 Cedar Center at the Grande Center CUNY most of you might know I'm Frank who runs the Cedar Center here I created this festival it's the 20th. It's actually the first time I curated it because for 19 times I always invited young kids young producers young people was ideas to create something come in front here for their chairs. And, but we only started in August it looked like CUNY was close till March it didn't look like we could get in I couldn't get the rooms was unclear how I could hire people so. But still it turned out into something. I think, hopefully inspiring and one of the great things of course is to have with us a company that we do not see enough and a lot. We have a company here in New York City it's the great nature theater Oklahoma so a great welcome to Pavel and Kelly. And, and I think we are going to do it a prelude style which you know we nobody has to present anything sell anything impress anyone is almost friends lots of colleagues here so it's just a sharing. Maybe you would be invited at your home, and we would get maybe a good Slovenian tea or coffee or something so first how are you guys today. Yeah. Is it is it on you have to push it up so you see a little blue light. Yeah, the blower bloomer of the romantics yes here so come over here come closer. So, what are you got what are you up to at the moment. Yeah, I, we only agreed to do this because it's you and you know, and most. Most of our work has been made in Europe not through any desire of ours to make it in Europe but that's just kind of where where it's led us and so you are one of the first people to offer us a place to try out something new which was poetic so which was like our first show that we were making. I think it was the first prelude. Yeah, I remember you guys up there and it was the first show, maybe you did ever or something or one of the first with that group of people we work with now for a really long time and so. Yeah, and, and I think I keep reading that we're that we've stopped making theater that we don't do it anymore that the company is over and it's absolutely not true, we've been working our asses off. And it's just that's really hard to bring anything back and now of course like half of the company lives in Europe and are, you know it's just it's a lot harder. So, we've been lucky that Frank has actually like made trips to see and seen more of the work than most people here and so he asked us if we wanted to come and talk about what we've been doing. I think the last thing that was here was the at the at the Skirball Center we did pursuit of happiness which was the first thing that we really made after life in times. We kind of got embarked on this life in times project which was like a multi year multi episode involved big chunks of everybody's life and the company and you know it kind of just it ground us down at a certain level, you know, people didn't want to have babies and like the show had no room for that or for, or for anyone to have a life, including us it was really stressful and so we we finished that out as best we could and then we kind of took a step back and like said what we'd like to do is maybe get out of get out of the theater. We felt like we were doing a week here week there and we had no like kind of. We had no basis and like reality and like a place or like you know there was just like a sense that life was very shallow we lived. And so we, we, we asked for like to be able to work outdoors and to work deeply over time in a specific space and that was, that was the start of a whole new kind of work for us. We, we, we asked to, we were asked by a festival to to make something specifically for like there were nine small towns in Germany, all kind of like loosely connected and we were supposed to engage with the community in each of these spaces. And, and to find something that related to the to the place and the people so probably ask people to get in touch with him and write him letters and be pen pals with him we visited the place over, you know, different parts of the year and time and we found that like the big thing that connected all of them was that they, all these places were somehow in the Nibelungen, the big epic German myth. And so we, we wrote a screenplay that of something that we thought would be impossible to do or we would need their help. And they, we, we somehow convinced the community to like, you know, we need a, we need a Viking ship. Somebody actually had one, you know, like they had and we need the Nibelungen treasure. So like some local artists collected everything shiny from the, you know, like it included CDs junk jewelry. It was the first work that we made that was kind of like with with a community with mostly amateur people using the camera as an audience. Like the camera became the proxy audience and everyone else was our was performing and making this with us because we just realized like the most and the most interesting thing for us in the work was always the rehearsals, you know, yes. What is nature. Oh, that's a big question. Yeah, we, we like to say we make the work that we don't know how to make and we tried to like attack something that we don't really understand or know much about. Yeah, sometimes we write it sometimes we've made it with interviews with people. It's taken a lot of different forms over the years that we usually try to do something that we have no permission to do or to deal with like our one of our last things was a ballet a story ballet just because we, and hopefully we'll get to bring that to the the Scrivall Center again in 2024 but we made it in 2018 which shows you just how difficult it is to get things done in New York and but you know it's a it's a form we have no relationship with and so we have to learn everything that we can possibly as amateurs ourselves know about story ballet about where it comes from about what's in a story ballet and we try to just approach it with like a beginner's perspective and it's just as ignorantly as possible. So like that is something, but it's included. It's been it's included performance it's included film and we made a book we've, you know, and then these these pieces, we made three different kind of fit we called them like performance film where the, you know, again the the camera is kind of the audience and everyone else helps us somehow make it as best we can we usually try to set up something that would be impossible or that