 performances in the time of Corona and their response. So they created a trickle up NYC.org. Taylor's great idea, like a Netflix streaming to get as theaters involved. And Kristen talked about the activities of the here art center that is closed, the space like all the other ones are dark, but all the works that the artists are still doing was followed by an update from a situation in Hong Kong and Shina from Mok Chiu Yu and Shuyu Liao and Han Shen Feng who talked about what it means now and artists who now think maybe it's time to observe the body and to observe our world. This is the only thing that's left, it's us. And we are in a space, Han Shen Feng who said, cypress space that used to be not the real space seems to be now the real space after all where we do connect in Mok from Hong Kong. We talked about the situation there that some rehearsals with masks are still going on, that people are having online projects, but of course the situation as we all remember in Hong Kong remains out there that this is just a temporary pause for them in a much bigger engagement for life arts and the political. Yesterday we had a great talk I saw it also with Thomas Ostermeyer from the Shobiner Berlin who talked from his apartment to us and he had good advice. He did say, please do stay sober, don't think that this has any sense. There's no apocalyptic meaning of an Old Testament God who is revengeful and we have to repent and for our sins and then perhaps it will get better. It's just chaotic, it doesn't have any sense. And this is just a break in our lives and he encouraged young artists to prepare. Say, you know, this will be over, but prepare to be better artists and better human beings. Read, look at things and study what people have done before you but not to become fatalistic. And today we have with us two great artists, a couple that works in Ravenna. They created the Teatro delle Albe. It is Marco and Hermana two great workers and the vineyard of global theater. They are like the living theater, like Judas Molina and Julian Bach. You know, they have carried the torch and carried the mother carriages, ox wagon through many decades in Italy. And they are based in Ravenna, a great town, the significant one, we'll come to that later. And they are leaders of a small independent theater company, they are rehearsing a church from the 12th century. And so welcome, Marco and Hermana. Thank you, thank you. Tell us a little bit what's happening in Ravenna. In Ravenna, like in all Italy, people are closed at home. And there are these rules, we think right rules to stop the coronavirus because we have not other solutions for the moment. And only essential work are possible. Theater is considered not essential because all the theaters are closed. And, but we know, we knew, we knew that our heart is not essential for this society, but this is the demonstration, the scientific demonstration. At the same time, we think in this moment, this is the unique possible solution for this terrible question. The most terrible after the second world war. And we think that there was a great late in to find the right rules, the right possibility to stop the virus. There is a responsibility for the politics and for the community, scientific community. But now we are in this situation. So, you know, Italy, Italian people is anarchist people. But in this situation, no, we are respectful for the law. And this is, I think is a good thing. We also gonna ask Armana, with us we have the great Valeria Orrani who created the Italian playwrights projects and runs humanism organization dedicated to the dialogue between Italy and the US and the world. So Valeria will translate, but Armana, tell us a little bit, what's going on in Ravenna and in your mind? What do I do in these days? But in these days, I dream a lot. In this day, I dream a lot. The dreams, for me, are very important signs. These dreams are very important signs. Especially to write. I am writing a lot in this period. I write stories. Almost because I write a lot in this period and I write mostly novels. Tales, yeah. Tales, yeah. Stories. Stories. And I write, especially, regarding the view and the touch. This is what I write. And I write mostly about the senses of the view and the touch. Because what I miss mostly is to be completed by the other who watch a TV in theater. So the audience that watch the stage. And so because these couldn't be possible physically, I translated on my writings. And we transformed our home in an abbey in this period, me and Marco. So we are like monks that write, read, and think about the fish. Tell us about... I want to show the books that we are reading. Yeah. See, see, yes. I don't know the translation in English of the title, but it's a novel by Clarice L'Infector. It's called... No, I don't know. It's written in English. I was looking for it in English, but it's not there. Breath of Life. The translation from the Italian title is Breath of Life. And Dante, we have Dante Alighieri in English translation by Allen Mandelbaum. And this is an important book for us because we used this in USA, in Kenya, in Romanian. It's a book in our bag. And we show you a beautiful book because maybe you know there is the art of color. A good Bauhaus book, yes. So it is a philosophical connection between colors and our lives. So if we prefer a color for our dresses or our hair, we can make the connection and the meaning in life about this color. There are many books about the light, about the light, about the paradise. So how does... About the light and the heaven. How does your day look like? Tell us a little bit. What time do you get up? What do you... Hour by hour, what do you do like yesterday? How is your day organized? We sleep a lot. So when we get up, we leave at 12. When you get up, huh? We get up in the middle of the day. At 12 o'clock? At noon you get up? At 12 o'clock and we eat. And then after until 8 o'clock to read, to write, to work. At 8 o'clock a little