 at Golden Thread, many of whom I have written about and collaborated with in my own scholarly and artistic work. But this is the first time I've ever actually gotten an opportunity to join the Golden Thread team for an event. So I'm really excited to be here. And today, I am also delighted to welcome two amazing guests, Reshma Razvi and Leila Buck. So I'm going to toss it over to them for some self descriptions before we talk a little bit more about their work. Reshma, Leila, do you want to jump on camera? Hi everyone. Thanks, Saina. It's great to be here today. My name is Reshma Razvi. I use she, her pronouns. And I'm of Indian descent. I was born and raised outside of Chicago, Illinois. And now I am speaking to you today from Mohican Pequot ancestral land in Connecticut. Hi, I'm Leila Buck. My pronouns are she, her. I'm a Lebanese American woman with pale olive skin and brown hair. I'm sitting in front of a white sort of cushioned background, some brown, some purple curtains, and a tetris that says women can do anything, although you probably can't see that, but that was deliberate. I'm calling in from the land of the Monsi Lenape people, which is colonially known as Brooklyn, New York. And I just really appreciate, Saina, your introduction. I wanted to just name Indigenous direction and groundwater arts as two hit places I recommend checking out for some action. And obviously looking up the land you're on, if you are not aware of what that is as a start. Thank you, Leila and Reshma. So Reshma, this is the first time we're meeting. And Leila and I have known each other for a while. So, you know, you can both explain maybe a little bit more about your work if you'd like to. But what I can offer now is that Reshma is a producer of documentary media and community arts projects such as which we're here to talk about today, of which you are the creator and the director. And Leila is a writer and a performer and a facilitator and educator. I have personally written about your work as a storyteller, as well as your project American Dreams, which for folks who are watching this via the HowlRound archive, they can see our conversation with Tamela Woodard there. So, yeah. So thanks for hanging out today. And how do you two know each other? And what else do you want to offer about some of the work that you've done, some of the work that you're doing? Well, we met during the course of this project. So, yeah, what's one of the things I'm grateful for is the chance to meet the people I've met, including Leila. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have much to add to that. You know, I just am really grateful. One of the part of how I got connected to this project is that Evern Odchkin, wonderful director, was commissioned by California Shakespeare Theater and reached out to me to co-write that commission, which is a response to a Thousand and One Nights. And so that was how I came into the project, because the Shahadazad squad is a parallel project to that. But I think began before, but we can talk more about that. But that's, I also just wanted to name Evern as a big part of how I came into relationship with Cal Shakespeare and with Reshma, which I'm very grateful for. And so the topic of the day, then, is going to be primarily around this project of Shahadazad Squad or Shahadazad Squad, and people will have heard both pronunciations of the name. But folks may not actually be familiar with some of the terminologies that we've used in the titles of the event. So the conversation today is called Manasah Women Save the Kingdom, which brings a smile to my face every time I read it. And then that term might not be super familiar to folks, and it's a vast explanation. But maybe we could talk a little bit about what that term means, what other terms folks may have heard, and how that connects to the greater conversation on Shahadazad. Yeah, so I'll take that one. Is that right, Reshma? So I feel like no matter what I say, I'm going to say something that will probably sit not right with somebody. So just to acknowledge that the way we name ourselves is obviously a very important and sometimes very charged thing, particularly for historically oppressed and colonized communities. So welcoming those who are watching this to offer thoughts and share them, either if you join the squad or in another way. So Manasah refers to Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian. And Swannasa refers to Southwest Asian, North African, and South Asian. Both are used to refer to the same vast swath of the world that generally corresponds to the characters and places that are focused on in the Thousand and One Nights, and the places and cultures in which those stories were originally told. In terms of the Mina versus Swana part of that label, because that's the one that is the most contested to my knowledge. Middle Eastern is a term that, as most of you probably know, widely used to refer to the 22 Arab countries, including those in North Africa, as well as Turkey, Armenia, Afghanistan, and Israel, Palestine. I am not a historical scholar on this, so I'm not going to pretend to give a definitive history here. But as I understand it, both from some history and from our communities, the term Middle East is geographically framed in relation to Europe and North America. And these parts of the world are only the middle of the East in relation to those places. So those terms have been used by Western and Northern European nations, and more recently the US, who settled and colonized and carved up those parts of the world for their profit and created and deepened many political and economic divisions and challenges that remain to this day, which is a whole other discussion. But that is in part why this term is problematic for many within our communities, but also and also still widely recognized, the most