 It's academic, and Steven is the place where they go to meet. We have the volume and the process, and then for each other. It's the actual practice. It's the start of the practice. Samples of women sharing what it is they get to share and how you do that. There's no way you can ignore that feeling anymore. I don't know. Do you think I would say talk about it? We start to have a little thing right there. We have to do it for 24 times. The effort of everybody? Yes, everybody. That's it. What's it like then? Do you find respect in your wife's relationships there? I have already seen it. Survival of a theater has a punch form, but that's not enough. So, welcome everybody here to the Martin Segal Theatre Center. My name is Frank Henschka and I'm the director of this center. Our center bridges academia in professional theater, international, and American theater. And of course we do follow also the work when it comes to directing or acting. Tonight we have, I think, a very special event. It's a book celebration of a new work that came out in 2017. It's the Black Acting Method, and we are lucky to have the writer Sharon Luckett with us and tour for collaborators. It is Kashi and Jonathan. So, please do come over here and be with us for a conversation. And I think it's a very significant topic, actually, and we're going to go look a little bit deeper into their work and what it means and what this is all about. The evening is also a live stream, so you know there will be a question and answer after our discussion here and we will ask you to take a phone so everybody can also hear you. I really would like to thank you first about coming out on a cold November, not yet, October, but it feels like November Monday evening, but really I feel very strongly about this. We don't know enough about this and I think they made some real discoveries and we'll do more so again. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for having me. So, if you take the microphone, I think hopefully it is on. And so maybe we go right away into it and what about the book? How did it get together? Thank you for asking. Thank you. Hey, y'all. Thank you all for coming. How y'all feeling? Good. Good. Great. You know, I wanted to start with a loose quote by now the late Intazaki Shange. She said in an interview right after Around One for Color Girls had come out, they were talking about her writing and how it was so important and she also talked about a moment in her childhood where she said, I was seeing other people's futures a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years into the future and I did not see myself. So I knew it was important for me to create my future and write myself into the future. So with that said, we know we just lost her to the ancestors and so I would like to take a moment of silence for Intazaki Shange and all that she is and all that she's impacted. Thank you guys. All right. You said, tell us about the book. So what we'll do today in this conversation, we're going to keep it in a conversation and so I'll talk a little bit about how the book came to be and then we'll jump into a Q&A and just talk about what's in the book. My name is Cheryl Luckett. I'm excited to be here. The book. So my history is that I was trained in a method called the Freddy Hendricks method, the Hendricks method and I then became an acting teacher primarily of high school students in the beginning and of course I was teaching how I was taught. So the students began to ask questions about what I was doing in the rehearsal room because in the classroom I was teaching Stanislavski Meisner and we would get on stage and they kept saying, it's changing. What are you doing? We're trying to practice this but this is something else and we really like this and they kept asking in different ways throughout the year, what are you doing? I started saying I'm doing the Hendricks method what my teacher taught me and of course at some point I had this revelation. I just said, you know, if theater began in Africa performance began in Africa. Surely we were thinking about performance back then especially if it was connected to ritual because you know you can't mess rituals up. You have to be in character. You have to be doing something. They're serious. So everybody has this character and this performance that they're doing and so I just said where are all of those methodologies? So I then set out basically with my collaborator Dr. Tia M. Schaefer to write the book I was looking for and I put out a call for papers because I said surely other people are working in this aesthetic and as I started doing my deeper research I learned about Frank Silvera Barbara and Tia, Tear Technology of the Soul which is there, which exists, which is already in a book by Lundina Thomas and so I was just like where is this stuff and why are we not teaching it? Why are we not teaching it? So put out the call for papers like we do for books and myself and me and the editor at Rutledge said let's see if other people are working in this aesthetic and I'm like surely they are. What aesthetic am I talking about? I'm talking about what is now known as black acting methods. Black acting methods are rituals, processes and techniques where black theory and black modes of expression inform how actors engage with and interpret text literary and embodied text. So with that amazing folks who are on that bookmark in your programs and in your chairs amazing folks say yes, me too I've been doing a methodology and I've been you know I've been wanting to write a book and it was a great opportunity to go ahead and kind of get my work out there, put it in an anthology and I'm still going to write my book. So that work became black acting methods which I believe has taken the acting world by storm it is changing lives, it is changing the way people think about acting it is changing how we think about diversity in the acting classrooms and I think what's most important is that this is not, all of this is not new work meaning you know black voices are often marginalized from certain people's points of view so again Frank Silvera had the American Theatre of Being which is actually still being taught at Alabama State University a fantastic HBCU with an acting program Barbara Anne Teer was doing Teer Technology of the Soul here in the city in Harlem for many years and upon her passing it's not being taught in that way anymore but it is there so this has come back around to say hey we're going to take up the charge and we're going to get these methodologies out there to let folks know that acting methodologies can be diverse they are with culture, everything is with culture we can't think of things without culture those folks who have acting methodologies they were born in a certain place their parents raised them a certain way they had certain symbols that they carried out in conversation with people and the way they think about approaching