we would think that we couldn't get like a burning building. And then somehow like somebody builds us like you know a doghouse and we set it on fire we pretend and we, you know, it was good. It was good for us to just like to need something from people and to kind of have to ask them to give us something and then, in part because of the Doris Duke performing artist award. We had some extra funding for ourselves to be able to devote time to this we we learned how to edit and make a movie that we could then bring back and give to them so you know part of it was paid, which was the, you know, the making time and then there's the making it time which is us making mistakes and trying to learn how to edit and make a professional looking movie style thing that they can then you know the next year we were invited back to the same festival and we did it as a red carpet event you know so they all got to like walk the red carpet all these people you know hundreds of people that were in it had made the treasure had like set things on fire for us and and we give them something back. So, I guess you would call it like kind of community based art, but you know, like I don't know what people call these kinds of things anymore but it was a chance for us to figure out. So you spend also a very long time for everybody it is the Wagner Wagnerian stories you know who also took that myth as they redid it, you know, and with their own style. How much time did you spend there and why did you do an opera with actors and opera singers why did you do that and how much time did you spend with the people. It was over the course of a year you know we would do a week here, a week there, come back. Once we were getting more and more sure of what you know the first time you don't know what you're going to even write or who's there or what the places look like we tried to set it in the, in the places that they found for us to work in. And then the second time you come back and you try to cast this the parts that you have and you try to. Tell people more what you need and then the third time we, you know we came back and we. We, and then we, we shot it we shot it in like three weeks or something ridiculous like that it was three and a half hour long film in the end and you know so we went home and like kind of just had all this footage. And we shot it silent. We were, I mean we've always been interested in the silent movie genre is like a kind of like you can see people learn to act for the first time. So that's, and the knee belong in the Fritz Lang classic was like a big. It was a big source of inspiration for us working on no dice. So that was nice to kind of come back to and revisit that I used all the music from the original and they managed to get the rights to use the music from the Fritz Lang film. And yeah and then we we brought it back to them. In, in other words a company that has a very hard time to be presented in New York City but they played the book theater in Vienna and the great in the big show spiel houses you know they in Europe. Though instead of for that project, going into an offer and doing this professional thing is that we do it outside but with people from a community and they spend almost a year of their lives. And with it, Pavel also for you what is the philosophy behind this why do you do this. So for me for us, you're likely alluded to it's, it's the best way to appreciate the work is to actually make the work. You know, I used to be a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I never really. I mean I knew paintings were great, but I, but I never really appreciated them. You know I couldn't. I could look at a Vermeer and I was like well, that's nice. And so until until I spent 12 hours in the gallery, guarding it, and actually had to cut and try to copy it, you know, try to copy it with my own hands to to see the gestures that it took to make that. I would just keep keep drawing all these all these paintings and realize that you know this is the only way really for me to find a way to appreciate the work. And so then we, as Kelly said we we instead of being a spectator. And so I wanted to find a way that the that whoever is is whoever wants to experience the work must make it. And so the, and making the film. We always thought of it as as theater projects even though people said like oh they quit making theater and they're making films of no not really we for us it was always a always a theater project where wherever the shooting itself was the performance was provided as many people as came in the audience whoever came, you know, and I wouldn't call it participatory, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't like that you know it was just us going to a place coming and involving the people who were in charge and talking You know, in, in, in the Olden vault, where the Nibelungen story takes place you know we would talk to the to the mayors of each each community each village and give them a specific here's these three scenes will come in here. You know, you read what it says in here and do the best you can to make it possible. And they were all impossible scenes you know it's not like we that they were shot least or anything they were you know we need a dragon and so, you know, then in Lindemfels there's a dragon museum and so the, and the guy has a little lizard that he calls a dragon and he's got all kind you know so we use that whatever you know whatever you know so you try to create an impossible task and then you squeeze the squeeze the juice out of you know, out of the community out you squeeze the juice out of the area, like it's an orange with with having still, you know, I don't want us to sound like we're good people you know that we're just, you know, we're still interested in making rigorous amazing revolutionary art it's not you know it's not like yay we want to embrace humanity and make them all feel good about themselves no it was you know we're so, but but we were always inspired by the garbage aesthetics of the 60s and 70s New York avant-garde cinema and, you know, Jack Smith and Warhol and all those people that made things out of stolen film and you know, I just don't I don't, we don't have a need for a professional opera singer when we can get you to sing it, you know. Yeah, and we, when we would cast these things I think what our biggest question was is like why do you want to do this, and everybody had a different