widely recognized term in many mainstream sort of dialogues. Southwest Asian refers to the same parts of the world for the most part and is preferred by many, I have noticed particularly in their 20s, 30s and activists working to shift from those colonial names. I'll just add that when we polled our Middle Eastern North African Theater Alliance, that is what it is named because we polled a bunch of theater workers from these backgrounds and asked them which term they prefer and the narrow majority, but the majority voted for Middle Eastern. So it's still something that we talk about a lot in our communities because for some just seeing that term is alienating and makes them feel like this is not a group that understands my politics or how I relate to how I name myself, I don't call myself Middle Eastern. And yet it is still also some one that some also prefer. So open for, you know, dialogue and ongoing discussion. And in the meantime, we do a lot of Minasa slash swanasa in what we say. And I'll just say in terms of the Knights that that was also one of the framings that Everyn in particular when he brought me on was very clear that the one thing he was very open to whatever we wanted to do together, but he really wanted the piece to focus on Minasa women. And that was sort of the framework and the term that he used. So just wanted to show that as well in terms of our process. Yeah. You know, something that I so appreciate about this context is the acknowledgement that the languages of social justice are always evolving and those intersect with the languages we use to describe ourselves. And that that that that is also a journey. And that language is here to support how we communicate with one another and communicate about ourselves and our identities. And so it should shift and flow with us and what feels right for us. And so you mentioned the project, a thousand and one nights of retelling, which gets us into the the container story that is the story of Shahrazad. And so Reshma, what can you tell us about about her and her narrative and what was intriguing and inspiring about that for you? Yeah. Well, you know, thousand and one nights is a collection of folk tales and moral stories and anecdotes and poetry collected over the course of, I mean, hundreds of years and compiled in different formats, but with origins in these Manasas, Manasala lands that we're talking about. And the frame story, just to be brief, involves Shahrazad as the sort of lead in the frame story, she enters into the story when the king of the land, Sharia, after having been cheated on by his wife, decides that all women are cruel and life is cruel. And the only way to handle the cruelty of women is to kill them logically. Yeah, you know, right. Exactly. What do I do about this? So he marries a different woman in the land every night and then kills her by the next morning. And his vizier, his right hand man is sort of instrumental in helping helping him. And with this job, the vizier has two daughters, Shahrazad and Dunyazad or Dinarazad. And Shahrazad volunteers herself, she says, dad, you know, it's my turn, I'm going to go up there. And he doesn't want her to. And she says, well, I got a plan. And so we see that she, she does go to the king that night, she calls for her sister to, you know, kind of bid her goodbye and have one last time with her. And then her sister says, you know, oh, you know, dear sister, tell me a story, one of your stories told kind of a while away the night. And so she does. So Shahrazad starts telling a story and the story doesn't finish by the end of that night. And so the king is interested, he's really, you know, his interest is piqued, he wants to know what happens, right, like we all do. And so he keeps her alive for one day. And she resumes the story the next day, again, on the prompt two of her sister who reminds her and the king about how great the story was. And so this is one night after another, after another leads to a thousand and one. And in the course of that time, she saves not just herself and her sister, but all of the women of the land. And she really heals the king of that kind of intense misogyny and violence. And so in many ways, she is an archetype for someone who is not, you know, creative. She uses all of her intelligence and and she's very learned person. She uses all that to come to bear on this task. You know, she goes about kind of from resistance in a different way. She and her sister are bonded together in that process. And she's really this wonderful symbol, I thought, of all those things for creativity, intelligence, resistance, sisterhood. And in terms of the project inspiration, when, you know, the thousand and one nights was proposed by Cal Shakes, as an artistic production, they were interested in doing the community based production. And so she really, for me, kind of like with Layla just immediately came to mind as something to kind of think about and consider. And the through line, I think between that time and this one is again in the actions and lives and creativity of women and their leadership. And so for me, it became an opportunity to say, hmm, I wonder who and who the Shahrazads of our time are, you know, maybe that's a small s kind of Shahrazad. And, you know, what are some of the issues that people are resisting fighting against working to change. I was really interested in her and this act of healing, I think, too, that takes place. She transforms the king and the kingdom. And so there's this transformative healing creative act. And those all just became kind of juicy things to think about in terms of connecting with people right now today. I love what you offered about lowercase s Shahrazad's, right, because that immediately invites community into the conversation. And this thing about so she's telling these stories to save her own