 Hello, everybody. Welcome, welcome. As you settle into this live virtual space. My name is Sam Morielli. I use they them pronouns. I'm currently sitting my buns on my couch on the land of the Lenape people who have started this space that I'm currently residing in, in what is now Brooklyn, New York. I want to welcome you all to our third panel of the Prelude Festival called Black Imagination. I'm super excited for this lineup of guests that we have for you. I'm super excited for this conversation. I cannot wait to learn from these leaders, makers, human shakers, all sorts of things. This festival has been so tremendous thus far, starting last week, going until this Friday. I hope you'll visit our website to continue checking out all that we have. It's PreludeNYC2020.com. Every day, more stuff happening today. Much of it is going to be available past this Friday, so you'll have opportunities to check out this panel and much more in the future. I want to quickly thank the Segal Center, the Segal Theater Center for hosting us, the Martin E. Segal Theater Center. Let me really say that whole title. For hosting us, helping us make space for these artists and to really interrogate our theme, Sights of Revolution. So without further ado, I want to welcome to the virtual stage our panelists for this conversation, Black Imagination. We can't hear you, Jalen. You need one thing unmuted. One thing muted, one thing unmuted. Oh my God. It's a great start already, you know. Sights of Revolution are about messy beginnings. I thought we just met the whiz for a second. That's amazing. Oh man. Thank you everyone who's watching. Thank you everyone who is here on this call for joining. I'm Jalen Levingston. I am a storyteller, director, writer. Sometimes I perform if I really want to. And I brought some of my favorite multi-hyphenates with me to have a just open conversation around the things that are like really turning them on right now. I feel like it is very rare in these times that black artists can get together and just talk about being artists, nerd out about the things that are setting us on fire artistically. And so I wanted to create space for that today. Because also I was kind of tired of using all of my vocabulary to fix problems. So I want to use my vocabulary in a different way. Oh, amen. Okay. I mean, you all have done it, so don't even. I want to just like popcorn it over to someone for like a quick intro and check in of just like how you want to be identified today and what you do in the world. And then we can jump into the conversation. So I will pass it over to Tracy. Oh, of course you would. Hi, everyone. I am Tracy Conyer Lee. I use the she series pronouns. I want to be known in the world as a lover of people and things and life. Yeah, that's how I want to be known in the world. In this industry, I am a writer, performer. I am a team player collaborator. I content creator and coach. That's what I got. Great. Was there more? No, pass it to someone else. Oh, Biko, I don't know you as well. I would love to get to know you. What's up? I'm so honored to be in a space with you. I saw your name. You know, the last time I saw you was opening night at the Longworth. Holy poop. Yeah. One of the most amazing world premieres. I've seen in a very long time. That was a dope experience. On the grounds of belonging. On the grounds of belonging. On the grounds of belonging. Whoa, that play was amazing. I was like around the corner doing a workshop. I got to just pop in and sleep right and come reparty and all that. But the play, oh my god. This is a dope experience. That's my introduction. That's all I really need to say. On the grounds of belonging at Longworth was one of the best things I've seen in a very long I am Biko. You can call me that Jonathan. Hey everyone. I mean, how do you how do you go after that? My name is Jonathan Macquarie. I use the he-ham. Spears of she. I am multi hyphenated in multiple different ways. I like to say that I'm a creative doula. So that encompasses it all. So allows me to show up as I want to when I want to and how I need to be here and happy to be in conversation with these light warriors. And I'm Jaylin. There you go Jaylin. What was I about to say? Well, I guess I want to start by saying that I think that the imagination is the most like radical political tool we have. And that's the only thing I really want to say about politics other than I do think the imagination is the most radical political tool we have. And hopefully we have a conversation that gets to tickle our pickle around our imagination. And so the first thing- And our nine pickles for those of us that ain't got pickles. I don't know how you define a pickle, Tracy. Delicious. I'm not going to define pickles. That is next week. This is going to be a crazy hour. Okay, sorry. So the first thing I want to jump in with this just like a really light softball question of what's haunting you right now? What is the thing that is keeping you up at night that is stalking your hallways? What is the shadow that you are in company with when other people aren't around that is finding its way into your work right now? And anyone can jump in and you know we can take the conversation in any direction we want but that's- I want to start there. I mean haunting is a very interesting word because it doesn't- it initially made me think of Halloween and made me think of Scream and made me think of all those things. And then I also thought about haunting is also the thing that also could be interjecting you. It also could be the thing that actually is giving you something to look forward to. The thing that is actually itching you to do something positive or something that is shifting, right? It's a it's a catalytic force. It's a dynamic force. It's a it's a forward force. So when I think about that I think about the notion of I'm haunted by the very the very need and desire to center joy inside of every action that I'm in. I'm haunted by the notion of how is joy being centered? How is joy being amplified? How is joy being rooted? How am I amplifying black