 You tell me when you're ready Both everything it's live. It's live everything. It's on the podcast y'all it's gonna be legit So are we good on thing cast? We're recording the podcast currently are we live? Okay All right, it's a little while ago. Welcome to the first Vanessa and Shay live episode We are here in person at the Mina Theater Makers Alliance convening 2023 at Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, California Yeah, oh my goodness. You're gonna hear a lot of reading today, which is not normal for our podcast Although Marina and I are woo girls. I think yeah, we are we I don't know But we try to keep it in during the podcast, but welcome all the wooing from our live audience here Meena is the National Coalition of Mina and Suana Theater Makers and this is a joint session of the Mina Meena convening and the Mizna plus Ravi Fest that also happened this weekend And Mizna is a grassroots organization serving as a platform for contemporary literature film art and cultural production Centering the work of Arab and Suana artists and Rory or the radius of Arab American writers is a national organization that provides mentoring community and Support for Arab American writers and those with with roots in the Arabic speaking world in diaspora Today's session will explore Affinity spaces and these three organizations Organizations exemplify intersectional national affinity spaces in theater and the arts Affinity spaces have really been an undercurrent of discussion across all three seasons of the Kunafa and Shay theater podcast And in season three we especially focus on queer Mina and Suana affinity spaces their benefits and their complications In this live session at the may not my convening at Golden Thread Productions We are going to be sitting down with leaders and artists to discuss the nuances of Mina and Suana from these spaces today and Minatma Mizna and Robby's roles in facilitating national cultural affinity among artists of intersectional identities In the room where change is being made. We are having these conversations and we're very excited to engage with you all in that discussion This is a very exciting and unique trifecta Collaboration and Marina and I are truly Thrilled to be able to host this joint session of these two conferences both live live streamed on howl round and will be available As as part of the Kunafa and Shay theater podcast, maybe a little bit, you know edited for maximum Excellency and with a written transcript as well for folks Take it away Marina. Amazing. So thank you all for indulging this really fun experiment Our initial description included what these affinity groups are doing in a post-pandemic theater landscape and for us actually brought up There's great point of while we're acknowledging genocide and death. That's happening We've actually just quite normalized the death that has happened from COVID in our world And the statistics still point very much to the fact that this pandemic is ongoing And so we just wanted to amend verbally that language of post-pandemic or use it in quotes because while we are acting and like the last panel said We've sort of acted like things need to go back to normal in the same way We're actually not able to return to life as it was before nor do we really want to I think in many instances I do want to take a moment here to acknowledge the people of the land on which we live and work today the multiple Elone tribes despite the atrocities of colonial colonization and genocide Native communities persist today and are active in efforts to preserve and revive their culture at golden thread We are driven by a desire to expand this land acknowledgement statement to recognize our community's experience of occupation in the Middle East The refugee crisis and the displaced population Whether we are immigrants displaced by political or economic events or us born for one or more generations We are all appreciates the human connection to the land and something we've been acknowledging a lot Which I deeply appreciate because I feel like I've been mourning so much on my own and so I'm grateful to be in community We deeply mourn the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost in the recent eruption of violence and Khaza between Israel and Hamas We grieve the loss of all those who have been killed in search of protection of home and condemn violence and terrorism in all its forms We also recognize that any condemnation of violence that has erupted this past weeks without recognizing the root cause of the situation Israelis Israel's illegal military occupation since 67 and also since before the Nakhba and 48 is unacceptable as a U.S. Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African artists We support the Palestinian people's right to sovereignty freedom and a life with dignity We condemn Israel's apartheid system and creation of the world's largest open-air prison Gaza imprisoning 2.3 million Palestinians 274% of whom are refugees we denounce the mainstream media and the u.s. government for granting Israel impunity as it continues to deny the human rights of Palestinians and commit war crimes To humanizing Palestinians and spreading anti-Palestinian sentiment puts all communities in danger We call for an immediate end to Israel's settler colonialism and violence to Palestine So as we sit with that together, I think we acknowledge that and part of our community agreement this week I has to been to sit in grief and rage together. I Appreciate being in a space of artists who are willing to do that as we have this important conversation too So I'll ask the guest to introduce themselves next and we're gonna be oddly passing these black microphones that are recording the podcast around And we will send it first to Andrea Hey everyone any instructions on introductions if you want to do name pronouns if you want to share them and then your role as an artist people That are listening might not know although people in the present company certainly. Yeah, people here are like sick of me already I'm Andrea staff. I'm the founding artistic and executive director of art to action Which is based in Tampa, Florida. I welcome she or they pronouns Or anything said in love in the south. We like to say things like sugar And I Just need to say I'm here I feel like I'm always wearing a lot of hats But I want to give a shout out to my Rawee and Mizna Friends and colleagues who I've been missing terribly this weekend that you know these two events Very important and amazing events are happening at the same time in different parts of the country which also I think is a Significant win like that. We're in multiple places at once having these conversations, right? But I do give a shout out to my beloved literary community, which was I have to say the first Space where I felt I was welcomed to be Arab and queer at the same time Everybody I'm a Turkish American I guess director writer and arts leader I am on the board of Mina theater makers alliance very proudly and An affiliated artists with Golden Thread with which is a company. I like to say that I grew up in I was raised artistically and as a human By Golden Thread and Taraji Ghizarian who's sitting across from me and I want to say that It feels important to name I said Turkish American, but I'm also very proudly queer Very proudly immigrant and I also identify as Muslim Which feels as much as a political action as it is Certainly a way that I look at the world and morality is through that lens and my upbringing in a very secular And I'm so excited to be here. I It's always Exciting to not feel like I have to divide myself in parts to be able to talk and And I will say this that Golden Thread specifically Before intersectionality was a sexy word that everybody used the whole organization was founded like that So I have I have had the great luxury of not having to cut myself in parts In our community is actually in a really joyous way and I only have to start doing that when I Work in not in our community spaces is where I actually feel like I have to leave one side of myself at the door Because they're asking me to come into the room for one reason and one reason only So but any chance I have to be queer and Middle Eastern and Muslim and then talk to these bad-ass humans that I'm sitting with I Feel real good about that Hello, my name is Sara Rizavi and she her and When I identify as an artist it says an actor and director and I'm always profoundly humbled when I'm invited to events like this because It's been such a long time where I've been able to engage my artistic self My day job has taken over more and more of my life and my day job Intersects well as as many of our lives do I mean finance and social finance specifically I do lending for entrepreneurs who've been left out of the mainstream So women people of color and immigrants and I joke that like many immigrants I have that side and interestingly enough it's often math or finance or or science Torrance herself was a scientist before all of this But but that also as immigrants we just wear so many different hats but probably the most important hat right now and What constantly brings me to these tables is that I'm a parent of two tiny beings with my wife and For them and for the future I now live very comfortably in the intersections of all my identities where previously was very segmented So grateful to be here. Thank you I Mean Thank you so much We started this season talking about queer Amina Suana artists with Adam outside Who is not in the room right now, but when we talked to Adam, he said really a season unclear Okay, is this really the framing you want to do and he asked some really important curatorial questions that we appreciate it I'm acknowledging that now so we don't we don't necessarily need to dig into that in this episode It exists and I I hope that you'll look at that framing because it was a great question that number and I had already been talking about Because it can be tokenized tokenizing and essentializing But it can also be really affirming and productive to be in a state space dedicated to addressing the lived experience of these intersectional identities I also wanted to mention that this morning I was reflecting on what we were doing today and The podcast started whenever I called number one day and I started my PhD And I thought now I'm gonna be in a space with people where I can talk about all day long and they're gonna care And we do talk a lot about performance But the people that want to talk about me the theater is actually quite limited in that space And I was like what if we started a podcast where people we would just talk about this and anyone who cared could tune in and that was before I Realized anything about manama really and I found that there's an affinity space that exists where we can do all of that So it feels so luxurious this weekend