 So, thanks to Polly and her team. Also thanks to the people at Yorba Buena Center for the Arts that have made the live stream and this gathering space possible, our peoples in production and IT in visual arts. I want to read something that I wrote at three in the morning a while ago, maybe to set additional context and also maybe to help place us here. We at Yorba Buena Center could ask what happens to the soul of a city when it makes space for innovation by removing color and art. We might also ask Chicli, what do these newcomers know about descent and movement? Instead, we aim to ask earnest questions that bridge the city we recall with the city we've inherited. We make inquiry that puts the was in touch with the is. Better, more productive questions might be framed like, how do we maximize the resolve of new transplants to the Bay Area and leverage their resources against the needs of the people who have been here? More simply put, how do we make a center for art that moves multiple San Francisco's? How do we make YBCA a home for both the engaged and the disenfranchised? How do we make a home? Who gets to make a city? There's some very specific moments over the course of the last three or four months that have drawn us to come here and I'm going to lean on our panelists, particularly Lily, who can speak very specifically to how it is that this conversation was prompted. Yes, but you should know that this conversation, as we'll hold it this evening, is aimed to the future in a way that's in consistency with what this institution wants to do. And so on this esteemed panel, we made careful consideration to have someone from dance, someone from music, and someone who works in the discipline of theater. We took consideration to have folks on the panel that could speak to ethnicity, that could speak to economic class, and who could speak to gender. To your point, this question about equity really is about intersectionality, which is to say, how do we all get there? And how do the specific questions of a micro group or demographic have everything to do with the world that we want to make? How do we generate empathy as a community? And why is it the artist's responsibility to help us get there? This is what's on the table today. Now, as I move to introduce our panelists, the thing that you should know as they begin is that when I first asked you a question and the hands were like underneath the beds and there was silence, that doesn't happen anymore. I almost cursed, but I didn't. I didn't. Can't take the queens out of her. So you should know in a short period of time, you will be asked to contribute a little bit more actively. The world is not going to make itself. Your life will not live itself. You are not here as in the best artistic experiences here just to observe. You are not just witnesses. You are actors in your own life and in the world that we seek to make. Cool? Yes? Sweet. Did I say anything? Oh, if there's a fire. Go that way, see the green, observe the exit signs. If your phone is on, you should put it on the quiet part. The ringtone thing is okay, and I think that's it. Yes? Sweet. Yes? Yeah. Sweet. Awesome. The energetic reciprocity thing, we're going to have to dial up that portion. Okay? Yeah, there we go. There we go. So I'm going to introduce Lily, Jay Marie, and Jesse. You should know that I've asked them each not to present so much on a topic or an area of expertise, but on a question. The question that is driving their work, recent experiences that have informed that question, and how that question continues to get complicated given the very complex world that we are currently navigating. Yeah? I've asked Lily also very specifically to put into context how it is that this partnership between YBCA and Theatre Bay Area came to be crystallized in the form of this conversation. So representing Ferocious Lotus, Lily from Crystal. Thank you so much, all of you, for being here. Thank you, Mark, and thank you to YBCA and Theatre Bay Area for organizing and hosting this event and for inviting us to be here. Our question on behalf of Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company, of which I'm the founding artistic director, is, and on behalf of other Asian American leaders and artists in our community, is how can we get beyond Orientalism and racism in the narratives of our community? As some of you may know, one of the reasons why this town hall was born was because of the conversation that Ferocious Lotus had with Lamp Lighter's Music Theatre about a production they're doing at the Mikado. This drive, this local, recent local event drives our question, as well as national instances of yellow face and Orientalism in Hollywood, as well as in theatre. So I want to first give you the background of our conversations that drove this town hall so that you can know the story of how this came to be. In March, I believe it was, Lamp Lighter's Music Theatre approached us and asked for our help in recommending Asian American actor singers to act in their production at the Mikado that's happening this summer. And first I want to commend Lamp Lighter's for coming to the table and having the conversation with us and reimagining their work, their production at the Mikado. So they asked us to help with casting and we voiced our concern, there were a couple concerns, A was around casting in general, we were concerned that they might not cast all the Asian roles with Asian American or Asian actors. That was our first concern. Our second concern was with the inherent racist and Orientalist elements of the Mikado. The names of the characters are things like Yum Yum and Ninky Poo or Ninky Poo. A lot of the show is about making jokes at the expense of Asians and Japanese people. So we brought this to Lamp Lighter's and their response was that they couldn't guarantee that they would only hire Asian actors for the Asian roles and that they were dealing with our concerns in a few ways. One was to take out the yellow face makeup that the Caucasian actors would wear. Two was to set it in Meiji Era, Japan, because at that time people were western clothing and therefore if they had Caucasian actors it was more okay because they were living in a time in Japan where there was western clothing. And finally they were going to edit some of the, a couple lines out of the script. Our argument was that yellow face is when a non-Asian actor or a Caucasian actor or singer embodies an Asian role. No matter what they're wearing, whether what makeup they're wearing or what costume they're wearing. That was our contention. And that first conversation which was instigated by Theodore Bay Area, and thanks to Red Ericsson for doing that. It was a difficult conversation and we felt like the response from Lamp Lighter's at that time was dismissive and disappointing. They said they were going to do the production as they were going, as they had always planned. They didn't feel like it was a problem. We felt otherwise. And while we were trying to figure out our response, YBCA got wind of the impending protest and they voiced their concern to Lamp Lighter's about this potential yellow face situation. On top of that, that same day, a national activist journalist who is based in New York contacted Lamp Lighter's and asked him questions about the production of the Makato. So in our perception, those two pressures instigated Lamp Lighter's to take action and I think there was some anxiety involved in those two interactions with the organization and the journalist. And so they took action and they released a statement saying they were going to set the production in England. We still had concerns and we distributed an open letter that went national about our concerns that even though it was going to be in England, what about the Orientalist elements, the racist elements in the Makato? Are you going to hire Asian actors to play stereotypical Asian roles? Are you going to hire Caucasian actors to play Asian roles? And we put that in our open letter to them. They came forward and asked to have a private discussion with us and we did that at the Theater Bay Area conference. And