life. But what she also does through story is make a radical intervention into the system that is violently oppressive to all of the women in her community. And so the title of this conversation today, right, men also women save the kingdom supports that idea that that there is a broader impact to the telling of story. And so we can talk more about that too. But if you're just joining us, this is no summary Golden Threads live stream series of conversations with artists that don't fit in a box and we are in conversation with Reshma Razvi and Leila Buck to talk about this ongoing project Shahrazad squad and some of you might be watching on the Facebook live feed. Feel free to drop us questions in that feed. They'll make their way magically over to us here in zoom land. And for those who are watching here in the zoom room, you are invited to drop your questions into the chat and we will try to roll them into the conversation as we go. So, so speaking again of the story of 1001 nights, it's, it's a story that a lot of folks are familiar with. And many of the ways it has been offered in pop culture, et cetera, are through what I'll just refer to as maybe an Anglo centric white Western gaze or aesthetic. And that that might have an influence on the way that the that the positioning of the subject of the story gets framed gets told. So then Leila, you and Everyn are working on this 1001 nights a retelling. Are there a few things in there that have to do with like what is the what is being retold in this project? Yeah, thank you. Well, it's I will say that it is still very much a work in progress. We paused our sort of workshopping and work because of the pandemic and we're looking forward to restarting soon. And it's being also reworked even more because it's very much in response in part to the world that we live in. And so as that world changes and has changed pretty significantly in some ways since we began working on it. And even since we paused for the pandemic, we are continuing to figure out what does that mean and how does that change or shift the story or how we tell it. What I can say is that it's not an adaptation of the nights. It's not an attempt to tell or retell any of the stories really, or attempt to encapsulate them somehow. The retelling is in many ways about reclaiming sort of how these stories and how we tell them. And it's also in the journey that we started with sort of both of us really, I'll certainly speak for myself, but reckoning with an intense skepticism about even being asked to read much less respond to the the nights and sort of having a pretty strong response to the Orientalist history of how the stories were changed and published and used in Europe in particular to sort of fetishize and orientalize that whole part of the world. And also by Arab scholars, some of them and writers who were catering to European Orientalism and fetishization. Of their time, there is a lot of racism. There's problematic representations of women in many ways. There's also the way that women starting with Shahadzad use various forms of wit and storytelling and sexuality and sometimes straight up force and magic to claim or reclaim power. And there's bodiness in the women that is fun and playful and empowered in many ways. And so thinking about all of that as all existing in this in this big and sort of jumbled in many ways and beautiful also in other ways collection. We're thinking about how we problematize binaries of gender in that process and looking when we talk about women, you know, what are we talking about and who are we including in these categories as we look at the stories. And I'll just also add because we're obviously talking about Shahadzad that when I was, you know, my primary interest in the stories was and still is always in Shahadzad in that story. And one of the things because Reshma framed it so beautifully, I'll just add for me the fact that she was the daughter of this vizier and in many ways and so was an upper more privileged class. And in many ways might have been one of the last women killed in this, you know, murderous spree, right. But she chose to act and insisted, you know, against her father's wishes in many ways to put her body on the line. Because she believed she could actually stop bloodshed with stories. And I think that is such a powerful and such a powerful metaphor and idea for so many of us in these times. Sort of when do we choose to put our bodies on the line and how our stories a part of that. And how do we bring our sisters with us and what how are we sisters to each other in that process. So we're exploring in the play in a collaboration with an amazing group of women, female identified swanasa menasa actors, you know, the stories of women who find themselves in an oppressive present day context present day are not far from it and turn in many ways to the nights but also more broadly to stories and to the power of our collective imagination to free themselves and each other and ultimately hopefully in some way to shift the world. Yeah, no big deal, just on a random night of the week. So many, yeah, so many things, you know, as you were speaking the question, there's a question I ask a lot when it comes to how to approach a project or why a particular project at a particular time. And that is why and for whom. And it feels very much like this collaboration is about well for, for this community and by this community, I mean menasa and swanasa, femme, women, female identified folks. And, and you mentioned the power of story. Reshma, what can you tell us about the power of story in this project within the sort of infrastructure of this thing you've created you mentioned Cal shakes wanted something that was community based and this is a highly interactive experience. And so there are, you know, there's a website, there's an app, there's some