a character is a certain way so black acting methods is here to say what is most beneficial for folks who identify as black how should they be in the rehearsal room how should they be on the stage how can we help them with the metatraumatic things that they're experiencing in life how can we deal with the stereotypes that they're constantly encountering because somebody is asking something of them and honor blackness at the same time so that is black acting methods and who I have up here with me is Professor Cassie Johnson hi everybody she is at Lehigh University and Dr. Jonathan Lasseter who is at Muhlenberg College and he's a professor of black psychology and a professor of LGBT health and psychology as well and I think what I wanted to say before I turn it over to you all is that black acting methods has turned into a studio and so now there's the black acting method studio and we did some of that work this afternoon with a fantastic group of students from New York City the greater New York City I know New York City is big but they're from a wide demographic but there's a studio and so something that is important for me in the studio is to have a black psychologist to be a part of it and they have to deal with the mental health of black people especially black actors because they embodying these characters that have these also traumatic histories and these beautiful histories too but black psychology is very very important to it and Cassie Johnson is a hip hop theater pedagogy pioneer she is one of two professors in the country that does hip hop theater pedagogy on a regular basis in the classroom so she is an expert and she is also a part of the studio and right now we are going around the nation and eventually the world rolling out training for everyone who is interested in what black acting methods is and we can talk about the Hendrix method in a second so what you saw on the video is a clip from the Youth Ensemble of Atlanta used to be called the Freddy Hendrix Youth Ensemble of Atlanta doing one of their signature pieces called Soweto Soweto Soweto so you can kind of see those students work out of Atlanta Georgia so I'll turn it over to you all to see what y'all wanted to say well I guess it's going to be me since they both gestured my way so I'll just take this moment to let you drink a nice healthy drink of water and just share a bit of my journey of how I've come to know black acting methods and then pass it on to Jonathan to get down to the nitty-gritty but as Cheryl inferred I am a professor of theater at Lehigh University and my story with hip hop theater pedagogy goes like this six years into my teaching career I received tenure all the academics out there and in here that know what that means for a professor that's a pinnacle of achievement where you're supposed to be good so around that time a colleague leaned over to me one day shortly thereafter and told me now you can do whatever you want well I didn't know what that meant but I knew I was going to find out and so what I decided to do was to take this new found I don't want to say freedom but a release of expectation to kind of ask myself what did I want to do so I'm a native New Yorker born and raised Queens girl always went to school uptown big up Manhattan right so I'm here back at home I grew up in Queens I could go on the avenue kick it with run DMC not kick it with them but at least I could be in the same store with them when they were shopping or LL Cool J could you know like I grew up in the room when hip hop was being born here in New York City and so when I got that past to kind of do what I wanted I knew I wanted to do something with hip hop and marry that with my passion as a theater artist and educator I'm a professionally trained actress and I also direct and I enjoy devising work with my students that's how I got tenure to begin with was creating original work centered around documentary style theater where we were speaking truth to power using actual people's voices shout out to Anna Devere Smith and the like so I went to my classroom which is where you know any good professor goes to try to work out the kinks and I decided to create a class called act like you know on acting I thought it was funny and it's also a term in hip hop act like you know you're going to represent you're going to show improve, you're going to act like you know so that was the title and little did I know back in 2008 what I was doing the first time I taught the class I didn't put a cap on it I just said who at Lehigh University a predominantly white institution a research one ranked institution in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania I said who wants to do hip hop theater at Lehigh 31 people wanted to do it and I didn't tell anyone no the first time and so it was a labor of love because I'm a performance teacher so I taught an acting class to 31 people and I was trying to figure out what is this hip hop thing what are we doing are we rapping are we dancing what does it mean and it took me a while it took me every class is a generation now and so we just celebrated the 10th generation last May I taught that class 10 times and every time I get close I got closer to figuring out what it was that we were doing and for me what I've realized is that hip hop is a performative art form right do you all know the foundational elements of hip hop I bet you do when you think of hip hop when it was first created what did people do what's one of the performance elements yell it out and the MC that's one give her a ding give me another one what's another one you know it break dancing what's another one she's just hogging it the DJ is number three and what's the fourth one right graffiti back in the day there's a fifth who wants the extra credit point so actually it's what knowledge so knowledge reign supreme yes no I'm not going to go there she's already writing my next book look my editor always but what I realized was we are in this classroom space everybody's here because they want to perform and figure out what we're going to do and my job was figuring out the doing and that took classes that took a couple of generations to figure out that we like to lip sync because that's like scene work but we do it to Iran so they're learning how to sync their lips in the art of you know everything we do as actors when we're doing scene work but we're doing it to a wrap I had to devise that over time I had to devise I don't want to give away everything I do in the class but everything that we do culminates in a live performance at the end of the semester where they get to show and prove we don't just talk about hip hop in my class we actually do it every assignment is geared towards possibly being in the show at the end of the semester and yada yada yada so ten years of legacy have brought a class that has a very strong reputation not just on campus you know I've been able to take it out into the