it was a difficult discussion and it was a wonderful discussion. At the end of that discussion, Lamp Lighter's agreed to continue to set the Makato in another place, not Asia. And now they're doing it in Renaissance Italy. And they also agreed to... We felt it was very important to have an Asian American dramaturg in the room to help them dissect and deconstruct the script to remove the Orientalist elements from the script. And they've since hired an API dramaturg. They also agreed to take off Yellowface images from their website and take out the Makato as it is now out of their educational programs for youth. So they're working on this re-imagined Makato. And again, we commend them. We feel like this is a case study in how two organizations who are odds with each other came together and had the discussion. And we feel a better environment will come out, a better artistic environment, a stronger artistic environment, and a more fair artistic environment will come out of this conversation. Now, through that conversation with Lamp Lighter's... YBCA and Feederbury area felt that it was important for us to have a town hall about issues and equity. And we wanted to use that as a center of the discussion, but also talk about other equity issues including gender and class. Now, I want to say that even though this was a positive result of our activism, it was also challenging and upsetting. And the challenges still exist within the conversation. And that drives our question of how we can get beyond Orientalism and Racism. You know, one thing that was upsetting was, you know, we live in the Bay Area community that is in the city over a third Asian. And the Bay Area at large is almost a third Asian. And in 2016, we didn't feel like this could happen. We thought, you know, the Bay Area is a very open, minded, very liberal place. And we were surprised that, okay, now we have to deal with this. What we see is racism. And that's upsetting that in this day and age, we still have to take this activism on and explain what YOLAFACE is, that it's not just the makeup and not just the clothing. It's a Caucasian person embodying an Asian body. And, you know, we are a theater company. We're not a watchdog organization. There's another production in Makata that's happening in a North Bay stage company. And I don't know much about the production. But again, you know, we went through this conversation and then we heard that another Makata was coming. And so, you know, our reaction is we're not an average watchdog organization. It's not our responsibility to go after every theater company that has a racist production. We, you know, this activism has taken away from our work as artists and it has kept us from advocating for our own work as artists. And so that is a problem when the people who are trying to do the art are being taken out of that art, taken out of that advocacy for their own work to fight the fight. And so that's why we're asking, how can we get beyond this racism, this Orientalism in our narratives, and a larger scale so that, so it's not just, how should I say, that it's the norm that we handle these situations with empathy and with equity. A couple more points. You know, as I said before, it took one of the largest arts organizations in South Francisco to state their concerns for lamp letters to come to the table. And we hope that if this question is answered and there is a community-wide effort towards equity, that it won't just be pressure from the outside world. It won't just be financial pressure, political pressure, social pressure. That would just be the norm and that people would make these decisions because it's the right thing to do and it's the ethical thing to do as people. The other thing about, the other challenge surrounding this conversation is that there has been a backlash on Facebook and hate emails that have come to us as an organization where people are very much against the Makata changing, very much against this class of work being torn apart as they put it. And they've called us bullies. They've called us censors. They've said that we're just being politically correct. And we're here to say that it's not political correctness. This is institutional systematic racism and that it's a pain that's been felt by the Asian American and API communities for decades. And again, these microaggressions and they are very real aggressions we'd like to get past so that we're not censors, we're a theater company. All we can do is use our first member rights to make a stand. The final thing I want to say is to bring this question into the national arena. On a national level, you may have heard of a lot of Yellowface instances that have been going on. Scarlett Johansson was recently cast in Ghost in the Shell as an Asian hero. And the Hollywood studio even tried to use CGI. Well, they were experimenting with CGI to try to make her look more Asian as opposed to just hiring an Asian actor. Tilda Swinton, who I love, is playing the ancient one. It's Ben character in Dr. Strange, a Marvel comic book film. And these instances of whitewashing have occurred from, you know, a new being in Beg with the Tiffany to the whitewashing of 21, the film to The Last Airbender. And this is alive and well in our community, this Yellowface. And it's our hope that it's eradicated. In New York, our allies have organized a Beyond Orientalism forum. When we talked about eradicating Yellowface to Brownface, that forum is going national. And my partner Minna Merida will talk more about that. We're going to have a regional forum here on Orientalism and you can look at it. And finally, there's a My Yellowface story hashtag that is on Twitter and Facebook. Beyond Orientalism forum asked actors, directors, and playwrights and other theater makers to state their Yellowface story. And I just want to read them. My Yellowface story. That time I was told that I couldn't be seen for My Fair Lady because I was Asian. And I already won my Tony. I'll conclude with that. Thank you. Jay Marie, before I ask you to speak, Lily, can I just ask you one more time to just restate the central question at the heart of your presentation? So our question is how can we as a city and a region move beyond Orientalism and racism in the narratives of our community? This is Jay Marie Hill. Yeah. Thank you Lily, that was super helpful for me, particularly because I was involved in these conversations so I'm sure a lot of us also were not. So it's really helpful for me. My name is Jay Marie Hill. I am from the Bay Area. I'm from the suburbs. Castro Valley is a scary place, but that's where I grew up. And so I live in Oakland now. My entry point into this conversation, aside from the fact that community members asked me and told me about some of what was instigating this conversation, is, so I'm black, I don't know if you notice that. That's one of my entry points, something I can never get away from, never want to get away from. And that guides a lot of my questioning. And as far as my connection to intersectionality right and who I am, I think it really is about, for me, my entry points are gender, queerness, and my race and blackness. Also, to situate myself. So I'm from the Bay and I'm 26. And I'm a musician. I'm in a band with somebody who lives in St. Louis. Kind of complicated under the name, Reverend Sake and the Holy Ghost. Kind of the Holy Ghost, depending who you ask. We'll talk more about that later. But so I'm a musician. I play bass. I sing. I play saxophone. And so those are some of my pieces of who I am. And as far as today, even without that framing, the story that I wanted to bring was, has anybody in this room heard of Airbnb? Let's practice that connection and see if really nobody's. Like six people in here? I mean, does it not Airbnb? Not who wishes they had never heard of it, but who has heard of it, right? So good, right. So the latest story out of that is that there's a black man who tried to rent a space. I forget what city it was in, but he didn't get it. And he remade his profile with everything he was saying twice. I was a white man both times and got it both times, right? And