other things going on that help facilitate an experience of community for the squad members. So what can you tell us about what is special about that. Sure. Well, let me back up a little maybe to because the project also has gone through various sort of iterations and life and I would want to say, you know, to latch on to Layla talking about the play and the development, you know, as she and everyone were working together, I would join some of those discussions sometimes as I was sort of convening this group of women and we did talk quite a bit about some of the things that we were surfacing in these meetings with Manasa women or wanted to and what they were thinking of in terms of the play. A couple of our early groups meetings in the Bay we were invited into like a table reading draft of the play as well. And so we were really active in trying to think of how to link something that was this artistic development for the stage and for a broad audience, broad theatrical audience. And this community based group that was at that moment, it was sort of closed circles of Manasa women, but intersecting with this development of play and then potentially leading our original ideas were that our Manasa women would kind of collect or help collect stories from their communities in a sense. And so the early idea of this was called like the thousand one stories project actually because we're trying to think about how to kind of collect stories from the Manasa communities and bring some visibility to the communities in the Bay area where the play was being held. And so, you know, that shifted definitely and then with COVID hitting, you know, the work that we did internally that we were hoping to kind of make more and more public leading to these joint discussions and after play discussions and all that ended up not happening. The play wasn't staged last summer. And so that's been kind of a challenge. We've had to rethink kind of what we're doing. And so the virtual space became one answer in terms of thinking about how to continue some of that closeness and cohesiveness and also some privacy actually and what that would do for us. And so I think we're still really exploring, exploring that still new. We're using a platform called Mighty Networks, which is I think a really kind of a lovely and elegant platform. And there's no advertising. So it's very anti Facebook in some ways. I find it easier to focus than when I kind of try and do group work on on Facebook. And so I was looking for something that didn't kind of throw us right into the middle of social media world. And this was sort of a nice kind of happy medium. And so we're testing this out. So we're testing again, a private group on this platform. And then the idea too is to record some interviews and stories with some of our members and then make pieces of those recordings available to the large larger public. So there's, which I hope is a creative tension in the project, which is what is for us and an affinity and kind of protect it slightly. But then how do we amplify some of those thoughts and feelings and bits of stories and influence sort of the larger communities perspectives on Manasa women? You know, something that seems so key is that agency is a real part of this that that you are offering a say in how what we say gets used beyond what's happening within that curated space, which is by the way, a fantastic space. So I'm brand new to my time in the squad of like, I've been in the app for like a week. And it's so soothing as an experience, as opposed to overstimulating the way social media spaces can be that was an immediate experience. And I also had this immediate experience of camaraderie without having to have had in conversations with anyone, there was just it was sort of walking into a room and feeling understood without having to make an effort to try to be understood. And that felt like it laid the ground for relaxed, generative, whatever kinds of conversations. And there's a lot of things that that you have in mind, right, for the group to get to take on. So you mentioned things like story circles and virtual convenings and partnerships and podcasts and videos. There's the deck, the story deck that we'll get to talking about in a little bit. But what do you want to say about those other components of the experience or the plans or the goals for this project? Sure, I'll talk a little bit about the virtual and media stuff. And then I'll hand it to Laila to talk about some of our hopefully our in person gatherings. Yeah, so in the virtual space, what we hope to do is, and it's so nice that you said that thank you for sharing your experience with it, because again, it is so new, and we are testing out and we're not quite sure how it functions. But that was the idea that, you know, some of the messages and posts could sort of stay there and they weren't just sort of like this constant refeeding and rehashing. And no one, you know, someone could find a message a week or two later, and it was okay, you know. So I think in the space, we're looking to both amplify some of the existing work NOSA leaders do. So one example is a member of group Denmo, who's also an actress and writer, and she is also a meditation teacher. And so through another initiative hers, People's Meditation, we're just adding it as an event of ours. So like on Monday, I can attend her meditation session. And so those kinds of cross sections are interesting to me where we can take the work that women also women are doing and kind of offer that leadership in the space. Layla and I are talking about doing like a comfort cafe idea, so where people just can drop in very loosely and kind of share some of the challenges that they're having that week, something that's comforting that week, start there. And then also we're going to talk about the conversation cards, there