supper, the chena. And then we see video just until 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the night. So it's... Only one time, every two, three days we go to do shopping, to grocery shopping, to do shopping for food. It's the only possibility to go out. Can you say about films and stuff like that? Yes. And we are working about a new film, a new movie. I have in my mind the idea of a film about Hermanna. Thirty years of work on the stage. And I use different material of repertory. I can say repertory. Repertoire. Repertoire. And to create a new movie about this career, this life on the stage. And Hermanna is working about a CD, about love, faithful love. A performance. And we are working about the CD, only audio, only music and voice by Hermanna. So the day is full. The day is full of thinking, working and praying at the same time. Our prayer. When you go out to the streets of Ravenna, how is the mood? How do you see your city at the moment? The only possibility to go out is to go in the market. The grocery. Yes, near to our house. It's not possible to go and to see the town. Because the police is in all the town. And if you go without a necessity, a real necessity is not possible. What would happen? You go far away from the market. You would get a fine. You would have to pay something. Or what would happen? When we go to market. If you go too far, you go somewhere you're not supposed to go. It's not possible. It's better if we stay in the house and near. Yes. For how long have you been in the house? One month. Nine of March today, two of April, one, maybe one month. Yes. So tell us a bit. Is this time changing you a bit? Or is it just another way of living as an artist? Or do you feel something is changing? You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. Yes. Me. Excuse me, understand that my. House. Excuse me if I. I am not upset to stay at home. It's a good moment for now. I feel myself very concentrated and I think we need to be concentrated now. Because in a certain way we feel that the moment is tragic for the whole world and allows us to emanate a better look. And because everybody we feel that moment is so strong and this concentration makes it possible that we look with a different vision. What I miss more is to touch the other people but at the moment one month is not too hard as tough as we can think. And the city of Ravenna did other memories of going through the influence of the past, the past, the cholera. Is there something that's still alive in the memory of the people from Ravenna from earlier times? In the history of Ravenna, no. It's not a question in our literature, Italian literature, we have great writers like Boccaccio or Boccaccio a few years after Dante in the Middle Age and Alessandro Manzoni with Ipromessi Sposi, two great writers who tell in their novel the plague, the great pestilence, we have this memory but not another kind. This is really a news for I think for all Italy. But I think for all Western world, this is the problem. This news is not a news for the world because in other parts of the world the plague, the pestilence, terrible situations of life. For us, we have a home, we have salaries, we have a comfortable situation. Yes, this is a tragedy but attention is not a news in an absolute sense of the world. I know you also did work in Africa with your Dante project and tell us a little bit about that. Yes, I have worked in Nairobi in the greatest slum of Nairobi named Kibera and it's strange because Kibera in Zwaili, the language, the African language, it means forest. So when I went there and I began to work with 100 people and young people, children and adolescent, about the divine comedy and I began saying, okay, we are in a dark forest. A forest like Kibera, the same name and you know, Kibera like all the slums in the world is a terrible condition because in Kibera there is no water, drinkable water. Yes, you have not electricity, no, the light and terrible illness like IDS, I don't know in English, HIV. Okay, so is a situation of hell. Almost like we have now but just much more even. Absolutely. For these wonderful children, I worked with wonderful children is the normality, the plague. Their condition of life is a plague. For me, it's strange now to live here in Italy in this situation but it's not a news for me because in Kenya and some years ago in Senegal, we have seen a terrible situation of life and humanity is not only in Ravenna or in New York. Humanity is all over the world and I hope, I hope that this disaster of Corona may be a lesson for us to understand better what is our life, what is our, our table of values. So why is theater really necessary then? Do you feel, you said in the beginning it's not necessary, we know that now, we are not healthcare workers, we are not doctors, firemen, we all already are on the margins of society, I think no longer, perhaps theater is as strong as an influence, but do we need theater? Do you feel what can theater do or what do you try to do with your theater? Tell us, what do you think theater should be doing? What should theater artists do right now in the time of Corona? We don't know what will be, but we know how important is the root of theater. Just because the is the gap and so what I expect is that the theater would live again because it's just theater. A few days ago a journalist, Italian journalist, asked to me, Marco, how can changes, how can change the theater if this plague continues in the future? I have no answer because it's not possible theater without the link between the bodies, it's not possible, the roots of theater are there. We are making now a very interesting dialogue between Italy and the USA, between Haas and Frank and Valeria, but this is not theater, it's an important thing. All we can make with video and technological media is important, but at the same time there is no solution. In Shakespeare times there was a great plague and theaters were closed. The same thing