reason a very personal reason and like that's kind of all I'm interested in is what is your investments in doing this you like to work with other people do you want to, you know, do you, because we're going to be working on it like 1213 hours a day we'll be like you know do you, is that okay with you yes you know and you know for these guys to we decided that the way that we would physically connect these places was we would ride our bikes to like from town to town like a like because we were really into the Tour de France and we wouldn't also get healthy. And so we, you know, we all like went by bicycle and this was also its own kind of event so it's just, it was like for us just like how big can we think about theater and how many people can it involve. The only thing about shooting it silent was Pauvel is, you know, able to direct people live, and you know shouted them like more blood, you know, like kill him down. And yeah so it just becomes like, I think we were looking for like how is it fun for us again honestly it was a selfish thing on my part to to just like, I want to know again why do this because sometimes it just becomes such a drain and a drag and it becomes like that, in a way in a way that I didn't want it to be I don't I don't ever want it to be a job. And then we did the same thing in Berlin and cologne with their son the need balloon and then then then it became a bit a little bit of a bigger scale. You know, and then it, but it still worked where where we had okay we need, we need pigs, because we shot everything backwards and then we turned it around to make it forward because it was a science fiction film. So we wanted people to move a little weird but and we had pigs. And so we said we need, you know, the pigs need to learn to make to walk backwards. And so, but we have, we got three pigs that the people that train them, they train them to walk backwards, you know, but, and so it was, you know, every. We shot parts of it in cologne parts of it in Berlin, and then made this film and then the third project, but there again it was just a huge crowd scenes. You know just things that that you know everybody always says, well you're going to make a film like wow that's cost so much money is like I don't mean I don't know. I don't know it's free because we have a camera and we can just do it for free I don't know what it doesn't cost anything I don't know what you're talking about. The catering budget is so big it's like, I don't know I'll just bring my own sandwich. You hear about like continuity, you know, like arts, our movies don't have any continuity like sometimes it's raining and one, you know, you, you film the one guy it's raining you film that reaction shot it's not raining and we just kind of embraced that as like, you know, this is a record of a performance is not an attempt to like, you know, suck you into a reality that you might find believable. The films where documents of that of that of that experience, and the way you applied when you first started out is that we work without tax we want to see. You know, we don't even know how to work with it. Yeah, in a way you brought that method of questioning everything to film but tell a bit about the beginning and how does it relate to what you do now. And it's always about people expecting us to do something and then we just don't do that. We just, it's like, we did the third project which was in the Austrian countryside. You know, based loosely on every day LNX, the kinder to Totten and, and that was a, because we had a, you know, or recital was the producer so it got more distribution and it was all over the festivals and it won prizes and so the next person next thing everybody was so what's going on, you know, you know, so we so well we don't make any more films. And so, it's always like that you know so it's like we, we in episode one of life and times he was all sung and, and live music and so the next one is like well let's not, you know everybody's like oh yeah we're going to see the singing live music they're so great. And then those people show up and it's like, oh no that's not it's like dancing now and that's not live music that's crazy I don't like that. Tell a bit about life and times I mean we showed by the way the knee belong in here we were the American premiere I guess. Oh yeah, no festival. Yeah, I have, I have, I actually like also learn how to burn blue, blue rays. And, yeah, no I have them but nobody, you know I haven't like, nobody wants them so if you want one yeah just write me. But yeah, tell a bit about life and times that incredible ideas of interviews and phones and people who haven't seen it and what, what was the idea for that. It was part of like a lot of. We basically generated all of the material that we used for like 10 years of making work within like a short three month period. And it was just, you know, I think probably was waiting for me to finish work on on something and we had just finished a production and he was, he was lonely and we, one of the things that we kept getting asked with whatever we were doing was like well, where's the story, you know because we were interested in being experimental artists and we didn't really think about the story. So, we started thinking a lot about story. And I just, I just, I called, because when you, when you direct to play it's very social and you're working with a lot of people and then you stop and then you don't see anybody for, for nine months. And so I just felt like what's this, you know, this time between what is it, you know, how do I lose track, how do I lose contact with humanity and so I just called, but I still wanted to work. I just, I hate hanging out with people, and it's just hanging out so I called about 15 people in my contact list and ask them if they want to be a part of this where I would call them anytime I want to talk to somebody, call them and I would record the phone calls. And so I would just call anybody and those people agreed to have the phone calls recorded and then we would, I would ask them sometimes tell me a story. First we did the Romeo and Juliet where I would, you know, no, we did the, we did no dice where we just talking about, you know, because nobody paid us so I called, I called people at work on their jobs and I would just talk to them so that the people who are paid for them paid for our work. That was the joke is that it's like, it was our first corporate