are six themes to that. And so we're going to activate one theme every two months in the space. And so use some of those prompts and conversation, but then have some story circles around those themes as well. And then lastly are, we do a one on one conversation series. And right now that's me interviewing women in the space and women were bringing into the space. And we are taking right now internally, other members can be part of that discussion. And it's private right now. But then we take those interviews and we include some of them on YouTube. And right now we're working with another member who's editing some sections for Instagram and for Facebook as well. And so we're trying to find ways to amplify against some of these things being said in that private space and kind of pushing them out there. And also just sort of encouraging some folks to join us. A podcast series may come of that in the conversation series and also with some funding that we have now from Doris Duke Foundation. I propose interviewing my sisters, I have three sisters. So that for me, the inspiration, a lot of inspiration is the sisterhood thing is both really personal to me. And so it's starting an exploration of place. So I'm calling it sister cities and the sisters I have are in Oakland and Cleveland and Chicago. And so we'll start off an examination of sort of Manasa women's life in those places sort of through my relationship to a particular sister and kind of broaden it out from there. So we're just starting to lay the groundwork for that. So I'm exciting. And then our in person community events I'll have like Laila can talk about those. Sure. Yeah, I'm I will say one of my one of the things I'm most excited about is that I've always loved working with Raishma. And every time we would connect as she mentioned when she would visit rehearsal or some sort of reading or as we're workshopping and just always love the way that she approaches community engagement work. And so I was excited when the proposal came to maybe work more officially together. And so I'm now serving as what do we say my title was something like creative and community engagement partner or something like that. So that just to help because I'm lucky that over the years, I do a lot of sort of theater in particular and art in general and sort of community engaged spaces. So I have some connections with some wonderful people and organizations. So when Raishma mentioned, you know, being interested in Cleveland, for example, or one of her sisters is, I have a relationship with Cleveland Public Theater, which is a wonderful theater there that many of you know, which had produced a play of mine back in 2018 and does a lot of work with communities in the Cleveland area. That is not typical of a lot of theater companies, I will say in the way they work with community. They have a homeless theater company whose show I saw they have a Ted's Republic, a Spanish speaking company, an Arabic language theater company. And they do just a lot of really genuine engagement at the intersection of theater making and art making community. So and Raishma when she saw their season was interested in the theme of evolve, which is one of their themes this season. So we reached out to Raymond Bobgan, who's the artistic director there. And we are beginning a dialogue with Indian Nicole Burton, who is also a very, very multi talented person on their team there, multiple roles and also an actor, director, educator. She was in the production that we did American Dreams there and online. And she is we're hoping to connect with her around the work that we're doing with the squad and how it might intersect with some of the work that she's been doing with a play they're producing in the season called Panther Women, which is focusing on stories from women in the Black Panthers and the movement around that. So looking one of the themes for the launch of the squad is justice, which is inspired by some of the cards and some of the themes in the nights. And so we're interested in just looking at how our personal stories connect with stories of justice, movements for justice, both within our communities and across our communities. And also with this particular connection, looking with our community at sort of some of the ways that race plays out in our communities and how that connects to movements, the internalized internalization of anti Blackness of racism, histories of those things, how how do those connect and how do we also and the many histories of social movements between our communities as well. So that's that's one example. And very soon, did you want me to talk about any others or Oh, you're so muted. Thank you. Maybe Detroit, we were looking at Detroit and Chicago as well. Yeah, yeah. So Detroit and Dearborn, you know, my connections there are to be largely through the Arab American Museum and the conferences and convenings they've done over the years for artists that are we and D1 conferences, in particular. And so reaching out to them and seeing how we might work because Reshma, you know, always spoke not always but focuses a lot on how can we work with existing institutions and existing communities and sort of be supporting and amplifying what's already happening in a community rather than parachuting in there, right. And so looking at what the museum and access, which is a wonderful social service organization that runs the museum basically there are doing as well as some some folks that I know at Michigan who are working with Arab American Studies and feminists and gender studies and some of those intersections as well. And obviously Dearborn is one of the is the center of the Arab community in the Arab American community in terms of numbers. And so looking at that also as a place where we might engage. And that's just in the beginning stages as well. Chicago, I