joy in particular? How am I centering that? Also understanding that like I'm haunted also by the kind of the invitation of not being able like being forewarned not to go see my family for the holidays, right? That's a haunting, right? That's a haunting the the the challenging of joy in that moment of being like I might actually spend Christmas by myself. I haven't done that. What does that mean? What does that sense of ability mean? Where how do I when I know that I need that like that brings me so much joy? How is my haunting or my quest for joy being challenged by this very real virus that is that that is that is transforming my like not like even my work life my everyday life my family structure how I see my family how I get to be held in my family. So I would say that's maybe haunting me maybe like holiday and then also thinking about because I am a cultural leader like how does that how does that then affect the people that I love like the people on this on people on this zoom right now. How will we be affected by that and how then can I produce work if I am gifted the gift to create space? How do I produce work that works as an adult for that dissonance that's going to be created by that very real thing of like I don't want to transmit this I don't want to be a transmitter of this disease the people that I love but also don't want to be the victim of this disease as well. Why is joy not the same as happiness? Oh you want to go down there? I mean if we're going to use those words you know. I was thinking about even just the normality of joy or lack of normality of joy and like what that is to people and even the attempt to like institutionalize it and what that might mean for some people and others and like you know I'm not uh it's where I was going to say something different but I really do want to piggyback the joy thing a little bit just because it's like it's something I struggle with often um whether it's like and it's usually either on the like how do you find more happiness and how do you allow more happiness and and as artists I know I fall into a trap of sometimes we we think the work is happiness and and then once the work is over and times like these or whatever you know and then you like oh I thought I was doing all this work so I was in this space with all my peoples and but but as soon as all of that was subtracted I'm I'm not necessarily where I want to be so just trying to you know just trying to like you know really figure out what those things mean and and how does this the work required to sustain them uh especially in these times. Yeah I'm not going to elaborate on this extremely because it's nobody's business but what I'm what Biko just articulated is something that I think I've been trying to wrap my own language around or I should say the antithesis of it because what this time did in erasing so much of what I thought gave me happiness so much of what I thought gave me joy I have really determined in this time where my joy does live and that it does live I I this has been a dark time for everyone but it has it has been such a a a healer of my life in terms of making things very clear making what is good about my life very clear in a way that and I'm not saying art but my career is finally secondary to my life I discovered that during this time and just to blip your question that you had Jalen around what is what the between the difference between happiness and joy um I I will I equate it between I was thinking about it it's like saying thank you and saying and then also saying ashay so happiness is like saying thank you it is a it is a it is it it can supply itself it tells you it tells you gives you a greeting it is rooted in the moment of now um while ashay and joy are rooted in my personal opinion a blood a blood conversation of ancestral memory it is a it is a deeper of knowing there's a deeper sense of being joy is rooted in a more complicated sense of also of how it shows up right um joy can be rageful joy joy can be joy has a joy doesn't have a romanticized notion to it but even though we try to romanticize it um joy is also an elixir in my mind of actually thinking and activating your third eye to imagine a different future imagine a different space um same thing with for me when I think of the word ashay which also means thank you yet it is a deeper sense of a thank you um that is rooted in um an african uh diasporic tradition that is rooted on a legacy tradition that is actually bringing you back to the motherland back to home and putting your two feet potentially in a space called home um and allowing for you to then call on that power to move you forward so I just want to say that for me that's where the two live as two dissonant spaces both are both are equally as important yet both have deeply different points of access and I for me have a deeper sense of being I love that thank you for putting some more meat on the balls um for that and hopefully some people will be haunted by joy after the conversation um tracy what's haunting you right now I want to first say what is haunting me what is keeping me up because you asked about if what is how what is haunting you is is affecting your your art and I would say what is keeping me up at night is not what is uh coming into my art um I have found that the work that I have been creating during this I don't I don't only want to talk about this time as it you know as it differs from the other times that we have been artists but uh this I think this has been the light light is the wrong my work is lighter the work that I am creating the new work that I am creating right now feels lighter than a lot of the work I have created as a as a writer or a content creator that doesn't as a performer I still I choose work that means something to me and that does something to me or for me um in hopes that I can share what it does to me or for me uh with others but but I in terms of what I want to say right now it is it is much lighter that's all I can really say uh because what is keeping me up at night and I am uh I am going to bed often and not