art project, you know, but, but you, you were asking people can you tell me a story. The story but they couldn't tell nobody could tell a story so it's like, hey, nobody gives a shit about stories. So then I said, okay, I still want to pursue this so let's see who you know let's see if there's a story that everybody knows and, you know, I never read Romeo and Juliet so I said okay tell me the story of Romeo and Juliet so then everybody, everybody told me the story of Romeo and Juliet and we we heard it, and we recorded it and then we made a show up, Romeo and Juliet out of these out of these recordings. But this was still like, all these recordings were made within three months we hadn't started work on no dice we didn't really know, like, you just made this pile, I just wanted it was necessary it was a it was out of necessity I just thought I just needed to talk to people that's all, you know, and then we just ended up with this pile of material that was fairly innocent because nobody, even us knew what we were going to do with it. We were all kind of loosely around story. We also did like public asked a certain actor to tell him the story of Rambo because he was really, he was really really into the story of Rambo and the difference between the Rambo movie and the Rambo book and so, but he also like was talking while he was working. I think he was doing like medical records or cancer research. Yeah, but it was, you know, but even I called him at work and he had to stop talking because he had to go do something. And I said, Well, let me call you back. And I'll finish the story I said that it's not that it's not going to work. We can't do it. Because, you know, it had to not be prepared it had to not be. I told him we were not we're not doing it because he had to stop. But then a little later I called him when he wasn't ready. You know, so it was more about it was more about just what's what's the archeology of the mind what's what gets stuck in there. And so to answer your question Frank like the last thing we were going to do is probably asked can you tell me your life story and he called the first person who was Kristen. And she, she like got two hours into the phone call and she was still only at like age five and so they, they said like, I'll call you know I'll call you again and like we'll finish this up and it took like 10 different phone calls and then after that it was like, well there's really no sense in talk, talking to anybody else or asking anybody else this question because she's answered it so thoroughly. So stuff just went into the closet we started playing with some of the material and made no dice. And then, yeah, life in times was we got an offer from the Berg Theater in Vienna, which is the place where Mozart premiered cozy fun to tea and so we knew that it had to be something like high art that we couldn't do. But like maybe the most epic thing you can do with this really boring story would be to make an opera and Rob was learning one of our actors Rob was, we were doing no dice at the time, I think still and he was learning how to play the ukulele. And he was, he was pretty good at like kind of working fast and we gave him a page of this and we said that can you, can you see what you can do with this and he came back with something that interested us and that was it. So it didn't it just started out with the ukulele then we found out like well most of the actors like know how to play something kind of, you know some guys took oboe and like high school. They gave us an assistant director while we're there we never we had no need for an assistant director but he played piano so Rob got a pianist, you know, and it became like, yeah our attempted at opera but it was totally like what we do is in response to an invitation or like a, you know, a proposal, you know, like, what are we going to do at the Berg Theater in Vienna like this is a super duper fancy theater that we have. We've been working in basements for our, our first theater was a fourth floor walk up with like 30 folding chairs like what do we, what do we do in that space what does that space want what does it expect. What is the audience for that space and like what do we, what's our answer back to that. So, yeah it was a big theatrical machine build over centuries rooted in the very old tradition of the and they meet you as a company that can work in New York so it's kind of too extreme. There are some evolutions of machines institutions or non institutions, and but something interesting. And they gave us three of their actors who are, you know, like that that theater there's, there's portraits painted of these actors as you walk into it like they are institutions in and of themselves. And like, we'll work with those people and our people but they have to spend as much time in New York as we spend in Vienna with them. And so when they came to New York, we had, I think a residency up at this like high school for the arts in the Bronx. You know they, we worked in the cafeteria. They were completely shocked that this is the way you know we were like this is what this is what is the stuff of our work and this is why this is where we come from and I still feel that way I still am not a European artist I make work here, but it's so it's like the last three pieces we've made have been deeply, you know, from pursuit, pursuit of happiness to no president the story ballet and our last one Bert Rito have all been kind of like morality plays they've all been consumed you know consumed with these questions of like power and morality, and political stuff going on here and our feelings about it, like, kind of from afar but also like you know every time I come back something new has happened you know like the Roe v Wade thing was happening while I was away it's like every time I come back it's a new country, and it's frustrating that we haven't been able to do to bring more of these things back because I feel like it's in dialogue with this place and with my home, and, and yet I'm outside of it, you know. It's a simple question but what does it mean for you guys to do theater I remember we did a seagull talk in Corona times when nobody knew what would happen I remember Pavel saying well, if we can perform. Then I go and perform and if I get infected and die so what I but I can't live without doing theater base. What does it what does it why do you do it what what is your artistic