to be in this space, but also recording this episode together Um Yeah, she started her PhD and she was like I'm gonna have so much free time we should start a podcast She didn't say that she was I think smarter than that, but it's a ridiculous request at that time I realized but I'm glad I'm glad it's still happening and we're in season three. It's very exciting So we're we're diving deeper into these spaces and I'm actually also really honored to have been a performer at Yesterday morning at 7 a.m. I was I was performing virtually and then came over to Minotma at 9 a.m. So what a lovely Morning that was yesterday So we would love to just start with how each of you define an affinity space in our Minotma programming committee meetings and conversations about this session What an affinity space is and how it should function Wasn't was not a trivial for all of us to define and so we wanted to know how you define that and How they have played your role in your life as an artist if you haven't already spoken about that Anyone can take this away We're gonna edit out all the giant pop In the in the final episode For me An affinity space in my life career has been really directly Connected to advocacy And strengthen numbers. So it's always been actually with an eye towards changemaking. I Don't know if that's just because of the way I'm built. Thank you parents or Just how it works within the specific identities that I hold Queer organizing is messy and beautiful and difficult and in a lot of ways that definition of Making trouble through not necessarily agreement but in a line goal is something that I feel like Within the theater space has been gifted to me from my elders and I like go all the way back to I don't know Tennessee Williams and beyond Oscar Wilde and beyond for this And in the Mina space, it's really In my own journey as an immigrant where an immigrant that is quite white passing Where assimilation was the goal for the first, I don't know five to seven years of my life in the US and losing trying to lose my accent and trying to figure out how to be Pass as white American and feeling like I was just really truly bad at it it took a space like Golden Thread, which is of course an affinity theater company and Realizing not even realizing at the time what a luxury that was to be able to be in a space Where I could say I don't know if I'm this I don't know if I'm that I don't know how this works for me I don't know if I'm Muslim I have a lot of feelings as a queer man of defining as Muslim and then being allowed to make plays about that and have conversations about that and say Possibly terrible things about that in safe spaces and being corrected or guided or just allowed to Hit all of the walls and figure out where I stand and build my spine And the thing I will say for me for affinity space is it is a My experience affinity spaces, especially within the Middle Eastern North African context is a really American idea Yesterday, we were having lunch and we were at a table with a Turkish American artist and Iranian Armenian American artists a Azeri Armenian artists and an Armenian artist and we had to sort of laugh that in this given moment that This lunch wouldn't happen anywhere else and that and we were really having a deep wonderful Conversation about representation and translation and the impossibility of finding words from one language to another This like really deep lovely artistic conversation about check off and beyond and that was the context was an affinity space that really felt In a certain way American in a certain way San Francisco in a certain way Golden Thread and Monopma only possible space And I grew up there as an artist so it feels so second nature to me and It's been a real learning Working in more mainstream theaters larger theaters and meeting so many Middle Eastern North African Artists of Middle Eastern North African descent who haven't had that luxury of growing up and having their salt spines built solid around political and representation issues and the like true Emotional and mental which is sometimes physical suffering. They have to go through or have had to go through in theater specifically I Feel lucky to have grown up in an affinity space like this And an affinity space that is Intersectional that is allows me to be all the things I am and not have to explain myself all the time And I in a way like wish that on every young artist You know because it is It is nice to be seen it is nice to be heard and it is nice to not have to translate yourself all the time um, I was born in the United States and Didn't grow up in a location where I had access to an Arab or Middle Eastern community for most of my childhood And I want to acknowledge that I grew up in what feels like now a very very different time in terms of Queer identity in the United States I'm a dyke of a certain age. I made a big deal of turning 50 on social media this year so I'm not afraid to say it and and And I and I'm gonna say something and then I mean and then I'm gonna qualify it I was it was In my process of coming out I was very afraid that Arab and Middle Eastern Community spaces would not accept me because of my queerness Now I need to say I grew up in a predominantly Christian rural, Pennsylvania environment that was so deeply homophobic in the 80s that I literally thought someone would kill me Literally kill me If I came out So I think we often get stuck in this like narrative that