so I wanted to read the quote that I found from, I also wanted music to be playing right now, but it's an echo-y room. So just pretend like my voice is your music, okay? So I wanted to read the quote. They did mention, like they said, we recognize that bias and discrimination present significant challenges. And we're taking steps to address them. We welcome the opportunity to work with anyone who can help us reduce potential discrimination in the Airbnb community. So that's after it already happened. They also added, and this is the part that got me, was that an Airbnb spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the discrepancy was likely because Selden, the dude, at first reserved one night, and then reserved two nights with the fake accounts. This spokesperson also said that many guests do not accept reservations for only one night for a variety of reasons when the person responded and said, actually, everything was exactly the same. And so I think there's a tendency that we have as people in particularly San Francisco, the logic, it's a very, I call it, it's like a very violent dismissive political ideology that we allow to be common sense. Common sense really is about who you're listening to when you're trying to create this commonality. Like, is it common to who? So for me, being from the Bay, being from the suburbs, where I went to school with all these white people, except for the other black kids, I mean, I lived in the bottom part of town, but the only other black kids that were there either got busted or had, there was that one or two black kids who found they had money. And so I think it's easy to think of logical things without questioning who created them. And so I think the fact that I wanted to highlight was that Airbnb, the people that probably wrote this statement in San Francisco, and they are walking around and they, in their office mates, they all decided that there's not, I'm sure they didn't have an office meeting, but the people in charge decided that this was okay. This response, like, oh, it's a question to him. And I think the appropriate response would have been, wow, we see that that happened. What should we be doing to not only take you seriously, but also prevent this? And so it's about, I think the question that they should have been asking, or of themselves is are we even committed to making sure this isn't happening again? Well, that's sex, feel better. I hope you can find a place to live. Next time you go visit a city, it's not really what they should be saying. And so I think I wanted to, excuse me, I wanted to offer that when you believe that something is right, not only if you believe that somebody had an experience, you won't question them. You just believe them when they tell you, it goes both ways. And then particularly thinking that, knowing that people are masters of their own experience and trusting what that creates for them, what knowledge that creates for them. And so the part that I'm wanting to offer as my question, I really need some water, it's kind of dry in here. Sorry. It was given who we're listening to and as a surplus, like, thinking of who controls the surplus, now that we have one, we didn't used to have one, but that's a significant difference right now, right? We have more attention for each other because we don't have to go hunt our food. Like, we just do things differently than a long time ago, so who controls the surplus of time, the surplus of attention, the surplus of money, the surplus of agriculture, and that has determined who gets attention and who gets what they need. And then not only how do we, so how do we refine, how do we redefine inevitable? That's basically my question. And who are we including, or who are we committed to including as we make that collectively crucial inquiry? So there's some jumps there, but maybe we'll get back to them and that's for a little after today. Did you say how do we redefine inevitable? Yeah. Which is different than doing the impossible, right? It's not private processes. We think of progress and social progress as inevitable, like, things will eventually happen, but who are we committed to including right now as opposed to putting it off? Excellent. Thank you so much. This is my friend, Jesse Hewitt. Thanks to these two. So first, Balmouti's first question and maybe second question was who gets to make the city. And I'm immediately thrust into this kind of like cultural obsession we have around making and maker culture in the Bay right now and I feel very dubious of it because it almost proposes that like everything we've done up to now has not been making the city and that suddenly we have to make something which creates questions of invisibility about things that have already happened. Yeah, also when you think about making the city I can't help but sort of have this parallel universal thinking of Donald Trump talking about making America great again. I'll let you go wherever you want to go with that but it's a little scary, right? So I just want to push back or maybe push out a little bit on the idea that our city needs making. You know, wealthy developers want to clean up the city. This notion of clean and dirty is a very strange like neoliberal definition that is very fucked. That's going to happen, sorry. And you know, in a lot of this development down on Market Street is wanting to place these like technology driven like art projects in public space to activate spaces because this word activate all the time and you know if you look around there's tons of people already like activating everywhere doing things, you know, so. But of course they're poor so they're invisible, right? So any, equity is a word on the table and just even imagining equity sort of makes me feel like I'm drowning so I don't really think I'm going to directly tackle that but I will say that like, yes, we're here to talk about what we can do so anyway. I make performances and within making performances I work a lot with dance and I work in conversations about dance and about the body. And so maybe like an umbrella question for me when I'm thinking about is like how can creative movement or dance do the kind of do the task of convincing the sexist, racist, classist, dominant cultural consciousness that actually all people do matter? Because that seems to be what we're not convinced about, right? We're not convinced that when you encounter another person in whatever context that like that person is complete and they're full of blood and breath and you know capacity and brilliance just like you are. And of course white supremacy works against us understanding this and capitalism like exists to work against us understanding this. But perhaps dance is interesting because because a lot of, I don't know, maybe it's like the reject of commercial art and that a lot of dance is made and presented in such a way that isn't like available on iTunes and isn't really on streaming media sources or things like this. I also wonder if maybe dance is unique and has potential because it has a strange relationship to spoken language and as we know spoken language is incredibly tyrannical in a lot of really destructive ways and also invites like market value in very troubling ways. Also dance is an intense kind of physical labor and of course physical labor is this thing that we can't not associate with poor and working class bodies. Some might even say that dance in that is actually a threat to technological development like if more people dance then more people would inevitably rely more heavily on spoken conversations, on like embodied interactions as opposed to techno socializing and this would hurt the tech industry hopefully. And then if more people experimented with just like dance research is like stillness or like dance induced physical states. I mean dancers in the room know what I'm talking about. Using the body in non-productive or non-capitalist ways then people might develop real criticality about the ways that like device and screen culture are actually like making us lose one another and lose ourselves, you know. Inevitably paying attention to the