motivation what do you why do you do it. I think we ask ourselves that fresh every time I mean I think that's the whole that's the only question we have gone, you know, there's no other really no other. There we have no story to tell no, you know, it's just that is the question we're asking. I'm really with every with every project and that is, if we teach, we ask like what are you doing here. It's crazy that you're here you know and. And so when you know it's so it's not so it's not as dramatic is like well I'll die for theaters were very serious. I am very serious because I just don't understand how why we cling to to miserable life that much you know I mean I. Like life, we just seem to like be so miserable and like I don't, I don't know why we're really fighting that hard to stay alive. If it's not, if it's not all out you know I just. You know it's just, it's, it needs to be, it needs to be the, the most, you know, a theater space is an is an epic space you have to, you have to grow in, you have to grow up into it as a, as a person you know it's not a, it's not a little phone screen or a computer screen or a TV screen you know it's you know you need to really expand your elbows and and and fill that space with with with something and and I feel like we're you know, we're all we're just being always asked to do less and I'm just not really doing less you know so if we can do more we're not it's just not then let's say like okay so the project the project that we're working on now is like let's make theater in the entire America so our project is to is to travel across America on motorcycles and and you know, make theater in that way and then find a way to do this summer right you tell a little bit about it. Yeah I mean we've been we've been traveling across America. We've been traveling for more, like, five, four years. We've made three long trips. The only area we have left is, you know, Texas Nevada and California and that New Mexico, but everything else we've, we've traveled and we've talked to people and gotten to know those places and and in the way have performed ourselves. There are others in those places and have have made other people perform themselves in in Walmart parking lots and and you know so it's just trying to increase the scope, even if just for ourselves at this point you know but somehow it'll it'll I'm it'll morph and change into something that, you know, we used to be on the road nine months out of the year and the covert pretty much just wiped wiped wiped us out we have one tour date coming up and that's it, you know, and that's, that's, and that's fine, you know, it's not, you know, we know that I can always go, you know, I work in a typewriter shop on 17th Street, so it's not it's it's not a problem for us we've never wanted to be professionals. You know, we could have, we could have pursued after book theater or after Fox, you know, the last show we did in Vienna was folks that are, and, you know, I could just make make a phone call and get another job like that, you know, it's not a, it's not, but that's just not. It's just not, it's not what we want to do. And just for everyone to know the book theater and we're an even great German directors who for 10 years are the director of the Berlin ensemble late wait for a call of a book theater. It's a very big deal. So let me think it so you this summer spent on to Harley Davis and we just drive around you perform them set yourselves and you collect material you do all the redo recordings or you have or you on one motorcycle how does it You know, we we each I mean this was also just part of I feel like you get to a party, you know, I'm we challenge people to do what they can't do. And this for me was a big challenge I mean I'm probably the person we would vote be voted least likely to be a biker. I hadn't, you know, I hadn't ridden a car or anything for like 30 years and, you know, and I just thought like, I want to I want to push myself to do that and it's, it scares me. But I, I've, I've, I've grown myself like into. I like that it, it expands my sense of space like I, you know, I've, I've traveled a lot more to outside of New York than I have in a while and I feel like what we were what we were feeling at the time too was like you know you just live in this bubble of New York and you think that everybody is like you but actually like that's very different. You know when we took our first trip up to Maine just going through like upstate New York, you know, like what we were seeing and what we're hearing and what you just, I felt like very curious about all of it because I just felt very different I don't understand what's happening and so all of these, like, they're not really vacations it's more like I just want to know, like, who's out there and like, and also it's from an inability to speak to like people in my family who, who are very different from what I found with the biking is like motorcycles attract a very diverse actually group of people, you know, like there's everybody from like, you know, hardcore lesbian activists to like very conservative military guys, and all of all of this stuff and ask you like can you rev your motor for me like how cool is that like how many cc's and like they I still don't understand a lot of it, but you know it's it's a it's a meeting point is what it is and when you're on the bike you're very vulnerable is like the moment you stop it, people can come up to you touch you. You're you're also vulnerable to the elements I know the surface of roads it sounds kind of like nothing but like I started to judge America to from the surface surface of its roads like we went through like this part of East Cleveland. I think you know they had potholes big enough to swallow you, and it felt so I didn't understand what a food desert was until we drove through and like there's no food here we were so hungry. We could not stop the bike and it looked just shot I was, I was shocked at the poverty and I'm ashamed to say that I just didn't know how a lot of Americans were living and I sometimes feel too like I don't maybe, maybe fit in in this area that I'm going like what do they think of a couple of white people on motorbikes what do they think that I believe. And then I go back and once we're through a place I look up like well what is this East Cleveland like what used to be there. It used to be like the mansion, the mansion place for Carnegie and Rockefeller