sleeping yeah uh and have been more tired with as much rest as I get have been more tired um right then I have continually and right now I am not ready to put that into my art I'm very concerned I have elderly parents who live on the other side of the country um who who have had some situations during this time I'm very concerned and uh Jonathan I am going to buck the odds I'm actually literally trying to get out there for several weeks time uh I'm not sure how that's going to happen but I'm trying to put things in place because because I because I don't know because I don't know and at least I'm I I need to create uh uh some knowing in my life in a way that that isn't because because I also still live very much in phase one I don't know what's going on out there but I stay in these uh these good wheels wet pants that are below the screen I stay in them at these slippers um I'm very much not I I'm I'm really living inside these walls I feel that I am but I am not living outside these walls and I had to that I felt like making a big travel and sitting somewhere else uh with other people who have who have to live in a certain way because of their age and their health and their circumstances it's going to force me outside of the my bubble yeah the art making process felt lighter as well the art making I can't I wouldn't describe describe it as light I would I have been given the opportunity to learn so much um that I would not have sought out or been able to learn had we not been forced into new discovery because of this pandemic I uh in that way it has been a blessing it is I have learned things that I'm going to choose for myself regardless of what the industry does there are new things that I can choose for myself that I would have never discovered had we not been placed here yeah go Jonathan I mean so I have a question as you're creating work as a person I just I created something digitally and then it got released and like I just have to say that the not having the feedback loop the not having the gathering made me feel very empty and it made me feel like this is um like a masturbation then it then it is a um gathering um and I just realized that this digital psychic distance that is showing up meaning that I rehearsed this way we edited I only on the computer and over the phone and FaceTime and all this ingenuity showed up but then when it came time to show it I was by myself showing it to myself and I had been stuck in it and then no one really there to give feedback no one really there to give me that friction that allows me to understand oh and not even with good or bad like what impact did it give on the planet what was and that I realized that that's why that's why that's why I like film premier so that it up so I say all that to say as you've been creating new work and it's really for everyone but Tracy you're talking about creating new work as you're in the process of doing that how is that how is that um culminating effect been for you as far as like when it gets released so I haven't had that experience yet uh because uh like as an actor I've done things I've been zooming out and you have the and there have been a lot of conversations around the work that is being created online um but I will say I have had those experience just as an actor where when the zoom room closes it's it's done and there and there isn't a discussion I the last reading I did this past week that was the case and the email thread of the art there was there was such a need that was left behind and it wasn't even an original work it was a it was a play I had done before um but then I I I don't do art one of the things that is also haunting me is I shouldn't say haunting me but but the process is my I don't care about the run I say this all the time in the rehearsal process I we can open or whatever I'm good after the first preview or the last preview I the process the the the day we sit down at the table for the first time and all of the work that goes into the journey to bring in an audience is which is not happening and even in a zoom room it's it's not it is not the same the exchange of energy what you learn about yourself physically when you are together collaborating so not just not being able to share this with other people whatever the this is I kind of understand what Jonathan is saying I'm really nervous now because I do have some things that are coming out that I don't that yeah especially when something is in development you need that feedback I'm planning on watching um uh shoot Death of the Last Black Man today and I'm so disappointed that I didn't watch it yesterday I couldn't watch it yesterday because I'm going to miss the Q&A I'm going to miss the live conversation and because that is what theater is for yeah yeah I feel like and then I want to shoot over to you because I feel like if what you're making isn't addressing that thing that you're talking about Jonathan then it just like can't be theater they can be awesome and dope and great but like it actually can't be theater and then conversely in terms of like the process if you cannot find a way to play within the process with people playing together then it also was making something very different which could still be valid and awesome but I have found much more of like darker feeling emotions around not being able to say to singers let's gather around the piano and just like figure it out like that's such a major part of you know what making was for me let's play this game where you run around and you do x y and z and let's just see can't do that on zoom um so anyway I have felt a lot of like depression around like but how do you play with people I just want friends in the playground anyway bico feel free to address anything you want uh man I mean every everything everybody has been saying and it's uh for for a theater artist you know thinking about not being able to be on a stage again or anytime soon you know and thinking about the times you've been on stage and you've been in these spaces what it has meant um sometimes what it's meant is is you know you have