body takes time and it takes presence and a lot of my observations it's actually time and presence that are the things that a lot of like tech development is trying to manipulate and remake in order to get rich. So dance is potent. I have three questions. They're gangly and weird and long but first I want to think about the concept of equity and this is a, yeah anyway, I want to ask in a culture where in my opinion capitalism like intricately and systemically and relentlessly props up racism, sexism, et cetera how can we imagine, even like imagine equity without point blank economic reparations being paid to the groups who have been like consistently disenfranchised and whose disenfranchisement is what our culture is built upon in so many ways, right? I want to ask of artists when engaging in representation when do we make images with cultural consciousness of like the established dominant narratives about class, race, gender and how they frame what we're representing and when do we instead imagine or utilize a more radical or futurist notion of ourselves and of others, notions that might make images that are really problematic in current dialogues but that insist on new ways of reframing marginalization, of course context plays a really big role here and who is the artist doing the representing of course matters and who or what is being represented of course matters but still the question persists for me and then lastly just sort of to hone in on dance, I am curious to imagine how creative movement or dance can be researched that tackles the task of declaring the social and political worth of the body how can it make the or produce research that tackles this task of really convincing the sexist, racist, classist dominant cultural consciousness that we all really, really do actually like completely matter really in Jane we both allude to a lot of structural like breakages in the system and desires to see these things get fixed and maybe particularly as a white person as a very racist white person in all the ways that I am, I am very aware that like we are so far from being convinced that other people actually matter so I'm kind of curious what the dance work is that could do that work I like to say that there's this moment in the theater in particular which is kind of home for me that happens after a performance when there's this kind of home of inspiration that kind of hangs over the audience, you know that feeling maybe it's the thing that makes you stay you know and maybe there's like 20, 30, 40 like minded souls that are like you that end up closing the building you know because you just can't leave and we've been thinking here at Yorba Buena Center about that feeling and about those people like why aren't cultural institutions a little more proactive kind of in their design why don't we take better care to take that moment of inspiration and not only make it last but operationalize it towards a creative, systemic, social or political end and so in a number of ways that's what we're doing here or that's what we're attempting to do for sure and one of the primary instruments for that work is to identify not so much the artistic output but the artistic question that creates the work and to locate audiences and concerned citizens concerned folks like you at the genesis of the inquiry as opposed to at the kind of performative outcome the performative result and to see if we can't form community around these questions to nurture the questions to complicate them and to work together to respond to them in a kind of parallel way to the artists that we love, that we curate, that we program in our spaces so I ask these fine people to come up with questions because I know that they're all brilliant in their own right and have as you've heard incredibly incisive and insightful ways of communicating their ideas but for us the question is a portal for you that are in attendance to get a little bit deeper and perhaps inside of the problem at hand in a different kind of way. So the questions that I heard and please correct me how can how can we get beyond and excuse me for just kind of losing my thumbs and getting this down but how can we get beyond racism and orientalism in the narratives of our city? Given who we're listening to who controls the surplus of time of money of attention and recognizing that control how do we redefine inevitable? How can we creative movement convince the racist sexist class structure that all lives do matter? How can we imagine equity without point blank economic reparations? When do we make images of the dominant narrative as artists and when do we utilize a more radical version of ourselves and others that reframe marginalization? And finally, how does dance do the research of declaring the social and political worth of the body? Deep questions. Thanks. Now my feeling is is that if we could find really dynamic kind of functional responses to these questions we could be out in an hour Warriors wins I could pay for two kids college education everything would be great but I think that this is where you all come in because as amazing and pointed as these questions are I think we can do a little better so I'm going to give you people let's call it 15 minutes and I want you to turn in groups of three and groups of four and groups of six and groups of small groups and I want you to take the questions that I've just read to you and I want you as a group to refine the questions and make them better after 15 minutes we're going to pass the microphone around the room and see what you came up with now while the bathroom is out there you're not allowed to go to the bathroom and not come back what I said earlier is true guys we can't keep showing up to the discussion passively waiting for someone else to create the response or to give us the answers it's our responsibility I think to complicate and deepen the questions to ultimately ask for what we need in the world so this is a cultural community equity is on the table you just got six really dope inquiry based prompts now make them better your instructions have been given I repeat the questions one more time when I repeat the questions turn to the person to your right or left form groups of three four five six get to work the questions one more time the questions on the table how can we get beyond racism and orientalism in the narratives of our city given who we're listening to who controls the surplus of time, attention and money how do we redefine inevitable how can creative movement convince the racist, sexist classist structure that all lives do matter how can we imagine equity without economic reparations when do we make images of the dominant narrative and when do we utilize a more radical notion of ourselves and others that reframe marginalization how does dance do the research of declaring the social and political worth of the body yeah you have 15 minutes to do your homework enjoy okay alright peace out we'll see you in 15 alright guys we have five minutes five more minutes please thank you no I just think just seeing yeah alright my friends alright hey Jody can we get some assistance please alright my peoples excellent excellent work so maybe we can just cross on out again alright great well done people good shit excellent excellent to be just a little bit square for a second and a little bit of a company man for a second I really like working here and one of the things that we are about to embark on is a pay what you can membership so if you got 50 cents if you got $50,000 you can be a member here and I think at the most cultural institutions what membership means is you get like an umbrella and a tote bag and you get to go into the thing or whatever but what you all just did that's what membership means here like don't sit on your ass man talk to someone that you don't know talk to someone talk to someone very critically talk to someone that you do know very critically and for teams get at it I love what Jesse said about the tenuous nature of the word activate and how it's used in these circles and how it's used to further displace other but I think of activation as a