you know somehow Arab and Middle Eastern communities are more homophobic than anyone else. I'm saying rural Christian America Right um And so those affinity spaces queer affinity spaces were key to feeling safe as a queer person in as a young artist and Shit has changed like I am amazed by young folks talking about Transgender identity questioning gender questioning the relationship between sexuality and gender which wasn't even a conversation We had been at all or language for like there has been extraordinary progress and I think now that I look back on it with this question What was truly transformative for me? was that when Arab spaces welcomed me as a queer person and I didn't need an affinity space because The whole space was welcoming and I have to name because I think it's important that we remember our history and we name people Barbara name Riaziz Was the first person to ever give me a radio interview the first person to invite me to Raleigh to be on a panel About the intersection of queer and Arab identity And it's really important that here Here at Golden Thread in this convening there has been 50% or more on the regular daily and pretty much everything Queer representation Yes beautiful and amazing and powerful and just not questioned and so that makes me go Wouldn't it be nice if we just didn't need affinity spaces anymore and every space was like this Yeah, I was thinking about this and Moving to the Bay Area in the early aughts I remember being very clear that I had three distinct identities as an Iranian as a woman and then as a lesbian and That I would play different cards depending on which room I was in And then I also thought that I never quite felt enough of any one of those And and so I remember with a ever and I share a group of very close friends and It was in their company one drunk at night. I was sorry. I was outside and I used to call myself Sarah. Everybody called me Sarah and I was drunk and there was some Middle Eastern guy. He was drunk and his name was Mamad and he called himself Moe and I'm like, no Moe, you can go by Mamad And my friends overheard it and they're like, well, what about you? Why are you going by Sarah? You can be Sarah And it changed then I started going by Sarah and It's a very easy way of telling, you know, who knows me who doesn't if they call me Sarah or Sarah but that in that moment it felt like oh my Iranian self and my American self maybe can live live closely together But it kept having these moments and I remember I did a show with a wonderful theater company in the Bay And I took my then girlfriend to it This is a room full of very queer artists And I told her I said we can't be queer here because they're Middle Eastern and We went through this whole party and I remember being so amazed at how wonderful how drunk how great they all were But I was like we can't be queer around them So up until a very very long period these worlds were completely separate and now I think the only reason I'm probably here is because I live it so loudly and so comfortably and That shift happened though over time and I take your point because even Deciding as a queer woman whether I wear mascara or not because when I moved to the Bay you had to be very butch or you had to be very femme and Even that identity of like how I present myself as a queer woman Has taken time and now I recognize Just this living is Radical in and of itself and and it's an example for so many folks that I've only realized it because I suddenly Recognize I hadn't seen it as much. So anyway, when I was thinking about affinity I was really thinking for me the longest time it had been so separate Care I think also About I don't know if I'm picturing your name, but like pushing the humblest kind of thing forward. And I would like to invite us all, I think this is a good example of that, because you know, I was sharing with you that there's many now, prior to the call, and so glad that you brought those two back in here to raise them, so we'll quickly into the program. Like, I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that the occupation of Palestine has been since 1948, but I want to invite us all to seem clear in this, definitely a busy sexual identity, but beyond the sexual and gender as well, beyond the sexual and beyond gender, he has something sort of a political decision as well. Today I see like, nobody in the world is more clear than those in Bethlehem, you know, the way that there's, there are these civilized, the way they are humanized, the way they are intentionally silent, the way they're legitimized, and then there's anyway, there was a genocide here against pure people in the form of AIDS, HIV pandemic. So this is the call of an epidemic, but it affects more than just pure people, it affects patients as well. It affects, you know, working class, black folks. So I would add to this conversation a little bit, this is my also fellow colleague on the Valley Ward, and I'm going to end here later and organize here just about like how we push those boundaries of queerness beyond, I mean, how do you see, and also the way that Bethlehem is about like how policy in this is a form of queerness in a way, just the way it's constantly marked margin and it's the way it's constantly pushed to the side. And I want to, we're not necessarily right now, but kind of like, we're not going to end that question in theory of it as we make our way back home together. Ferras, you