you look at, Cathy, do you look at applications right now? Do you read them? No, because it's still in the first round. So applications are still coming in, but they go directly to the ministry. So the ministry is rounding up a panel of jurors to look over the applicants and the applications, but we don't know how many yet, but what we do is we advise the groups and freelancers on how to make applications because a lot of the freelancers, especially the tech people, don't really understand the administrative side of things. So no, we don't really see the works yet, unless I believe we will see more as the application deadline closes. But what Ookang said was super interesting. I'm really interested to see what you're gonna do. Like if I tune in, if I tune in, do I give you instructions or do I just participate by chatting? Or do you even see, or do you even actually interact with whoever someone, or do we participate as spectators? I think both. There'll be definitely time for you to be a traditional theater spectator and at time you will be participant. And if you went crazy, you wanted to dance, you start dancing. Yeah, the first time I will have a duet with Ookang virtually. And if you dance in Zoom, you can be naked. You don't get fine and there's no censorship. Mm-hmm, that's true, it is true. I think even in national theater in Taipei, you will not be fine. Well, but if you're audience, people will bother you. All right, all right, if you're audience maybe. Ah, okay, okay. So this type has a lot to discover. All right, sorry, Frank. To come back to your question, I do have like the artists and groups in the field talking about the different kind of campaigns or initiatives or creations that can be brought into the coming weeks. But I think a lot is still exploring technology, the tools that we have. There are a lot of crazy ideas, but still exploring if it's possible with present day technology. But also there are talks about using the online live streaming, but actually packing it up to be a C meaning retro of the 70s and 80s where everybody tuned in to the TV. So there are a lot of different formats that people are talking about, but because in the past, we haven't been so acquainted ourselves with the technological tools. So there's a lot of uncertainty in that field, but definitely trying to, I think what Dongyan and Wukong are doing is actually incorporating that into the next production or the next creation. But right now what everybody is mostly talking about is how to use the present content, but actually transferring that to another format or actually how can it be broken up into different sections, I guess. To go back on that experiment of Tia Varsova, they are part of a production company in Varso that actually has a small VR movie theaters. It just means they are six or seven, eight chairs and maybe in the library or in movie theaters in the lobby and they produce small clips, 10, 15, 20 minutes. You pay a couple of euros or dollars to see produced forward and the producer and the artistic director of the project said, he loves theater artists. They're the only one who understand time and space. Often IT people or software engineers or developers don't understand the concept and what theater artists is better, better and better than you are in a time and in a space and also in a scene, in a location, a site that is specific. And so they think that this will be a way at least as an additional way to engage with the robots, things produced for a VR and the headsets are getting cheaper. Also a camera that will take full view 360 and the prices are dropping. And I think that's one of my predictions that perhaps the theater artists, call choreographers and will discover this and create content that is not just the filming or representation of something where you wish you would be there like, you know, you look at the slide of a Rembrandt. Yes, you see what the painting is about but you don't see the painting. You don't see John Jembelin's sculpture really until you go around it. And so we will see what these artists come up, dome projections and new ways of incorporating these things and perhaps this crisis and funding from Taiwan, you know, will create virtual realities VR experiences by artists that can be shared around the world and others will respond to it, not to replace their life. It cannot, every artist we talk to said will never be, this is also not the game, not the idea but it is to find an additional form, a new form. It's Louis Fuller, the dancer who did almost classical dance but she invented in 1880 or 90, she helped 30 or 40 patterns for lights, you know. She was the one who said, let's put colored lights in front of that newly electric lights and Paris was taken by it. Honsier talks about that and where he does say that when the traditional art form mixes with new technology, pieces when breaks happen, writing change, when the typewriter came, Kittler, the great German literary professor said that the typewriter, the phonograph, the computer, these were all interruptions, serious interruptions and then adaptations of what came up. So we are now, I think in this time we really do not know yet, maybe it has already happened but it's fantastic and I think maybe one day we do an evening at the Segal to see what works produced by Taiwanese artists coming out of phase one or phase two. And it's an experiment that's important, I think also for the world, as I said earlier, other countries have no means to really do it and I think I mixed up, it wasn't Lebanon, I think it was Egypt, the one phone line, you have to try to call in for your $20 support. So it is quite, it sounds to all of us like almost