combination of motivation and locomotion you are inspired and you would just happen in this room over the course of the last 15 minutes that felt like locomotion to me and it felt like generation and so thank you for being active all that being said would you come up with this is Rebecca here if you have questions they have microphones they're cool so our group came up we tackled the re re-wording or reimagining the question about inevitability so the way we looked at it was how do we as a community embrace the power we have to control and shift what is inevitable awesome can you say that one more time and in the same way that I asked you guys to respond to these folks questions I'm going to ask you guys to respond to these questions what we came up with was how do we as a community embrace the power we have to control and shift what is inevitable excellent thank you other questions our question we wanted to address how do we move beyond the oriental list and the narratives of our community and what we came up with is what are the internalized and externalized structures that dictate who tells the stories and what stories are told one more time please what are the internalized and externalized structures that dictate who tells the stories and what stories are told great thank you yes so we managed to get four of the questions that we heard down by the way I just want to say I'm having a cross panel footwear envy right there now ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ours we came up with where is the audience in these questions that you can ask and how do we engage the audience that's not coming to see our work we kind of wrote a long list of additional questions how do we assign value to a story how do you move past monetization and still grow what do cultural reparations look like how do we open audiences to more than just themselves in their own experiences how do we create a space for people to be shaken how do we get people out of their homes to encounters in a shared space and how do you lodge a story in all the bodies was that last question how do you lodge a story in all the bodies how do you lodge a story in all the bodies we also created a number of additional questions how do we highlight other people's stories to encourage radical empathy how do we deconstruct the notion of value and how do we infiltrate these stories and deconstructions into the psyche so this is the side of the room where we came up with more questions so ours were in the spirit of simplification so the first one was how can we bring these questions into language that anyone and everyone can relate to and how do we do our art just every day even if it's just how we stand or the way we listen right there so we talked a lot about who was supposed to do the work of making all these changes so here are the questions we came up with how does a dominant culture encourage itself to listen to the experience of marginalized people as truth what happens when we become unreasonable about equity as how we define the inevitable and how does the dominant body make itself vulnerable in order to create empathy for other vulnerable bodies trouble makers good job could you please stand up yeah absolutely we too have a lot of things what does authentic expression look like who decides that things should be a certain way and how do we in an equitable and civil manner hold those in power accountable and when and how do we determine when a group is accountable and when the individual is accountable adding to that how do we become comfortable with discomfort excellent across the back right here if you wouldn't mind standing when you are asking a question oh lordy okay I have too many books on my lap this is going to end really badly so we also just came up with additional questions instead of actually rewording questions they were inspired by the original ones so one of them was thinking about artistic what does how do you imagine equity without reparations and so then we came to the question of what does artistic reparations look like and then we started thinking about the process and what tangible ways to do that so how do arts organizations reflect on the ways that they are over resourced and sharing them with communities that do not have those resources excellent anyone else right over here okay I'm not going to speak for a member of our group who repeats to say something but we actually didn't come up with a question I think one of the discussion points that we were talking about is why are we trying to distill all these really important questions into just one and I think for some of us we came to this conversation to try to answer one particular question potentially and it feels like it's you know we are kind of diluting the importance of trying to answer that one question that maybe we can figure out together in an hour long setting rather than trying to end all racism and end all inequalities all at once this isn't really a question just more of like a discussion that we had here as a group that I wanted to share we're interrogating the prompt nice more trouble makers just what I fucking need over here I'll respond quickly which is to say that and Mina will talk about this we will have forms in which we deal with one question that will happen too I I think that you know when Tamir Rice was murdered a couple of times was murdered a couple years back I and a couple of folks at LabBCA wanted I don't know some things some kind of space to feel to be angry to rail to uncover and unpack and we wondered allowed if we had the way with all quickly turn around to quickly turn around address communities needs very specifically the African-American communities needs to converse when nine people were murdered in their church home in Charleston a very similar feeling came up I quite frankly don't know if this is the space for demographic specific solace this is just me talking out a term I imagine that with the space can provide with the space can leverage is a tremendous architecture a really dynamic an important geographical location and the earnest desire of a hardworking staff to do do something a little bit more than present sublime art I think and again I'm speaking out of turn but if when I leave this gig I don't want to look back on my time here and the resources that I helped to steward here and think we put on some great shows and I want to know that we did something to advance the dialogue and so what this moment is is a chance for all of us to come together and think about the intersection of where we are going there will be other moments there will be other forms there will be other buildings we have to kind of dial down but the way that I like to think about this and many of you with theater people so you know the dramaturgical process is that you kind of get all the writing out on the table and you find the language that helps you that helps to pivot the narrative in such a way that the great insightful action will thus occur so we're not trying to dilute so much as find common vocabulary in the frame of inquiry to get us all to a more advanced place these very specific questions will find their time and their place and I agree that they are necessary but I think too often we kind of retreat to our corners looking very specifically at our questions and when we do that we actually dilute our collective power which is something that has happened time and time again along lines of gender, along lines of class and along lines of race so I appreciate the interrogation and I would just respond that it makes some trouble too but we're here to do it together cool one more question Hi so we are mostly a group from associated with the San Francisco Arts Commission and one of our grantees and Lily's question was really weighted in the current situation of white supremacy, capitalism and power so we wanted to flip the question on its head and instead of thinking about how to take out the racism and Orientalism as a governmental funding agency we wanted to ask how do we support stories and narratives of cultural self-determination excellent time, thank you anyone else great