these experiences that you keep with you for the rest of your life you know and sometimes you have these experiences that you know you wish never happened and and you know but the beauty of it is you get to try again um and now that that opportunity seems a little limited uh I think it can be a little but I I think people we just gotta remember it's like the long haul you know like stuff stuff is like really whack right now um but I think all of these things and zoom discoveries are things that'll just they're just they're just more tools for the tool belt yeah kind of stack on and um I just really hope when we do get back in these rooms together um and we get back in these theaters that we really do come with the the the light and and and the blood and the ashay that we've been kind of demanding in theaters absence right and that we've been kind of conjuring uh amongst ourselves and in these groups and in these zooms it's like that's to me that's where the the the gold ultimately is it's like no we're never going to be able to do lie you know so but we're doing something you know trust you know my mom every time she gets to watch a zoom player so she calls she loves it you know what I mean so something has happened people are being reached um you know it's it's always you know you know that thing about how self-indulgent are you as an artist you know of course you want you know but ultimately it's not for you you know as some of our favorite teachers always remind us uh it's just not for you it's not for you your enjoyment and none of that you just kind of like do it right um but but I think it's like I think it's all growing uh to something bigger and better and everybody that's kind of like hanging on to it and hanging around to it I think it are just going to kind of keep reaping the benefits of just staying in there you know um that's what's important you know what was the last piece of art be it theater tv film music literature you know visual art what was the last piece that you were exposed to that actually made you want to get up and create something and why I mean I can start I watch please do because I watch too much I'm like I got to sit through all the ridiculous well that's so funny because like I right when I asked it I was like I'm literally talking to people who consume so much content all the time yeah so that's mainly because like as I was a little bit kind of like golf style because I was like I've seen so much like I was about to say kippo I was watching kippo on Netflix and that's in that zone that cartoon show is making me like one of great also like I mean also I've been grieving for our young any generation that grew up with Instagram Facebook and Twitter I watched the Grand Army and I pray for y'all oh my gosh I just started yesterday oh I watched the whole thing Jalen I watched I grieved that on my list grand army yes army I watched I at the last moment the we'll talk about kippo the last moment of grand army like the last the last episode I was crying like because I felt like I had been with those students for entire year and I was like y'all had to go through so much shit I didn't even know Facebook when I was like Facebook wasn't even around I know Twitter I don't know Instagram but y'all gotta go through the shit like I was like let me give all y'all hugs like they make it real it's so real it is so it is so it is so real and also the violence that that young girls have to go through in high school the kind of sexual violence that they go through the kind of sexual space in which they like like the amount of it also made me think of the amount of women that I that I'm connected to and the kind of sexual violence that they probably have gone through that they never named they never get voiced to but they had it as a younger age and they just don't in their shame around it or there's something around it and just made me really really start to question how the space in which you how do you create liberation true liberation so keep up kippo um has made me um what I love about kippo is like it's a lovely lovely a cartoon full of I think it's like anime up to the max like it's like pokemon meets x-men come together kind of ordeal um this is you watch this sober I watch all this stuff sober but sometimes that's part of like whether I mean yes yes yes I mean I I'm very I just said just to be honest and honest with I mean transparent on this lovely thing I am very mindful of when I do do I know that I don't drink but I'd be very mindful because I've uh all the men in my family have a very addictive person like addictive have had an addiction so I always have to be very mindful of the substances I take into my body but I will say that kippo and then army and then wonderful shows they bring the heat and also the love and they're just creative and they're creatively imaginative and what and you're asking me what they want me to see I have no idea what they want me to breathe but they're making me aware of the presence of the presence of a of this generation what they have to face on the stars potentially what they have to face when they are growing up and then the kippos making me really understand that like like the ways in which we are that this is um in our it's almost like in the way X men we remember those movies yeah they really looked at the ways in which we create otherness and that how that otherness is amplified and and created as a status quo and so that we can have something to fight against yeah pick to piggyback that right quick that's what I was going to say when you first asked the haunting question something that I've been just musing over a lot is double consciousness I think I even talked to you about this a little bit yeah I was teaching a class framed around and we've talked about it it's just been on my mind heavy and just especially as we again with with all these uh new kind of uh this new awareness that's happening in the in the art spaces and changes that want to be made and and how we approach our work and the work and the minds with which we approach it um and just yeah