 Welcome to ThinkTech. We're raising public awareness about technology, energy, diversity, and globalism. This show is center stage. I'm your host, Donna Blanchard, proud managing director of Kumakuhua Theater. And we are coming to you from downtown Honolulu in the Pioneer Plaza, very near Kumakuhua Theater. I'm excited to introduce you to my guests today. They are both participants in the Oahu Fringe Festival, which opens in just a couple of weeks here. We have Peiling Gau and Gwen Arbaugh. And Eli is joining us. And I want to let everyone know right away, this is my first baby on the set. I'm very excited for Eli. And he is integral to the piece that you are presenting with Fringe Festival. So it just makes sense that he is here with us. But we want to make sure that he is as comfortable as possible and you are. So if we need to take a break a little earlier than usual, we'll just cut away and come back as soon as possible. But he just looks like a happy camper right now. So we're good. So thank you both very much for being here. And I'm really anxious to learn about both of your acts. First of all, the Fringe Festival itself, the entire idea of a Fringe Festival I love bringing, creating a space for acts that are not, they're out of the ordinary. They're experimental. They're pushing new and fresh. Yeah, push the boundaries. Is this the first Fringe Festival, the two of you have been involved in? No. I was involved in Fringe on the Mainlands. And I've been involved in every single Fringe for Oahu Fringe. So since 2011, when Mesa debuted the Fringe here, both as an artist and in committee, when Mesa had a committee. Oh, okay, wonderful. Mesa Tupo, who is the organizer of the festival here. Okay, is this your first? No, I was participated in Fringe Festival in Santa Cruz in California, where I dance for another company. Yeah, and this is my second time here in Fringe Oahu Fringe. Oh, okay. And when, before I go any further, I think Eli undressed you just a little bit right before we started. So the pieces that you both have for the festival this year, are they new? Yes, mine is. Yeah, it's a new piece. Okay, good. So let's start with, Gwen, let's start with you and Eli just in case we need to cut for a moment here while he's happy. Tell us about your piece, please. So our piece was inspired by all the performing artists in Chinatown area in the downtown area and in Honolulu who have had babies within almost a year of each other. So we have about a dozen performers who have all had babies. We keep saying there's something in the water. We're all getting pregnant at the same time, but we were worried that we can do Fringe or other productions for that matter. And this was an opportunity for us to get together and have the same concerns as performing artists going in with not very flexible schedule with the baby in tow sometimes. But we could all be understanding of each other and create a dance work. So it's kind of a composition, a compilation rather of different dance pieces because all of all about motherhood, but all of these dancers and other performers come from various genres. So we'll have some ballroom, some burlesque, some modern dance. It's kind of a mix, some lyrical. Are the babies on board for all of it? They're present for some of the pieces, but that's not always practical. We were concerned with them not being good with an audience. So we haven't put them in every piece. They're just on sometimes, but all the pieces are about motherhood and the various issues. Pregnancy, birth, nursing, family life, that kind of thing. Thank you. It is amazing. I know so many artists, actors, dancers, poets who all have babies the same age right now. They're going to be amazing. Things are going to happen when they all become adults. This generation of kids who all came up together. I find that absolutely fascinating and I'm really anxious to see the work. Do you feel that this has been beneficial to you as a mother going through the experience of creating the piece? Yeah, I feel like we've kind of made our own little performing arts baby hooey. Yeah, let's get the end. Yeah, because I think everybody, it's very different than another baby hooey. A lot of baby hooies I couldn't possibly join because I have a different schedule. Performing artists are not available in weekends, they're not available in the evenings, that kind of thing. We all struggle with daycare. Some of us have a day job, some of us don't. But we're trying to perform at the same time as to be new mothers. So it's a very empathetic sort of group circle of women who are going through this together. Yeah. There you go. And when are you actually performing in the festival? We're performing, we're the first show, we're performing Thursday at 6 p.m. That's January 12. January 12? Yeah. And are you at Mark's Garage? We're at Mark's Garage, yeah. Okay. I think you're doing really well Eli. You're doing really well. And I just want to hold him, but that probably wouldn't be good, right, he might break out. Okay, so let's hear about your piece. You're fairly new to the island yourself. Yeah, I just relocated here from Oakland, California at the end of July last year. Yeah, now it's 2017. So I'm really new and I'm very excited to connect to the community here and to share work and to know people here and to share my voice as an artist and then creating a space to improvisation to the community. So I'm really excited about this French festival. This is a good way to jump in. We're going to take a quick break. So we'll be right