we also would you mind standing please we also came up with another list of questions inspired by the questions from the panel how can we use art as a tool to humanize, especially well this group happened to be specifically a group of young artists of color especially as artists of color when we're constantly defending ourselves and our narratives which in turn brought up the question how do we as struggling artists when we are constantly looking for a voice how do we even begin to take on the whole and tackle the whole without the support that we need how do we decolonize the standard because we haven't learned who validates us, our bodies our voices and our stories and of course the big question as an artist's community how do we not just converse and discuss these topics but actually become proactive sweet so folks would you hear would you hear how would you respond with questions yeah and so on and so on we're talking about like how important this is and I'm actually thinking maybe this is me like a bit of a cop out but the sharing and generating of questions and listening to what people's questions are is like amazing it's very interpersonal yeah I'll just go ahead and say it like trees so specifically the last person who spoke to in your group as young artists of color and kind of figuring out how to find one's voice and how to do this very important work in the midst of like really crazy conditions and the group that I was with was talking about Jamie's question about who controls the surplus of time, attention and energy and we kind of steered that question around to thinking about what time attention and energy and the surplus of these things affords people and we sort of started questioning so the question that we came up with is who can afford physically, spiritually, economically etc to make culture who can afford to do it in a way that is legible and why do we prioritize the legible culture another thing we were talking about was like the Scarlett Johansson to this point in the moment and Chris who I'm on staff with for talking about how it has been socioeconomically proven that people will pay money to see Asian and Asian-American actors on the screen so what's the deal, why is this still happening and we are sort of figuring out what's the evidence is there some secret capitalist algorithm that we don't know about that's actually like they really aren't going to pay money to see the Asian folks or something but really what we landed on or I just had a ha moment about going inside of my brain and my white lens and my self centric lens and the way that a lot of us have a lot of focus on our interior and our individual selves I'm thinking about these white directors and these white producers who get a script that is set in some sort of cultural setting that is Asian or Asian-American and they're not seeing Asian folks they're white, they're experiencing the interior of their white psyche and their brain and they're literally just seeing white folks they're not even thinking that they're bad they think of Scarlett Johansson in the role because they think of her in every way because they think of Tilda in every way do you know what I'm saying so it's quite deep in this way I love the question about how to deconstruct notions of value for me that's the root of everything so I appreciate hearing that and I just want to hear the two questions the three questions of the A&T please read them again because they were like thank you thank you how does the dominant culture encourage itself to listen to the experience of marginalized people as truth leading to engagement and action to change what happens when we become unreasonable about equity as how we define the inevitable and how does the dominant body make itself favorable in order to create empathy for other vulnerable bodies yeah I love how questions one and three are related to the Scarlett Johansson example and the choice of the word empathy and I wonder about empathy as tied to economics and displacement in particular like developer A is making cribs for her people or for his people and why would you think about someone else this question of the self and the other the dominant body which is interesting vocabulary how we generate empathy or how we help others particularly dominant classes or dominant bodies to think in more empathetic ways that's like a that's a question about our collective humanity and I'm wondering how we politicize or how we operationalize that question in political and economic forms I wanted to touch upon a few of the questions that we've framed or posed in response to this question about you know concentrating on one question as opposed to all these questions and how it can dilute the conversation I found it very powerful today to hear me talk about dominant culture and empathy for others going into our own corners I agree with you that oftentimes we do go into our own corners like the Asian Americans fight for the Asian Americans for the African Americans and it's really enlightening to be in this space with different artists talking about different issues of equity on the panel and this enlightening I'm like oh you're right you're right when I walk down the street do I give significance to a body who you know your homeless person's body is that how am I in that space and so I think it's really powerful questions and all these issues of equity in people in one room in regards to the Scarlett Johansson example that you have brought up it's interesting because you're right I do think that the Hollywood studio people they look at that story that's an Asian American story or Asian story and they see white people in it and I would argue that Asian people also sometimes read stories and think of white people because that's the default that's the default links and so this idea of who what bodies embody our consciousness it's been so entrenched in the way we grow up in this country that white bodies are the default and that's that's many of us go to and I don't know if I have a question I I'm really interested in Eugene could you please state your question because I was really interested in that question but I didn't write it down what are the internalized and externalized structures that dictate who tells the stories or what stories are told so I think I sort of touched upon the internalized what is what we internally the internal structures that dictate how our stories are told and the other question how does the dominant culture build empathy for other vulnerable cultures and in terms of all of you from the Arts Commission thank you so much for being here but how do we support narratives of the other I think was a general question there and what came to mind for me was when the whole situation occurred in Seattle there was a flurry of protest and that show actually went on with Yellow Face and the good thing about that there was also a form that was created surrounding that production and the great thing about that even though the production went on one benefit that arose was that the city became involved was committed to doing equity, diversity inclusion training across arts organizations and if the city or a governmental structure would support that then it would free up artists of color or artists of vulnerable populations from doing that work and it would free us up to create the stories that we want to create and to do the art that we want to do because so much of our time like I said before is taken up by educating and fighting the fight when these different instances come up like playing whack-a-mole whatever situation is with us so and I'm wondering if that's possible I guess that's my question so many good questions questions yeah things that I've been thinking about as I listen intently to all the information that's coming out of your minds and hearts because these are very hard-drilling questions I think the part that keeps coming up for me when there's multiple levels layers because there's so many questions and really important points of inquiry but one main thing, a couple main things when we are when people are far in physical, emotional, mental