world, write about it and put it in the black acting methods book and do some other things with it and what's most exciting for me is that as important as the work is it also serves as a safe space for students of color at Lehigh University who may not be in my class officially but recognize that the work we do centers around social justice issues the hip hop and the way that they perform of their stories speaking authentically their truths and I create the environment for them to have an audience so they can speak truth to power so all of those things have taken me ten years of trying to figure out what are we doing in here we're making magic and how are we doing it we're layering it on and I am meeting my students where they are quick little story if it wasn't for my students I would never love Cardi B they put me back in school so I could understand what's good with this generation you understand so I learn from them they learn from me and it's cyclical and it's ongoing and the day that I can't rock with hip hop is the day that I hang that part up so that's just a little glimpse into what I do and how I do it and now I throw it over to this gentleman here hello everyone so first off I just want to say thank you to the Segal Center thank you to Dr. Luckett my really really good friend for inviting me and it's always great to be in conversation with Professor Johnson so I am a clinical psychologist by training and I specialize in health psychology and black psychology and black psychology though is not something that's really taught in traditional psychology programs black psychology as a discipline that is completely different from what we think of as Eurocentric psychology what everyone else just calls psychology you go in any psychology classroom you're learning Eurocentric psychology but no one calls it that but black psychology as a discipline something uniquely distinct from Eurocentric psychology because it has all these different tenets that are based in African ethos and again going back to comedic societies in ancient Africa around 3200 BC we have the book of the dead and we talk about psychology and spirituality in there and black psychology is really about one of the primary core tenets is this spirituality and so we can find the roots all the way back there but as a discipline it started to be codified and written about beginning in around 1968 with the founding of the Association of Black Psychologists at their first meeting out in the Bay Area and so with the founding of that organization we then start to see this deliberate and specific study and development of this field and so when I say that I teach black psychology and black psychology is my specialty what I'm really saying is that I'm very much interested in the ways in which those African values come into play for how we think about mental health and not just mental health for people of African descent because that's definitely true in black psychology centers people of African distance experiences but I'm also interested in how are those African values universal in the sense that if though our societies if life began after we have archeological evidence that says that places the first human beings in Ethiopia so if we have those first human beings in Ethiopia and then we have the first civilizations and the first books about spirituality and psychology coming out of African societies then to me that says that then we're African values are universal in the sense that we all started there and then you know some we have the single origin did we have the multi-regional hypothesis and things like that but all of them place us coming out of Africa so in this sense they're all universal so I'm really I'm really interested in how to use those values so some of these that we talked about today is in the seminar is treos and so treos is an emphasis on particular African ways in which we think about time rhythm improvisation orality and spirituality and how do we embody those how do we manifest them from an African psychological point of view what it means to be human is to be is to be a physical manifestation of spirit and spirit and not in the sense of a religious tradition per se but spirit in the sense of this animating essence that connects us all and that is that is infinite right and limitless so I that's the way that I think when I'm thinking about mental health that's the way that I think when I contributing my expertise to Dr. Luckett's initiative of black acting methods I'm thinking about how do I take these particular African values and my understanding of mental health as a trained clinical psychologist and how do I then look at the people in front of me especially those people of African descent who are often who are often pathologized in the very craft that they're studying to do you spend years in school and you don't see anyone that looks like you in a curriculum that's a violent act to be erased like that right so there's trauma there so how do we use these particular principles to help people begin to heal from their trauma and to develop a resiliency James Jones talks about self-protective mechanisms and self-enhancing mechanisms for so many people of color period but especially for black people or people of African descent who have experienced so much chronic and overt violence against not only our bodies but also our intelligence also our sexuality to have had religion even used against us in a way to destroy us right so how are we how are we self-protective and self-enhancing and for most of us because of all these things a lot of times we're stuck in survival mode and so black psychology is looking at how do I move beyond survival which is very important into being just a manifested being how do I move beyond a white gaze how do I move beyond a Euro-centered paradigm to just actually be that manifestation of spirit that is infinite and so that's those are important principles for everyone especially in this particular context for black actors and so I'm just lucky enough to know Dr. Luckett and to be able to contribute that to this particular initiative thank you so much already a little little insight into it so what do you think really makes that book so necessary why hasn't it been written before and why do we need it now why does it surface now that's a big question number one it's just important to see yourself reflected back at you to see yourself in theory and in practice reflected back to you coming from that angle too I think something else that is really important about the book is to contribute to the work that we are doing in diversity and I think that historically acting classrooms have been left out of that conversation and it's a new conversation now because acting classrooms and acting teachers thought that it was a safe space and we're all doing this together and we're walking through space together and now we're saying actually no I don't feel safe actually