sort of inspired me to, I just want to say that I do think, I use the term queer rather than gay to define myself, one because I don't want to be that specific about who I sleep with as I identify myself for some reason. It feels like none of your business. And also for me queer is a political term and a very specific political term because I'm so glad you brought up the HIV AIDS epidemic, talking about the failure to our government to take care of people as we look at what they're doing right now. We have a long history of this and that's just one example among so many. What I find very moving is the AIDS funerals, the funerals of the people who were killed by neglect as well as this virus were celebrations, drag parties, dance parties. And I feel like I look at our theater, just I'll speak about my art form and I feel like joy has been gentrified, that there is this idea that there's a white woman, cis white woman version of joy that has, and if I actually claim joy as my resistance, which I say all the time, like I am negating the pain and the grief and the rage that we're all feeling and having grown up over there, I have a sort of lived understanding of people who are under the worst conditions that they are the funniest, they are the campiest, they are the most satirical in certain places. And for me, I am queering theater, actually feels very similar to the political actions of Middle Eastern theater, which is really about living in comedy as political action, as community joy and claiming that despite the fact that we're all being killed to a certain extent. And this is something that is really difficult for me to let go of, especially as I work in mainstream spaces where the card I have to play is pain to get a job. And I feel like affinity, yeah, they want my trauma, some of which I don't actually have, by the way, I had a lovely upbringing as a queer boy. My family was wonderful. Don't tell anyone. You know, but like the second, if I'm doing this panel, not led by Middle Eastern or our conscious folks, the first question is like, how was growing up queer? Ask with that soft white tone of care that is actually not care. That's an invitation to perform my pain that I do not have. So it is, and this is not to negate all of the really terrible experiences queer folks have had in Turkey. So then as I say this, I feel like I'm sort of not representing something, et cetera, et cetera. I don't have to talk about it on this podcast because everyone here understands. But the thing for me is as we talk about queerness, as we talk about affinity space, for me, affinity space is also where I get to be unabashedly joyful and celebratory and unapologetic, not just politically, but as friends, as colleagues, as co-conspirators, and that we hold each other accountable to that as we make space for our rage and grief, which is like my, I am adding that to every community agreement from now on, by the way, it is like the most brilliant addition. Can't remember who proposed it, but my God. So I just wanna say that that idea of joy and political, joy as political action lives in my body, both in my queerness and my Middle Eastern-ness. And I wanna claim that for the space. Yes, Everett, that was so beautiful. And it takes me back to something that Hamid Sino said earlier, which was, like you can't, don't use me talking about queerness. I'm paraphrasing them wildly, but don't use my queerness to pinquash and don't use my queerness for part of your political or colonial or imperial agenda. And that's where joy gets in the way of people who try to use these stories for that purpose. And I want to add to what you're saying, my favorite Bell Hooks quote, if you'll indulge, anytime we can throw a amazing black feminist into the space, I feel like we should. But queer, not as in being about who you're having sex with, that can be a dimension of it, but queer as being about the self, that is at odds with everything around it and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live. So I love that. It's very much what Evernon and Padas were just saying, but wanted to throw hooks and Hamid Sino into the mix. Yeah. Thank you for that, my girl. I love you, my son. You've already touched on a lot of what we were gonna talk about. So we should just end the podcast here. I'm just kidding. We're not going to, we're here for 20 more minutes. Um, one of the things that I wanted to go a little deeper into, you've each talked about how, kind of how and a little bit of the journey of how the affinity spaces have become intersectional for you or have presented themselves as being open to intersectional identities. And there's, you know, folks often will talk about, you know, the tensions of being Nina or Suana in queer spaces and the tensions of being queer and Nina or Suana spaces as you've, some of you, some of you have touched on, but can you identify what are the aspects of affinity spaces that have made a platform, a supportive platform for your intersecting identities? Some of you have had experience with spaces that have been one or the other. You've had to turn on and off certain identities, but in those spaces where you have, you were able to bring your full self, are you able to articulate what are the elements of that kind of affinity space that has allowed for you to bring your full self with all of your intersecting identities? And those listening can learn from that, hopefully, and curate