geographical senses from those who are impacted by the hard parts of life right that impacts listening we're listening to a very different world we're experiencing a very different world than people who are at different places or who are far away and experiencing a different sense so we're more far away from those people that means that we're not going to be taking their realities into account at bare minimum right and then the other thing I think is well there's there's no one way to become closer but I do think that all of us are up here representing pathways to doing that so in the sense that art allows us to reduces the distance between our hearts it reduces the distance between what we think is possible and what is so and so when I think about my entry points into my music part of why I decided just to use my own personal entry point to focus on music more so I played saxophone from like 8 on which meant that I couldn't it was hard for me to think of words while I was playing so I was really just feeling it and so then I picked up the bass guitar a couple years ago and then I was like oh I can talk at the same time that's how it was but then because I had spent so long like 14 years or something or 16 years or whatever with not feeling it and not to talk about it and partly also because the saxophone was like a very visceral instrument I have to feel it in my body and sometimes when I'm playing on stages I just have to feel the notes I can't even hear myself really so when I think about music and my ability to experience music I often don't listen to lyrics I'm already mostly just listening to the experience of the you know my physical sensation and I think when it comes to I think music and dance also are very particular in that there's not such a heavy and theater can be this also although there's more of an emphasis on like word and narrative but for music I think there's a unique point there where you really in some ways have to stop talking or stop thinking and it'll be present and so as a musician and as an artist my goal is when it comes to me being vulnerable there's a question around vulnerability and you know not necessarily having to bear all and do all the work and we're trying to get people to listen but my goal as a musician particularly like I said when I threw off the idea of of doing music that has words as the driving force is I want to make you or I want to help you and assist you into feeling present enough as a person that you're just not thinking anymore I just want you to be there and I want to be present and so if you are present that means you're valuing yourself enough to just be in your body and just like take out the questions you might have about who you are and the fears you might have about what's going on in the world and how you ended up alive as like a person instead of like a leaf or a fox or whatever like just being you know and so I think when you then are vulnerable in that way for your own self to block out all those questions we ask ourselves those questions as a way to like cope with the fact that we don't ever feel like we're enough I'm like why are we here right? I always purpose questions and stuff so I think when we shrug off those questions and when we allow like physical visual experiences that changes and shifts the way that we relate to one another as these human being people things right and so as a musician and as like a person who engages the world in that way and you know if there was music playing right now we would all be feeling great some of us would be feeling distracted like happy or sad depending on what the music vibes were bringing but I think there's a specific way that music can do that and I think that for me it was like a lens or a kind of a case study on how I hope we can all approach some of these questions in the sense that like how am I valuing myself it's kind of like a bully right bullies project what they've internalized and that they don't feel as fair like people are like judging other people because like how can you get to do that because I don't get to do that or whatever like their internal conversation is I kind of feel like bullying on like a grown-up scale right when we don't have what we need and people are mean to us I wonder how I can bear myself not as a plea to get you to pay attention to me but as a valuing myself enough to just stop and figure out where I am and why I feel like I'm allowed to exist and then when I'm asking myself those questions in a vulnerable way in an artistic way you can't help but be present and ask those questions with me for yourself or the topic that I end up making if it's words or whatever just musical feelings I end up sharing those with you and you really can't help but be present with me so that's one of the things that I want to offer it's not a question it's kind of more of like an offering in the sense that like when we seek to answer these questions if we don't bring a vulnerability it doesn't matter what people say or what the answer is anyway we're not actually present so I hope and I feel like I do feel a lot of presence in this room and I hope that when you engage with art in general whether it's your own that you're making or other peoples that you're present in a way that really allows what they're trying to offer in because part of vulnerability is not only us telling our own stories but you're all listening differently and listening to very specific groups and not listening to very specific groups and being okay with that because we've been listening to a lot of people for a long time and one of the things I got from your comment was that we get to decide what to remember and if we don't listen to those folks who are telling you not to remember that or to create a new memory or a new commitment then our decisions about reality and the future are going to be skewed because we're really ignoring the past and the current reality of people so it was a lot there but I'm excited for the vulnerability that we're all sharing today and hopefully we'll share moving forward Thank you As we pivot just a couple of things If you want to maintain the conversation in the social media sphere please use TBA and please use YBCA and their twitter signatures They'll also be as you leave, they'll be somebody with clipboards you can contribute your email to the conversation I would say this thing about personal shoes and vulnerability points me to staffing We all come with our specific agendas with our cultural context with a sense of urgency around many of these issues I'm raising two black children so black lives matter to me more because I'm raising two black kids and I bring that with me to YBCA There are people that grew up in Appalachia who grew up on farms and the perspective of the agriculturalist matters to them more because that's their cultural context and I think part of our issue as cultural agents is that many of us unfortunately work in homogenized workforces where parts of our specific areas of labor are distilled in such a way where there just aren't a plurality not of voices but of agendas and so we get into these binaries of historical dominance and dominant narrative and dominant bodies and a lot of times we work on staffs or we work on places we work in companies where a particular historical agenda is foregrounded in ways that are detrimental to the whole and so you don't have as many women's voices at the floor because there aren't that many women on staff or you don't have queer voices at the floor you don't have queer voices on staff you know the thing about what I think the Bay Area has offered historically is this has been an epicenter of counterculture in the United States of America and when we marginalize or displace the voices of the counterculture we're doing something to this country and though the population shift in the demographics of the population of this city I said the other day in California has a majority minority state but you would never know it walking around downtown San Francisco where in the city of San Francisco less than 4% of the population of this great city is African American