and and kind of like our our our goals as as artists as activists when those two things don't seem to intersect at all right you know and and again how that pertains to you know there there was one question you asked and how that pertains to double consciousness I'm sorry I yelled that because I don't finish my sentences the other day um you ain't got you ain't you gonna be incomplete in your sentences you know I feel like you know what I'm saying no right you know what I'm saying but but I think but I think uh yeah just trying to figure out like where we really really stand and and like you posed a question to me I think on the phone about like uh uh how do we exist beyond the white gays and and and things of that nature and what happened and and one of the places my mind went was you know you know even the idea of being able to like take a whole entity out of an equation might actually be a very european construct in and of itself right right wow yeah and then and that's not to defend the white gays at all panel all right you know but but but if you know someone's like re-center the white gays but it's just it's just so deep like kind of where our minds go where we let our minds go go you know the goals we set for ourselves the parameters we set for ourselves you know I I I'm just really again I really hope and I know people are already doing this work you know I'm I'm I didn't say it in the intro you know I act I paint I write um but what I really look forward to is the movement work that brings the art back to the people in a way that maybe it's even never been but definitely closer to times when we had a more stable and centralized movements even just one coming out of our community uh pre-dope and just pre-hyper uh me me me consumerism culture kind of like broadcasting on the scene you know I I just feel like right and how we define these things and how we define our liberation and and you know yeah something that's been really on my mind because every time I think I'm getting to a place I want to get or I'm I'm I might oh shit am I really working my plan yeah I'm really just recycling something I've seen already I mean it's also it's also awakening oh no Tracy go ahead I actually was just going to bring up something that happened um that I have since that has been weighing on me and that I've had conversations about in a project that the three of us Jalen and Jonathan are collaborating on together right now and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna drop names so that because I haven't shared this with Jalen who was also in the room when it happened but in in working on uh retreat uh uh a we were going we were going through the some content that that um an actor had a question about and in my explanation of the content I this is oh sorry this is all about the white gaze and and its placement in in our institutions and in our art but um I I had asked for an actor to lean into something lean into a line I said because that is for my white audience I think this line is for them they need this line lean into it and the illustrious Russell G Jones who who is very smart when it comes to arts and I like to listen to him but he has actually asked me up because what he did was he asked me uh at a time when I haven't when I wasn't thinking about that and I and what I've learned is that I don't think about this um because he was he said well who is this play for is this play for the white people which stumbled and I wanted to say no it's for black people but but I have never I I don't put an audience uh I I know what audiences look like I know what audiences of major institutions look like I also know how they defer at National Black Theater um in ways but but also in general my I write for the built-in audience and then for the audience that I that I hope is there for my work and in that way whether they're there or not it's there for them and I don't write for white people because they are going because I know they're going to be made up they're going to be the audience largely I had things to say to them too um it's uh I had never thought about not that I hadn't thought about the white gaze but that that really hasn't come to play for me I would say as a writer certainly as an actor well and that and that also that also so it ties in I'm so glad that you spoke Tracy because it ties into a question that I had or something that this uplift would be going and tie in which is like in our imagination do we want to be healed in our black imagination do we want to be healed are we centering healing in our black imagination because if we are then it's asking the question of how are we like how are we how how are we creating spaces for for for a white identified body to understand how they show up create the violence or how they show up create an ally or how they show up create or how other black to black people how they create anti-blackness or what where are places that they create anti-black or where the places they create love like right now because you I don't know you want people to know the fact you you're frying for the food right now bring so much joy to me right while we're in the kitchen doing something that makes us feel very familiar makes us feel very much like home makes us feel very much like we are the kitchen sink as much as possible because for me that's where a lot of wisdom a lot of love a lot of a lot of a lot of history was actually shared um so like so like it's just like in our imagination do we even want to be healed and I think and I think that that is a clear that in our black imagination do we want to be healed because some people might not want to as much as they might they may not want to be so that therefore their work is just causing violence or they may not be able to that's also I heard this amazing quote by uh Alexis Pauling gums uh today um on a podcast and I was like she was talking about revolution but I was like also this is like why I think we should all be making theater and or any kind of storytelling and she was like the revolution is about making people feel jealous