better affinity spaces moving forward. As to everyone was talking, I was remembering one of the best spaces was the annual Golden Thread Party, where we would bring lots of food and dancing, and one of the moments I probably felt the most seen, you and I were on the dance floor, and there was great drumming going on, just it was all very out of the blue, suddenly drums showed up, suddenly someone was singing, and I feel like he probably had more, you know, what do you call it? Hip action that I could muster, and I probably had more shoulder action than he could muster, and between the two of us, we were doing this extremely queer, completely role reversal dance in the living room of one of our founding board members. That to me speaks to everything that's been said, the joy of it, the fluidity of it, the queerness of it, and yet the complete Middle Easternness of it, gave me, constantly gives me joy and great memories. Just so it is said, I did dance her off the dance floor. Not that it was a competition, but I did win. We have had many rematches, I think I've won some of them, but yeah. I disagree. I would say really, people matter more than words for me, actions matter more than words for me, I think we're in a place right now in the American theater where we have to say like all of the right words for some, we feel like the words are the welcoming thing, and I would rather people show up in their imperfect language, but with open hearts, and I understand that I sit in a very privileged body to be able to say this, I also wanna own that, but for me, what makes an affinity space welcoming is that people look me in the eye and say welcome. And when I correct them, they say I'm so sorry, and then just try to use the right pronoun, or call me queer rather than something else, or apologize for an assumption they made. I am a little over perfection before arrival as a requirement of an affinity space, because I think that's as activists, as organizers, and I think everyone on here probably identifies with those words at different levels, but we all are having, knowing everybody's word to a certain extent. We keep leaving behind people who are actually really important by doing that, and as someone who lives in very liberal spaces, and then is supposed to represent not necessarily people in theater who might actually have those words, or believe those things, or they are welcoming, but they actually don't know that that's the word you use for that thing. I'm always sort of negotiating that for myself as I try to create space and represent this impossibly large umbrella of folks called Middle Eastern North African or Muslim. I try to figure out how to make space for people who are coming from different spaces and make sure they feel welcome, and they have an understanding of the rules of engagement, rather than correcting people's verbiage. Evering, can we model what you just said? Yes. Because I'm sitting here and I appreciate, I appreciate the feminist impulse that you started the panel with, to acknowledge and say I'm so happy to be up here with, but I don't identify as femme. That's fantastic. Yeah, because I'm really suck at femme. I've tried and I fail miserably. It's like queer failure all over, I can't do it. I am very sorry to have used that term to define you. Oh no, but you're correct that I do identify as a cisgender woman and that that is a space of privilege that I inhabit. And so these are the kinds of, we're doing the conversation. We're like, that was the thing we want y'all to do. And we want spaces to do, right? Just like have that conversation. But actually I wanted to, I really want to dig a little deeper into the joy and trauma conversation. Is that okay? Yeah, of course. Because I'm thinking about everything you said and how that resonates with me about joy and queer space. And also I'm thinking about my own work, which dives deep into trauma often, right? And I was very much as an activist. And I also embrace the word queer because I do think of it as a much larger political framework than only my sexuality. And that is resisting the normativity or the seduction of capitalism, right? And pushing back on all levels political analysis. But I was formed as a young queer person coming out and as a young activist in the 90s during the AIDS crisis. Where the slogan was, don't mourn, organize. And we did that and we never mourned. And we carried that grief for more than a decade, right? And then, and that, it still hurts us. It still hurts us. And so I think that a lot of my work around trauma is about creating safe spaces to mourn collectively, publicly, to cry, to be witnessed mourning. And also there might be a queer Elvis impersonator in the middle of the Durham Project. Because that's also important to me, right? Those moments of like, let's go deep into the morning and face our trauma and face our complicity as U.S. citizens in what our country is doing. And also be queer and joyous in the same process, right? So that's what I'm, I feel sometimes that there's this either or thing happening that I also wanna disrupt. Absolutely, absolutely, Andrea. I love that you mentioned that because that's what I wanna thank you for mentioning that about what I'm gonna be doing in here as the Raleigh founder, we all are invited to her. And actually, that's exactly what you mentioned. Like, we had moments of mourning, of collective mourning and we had moments of collective joy. We had