and all, and all those people are still buried there there's a cemetery in the middle of this food desert, where like the titans of industry are all buried and that's amazing to me so I feel like right now it's just, it's just going it's just going through the country as ignorantly as possible in a way which is not too hard because I, I feel very ignorant as I'm going through it and and reading about whatever sparks my interest in talking to people and like, you know we don't record I find it really difficult I don't think I don't think it's possible to record strangers. I think the reason that that recording stuff worked was because we were working with people who trusted us to whatever we're doing with the material so a lot of it is talking to people and so you were not on the road, not for nine months you went yourself in the kind of a traditional of a Kerouac of a road movie of a Ulysses searching for a golden fleece or to understand where we are. How does it make you feel that you don't have a company here I'm not sure we have a company members in Europe and ensemble. How do you feel about this and where is your company, how does that work how do you organize your work. I feel like our company is really big but you know like because it because it embraces like all the people who have made work with us which now are, you know, like there's a lot of people in Europe and and also other people and how do you connect to them and how do you create the work. I mean some people we just work with once like on those movies you know but like I still see them every once in a while. But you know there's of course and yes, I think she was performing yesterday. There's Rob. You know, the same people that we started with in poetics in here are pretty much still except one are still part of the work and they're in the in the in the burrito, which was, which we made during the pandemic. And they're also in no president which we made, which was supposed to come here to scribble right before the pandemic but then it got canceled. And now we're hoping to, you know, but it's, it's, you know, we made four shows during the pandemic, and they're all in storage in, in, in Berlin, that we're paying for with money that we don't have you know so it's not, it's not. Those people are committed to the work they're there if we're going to do something they'll do something with us. But it's just this is the first time because also theaters in Europe are also getting their kind of funding cut so nobody's really asking us to do anything so really it's not. It's, it's really kind of back to back to the beginning for us where we're just like, Oh, why are we alive. You know so it's not it's it's really a good existential crisis, you know, I think I think it's, we don't, we don't ever want to kind of figure it out because it's every project is an existential crisis and and this is this is a big one, you know when one could think oh it's a midlife crisis but I, you know, then I'd have had 17 of them already. You know, so it's, you know, it's a deaf, it's definitely a crisis we have no. But coming back everybody I why don't you move to Europe because there you could, you know, have, but it's like, I don't even though I'm in. I'm not from here really. This is where I feel at home the most because New York is where I've lived the longest of my life but this is where I live. But I have not worked here other than in, you know, working in the shop now. And that's okay with me to not to not be established, because I think that's the death you know I don't want to make it and I don't want to. I always want to make, I want to always make the work out of out of zero or from the negative, you know, and I feel like right now we're in the in the, in the minus. Comfortably in the minus. I mean, even, even, even the cultural, you know, it's like we applied for four grants that used to give us money but we got none of them. You know, so because it's, you know, it, it rightly or wrongly is going to different people. So it's, it's, you know, it's just and it's fine to, you know, it's like okay we will. Our aesthetic is the aesthetics of practical solutions. That's that's all you know, like how do we okay if we have this and you and here okay let's try to figure out a way how to convince you to do the show. I'll do the show with you, and we can do this and still be as ambitious and not think small but still be as ambitious as we can possibly be the way Jack Smith was or can Jacobs or you know any of those any of those people that that that made great art epic art. With, with, with nothing, you know, it's, it's just, and Europeans don't understand it, because they always wait for you know when we teach somewhere and they always like oh I'm waiting for my money to come in to make a show. It's like no you have to make two shows for free ahead of time, and then lie about it and tell them like you haven't made the shows, because you know already that what the shows are you know it's like, we always made two shows ahead. Didn't tell anybody and told them like I would like to make this show Romeo and Juliet. We've already made it and done performances of it's like it was already and but then we asked for the money for it afterwards once we made it already we didn't, you know it's like not waiting for permission. And not waiting for permission to you know I want to make a ballet. I'm going to make a ballet I don't know how I've never choreographed anything I don't, I don't know how to dance I've never been to a ballet let's just go see a ballet. So we went to see not cracker, great good enough I know enough now we can do a ballet so then we did a story ballet based on that. And then we did from the very corner where I could just see like a little corner of the of the stage at the at the Met, and that was it, you know it's just that's, that's just where we where we are, and that's our company, you know, and. Yeah, but it's the, you're right like the core is still the people that we that we started with I mean we're very lucky and that they've. They're, they're very dedicated and we're dedicated to them and. Yeah, or we're lucky to get to work with them. You move between the two worlds, this two continents or some say actually they're two universes or two different stars in Europe and here and what do you think about New York theater and what do you think about European theater. It's sometimes it's always, you