so what does that mean in terms of the culture that we're producing the listening voices our capacity to be vulnerable you know so I think our overwhelming I was going to say responsibility but I'll call it a tactic that we might emerge with in this conversation is to truly consider who the boards and the staffs of our cultural institutions are and lobby actively for a greater level of representation at that space because then the playwrights that get chosen for a theater will reflect a different kind of plurality I think in very many ways the kinds of equity outcomes that we're talking about are direct results of equity at the staff and decision-making level I will also say that we've been working here in particular to build a fellows program that actively looks at these kinds of questions and commissions 90 people in a year to go in on these questions so we have an application deadline coming up on May 31st the question on the table is what does equity look like if you want to continue this conversation in a commission form over the course of a year with 29 other diverse souls and have an opportunity for physicalized outcome I would encourage you to reply the last thing that I want to do is kind of go back to the one which is bring up or return us back to the specific incident which launched this discussion to begin with and give my colleague Nina an opportunity to talk about what next steps are very specifically in regards to see sorry thanks Nina Morita hi everyone thank you Mark and I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself my name is Nina Morita I'm the artistic director for crowded fire theater which very much believes in the plurality of voices and also a company member proud company member for Oshis Lotus Theater I'm very honored to be in the presence of this entire group of people tonight at YBCA because it is a special thing to share breath and space with you all as we interrogate these larger issues so speaking to interrogating the problem and advancing the dialogue I just wanted to call out and bring us back to the moment of inspiration for the forum which was around getting beyond Orientalism because I wanted to set it as a potential example for change and actionable change because there is a national initiative that's happening that I wanted to just bring to everybody's attention and that is led by the Asian Pacific Islander community to fight racism oppression and cultural appropriation in film, TV and theater it's a model that's going to span is in the process of spanning six different regions San Francisco Angeles Seattle Chicago the twin cities Boston Philadelphia and New York City and this began also with the Mikado at New York's Gilbert and Sullivan players which I understand they're in the process of reimagining the Mikado as well which is great news and this past Monday they had a forum at Fordham University which was widely successful there were almost 400 people present and they spoke it was brought together by TCG theater communications group the Asian American Arts Alliance Asian American Performers Action Coalition Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center the idea the impetus for this is to understand and change the use of Orientalism yellow face and brown face in our culture and you know Teresa Ehring said art should lead the way to a more just and equitable world rather than reflecting the injustices in the world around us and I think all of the interrogation we did today is about deconstructing what value is, what worth is how do we become more vulnerable how do we start to feel radical empathy how do we change the leadership to do that all of these things we are hoping for as best practices across the country and in being able to create safe spaces to have the harder more vulnerable conversations not just with our API community yes the API community leading on the issues that are charged for us but with everybody in this room we invite you to participate we will be holding another forum that will be coming up in the next several months we will be engaging API leaders and trying to figure out what that's going to look like and we would like to have you participate in that so we offer a couple of tools because as Lily brought up in Seattle they had a really remarkable forum where they figured out after the forum that a way to have the city educate arts organizations around equity, diversity and inclusion was to provide funds for training and that every single arts group that applies for funding must go through this training to get funding period I mean how remarkable is that awesome and what happens if we have a steering committee what happens if we have a fellowship group or a steering committee of leaders and the people who are already doing the work what happens if we fund the groups that are already looking and have conceived of these best practices as opposed to thinking of it as a new thing to bring diversity into the art making that we're doing there are so many people who are already doing this and how do we fund that work of that steering committee that is coming together that is happening in Minneapolis there are very diverse groups of leaders within their community that is getting specific funding to start to think about changing the economics equity worth value vulnerability of that community so how can we do that in San Francisco I mean if it's going to be anywhere why not here and doing it with all of these brains and all of these hearts in this room so yeah I'm feeling very emotional and vulnerable so I'm going to just close with this that the beyond orientalism national initiative is underway please check out the hashtag add your own story hashtag beyond orientalism and check out in addition to this howl round if you want to catch those questions again on howl round from beyond orientalism and then check out beyond orientalism at ferociouslotus.org that's going to be a way for us to communicate if anyone wants to help be involved check out the website at ferociouslotus we'll post updates about what's happening there in the coming months and I want to close with this there is much to be done it can feel overwhelming I felt very overwhelmed and tired in the last several months that we can all be allies in this very specific revolutionary moment I mean how much have we felt in our entire national consciousness of late this question of equity and inclusion and diversity I mean maybe I'm more attuned to it now but I certainly feel a shift and if we're going to speak we should speak now and there are a number of other incredible next steps there's breaking the binary that's going to be happening at Berkley Rep and Cal Shakes if you have questions SK Karastas is in the back and I think let's meet again and come up with some actionable plans to change the scope of the city and go warriors good job I think it's a powerful place to rest on well, a powerful place to incite further unrest we will not rest until it comes thank you guys for joining us here today there is ongoing conversation the number of platforms and places has been enumerated I would urge you to leave information where you can kind of get further information I would remind you to email beyond orientalism at www.dotus.org where more information will be disseminated please apply for our equity fellowship here at YBCA theater bay area which has been an amazing partner all along ally and advocate in this work has created instruments and channels both in print and in activity with the conversation I would like you to join me in thanking our guests Lily and Jamie Lee and Jesse and finally I just want to thank you people for showing up missing the first half of the game thinking prudently dynamically engaging with strangers and foregrounding the work that needs to be done the culture is going to come the world we want to see will come it starts with gathering but it absolutely continues because we have the stamina that's provided by just sitting with like-minded individuals the empathy that we seek begins to get generated in this room first so thank you for making culture that moves me we'll see you down the path