moments of practicing collective care and of support and moments of creation as well. And as the owner of the place where we create from or where we write stories too. And I think that's what everyone was saying as well, like about the mind of trauma. You know, when you take the finger of the victim and of how the victim is, that's your displacement story. That's what the media is always interested in. But never in like, okay, what brought us to this moment. So we appreciate the root causes of the violence that we just encountered and mainly the way the plant is structured that upholds pollutants as a violent structure in itself and therefore an active resistance becomes really an active love, right? And the resistance is the resistance. Even if you say, if it means that it's in violence, I believe that it's a lesser evil. To use liberal thought. But to answer the question that was asked, I think like when it comes to a familiar space with it, I think it's all about really removing the barriers to entry. And that's something that again, that we've been trying how to do while we are living now. Like for example, how we make it more accessible to the table folk. And that's why we chose to do a hybrid festival and required math and, you know, asking people to vaccinate before or at least, you know, take their test, even though those tests are, you know, not as effective with certain strains. You know, it's also making space for girls, whatever, you know, situations that take, like we're expanding beyond the LCC world, to, you know, from Suama and beyond as well as several partners with our indigenous Black, Asian, Latinx siblings. Again, challenging and resisting anti-colonial and anti-interiorist structures, removing barriers to entry. We're working class people in terms of economics as well because class is a very important dynamic that we should all, you know, make space for and always look below on the future and what we, you know, what the unhoused folks mean. How do we bring them into the room? And always like thinking about who's not in the room and how do we bring them into the room. And that was a lovely chapter that I witnessed on this past weekend. And it was something that, you know, because it helps us multiply, right? Like every time we bring somebody that is not in the room, we bring them into the room, then I know who we choose, right? And that is how we build power, and that is how we build care. I believe that is the way the future, I live with a livable future and I may say, you know, how do we push back against what to kind of see? How do we confront our own advocacy blackness within certain areas of the community as well? There's so much to learn, and so much to learn as well. Yeah, I really appreciate this conversation and where it's going. Thank you all. Thank you so much for bringing up the other intersections that we have to be considering when expanding and transforming and growing or if in these spaces, because a, you know, clear end of Nina and Suana friendly space is not necessarily disability friendly. It's not necessarily anti-black, you know? So I love, thank you for bringing in especially those very specific examples as to how this and all we are doing that. I know Golden Thread is also doing that. I know Minatma is also working on that. And that's working for all of us, you know? It's work for all of us and is a constant growth process. And it's interesting to start thinking about, you know, as we become more inclusive, and this is something we've also been exploring in this season, as we become more and more inclusive of intersection, what does an affinity space mean? And I love the ways that each of you all have defined affinity space because it's a definition that is hard to put on paper. You know, you've kind of just find it through the vibe or the way in which your joy can be present in that space. The way in which your grief, your rage, your emotion, what's inside of you can be present in a space which is very different from saying it's a room in which everyone is Nina and Suana and queer, which is an interesting way to think about that and to think about how we grow and expand and create more intersectional affinity spaces. I also wanted to touch on something else you brought up, Fodos, which is this hybrid model. So today we're in person, we're live streaming, we're sharing this asynchronously on Konefa and Shea, and living in a more hybrid world, considerations of the merits and drawbacks of in person versus live versus hybrid gatherings have become very ubiquitous. And while art making has been multimedia since really the beginning of advancements in technology, virtuality has become an even more present consideration, especially for performing artists. So how do you consider physical space in your community building, in your affinity creation and in your art making? You have about five minutes left, so we'll do this sort of more rapid fire. Yes, yes. And I'll also throw in there, considerations of safety and affinity within virtual spaces that can be so much grander, can be international. How do you consider that when it comes to your community building and affinity curation, I guess? I'll jump in and say, I'm just gonna throw a wrench in here, which is gender. Because the spaces that I like to create, maybe because I miss them, because so many have disappeared, are women-only spaces. And that is trans-inclusive, right? And I do that a lot