today. This is a point of fragility, I can say, for our art, at the same time is the point of energy, of strength. We are a living body in a relation in theater. I know with your work also with the Dante project in Ravenna where Dante actually finished his Divina Commedia in Ravenna, he's buried in Ravenna, his grave is there. You involve the population, over 200 people joined every evening and actors or participants were like maybe 20 or 30, which is a new form, a new exploration, participatory, socially engaged art, which is a new form. This time now of corona being so alone, I said does it make you think of new ways or new forms, or do you think we will continue what we did, but in a better way? What is going through your mind about future productions? I think take a distance by a theater for months. So this empty, I will suggest as a possible new form. I don't know which kind of form will be. We are theater people, so we will do what we can do in theater. In our mind next year 2021 is a year very important because it's seven centuries from the death of Dante Alighieri. In this year, not only in Italy but all over the world, there will be, maybe coronavirus, maybe a lot of projects about divine comedy. We have the project to finish our trilogy because I have to say Frank was with us on stage in Ravenna and he was a wonderful Joseph Boyce in purgatory. But next year we have the idea, the project, to link the hell, the purgatory, and the new creation, paradise, and to have an experience, not only a show, but as you had seen in Ravenna, it was a kind of experience, a living experience of beauty. Eight, nine hours of work because linking hell, purgatory, and the paradise, we will have a great time together with citizens of Ravenna and with the spectators. At the same time, foreign ministry in Italy has seen the purgatory last summer. They were enthusiastic and they proposed to us to bring this form of a relation with citizens and to go in different countries in the world next year. Buenos Aires in Argentina, New York, India, New Delhi, Nairobi too, Kenya, Romanian and Serbian. So if we will be leaving in 2021, we will have a great year all dedicated to Divine Comedy. This is the most great project for the future. I can only say one thing, Valeria, I'm sorry, and I think we should take this period and listen to the oracle that it gives us. I think we will take this period to listen to what has arrived from the oracle. So every artist can bring his own geroglific sign that is not, that are not answers but are just geroglific signs. Yeah, it will be interesting because also in that place people walk through the streets of the towns. It was truly a participatory communal event, which is actually not possible at the moment. It could never be replaced, I think also online or with a digital presence. I know your work is inspired by the work of Jari and Ato and Brecht and all of it. Do you rethink at the moment? Do you reread their work or tell us a little bit what are the signs in the big landscape of theatre you follow to get to where you want? Is that landscape shifting or are you going back to what inspired you? Are you in those four weeks you work eight hours every day? Did you find something new? These authors you said, you told, yes, are the most important authors for us. They are food every day for us. At the same time, I don't believe that this time changes our feeling because, yes, it is a question of suffering, of pain for all of us. At the same time, our life is always full of this experience. The debt of a person three months ago is on the same level of the debt to today. I think that, yes, it is a new experience because in this form is new, the experience, but the substance, the roots of this experience are the experience of all our life, I think, is for this reason that this book that Frank gave us is a gift by Frank. With this good title, All Things Shining is right today again, life is shining even in this situation because light and shadow, ombra e luce are mixed in an incredible way in our life. So, how is it in Ravenna? Do you hear the ambulances going by? Do you have loved ones or family of friends who are sick, people who died? How is that personally for you and your families? I have two parents, elderly in the 90s, and they are with my brother. My father doesn't hear anymore because he doesn't have the hearing for many years completely. I think to be a dealer of the virus for us and for us sons. And I say so far away from the others in the middle of the field, and I don't see them. Now, we have some friends in Lombardia, and you know, Lombardia is the terrible situation. Yes, it's the red zone we say in Italy. We have some friends who were sick and the mother of one of these died a few days ago. In Ravenna, for the moment Ravenna is a good situation. A few deaths and a few positive positive contagion. One thing important to say, the consequence about the economy, the economy of in the society, because if people doesn't work, people doesn't get money. So the problem is very great. In our company, Teatro delle Albe, we are 40 people, and we decided to stay linked, don't fire anymore. Okay. Keep everybody employed. Okay, but to stay together. Because this is a great risk, a possible risk in a situation in which the economy become poor. Yes, to have a mentality, egoistic mentality. And what is the situation politically? How do you feel about the government or the support for that situation for the arts, but also in the moment now? Do you feel things are moving fine? They reacted right here. There was so much confusion and a complicated situation in Italy before the corona. How do you feel now about the situation in Italy? Alora, it's strange. It's very strange because before the epidemic, in the talk show, in television, people speak only about the migrants, the immigration from the south with the ships. The great problem is there. Now, nobody speaks about this problem. The situation is totally