like a fairyland and wonderland that this is really thinkable with that even low amount of infected people and that's that you take such good care of the artists who represent I think also a spirit of a country. We hear these desperate calls in a way from the Fiat East from Italy and also in Germany, France where things are very, very complicated. So it is just stunning how it is. Pogchiki Okada also said at the time when he talked the government, he does not trust the government, they will not tell what it is like Fukushima and people could go out, they said maybe stay at home the evenings on the weekend, but I think just yesterday also Japan changed the level of emergency and so things are happening as we speak. So to come back to one of the questions we often also get the healthcare worker, the worker, the bus driver, the people who stack the shelves who were not perhaps always on the mind of politicians but perhaps also not on the mind of performing artists as audiences. Are you guys thinking about them? Is there something coming out new? I know for Hunche and Feng from China said the Chinese government kind of ordered a custom tailored opera about healthcare workers in the hospital and there should be an opera kind of a government initiative which for sure will also tell patriotic stories. But still, the idea is this on the mind of Taiwanese artists or the government after all these attacks from the people who pay them, is there something where you feel we have to connect to these people? Part of our society. Yeah, I could contribute a little bit but that I think from our experience in SAAS, one of the companies that I work closely with, Cloudgate Dance Theater, during the SAAS period after that they did two shows that invited the healthcare workers to the theaters and for just to say thank you. And I believe that Cloudgate is also talking about that for the for the autumn shows as well, how to make specific shows or to make specific ceremonies or celebrations for these caretakers that has been devoting themselves to the entire society. And I've heard a lot of artists have been thinking about this as well because they are actually our support system that made this possible to keep the rates so low but also to keep everybody really taken good care of. That's what I've been hearing, projecting for maybe autumn from September to October. That's what we're projecting in Taiwan. We're still very optimistic about things back up running and operating in the autumn. Do you have projections when theaters or when it will come back? I mean, this morning, Olivier P gave a press conference in Paris about the Avignon Festival. He presented the dream, what they worked on, what they have been prepared for a year about it. It's clear that it might not happen at the day, but of course also cancelling a festival means no income for artists and also for the people working on it. They are waiting for the situation. Maybe it will be postponed. It would be a hard loss and not to have it in the year. So how are projections in Taipei? Do you feel very confident of giving the low numbers like by the summer, things will be back to normal? I would say we're trying to keep very optimistic views. Mostly the shows are canceled until end of June, July. There are some canceled in August, but I think generally after August, people are still hoping that the spread would die down and everything would become normal or calmer. It's all very calm right now, relatively in comparison to the world, but because we're all interconnected. So we're also very cautious, but definitely where I think everybody is still hoping that everything is back up running by September. I know Australian musician, I think, who came with an orchestra was in fact with the virus and imported in and of course it opens. So many questions. So a question to Wukong and to Yang. Also, Cathy, what are you reading at the moment? We ask everybody, what are you listening to? Is there something you are discovering, something you are focusing on which you haven't done before or an activity? What are you doing for your mind? I should do the same. And since I spend more time at home, so I play with my daughter more. Who we saw in between, yeah, beautiful. Yes, yes, yes, yes. If I'm coming in, yes. So it was really nice, it was really nice. And so she felt she is more accustomed to me staying home this much. Like this evening, I went out to do the performance. She was very angry because I left her for so long. Two hours, three hours. Yeah, but it was really good. Spend more time with family. And yeah, I can't, for some reason, I cannot read during this time. And I cannot really watch a performance online even though there are so many. I was just, I was not able to come down and stay and look at the screen to see a performance. And so it's really strange that there are so many things, there are so many things I wanted to see because, yeah, but now I just can't. I've been, I agree with Wukong. I can't really just sit and watch a theater show on the screen. Well, A, because I don't have that much time to watch an NT life performance that goes for three hours in the middle of the night. But I think theater in itself, it needs attention, like committed attention. And when you're in your home environment, that's just impossible. So I've actually been reading more and also having Cigarose in my ears all the time is helping with that, all that music. What I've been reading recently was all the names they used for God, I don't know if you know that. Yeah, amazing. It's incredible. Yeah, it's very fantasy-like. I think it's just having time to read different things and just to feel your imagination is what works for me right now. What are you? I have been watching a lot of VR films. Like I dive into it and then I also discover a VR reality chat room that you are in your avatar. And then I chat with people in New York. And so I kind of spent quite a lot of time doing that and also prepare for the VR filming next week. So originally I sort of tell everybody that I'm going to do a tryout, but now we are building a set that cost a little piece of set that cost like 4,000 US dollar, which is quite a lot for a tryout. So I'm actually working quite even more than before, but also because I have like 14 days of kind of alone and being in front of computer. Other than that, I listen to the Seagull talks. Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's a big... Yeah, I mean, I want to talk, tell the Lebanese and Egyptian artists that listening to their talks really is empowering. Like it's so difficult for them, but they are so confident and beautiful and then doing the best of what they are doing. And they also really comfort me by, in the end, you ask them what they want to say to the artists around the world, what they want to say. And they actually say that no stress on producing things. And I think we have this tendency or this nature of like feeling that if we are not producing work, we are useless or whatever. But I think listening to their talk truly is a blessing in the bedtime. I mean, it's one o'clock in Taiwan. But thank you. That's of course also very, very meaningful for us. And yesterday as Yuchiya Kalamari, the Italian playwright, she said she goes to her apartment and moves things. She's called a senior clip club because she should hear her shoes and she moves and moves things for two hours. She can kind of focus on something. She can't hear the songs anymore. People open their windows and sing around six or seven o'clock, but at the beginning it was good, but now it's almost like terrorizing her mind. And so then she also feels nothing one can do. But as a closing question, maybe to both of you, what do you from Taiwan, which is not as existential a situation at the moment and with support and also perhaps with the responsibility to find new forms. But what is your advice to artists listening now around the world? What would you think is significant to keep in mind? I would say it's okay to be negative. Try to be negative for a few hours. It's okay. Don't try to be stay positive. But stay positive, okay? I think just follow the flow because I think for the first time in maybe 1,000 years that human are connected finally through this virus because we all share almost the same experience. So maybe when this pandemic is over, maybe a few years later and you see different friends or people from different countries, we can all share the same experience. So this invisible virus that we can see in a way connects us. We ourselves are viruses. Part of our DNA is virus-based. It is a virus, RNA, a shadow DNA. So we are actually also in a way, a virus is the oldest living, one of the oldest living forms in thousands of years. So it opens incredible questions. So thank you so much for giving us that in a way encouraging update and also stunning update how the Taiwanese government supports it how the Arts and Performing Arts Network Development Association performs in a way that role of really supporting that I have never heard anything like that. In our talks here, I haven't read about it. So you heard it in a way first here on the Seagal Talks. By the way, the Seagals Theater is the only institution in New York City producing new content every day. We are the one, et cetera is the only one at the moment up. And it's a big honor to have you with us. So come back. I know both of you, the artists have been in New York, Kathy, I'm sure also many times the Taipei also cultural center where we have collaborated with, we also would like to thank Chi Ping who helped us. Also we presented one of the first queer, gay, lesbian readings in New York City from Taiwanese artists with the support of the government the very first time. I think the government of Asian countries have given their approval and their stamp and the logo was a significant event. So the news from Taiwan are just stunning and it's a great sign for that country and that society and some things we should look up to and also perhaps learn from. So I'll stay safe and I hope it will also stay the way how it is for you. And this big experiment of giving money to say, find new forms with that mission. So see it also perhaps as a global auftrack mission as a Hainan model would say. So find something and report to us what you found what you learned through the journey. Actually that is what theater also is about that directors and actors go on a journey and then they share what they found. So thank you for coming tomorrow. I hope you will have time to tune in the great, great Meredith Monk. Yes, yes, for sure. Of the world's music and performance Shaman who really communicates with the worlds will be with us. And then we hear from Burkina Faso who is a great director writer who runs one of the most significant theater festivals in Africa. He will be with us as well as an actress and they will tell us what's going on there. So I can't wait to hear the update again. Thank you really for taking the time. It's now one o'clock and two o'clock, one o'clock in Taiwan. Yeah, yeah. And so thank you again and please do keep on listening to us. And it was very moving to hear from us that the Segal talks have been in a way meaningful to you and I will make sure that our friends in Egypt and Lebanon hear about. Good luck. Stay safe. Stay soon. Stay safe. Thank you. Thank you, Frank. Goodbye.