think we have a couple of partnerships there. I know we're going to reach out to Silk Road Rising and I'm not we haven't talked as much about Chicago. So we'll come back to that. But conversations have been going on for quite a while and in a variety of different kinds of ways. And I think maybe I understand that are that pieces of these conversations have inspired some of the content that has made its way into the story deck. Is that right? Yes, I would say that some of the Bay Area conversations have. Yeah. Yeah. So then let's talk about the story deck. What can you tell us a little bit while we're getting some slides pulled up so we can show some samples of what folks can expect to see? And it's a hard copy tangible deck. Yeah. It's at the printers right now. Amazing. Yeah. Tell us about it when we get the images pulled up. Sure. Yeah. Zana, when you asked about, you know, wrote earlier about that, I was trying to remember the origin of it. And I can't exactly. But it kind of stems from that sort of private space versus public. And, you know, for me as a, especially as like a documentary filmmaker, you know, being drawn to people and collecting stories, all that's very sort of natural in some ways. But it's also sort of like to whose benefit. And with this project in particular, I was really wanting to be very careful about kind of, I don't know, kind of protecting the space in which the stories were told and that there was this benefit that people hearing the stories that didn't need to be witnessed by anyone to be valid. Right. But at the same time, as someone who's working as an artist and with an artistic crew, I really do want us to get to some kind of like outcome or artistic outcome. So I think the cards came up for me as an idea of creating, basically having prompts influenced by a thousand one nights, the stories themselves and some of the dilemmas in the stories, as well as some of the things the squad was discussing, and that those prompts would then be used in other various communities to start up conversations, get to know each other, have a sense of how these themes play out in other people's lives and communities. And I saw the cards actually as being used, in fact, at the Bruns Theater itself. So, you know, Cal Shakespeare says this beautiful outdoor theater and there's picnic tables outside and people come and have dinner there before the show, as I have done. And so I just thought, oh, it wouldn't be cool if we could just hand these decks out to people at the picnic tables and they can kind of intersect with this material before they see the play, right? Or they get a deck when they come back. And so the, you know, it had to be kind of a sort of an all ages and it was not, say, Manasa specific, you know, it's really think about making those prompts sort of general enough. And yet with the themes relate to the squad, squad's journeys as well as some of the things that happened in the stories. So as I thought of that, I read the book and I read Thousand and One Nights and I just would try to distill some of the incidents and moments that happened. So, you know, if in the story, you know, like the king of Egypt is venturing with his daughter and son to, you know, Damascus. And that might prompt a question about like, have you ever been on a journey with your family that you enjoyed? You know, what was it? So really just trying to take something like those really specific moments and broaden them out so that could be answered by a range of people. And that in the answering and in the sharing of those things, we would get to know the people around us a little bit more and have an appreciation for the kinds of journeys and those types of cultures that we have. Yeah. So this is, yeah. So we're looking now at some of these kinds of questions that you're talking about. And so what we've been looking at the slides that have been scrolling through are just some samples of the art that is, is it on the backside of the cards? And then there's a side that has the question in like a traditional card deck. Yes, right. So they're tarot sized cards. And the artist is Parisa Parniana of Savage Muse, who's amazing. And again, grateful so much to the project for kind of bringing us together to work on this. And she's a designer based in LA also does a lot of wonderful culinary community events. Like she's in Mexico right now doing these like pop up Persian Mexican dining experiences. Like pretty wonderful. So, you know, sign me up. Yeah, right. Exactly. So we, you know, in some of these, I don't know if you want to go into look at some of the art in particular, since we were just talking about justice, for example. Yeah, that'd be great. The, yes, this one in the middle, which is one of my favorites. That's one of my favorites too. Yeah, I know, right? I just like want that poster. So I'm, I'm planning on like, figuring that out for myself because this feels like who I wish I was. Yes. Yeah, exactly. You know, and this also was really influenced by Laila and Everon's treatment of the writing and the play because there's this, Laila, is it okay to say kind of like a waiting room? Yeah, the sort of bureaucratic waiting room space, right? And you're kind of waiting for this thing to happen or your status and you've got to do something else. And so I just love that Parisa just really kind of got that in one frame. And the story, there is an element in the, in one of the stories in which a woman pulls the pins out of her hair and it turns into a sword and she's able to like battle a lion or something with it. And so there were a few images I threw out there to Parisa and then it's like, what about this or what about this or what about this and then she just would kind of put them together in some sort of treatment. And so the justice one, I just love that it's this combination of the