back. We're going to continue that conversation and we're going to check in and see how Eli is doing. So we'll be right back. Please stick with us. You're watching Center Stage on the Think Tech Hawaii Digital Network. So how are you doing? Welcome to Eibachi Talk. I'm here at Gardo the Tech Star on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm here with my good old buddy, Andrew the security guy. Hey, everybody, how you doing? Hello. Thanks for watching. Good to have Andrew here in the house. Please join us every Friday from one to one thirty and follow us up on YouTube. And remember, as we say at the end of every show, how are you doing? You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, Hawaii's leading digital media platform for civic engagement, raising public awareness on tech, energy, diversification and globalism. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Hi, we're back and we are ever so live on Center Stage here on the Think Tech Hawaii Digital Network. We're talking with Pei Lengau. So you came to the island to you teach at the University of Hawaii. Yeah, I am very lucky. I'm the new faculty of theater and dance department at UH Manoa. Yeah, and my research is about improvisation and discipline and interdisciplinary collaboration and also teaching dance and dance lineage. So my work is reflecting my teaching and research. So I'm really excited about this opportunity to teach in Oahu and then also show work here. Yeah. Yeah. So the tell us about the piece that you're presenting. Yeah, so me and my lifetime partner Gretchen Du, we just initiated this dual improvisational duo between sound and movement called Electro Violet. And this is our debut here and then world premiere here. And our practice is to try to explore the collaboration between sound and movement in equal footing. Because often time when we say collaboration between sound and music, we as a movement artist, we choose music or we ask musician to compose something for us that is already existed. But we are trying to do is to find the equal footing of collaboration. We make decision and make composition at the present moment. And we are taking improvisation as a live and art philosophy, just like we deal with our daily life, like when you go out when you go to work, and then you suddenly find Oh, there's a traffic jam or accident. And then you have to improvise as a as your alternate route to go to work in order to not to be late. So we are actually we are dealing everybody's dealing with this improvisation practice every day in our daily life. So we are putting this idea and this device into the art making. So we are not dictating. We are not telling story. We are just being present and reflecting what we see what we hear what we sense at the present moment at the show. So we are having two shows on on Friday and Saturday. And both show will be different. It's Yeah, it sounds like they will be. You're not putting anything any plan. Yeah. You have to trust yourself an awful lot to do that. It is Yeah, trust and of course, to be vulnerable, vulnerable and inviting to be seen. Like you're putting yourself there and you cannot pretend you cannot pretend something you know everything is like you have to be truly honest to yourself and then present yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because well, and both of your pieces being devised from your present state. Yeah, right, makes me so much more meaningful. And I swear when you watch a piece, if you if you watch an improvisation piece, whether it's dance or, you know, Saturday Night Live, you you can tell the moment someone slips into something that scripted or well rehearsed. You know, you know, when people are really present in the moment and creating along with the atmosphere at the moment. Yeah, and then also I, I think it's also a practice of practicing. Like how do we what is difference between practicing and performance? How do you feel different when you are practicing at the studio when nobody's watching or when you're performing when there's everybody's watching you. So that is also part of my research is to bring the practice into a state of performance. So there's, there's no differences between practice, rehearsing and performance. So we are not aiming to end product. We are practicing as our daily life. And then the show is part of the practice. So it's not a production is not the end product is the show is our continuing is one of our continuous practice. Oh, that's a very interesting philosophical way to look at it. Then then for whom are you practicing? You know, if it's not a performance, then yeah, yeah, so see, yeah, like you just met. Yeah, I'm thinking about how do I put things together. So I'm improvising my brain, my mind now. Yeah, because we are is a contemporary dance is a contemporary error. And we are showing what we have and who we are. But we are not putting a mask or tell you my story. The story is ongoing and is still existing just right like right now I'm talking here. But this isn't I didn't prepare anything and I didn't even know what you were going to add. Neither did I. Yeah, it's okay. So this is not a production. This is not an end product. This is a practice towards as a human being as a practice as a universe as a how do I say it as an artist we we just keep practicing as a who we are and then try to find what we are. I don't mean to put you on the spot you're going there very nicely. That's a question that I continually ask myself and my guests because as an artist myself I'm an actor. I am and a director as a director. The first time I directed a show where everything's moving on nicely and we get to the night before opening night or final dress and I realized I had a panicky moment because anyone with 20 bucks could come into this theater and watch this precious, precious thing we had created and I realized that I actually as a director enjoyed the rehearsal. I wanted to stay in that rehearsal. I really didn't feel like I needed that audience. But of course theater exists for the audience. Yeah, yeah, but it benefits the artists so much. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like there's no perfect show right for you to like you practice for so long and then it might happen like some accident or you just slip in your mind you just got a space out and then yeah it's like oh I should have done that or I wish it could be like that but the show is just like at that one moment. So how do you see what is how do you define a perfect show? Right. Production, right? Right and and I think the best that comes out of any performance is what happens after it's finished and you know the artists digest the work and the audience you know it brings out conversations and questions and maybe you can get together and talk about it and also the idea about sharing. Yeah, I'm not telling you or to provide evidence or this is what we believe but it's it's the community of sharing. So I share something and then you give me some feedback and then you share your thought with me and then we continuing of this exchange. I think it's very healthy and it's really good, beneficial in the community for the artists to do this exchanging and sharing voices. Yeah, I do too and like with with your group to have to have a group of young mothers all with the same age children kind of miraculously as it happened. I'm sure that was really healthy for all of you to get together. Yeah, it's a very healthy sharing. I think as far as sharing with the audience though our rehearsal process will in no way look like our performance process is our rehearsal oftentimes we're rehearsing with the babies and we won't be performing many pieces with the babies so there will be a whole different level of immediacy in that that we will have rehearsed with the babies and then we'll be performing with a swaddle or with with nothing like rolling around on the floor and being able to and so it'll be in many ways the performance will be the first time that we've done these pieces without having to hold the babies and so it will be very it'll be the first time it'll be the first time that we've done it without the babies for many of us. So that that will be a whole different that'll be a whole different experience and a whole different level of of reality. Oh yeah, that will be there will be a lot of immediacy to that for you. But yeah a lot of the pieces are built on on our our stories and our sharing between us as performing arts new mothers. Yeah, well and then you're going to be sharing with the audience your experience you know I'm sure a lot of people will be able to see that and remember or look forward to or just people like myself who never had children be able to experience it along with you. Yeah, that's the intended. That's really cool because that's what we're all all about is sharing stuff. But here's what I continually grapple with as Eli shows off the contents of my purse. I always grapple with why do we feel the need why do we feel that need as humans we want to share we want to connect. I connect with people in the elevator you know that I'll never see again but for some reason I feel that need too. Any ideas? Well I think as artists sometimes you're having an experience and you just don't know that anybody else can empathize with it and you have to get it out there and you have to air it you have to air like the issues that we've been having as mothers like you you go to pump at work and people think you're you're on a break and you're playing Tetris in the bathroom. When the reality is you're in there topless with suction cups and your boobs and it's freezing cold and you have no hands to play anything that's that's the reality so so just being able to show people there there are things that are I told Carlin Wolf there are things that are that are mother required but are father optional so we dealt with that too and so like even your spouse doesn't really know quite what you're going through and so it was good to explore these issues and I think it's really important to air those because like you said not everyone knows yet or they may remember or they and or not remember or they may have not experienced it and so it's good to get it out there. Yeah for everyone involved and he is a born performer he's taking to these cameras really really well. I think a lot of kids would probably freak out in this atmosphere here no he's doing really well. So about your piece what do you feel because I'm I assume you've been involved in plenty of pieces that are well rehearsed and designed yeah yeah what do you feel about the the difference between the two doing something that is completely in the moment all performances are in the moment to some extent and and I have noticed in very well rehearsed performances sometimes the best performances come out of a mistake you know or a broken zipper or a dropped line and then everything galvanizes and the show just shines brighter than ever before so there's always a level of immediacy but what do you feel that you as a performer gain differently from creating something