changed. And the politics like Salvini, Salvini is like a little Trump, I can say. The president of Italy, yeah. Okay. Our Salvini. In the days before corona, every day the apocalypse of migrants. Now the problem is another. So it's strange for us because in Italy there was only a great struggle between the politics. In this moment, there is like a, no, the people trust more to government now that in the early past, there was just a lot of problems different, like migrants, only migrants, migrants, migrants. Yes. And not only struggle, but sometimes a real hate, people before corona in the social, in Facebook, and so on. You put it up about the hate, like haters. Great hate, yes. Now we speak about the nurses, they are heroes for us. Sometime something is changed in the mentality. I don't know if we can go again with this mentality, but for the moment, oh, more. It's like a breath, a fresh breath now at the moment. The great problem I think now is Europe because in this moment Europe, Europe have to understand that the question is not economy, is not money, is another question. Is if Europe wants really to become a great nation, a great, and not only a economical question. In this moment, the nations are discussing between them about this great disaster. Is a question of humanity, not money. And I think this will be in the next days and months, the great question for all of us. So do you feel that the state or government, this kind of capitalist system we live in, hypercapitalism, the neoliberalism, do you think something will change? Will it have a lasting effect on society? Or will it just be, Ustamaia was concerned. Will it be good news for the right for the radical right who will take over, like in Poland, Hungary, and other places. How do you see it in Italy? I want to tell you something. In the meantime, I want to tell you something. In the meanwhile, the people use the word war to fight the coronavirus. Instead of the words as a cure, or attention, or affection. So a language, as long as this language doesn't change, the mentality will change very little. In the meanwhile, that this language doesn't change, nothing will change really. And so the economy, I guess. It's right what Hermano said. And I can say the problem are not the animals. No, the problem is not in the nature. The problem is in our economy. I think that is a great problem, is a world problem. It's not only a question of Italy or England or Germany or USA. Because this crisis is a crisis of our mechanism, crazy economy. I think that ecology is not a question of the good south. It's the central question, political central question of our times. And I don't know. I think that our politics are not prepared for this great change. You know, great Tumberg and the movements. I think that our humanity is prepared to a real change, not only details, but a real change of the mechanism. I suppose, and I would like to be wrong, that the politics is a step before. You know, in this situation, your Trump, your president, I remember that in the beginning, tell me if I'm wrong. He said it's a normal, a simple influence. And this is our politics are often, I hope not always, but often are so a step before the situation, the things. So I have hope in the young people. Great Tumberg, but great only like a symbol of all the young people of the world. Because this disaster is so evident. Now it's not a speech of great is evident disaster in the world. It's a pity, but humanity understands if the disasters arrives after we begin to understand, to think the solution. I have a question from one of our listeners. As you know, you can send a question to seagulltalks.com. Thank you for your wise words. Italian books and films are part of my encounters at home here in New York City. Do you have the feeling, as I do, that the medical personnel and the first responders are our angels? I don't understand really the question. She says, first of all, thank you. Our medical workers now and the people, the first responders, the nurses, the firemen, are they these angelic form now, like you speak of Dante and this, do you feel something is changing what we look to? It's so. Now in this moment, the heroes in our Italy are medical and the nurses and they are making an incredible life because they are near the illness every day, every moment. So they are exposed. The most exposed. Absolutely. They are near the terrible illness. And at the same time, another responsibility of politics because in the last 20 years in Italy, the government cuts the financiment to the hospitals. In this situation, we are not ready for this situation of emergency. The responsibility is the politics and now these people, medical people and the nurses, they are working to remedy the problem created by the politics, the political rules or the politicians. Yes, with their life, because every day one medical or one nurse is dead. In Italy. In Italy, yes. Yeah, I think this is why I also admire your theater too. You involved, you know, thousands of people for your show of a two-week run, maybe you had, I don't know, four or five thousand people of the city are participating in the walk around. So most probably nurses, doctors were part of the audience that normally we don't reach. Do you feel we have to rethink even more? What can we do for a doctor or nurse? Would they even be interested in it? Or will that come later? We'll see it or rethink also the basic engagement, like the Brechtchen idea that theater is actually for the workers and it's for the people who, not for the bourgeoisie in that sense, as Thomas Ostermayer talked about yesterday, as Peter Stein from the show will also be foreseen. I know our theater is for the people who eat snails and oysters, you know, but I don't like it. But it's a fact. But maybe this is a wake-up call. Do you feel that you think in now even more how to reach these audiences or do you feel it will stay how it is? We hope, we hope, Frank, you know that in Ravenna people