world that Laila and Everon are creating. And it's got these couple of really specific references to the stories in the 1001 nights and also, you know, the contemporary dress. And then I don't know if you could actually go back to that image for a second. I can't see the moment. There we go. And then the words that she's writing, you know, they're sort of about like love and justice, et cetera, and like Arabic. And then there's a sort of computer image of, you know, people that she's corresponding with. And then, and the mascara, which is a great touch. I love that. And the other hand, you know, you've got to keep those eyes looking bright when you're taking on some big things in life. So part of what's so delightful about these is the juxtaposition of styles and how incredibly contemporary they feel. And so, and so what this, this story that is however many ages old does not that engaging with that does not necessarily root this community ourselves in an aesthetic past that it is about an ever-evolving aesthetic in the present. And what are the, what are the conversations about what we come from and who we are now and how those continue to evolve. So I think, I think these are fantastic. And since we happen to have a few minutes, maybe we could engage a little bit with some of the story cards. And we have some folks here in the Zoom room. And so maybe what we could do with a little bit of the time we have left is invite our audience to anyone who feels like participating in our Zoom room. We could invite you to turn your camera on. You can leave your microphone off for the time being. And we'll just sort of take a volunteer who's maybe interested in answering one of these questions and telling us a little bit of a story about where you come from or whatever is inspired by one of these cards. So yeah, so if you think you might want to share a story with us, you can go ahead and reveal yourself. And I've got my cards pulled up. So I can go ahead and ask the questions. So we can leave the screen share view and go back to the people faces view. And then I can just go ahead and ask the questions to Reshma, to Leila, to anybody who might want to volunteer. So I'll start with one of my favorites. I have, I pulled of course, all of my favorite questions. But I'll offer this one. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what do you find beautiful? So this could go to either of you. And if you can reveal your face to us, if you would like to share on camera. And if you're watching on Facebook Live, feel free to drop your answer to this question in the thread. I think Reshma, you're we're going to work out, we haven't figured out the logistics yet, how to give away a few free story decks to our participants in the Zoom as well as on Facebook Live today. So we'll get that all sorted. I'll tell you what my initial response was to this question. Mine was kindness in the many ways that it finds itself in the world that are unexpected. It's something that I always experience as tremendously beautiful. Yeah, for me, it's generosity, it's nature. Love my faces of my nieces and nephews kind of visually come to mind as well. And then it looks like we have a volunteer. So you can go ahead and pop your camera on and your microphone on. Is it, is it Michael or Makayla? I see a raised hand. Hi, it's not letting me turn on the camera. Oh, that's okay. We might have to do it for you. But we hope there you are. There we go. Hi, I'm Makayla Mickey Goldhaber. And I'm glad to be here. I would say the flowers in our garden that my mother planted and that are perennial and come back every year and are like my conversation with her. I get so excited as each one of them comes up and I wait for it and it comes up and the flowers are beautiful. And I feel my mom's presence and that's really beautiful. Wow, thank you so much for sharing that. That hits me right here. Yeah. Oh, I noticed some love for you, Makayla, coming up in our chat. We don't know if folks watching the live stream can see that, but we've got some hearts and some other things coming up for you in the chat. Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful story with us. Thank you. The decks are so beautiful. And so I'll go ahead and offer another question into the space and let's pick something. Okay, we'll pick something that has another vibe to it. Has your curiosity ever gotten you into trouble? Tell the story. And my response to that was I am certain that it has and maybe so many times, I couldn't quite come up with one example of it, but I'm a naturally curious person and I have been in my fair share of trouble. So we'll say that. My brief answer is it's got taking pictures in Egypt, you know, how you can get kind of harassed around like government buildings or just, you know, like bridges and you're like, oh, I didn't know this was a sensitive security zone or something. So I've gotten into a few almost close calls with that. Then we have a we have a hand. Gina, do you want to offer us your version, your story answer? Sure. I was not planning to share today. I'm having a slow Friday, but this question piqued my curiosity. I mean, it's a great question. And I have this story that's, you know, it's like my, you know, as far as my life, my dirty little secret from when I was just out of college. I was aspiring filmmaker and had myself a cute little one of those mini eight cameras where you can just carry it in your purse or your pocket. And I was at a concert at a conference in Texas, in San Antonio, Texas, with one of my early colleagues at a film organization that I worked in in San Francisco called Cinex Young. And we went to a concert where one of, you know, just a tremendous talent was playing in a small bar. And we were, you know, yard, just feet from this accordion player. And I could not keep my, of course, it said no photography. This was a very famous old accordion player and Tex Mex style, which I love. And I just couldn't keep my camcorder in my pocket. I was hiding it in my jacket to record this gentleman who was just on fire on his accordion and I got caught. And we got asked to leave the bar. I managed to escape with my camera, but not the tape. Gina, thank you for sharing. I hope I would love to see and hold and experience the cards, but oh, well, you're gonna thank you for indulging my story. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you so much, Gina. The lack of cards can be your new tape that's come back to you in the form of this deck of cards, Gina. So that's so great. Yeah. And Gina and Makayla, be sure to hang at the end of our conversation today and we'll get your contact info so we can make sure to get you a deck. We just have a couple of minutes left before we have to wrap it up. Time always flies in the no summaries. So I'll just offer two big sort of last points. And then you can take whichever piece you'd like to respond to Leila and Reshma. The something that strikes me about this entire experience of Shahrazad Squad is the power of the generative affinity space. And then an additional piece, which is the radical power of sharing stories as a form of self-advocacy. So these are two of my immediate experiences with this work. What of that strikes you in a way that you would like to talk about with the two minutes we have left? Leila, do you want to go? I mean, I will say that in terms of the radical advocacy, just the power of stories to shape things has been something that for me is a driving force. So, you know, and I think sometimes, you know, it happens in personal ways. It happens in the connections we just felt with people, even in this sort of, you know, Zoom online space, right? How they connect us to each other. And also, you know, I grew up between cultures. And, you know, for me, the story is like living in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq War, because my father was a US diplomat posted there when we were supporting Saddam as the lesser of two evils. My mom is Lebanese, Arab. And two years later, watching my country, the same country, that sent me there to support Saddam, bombing that same country that they had sent us to, because the story had changed. And I think that really shaped for me that and other stories of sort of language that could or could not be used around Rwanda, like not being able to use the word genocide in the government, because then we'd have to do something. And just thinking about the power of words and story and how they shape what we're willing to ignore, what we support, who we send aid to and who we bomb, who we humanize, dehumanize, murder. You know, these things really are, you know, who we stand for and against in so many ways. To me, comes from the stories we tell and receive about each other and about ourselves. So I'm just fascinated by how those choices shape us, you know, as people and communities. And I love how this project connects us around story and uses those cars and some of those questions that Reshma has pulled from the stories are so deeply powerful in just engaging us with questions that span whole worlds, whole different life experiences and continents and all kinds of groups of people. So that's what I'm thinking about. Choices and stories. And last word, Reshma, just have less than a minute, I know. Yeah, well, just quickly, you know, the project evolved kind of at the end of this sort of Trump era, you know, administration. And so I want to say that that was, I think, the importance of affinity spaces for me was a lot about healing and being in a place where we were safe to share our various narratives, and that a lot of us were really kind of burned out and angry and just needed recharging. You know, and so I really looking at the affinity space place where we can recharge and reframe and like give each other love and energy, you know, because the fight's not over by any means. The second piece, I think, is ancestral stories. I've been really interested in that. And it's been fascinating to me. It wasn't originally something I thought would come out in the project, but now it's become a very big piece in how our ancestral stories and lineage is that there's a lot there that we can relate to in each other and like having a space to share those things outside of kind of either a family or professional context has been really great. And then like a thousand and one nights, you know, there's all these stories are embedded. There's never one complete thing it just keeps going often, you know, and I think there's that similar quality in the group and with us is like there's a lot of embedded storytelling and having a space to do that that doesn't just privilege this kind of consumer, you know, created story type of thing. Process is really lovely to be part of. So we're out of time, but if people want to continue having this conversation with us, because we're just getting started, they should go to Shahrazad Squad. And I'm saying it that way because that's how this version is spelled. S-H-A-H-R-A-Z-A-D-S-Q-U-A-D dot org. And yeah, that's all the time we have for today. But so many thanks to our guests. And please stay connected with Golden Thread by signing up for their weekly emails and following them on Facebook. You can find out more information at goldenthread.org. We of course want to thank Howell-Round for live streaming this event and remind you that a recording of this session will be available on Howell-Round and Golden Thread's websites. So many thanks to our live stream technician, Wendy Reyes, and Chris Steele for managing the live stream on Golden Thread's Facebook page. And many thanks to all of you for joining us today. Wish we had more time. Goodbye. Thank you. Thank you so much.