organically on the spot. Yeah don't get me wrong I mean as a even though we're we're in proposition group but I can also say we'll we'll rehearse because we've been practicing many times and then still continue can still keep practicing in the studio. So the main difference is for me between performing a set work and improvisation is a state of mind sometimes I feel a slightly different when I improvise because I can track of my my and then I track of the time and space and I see the space from outside of myself and I can I feel more free to respond to what I sense what I what I see and what I hear. At the same time when I perform for the set work I track my my too and then I also include the environment audience with me but through the practicing I execute the movement that is set. So I I think it's somehow I can say it's different and then also it's the same practice for me it's just that the state of mind is very different. I didn't think about that that if you're doing a rehearsed piece you do a b c and you're finished if you are not rehearsed you do it you have to keep track of the time to some extent and maybe looping back tying things up in a nice little bow spot. Yeah and then also tracking the time it doesn't just mean the set time but something that just pops up in your mind when you are doing this movement like oh I sensed the time two years ago I did this. It's like you are tracking the time in the past or present moment or anything that is coming out at the present moment. So the space in time is not only it's not only limited to the time and space at that moment but also it expands to a micro moment and universal and larger context of the time and space and it also deals with the memories. Yeah I bet a lot comes up during that. Are you okay we can take a short break if you need to know he looks like he's doing real well just wanted to check in. So for both of you do you feel you just I was kind of surprised that you just met as we were coming over for this I had imagined people getting together for the fringe festival and there being more communication between you but you know it makes sense that there wouldn't really be. At some point during the process do you have that opportunity to mix and mingle and go. At a walk they have an opening event and then they have some closing events and I think Misa and Emily Patton are working on making some sort of events throughout the weekends or meet-ups at bars in Chinatown and that sort of thing. So it happens the weekend of but before that weekend we may not meet anybody that we know. Do you have an opportunity to see most of the acts I know you said you had two shows but if something's running during yours. Yeah we get artist passes so we can go see the show. But you may or may not have time to see the shows like you said there may be overlap between your show and another show. Yeah I would think that one of the it's awesome for an audience to be able to come and see these boundary pushing works but also for the artists who like to push boundaries to be able to get together and see where you might go next and glean ideas for you know where we what we could do together and I'm glad you two got a chance to meet here. That's great um what do you uh so outside of the Fringe Festival you you are now teaching at the University of Manoa. Yeah are you involved in productions there? Yeah yeah I will be choreographing pieces and producing shows for students at the department dance department theater and dance department yeah and I also teach improvisation composition and modern dance technique class and dance production. So yeah I'm hoping that by teaching the courses I can meet more people here and then the artists here. Yeah well you come over to my theater anytime and and Gwen do you have a day job along with Eli? I currently am mostly a stay-at-home mom although I'm very involved in the Philippine dance community here on Oahu and the Japanese dance community the Japanese classical dance community so I'm still doing quite a bit of that and I run special sculptors which is the um contact improv jam on Oahu and I do that in coordination with Laura Reichart and Mareva Minervi so we do that together so that's another another side project. That's another project that you have and the so the festival takes place January 12th 13 14 yeah just Thursday Friday Saturday um and the website do you guys know the website of you? Oahu french.com yes you're correct yeah I had to check um and there's information about all of the other acts as well on the website and there are there's a there's a lot of dance yeah dance theater or um improv comedy improv sort of work yeah there's um an amazing amount of talent right and the venues are all around Chinatown what other what venues other than Mark's Garage yeah we are doing at onking onking and next door is also participating on Chinatown yeah I'll Chinatown that's good to know and yeah we would love to participate at Kumu but just didn't work out this year thank you both very much for being here thank you all three of you for being here thank you it was so nice to have you thank you thank you so much for having us yeah absolutely I look forward to seeing oh he just waved at me did we catch that story nice to have you here okay thank you for being here I would also like to thank our producer Zuri Bender who is in my ear and Jay Flidell who somehow manages to put all of this together we'll see you next week we're gonna have some other acts from the Fringe Festival here um no babies I'm sorry but we'll see you then