in my work, in my art making. I'm like my joy and pleasure is in women ensemble spaces. And there, again, there was a period of time when there were lots of, and this is so ironic, right? It's ironic because Middle Eastern and Muslim communities get criticized all the time for having gender segregation in public, right? And yet women-only spaces are like my favorite places to be. And so when I'm thinking about creating spaces of safety, it's often around gender identification that is inclusive of trans-non-binary and various sexualities rather than around sexual identity-defined space in my own work, in my own artistic practice. And so I don't know, I kind of wanted to lift up that when we're making our own ensembles, we're in a sense making our own affinity spaces, right? We gather people in a certain way to create together and to create the safety in which we can do our best work or ask the deepest questions or share the deepest stories, right? And so I don't know, maybe that's where I'm at is like making and remaking those spaces. I don't know if that answered the question, but that was just fine. I love it, yeah. I just wanna say, we've been using the word affinity space which tends to be, usually goes with an idea of limiting identity, limiting attendance by identity. However, that identity is defined. And I'm in a place, we just, in the conference just had this really beautiful conversation across different networks of color, representing all sorts of communities, all sorts of backgrounds and the intersectionality of our goals and resources that is needed. And I think I was using this term two days ago to a friend where I was like, I'm just looking for my people. And my people includes many, many, many Middle Eastern Muslim queer folks, but also Nataki Garrett, who's a cis black woman is my people. Eric Ting, who's an Asian-American cis straight man is my people. Meantio, Asian-American queer, femme human is my people. So, and I'm always trying to figure out as I build ensemble or as I build space, especially if the space is either around political action, change-making, or it's about difficult conversation or processing, whether that be through laughter or tears, as you said, Andrea. And I'm looking for my people and trying to make sure that the people in the room share some understanding. And I wish, as I said, I've just started using this term, so I don't know if I have the articulation of how that is defined for me, but the thing I can say is that I know when someone is and when someone isn't. And that is not necessarily across identity lines for me always. The thing I will say about the digital aspect of the question you asked, social media, the digital space that has really sprung out even more now due to the pandemic and the isolation we all felt through that has expanded my community, has done great things for my career, has done great things for my organizing and activism and advocacy. And then I attend a conference like this in person and remember that I'm an in-person person, right? So it's safe for me and as I haven't been back home for so long and my brother lives in a screen as far as I'm concerned, I feel like it's all of it and it has to be. And if you're an immigrant or children are immigrants or and it's really telling to me that in this moment of unbearable violence, the thing that Israel is doing is to shut down internet access, right? That is a violent act right now. And if that is the case, we have to accept that digital space and that access is community, is access to truth. And that does not negate the need for me to hug my brother, right? When I see him next, but it is both and it has to be. Does anyone else wanna comment on this before we wrap up? Yeah, I'll keep it short just cause I know that we're short on time, but I would like to agree completely, I'm not such an immigrant, I guess it's because, you know, we're all indigenous to somewhere. And I invite everybody to invite the folks in their lives, especially the folks that have not passed them yet. Where are you from basically? Where do you come from? We get asked that question a lot, I guess. Otherwise, where should I support other subjects? And I think that it's time to put that question back. And it's also important for each one of us to know where you come from. I believe they're involved in such that, you know, you'll never be able to move forward until you consent your own path, right? And you know where you come from. And from our journey, because there's a celebration there of your goals and how far you've come. Yeah, and just like asked, each other and I said, where do you come from? And to return to that place, a beautiful, wonderful writer and hopefully the performance of it, a writer very much, he came just five up a bar fee, said that you can share the path that you return to. And I truly believe that, yeah. I'll leave it there. Thank you all so much for this wonderful talk today. Thank you. We're going to end the way that number, and I end all of our episodes, our phone calls, the way that you might have ended the 20 minute goodbye at Hildo or Tooth House with a nice yellow bye. So can we do it all as a group? As loud as you can, so all the mics can pick them up, all right? Are you ready? Yellow bye, everyone. One, two, three. Yellow bye! Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for us. Yellow bye! I see your hand. We're done with the episode, but we can continue to chat.