gave a wonderful answer to our public call. And at the same time, in the last months before all this story of corona, we received a lot of telephone mail from citizens of Ravenna that say, how, Hermanna, Marco, when we can recomminciare, restart. I think they are there with this desire, like us. We hope only to open the door of our house and remit all the citizens. And not only the citizens you have seen, but new citizens again. And so for your work as theater makers and as directors and artists, you know, what would you say, you know, to theater artists around the world now? What is your advice, whether they are young or in the mid-career? What do you feel? What did you learn in your four weeks of eight-hour engagement every day? What do you think it might be important to focus on? Since you are two monks in the cloister, so at the moment, what would you write? What would you say? I am in connection with many female artists and more of them are very young. And one of them that I love very much, her name is Licia Lanera, and she sent an email a few days ago saying that for her at this moment she is confused and she takes away her words. She wrote an email a couple of days ago telling that this moment for her is a confusional moment and cut the words from them. I don't know if she is right or not, but I was very moved by these words. And what can I do is try to be careful and don't use infected words. This is absolutely right. At the same time the earth needs to rest. The earth, the land, needs to rest. The soil needs to rest. You can work the land with fruit and so on, but there is a time in which, no, stay. Reposo, but at the same time with our mind, with our activity, to stay be quiet in this moment, in a terrible moment like this for artists, I say, not for medical nurses, the contrary of that, but for us it may be a great situation in which to go deeper, to go deeper in our mind, in our poetry, in our desire. So when the door will be open, to have more strength, to have more intelligence about the people and about the world, about our art, our theater, because you know, the danger of too much words, too much social relation, overwhelming, overwhelming. You know, a great risk, a great danger. This situation is a strange possibility for us, for us like artists, to make silence and to make after a new music, silence and music. Yeah, Armana, I know you wrote a text. You also would like to share some kind of the new music that perhaps came out of your work there. Is that a good moment to read to us? I know you both are so highly decorated. You have been awarded every prize in Italy that you can get. You have been, you know, the most significant actress also in Italy, Ubu prizes and others. So it's a big honor to have you with us. So maybe share a bit, maybe say a few words about the text. If you feel that this is the right moment to read what you have prepared and if you would like to say something about it before reading it. Because in this moment there are a lot of requests. To answer these moments and these days. I don't know, I don't know how to do differently that put together little things. And this is why I don't, this is because I don't have answers. And this is why I wrote two, two stories for a magazine, for a magazine, I guess. That asked me something. And the titles are the embrace and the kiss. There is something that we can't share giving or receiving in these, in these days. And so I would read in English the embrace. And the hemorrhage, there is a very short story. There is a story that is referred to my elderly years. So no, sorry. Her childhood, to her childhood. And I read by the translation of Thomas Simpson that when I read these stories gave me a gift translating in English, into English. I hope to see, to read well. The embrace, I always liked outside more than inside. In summertime after dinner my mother and grandmother would stay at the table and sit to read, to talk. But my grandfather would stand up and go outside to smoke a cigarette. Eyes half closed. It looked out over the countryside in front of my house. A flat horizon that went up into the sky. I would follow him out and squat down next to him on the front step. He would put his arm, he would put his arm around me and I would try to squint my eyes like him. I liked the smell of the cigarette. The warmth of the cement step burned by the sun all day long. We'd sit there close, wrapped together and became smaller and smaller. The outside came to life completely. In all its loveliness. Cancelling out the moment when the inside with its aggressive, unpredictable fury flowed out of the dark. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Hermana and Marco. Again, this is Marco Martinelli and Hermana Montanari from the great Teatro de la Alba in Ravenna. Thank you for sharing a bit of your daily lives and your thoughts. We hope to see you in New York and that you will do your tour about Dante and who thought a lot about life and death and misery and paradise and hell and something to rediscover. Prophets maybe you foresaw something there. Join us tomorrow. We have the great Toshiki Okada from Japan and one of the stars of the world theater in the world we move in who actually moved his family away from Tokyo after the Fukushima disaster. His Münchenakama Spiele play is just selected by the Berlin Theater meeting as one of the best in the German-speaking world, but of course it has been cancelled. So he will share with us what is on his mind. Again, Marco, thank you so very, very much. It's meaningful for us to hear from you and in these days where we only hear from politicians, from economists and from virologists. I think voices of artists are as important and perhaps even a bit more than normally. So thank you. We hope, Frank, to see you and Valeria and all in New York to make Dante together. Okay, we will do our best. And thanks to Valeria from the Italian Playwrights Project and the humanism for translating. Okay, goodbye.