know, it's like when when people like Richard form and are are gone or you know when and when people, and you when you ask people. If they even heard of Richard form and they haven't you know it's just a, and then sometimes people ask, you know, when we want to talk to people about the work they ask us about contact lists. Because they think that it's you know if you know the right people then you can, you can do the work or somehow you know so yeah you know it's it's we, we, you know it's a loaded question. I feel like we come from a we come from an older New York theater and you know a lot of the artists that inspired us are, you know, like we work, you know probably work for free for like two years for Richard form and like I mean I don't think anybody wants to work for free anymore like I will I put in my time and other theaters I you know we've been lucky that we've had people that open their rehearsals to us to watch them work and to help them work. So like that's where we come from and I feel like it seems it seems more professional to me now but with like people talking to me about the industry like I don't it's not an industry is really like, and I feel like we're all trying to treat it right now as an industry and as like a thing that's like banking or something that you know it should of course, like in Europe be able to pay us all living wage and like have health insurance, but it doesn't like there's nothing to support it. There's no, you know, none of these theaters have like steady streams of income, we're all relying on private donations and I think we come from like you do it with love because you have to and it's almost like a religious zealot thing and if you got to work in a typewriter store to like make it happen that's what you're going to do and I always tell people in Europe like I can work fearlessly because I know nobody can take that work away from me nobody can give me permission to make that work that nobody can give me. I don't need money I don't need your money I don't need your space like I can do it with a piece of cardboard and and a tarp, you know just give me time and give me people who care and I can make it. And that's that's what those films were in a, in a way, you know. So, some of the people did it because they just wanted to make a movie on their own and we gave them permission. You know, like they could see, like they can see us fumbling with it and then they can make their own movie you know so like, nobody, nobody should give you permission it's not an industry. Don't expect to be paid for it it's a privilege to have people show up and like you should just do your best for the, for the people who are willing to like come and share that work with you. And that's what New York is to me or was or, you know, like, that's where I come from and, and where we come from. What do you think about the extraordinary response you got from your work from you know there's this the Florian Maltzaker who put out the book and just the contributors. It is stunning. You said we're not going to sell. No, we are. We brought six copies of a book if anybody wants it. It's like, I don't know how much we're going to charge 25, 25, yeah. 25 bucks, you know, we always sell something, you know, this might be more worse than a t-shirt, you know, I mean, we have a box of t-shirts at home but I didn't want to bring it because I didn't know if anybody would show up at any one of walk around. That's why walking. I don't think it's for granted that anybody's going to show up, you know, it's like, I'm ready for no one to show up. Yeah, but no we were very lucky like Florian wanted to put a book together and we forced me to kind of go through like all of the old, like, I had postcards from the some of the shows that we made in New York, like I used to make those postcards on, like, I've worked at a law firm, I would like use their Xerox machine before anybody got to the office and stuff, but like, nobody remembers postcards anymore. And so, anyway, anyway, remember what. No, but, but yeah, he put that book together. So you brought your New York aesthetic for what the way you worked here to Europe what did you bring back what did you learn. The harder it is the better it's going to be so you have to just be willing to let it be hard. And work hard, you know, it's a lot of it's even in Europe it's you can you get those people get paid $5,000 a month 5000 euros a month plus $400 per each performance they do, and yet they don't show up on time and they work like shit. Whereas I, you know, where, you know, so it means nothing, really, whether you get paid or not, if you're not willing to really work hard it's not you know it is a mission it is a, it is a, you have to approach it with a missionary zeal. And it is, it is a, you know, art is a kind of religion, it just, there's no, there's no, otherwise there's no need for it really, to me, like I don't, you know, unless it's, it serves this this other, like, is it just to hang on the wall or make a decoration. It's not, that's not what we're interested in so it's it's I think I think Europe taught me that there, there are big audiences for that kind for a kind of demanding work that I feel like sometimes it's hard to convince theaters to, you know, everybody's so afraid to lose what little funding they have that they kind of kind of tend, I think here to sometimes underestimate the audience. Yeah, it's just like we don't feel weird in Europe doing doing the best work we can do. It's not, and explaining, oh, what do you do, we make theater, and, and they don't, they don't think it's either Shakespeare in the park, or, or, or musical. You know, whereas like a major existential crisis if we go to the Midwest and south or something and somebody I say well so what do you do for a living it's like. Oh my God, how do I even start explaining it to you like you just have no idea because just, there's just no no connection to that kind of work that we do. So it's, it's, you know, it gave it gave us like okay we're we're not completely living in weirdos. We're just doing the best work that we can possibly make and it's, and there are people who watch it and it's not they're not like seven people weirdo seven people from the whole city that are like, want to see weird open weird or things at midnight but it's like a normal thing, you know, that you can, and it's not avant garde, it's not experimental it's not devised