for the life they deserve by showing them a piece of it I was like yeah you know in the grocery store this gas because also contained within that are many different possibilities right but like the quote is making revolution irresistible exactly yeah I love that one it said that but I think I think it's along the same lines you know and it's also I forget it was it was something they talked about in the panther newspaper of a lot of of like also like shaming the devil and and being the devil you know that's why like I think our our comedians and our poets are also so important because it's like you've gotta be able to um just show these people for how vile they are and show just all the contradictions and how utterly ridiculous they are you know um and the more you can kind of shove that magnifying glass down somebody's throat you know the less ammunition they have to perpetuate this foolery you know over and I feel like that's that is our job but but but again you know I just want to to go back to the healing thing that Jonathan was talking about it's like so in my opinion a lot of what we call blackness is born out of whiteness right it really is just a reaction there is so much we need to learn about ourselves individually locally internationally I mean like every single tier of our own humanity needs ample studying and and and the reality of all of those tiers of our reality you know have been systematically cut off misnamed misdiagnosed et cetera et cetera to keep us even more scrambled so we're expendable commodity right and and and I just and and so it's like to to just I just always want to just double double down on the the kind of work and maybe that's where I fuck up maybe it's not just a study thing you know it is talking it is but you know it's just we we have so much work to do and really just clarifying who we are and what we want right and and seeing um white supremacy and and capitalism and things of this nature uh clearer and not just these kind of uh things that are just in one section of the world but things that have permeated into our world as well and kind of almost like we don't even need white people to carry out white supremacy anymore oh yeah and just a million I mean black people in a room doesn't make it a revolutionary room right yeah I mean that's why I love the the phrase anti-blackness today over racism not over racism but just like it's such a particular distinction that says very very specific things that kind of speak to what you're saying as well because because we only have 10 minutes left on this phase of our conversation though the conversation always continues um I just want to throw out here um I'm interested in where do you all seeing your instrument go where are you seeing your instrument go um currently in the next year I guess I don't really want to put a time limit on it but just like or a schedule on it but is there interesting evolutions in your instrument happening right now I think I actually already answered it really briefly by saying that I have some tools uh some beginnings of some workings that I am interested in exploring regardless of what this is it made me interested in an opportunity to do some writing for animation children's animation made me interested in telling children's story you know I I write adult stuff but I had so much it was something that I had to do and I didn't know I loved it so much that I'm like and Tilly loved kids everybody knows Tilly loved kids but Tilly wasn't creating for the kids and uh hashtag everybody knows Tilly loves the kids love the kids love the kids all the kids what else folks um I will say I will say where is my body leaning towards I mean my body is starting to really come like having a version like it's my body actually physical location my body because of this quarantine is starting to feel trapped in Harlem like it's like it's not like someone said do you want to go to uh go to 8th street I was like what's 8th street like I was just like right because it's like a bad thing I'll set out that place I don't know she I know 110 as far as I go I know she I know 8th street how you get to 8th street again because I haven't been able to bike ride in a while haven't been able to like do like like because the only way that I was traveling during the quarantine months was actually on a bike like I would bike to wear Brooklyn or F1D but since the weather's changed since it gets darker my sooner I haven't been biking as much and I've been realizing that my my reality of New York has has shrunk into Harlem and so like my body's been leaning towards this very localized expression of what of what New York can actually do and I'm concerned about that actually because because I'm concerned about that how how will I then start to really start to branch out when will I start to allow myself to branch out because there will always be something that could take my life there always has been something that could take my life and I still explored the world there's always the world there was always something there was always something that could that could make my make my last breath show up make me not smile again make me not so what so what what am I absorbing right now that's making my physical body have a different expression right than ever before like I've always like like the police could have taken me out many times the education system could take me out many times the financial system capitalism could take me out many times flying in this and flying in this country could take me out many times but I still did it I still figured out a way to have a conversation with the life that was right so I think that that's just something that I'm I'm really trying to wrestle with as I lean into this very local expression of how I enjoy the city also what it's robbing me of that I think supremacy wants me to be robbed of the premise he almost wanted me to stay in one location supremacy doesn't want me to think the world is actually my oyster supremacy wants me to be a simplified version of myself so how do I work against that and still stay in a space of courage and comfort and also help yeah yeah I totally resonate with that because what's your instrument doing to whoa my writing writing a little bit more than than normal I used to write a lot when I was a youngster and in this kind of confinement it's coming back to me uh and in not so fun way all the time but I'm trying to like really hammer through uh and um right because it is it is something new and it's like a new it's almost like a new limb or an old limb coming back or something like that I've been really just trying to uh exercise that you know I posted like a poem on my IG uh the last that's the last thing I didn't know well but like I went I want to keep doing that I hope to keep doing that um just trying to like stay memorizing something delivering something and you know uh what better thing in this space and time than to explore myself a little bit you know so that's kind of been something new for me and then of course just all these damn paintings and all that stuff you know yeah we love and what's you doing what's you doing where's my instrument um I feel a very um deep desire to be involved with work that is not trying to explain itself because I think it opens up a space of what I will call wildness and I am very interested in investigating wildness and in many different ways um I think that like this this heartens back way earlier in the conversation where I think Vico it was you talking about that kind of friction that can be between the artist and the activist and like I have always the deep desire to bring the work and very close proximity to the people whether or not that is work that is socially conscious or involves my activism or work that doesn't but in the activism space there is a kind of wildness that an artist needs to be able to run to or escape from I feel in order to return to it in a certain kind of way or at least I'm just speak to for myself that I feel like I have to run to and it's hard to find words for it it's it's when out the play in three days and you haven't eaten and you haven't brushed in your teeth like that that is a version of that wildness but it's also like just like never like when you shut down you don't talk to anyone also it's like when you binge everything like where is like that is so crucial for me as an artist and I'm trying to find and I don't explain that to anyone like it is what it is yeah and how do I insert that into then the stories I tell of this kind of just like feral art making that is uh not less dangerous because the wild is more dangerous but at least allows me to like you were saying Jonathan feel all of those different restrictions and do it anyway or find a way to do it anyway and to find a way to do it with love thinking about when you talked about how much of your world is wrapped up in that Tracy I have been thinking about that this whole conversation just about like how do we just keep doing things that put me on the bones of this concept of love that put me on the bones of this concept of joy and all that jazz um I think we're at the end of this which kind of sucks but I just want to thank you all for uh for talking with me 30 seconds they say um for the last 30 seconds well I just want to say I want to plug this I want to plug it a Lennon's essay on black theater comments if you have oh it's really quite gorgeous and while you're in the series of essays you should also read but Jalen's black imagination we're talking about the space of black imagination that essay is really centering that in a beautiful way your blog work in general Jalen has actually been so it has been very healing for me during this pandemic all of the different places where you are exploring your own voice uh it's been keep writing for us thank you sir I heard that I heard that even the post even the post all of it well yeah um thanks y'all we love you all I don't want it to end either I'm so Ashay truly truly truly thank you all so much for your time here and I'm I'm thinking about what you said earlier Jonathan of like what is the difference between a masturbation and a gathering um and you know what first of all you all deserve a masturbation of any sort any sort of pleasure that you can have please you take that second of all all of the energy that makes this a gathering that you needed from an audience let me tell you I was living across the zoom screen I hope you all found energy with each other I'm so grateful for all the way that you invoked all the thoughts that you invoked all of the lineages you that you invoked I'm just truly just like sitting here in speculation and I think the one thing first of all I had to control myself not to like jump into the conversation every single moment because I was like I want to talk about that I want to talk about everybody needs to go watch kipo and the age of the wonder beasts it's truly about like black futures it's about mixed futures it is about liberative futures and I love we're going to plug please everybody the all of your work Jalen on our website we'll put it to this panel so if you're interested in finding those blogs please check out our website again preludenyc2020.com and I'm just yeah I'm super grateful for all of you so thank you thank you for spending time with us today um I hope you'll thank you Sam for curating this I'm just producing it shout out to Miranda for pulling you all together I know yes Miranda yes um all right y'all we're gonna close out the zoom in a moment thank you for watching if you are still at home we have more events tonight if you want to continue imagining futures our next panel at 6 30 tonight is called get rid of the gala um I'm really god yes please say we have a show at 8 p.m. called weltschmerz and then as always we will be ending our night with man to in a meditation space um so thank you all for coming thank you for listening to this amazing panel watch it again it's going to be on our website for a moment it's on facebook it's on howl round I can't wait to watch it again and take crazy notes um and I think that's that on that uh all right y'all thank you so much