whatever the bullshit words, we use that it's like whoa, you know, it's just theater, you know, we just make theater and that's it you know this it's, it's, it's. So what are the great works of theater you loved what did you see that really inspired you that formed you. Yeah, I mean we all talk we talk about this in the book but like, there was a, there was a weekend where we managed to see Reza Abdo's quotations from a ruined city with your groups of Frank Dell temptation of saying Anthony and also Richard Foreman, I've got the shakes my head was a such hammer, and that like, yeah, one weekend you know there's just all in one weekend and And, and when I was here like, I was, I was here, like in 92 and I saw everything at the, at the bam next wave festival, including like Robert Wilson's Einstein at the beach which was like it just took me on a journey of being like, you know, forward Rhapsodized like I mean I felt so much during all of this like angry at it like got to go bathroom hungry. So like that one also, you know, and also gats, you know they've been inspiring works by people that we, you know that we've been in the same kind of cadre with co conspirators in this and yeah. Those things, I feel like. I wish I could have seen more in Europe, I'm sure that that would have also shaped me but like there was more than enough to shape, and also all of the work we lived four blocks away from anthology film archives. At a certain point, you know, like when we were chasing the kind of aesthetic of like Richard Foreman and Wooster group, who had just, they had spaces, so their work was lived in and it was prop heavy and said heavy and design heavy in a way that we wished that we could be but we couldn't. And so to me the going to the anthology film archives and seeing, you know, Jack Smith or the Kuhar brothers, and just how like how, and like, you know, Mike Kuhar was there projecting his own stuff, you know, and like Ken Jacobs, you know we would go to the gardens and see and like he's there he's with his own machine that he built to show his like Lumiere thing. And so just being in that environment and seeing people who work with like, you know, none of them are rich. And none of them had what they needed to make their work and they made it anyway and so like at a certain point I feel like those people gave us permission in a way that I hope sometimes we can give other people permission to just throw themselves into it. You know, like those guys gave me hope that I could make work with nothing. And once we actually embraced our actual like means of making work and stuff like this is it and it's going to be you know we're going to make it with a phone call and with iPods because everybody's got iPods and we're going to make it in this fourth floor walk up like that once I accepted that that was the way it was going to be. And that's when we started making good work. Before we come to the audience. What would be a dream project they someone in New York said we produce you guys don't think about what's costs or where now what would you. What would you love to do what would you what would be a project. No president started here. The idea was. I mean, I'm not going to do it in the atrium in Mo at MoMA. But then they realized like oh you actually have to like rehearse and you have to do stuff and it involves people and it's like, oh no let's not, let's not do it. I mean, it's it's. I'm not doing the Kafka's America as a starting point you know a lot of just New York, New York locations but with the with the film films, kind of things but you know it's really will be super hard in New York in America to do this kind of project that in Europe we need to do innocently because here everybody would think that you know you just need because that it's like a movie so you need to pay a lot, you know or something or you need to like get permissions whereas we just like did we just went and did it, you know, in Europe, you know nobody was like hey yeah you need permission you need this you need this you need this. And just like just the idea like as we started to think about how do we do something like that here which we wanted to. It was so much harder to envision that like, you know even getting people to like a lot of our work would involve like working people and like you know involving them in like eight minutes at the end of like life and times episode two. And it's, it starts to be a whole conversation about like well what are you. You know you're asking me to work for free I should be paid I'm not like I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but you know like we want to involve as many people as possible and we don't have the money and so if you get something out of this like we can work for free for like years for other people and and that kind of what it was this kind of thing where it's like you give a little and you get something from from the people that you work with and it just doesn't it seems less than that's possible here so I would love to you know if somebody wanted to give us a space for like a longer period of time, like we still work as we have from the beginning out of our apartment. And when we made this ballet where people were dancing off into the bathroom because that's what we, you know that's where the wings are. But I can't invite people to see stuff in my apartment you know so it'd be nice. I really, I really the biggest gift anyone ever has given us here has been Ryan at downtown art who gave us. I was in a theater for youth program that was four flights up in this building and she said I'm not using it at night. If you want to use it at night and in exchange make something with me and the, and the young people, then you know you can use it for free. So having like a space and I think most people to it's like if you have a space and you can invite people into that space here. That's huge. That's all. Yeah, it'd be huge. We have a big space panel on Monday and how much more time do we have. Oh, okay. Okay, but so I apologize I got a bit carried away so but maybe you hang out a bit outside if you have questions to ask. People have to get this book. Okay, so thank you really thank you for talking about your work and they are whoever is listening. Any producers listening for complex shows are in Berlin. Yeah, so they're in there in Berlin. Anybody wants to put them up. Just write us or write them and they will do it. Thank you.