racist things happen all of the time in the classroom with my acting partners I don't want to play white characters I want to play black characters I ain't got nothing against the white characters but I'm a black person so can we start there can we work together to find some material so the book is just necessary it's just so many reasons if y'all want to add to it why it needs to be there but also to capture the work that has been going on for decades and I'm sure there's still work that's still covered that has been going on but work has been going on for decades you know thinking about why is it necessary yes representation is important but I think because for better or worse we do live in a white supremacist society and when I say white supremacist society I'm not meaning like necessarily a racist society because I make a distinction between racism and white supremacy and white supremacy is highlights a system that centers a particular experience in a particular way of being racism we think of more as I said something mean to you about your race you can be white supremacist without ever saying anything mean to someone about their race but because we live in a white supremacist society that does not marginalize and if it's not marginalize it's always comparing and if it's always comparing to the default which is that white that white way of being so I think it's important yes representation important but I think it's because we live in a white supremacist society that values a particular way of documentation that is important to have black acting methods codified because as again there's this emphasis on orality in our communities since that knowledge is passed down via storytelling from generation to generation and that is super important however as we become more and more digital and I would say disconnected in this digital age having that on paper in print becomes more and more important because people may die off right and may not be able to tell the story but if we have an imprint it's always there right and so I think it's so very necessary so that we can have something to point to right and what's that what's the saying not to prove a point not to prove a point but to point to prove right because it's Alexander's doctor Alexander right because it's always there you just don't need all those pioneers in black acting methods the work's been done but what you have that they don't have is that written work so it's easy to get rid of them once they move on to the ancestral realm yeah and we talk about black acting methods was not a reaction it was a response so it wasn't reactionary it wasn't like I'm gonna write this because no no no no it was just like these methods are here people need to know about them not only that I just I just wanted to interject like I'm sitting I'm looking at some nodding young woman it looks just like how I was a certain number of years ago we won't go into but as a acting student yes actor theater teacher oh look I'm not trying to age you but good girl don't crack okay so look when I was coming up there was the Eddie Eddie Woody King you know anthology he would put plays together nine plays by black women like there was a few books to clutch on to that had me represented and I feel like this is necessary because this is the contemporary can is 2017 not only but they're not just plays like we have the playwrights that are being anthologized now it's the work and it's the documenting because you you said it Cheryl like I don't think of myself as a book writer you know but people are coming for me more and more for the book because of what I contributed to black acting methods and I thank you for opening the portal for those of us who are the practitioners not the writer scholars to see ourselves in the space to be published in a way that we will forever be you know written down and remembered in that regard so thank you for that but I see it being as vital and necessary now to just continue because where are those stories if not for black acting methods where are we being held up and and given as an alternative what were you going to say two things thank you for that and I just wanted to make a distinction really fast just because you're a black teacher does not mean that you work in a black aesthetic it does not mean that you're doing black acting methods black acting methods is a field that you have to locate yourself in we're coming from afro centricity which is a field that centers black thought black theory black voices so it's not that going back to it's not that it's not reactionary it's imagining yourself just with yourself not in reaction to anything what does this player or this creation looks like just with me thinking about myself how is that and what if I create from that place and that is complex because in the lived experience of blackness there's a lot of reaction happening which you know you can't ignore at times because your existence depends on it but what happens when you can open up a place where actors particularly black actors are allowed to just be in their skin not have to prove anything to anybody to call on their cultural their diverse dysphoric cultural experience what does that look like and I'll talk about the Hendrix method in a second what does that look like but I wanted to talk about culture real fast because it's going back to someone y'all said the default we're talking about the default so something that's happening now and I do think acting teachers are doing doing the work and I do think some acting teachers are trying to diversify but I will use an example that's happening right now is we have these open text we call them open text because my students are just diverse everywhere right so then we bring a text into the classroom and the text goes this is just an example hi hello how are you I'm fine thanks wow what do you want to do today I don't know it's an open text everybody can act in it right you didn't erase everybody culture now let's bring another open text into the classroom what's up what's good chilling folk we doing this today man we don't know what happened the students can create from it but we're not going to pretend like we couldn't locate that within a culture right so what's happening is we have to you know and I tell my white students I teach primarily white students I tell them that you have a culture everybody has a culture we have to get out of this mindset this is not a culture we know that whiteness remains intact because it goes unnamed say it several theorists I know they're watching like I said that all of us have said it right but it goes unnamed and you're like no so that's actually not helpful right and so what is the answer we have to work together to look and bring that stuff in there because those playwrights are writing coming from a black acting method perspective in the Hendrix method have them write something and then maybe they will still say hey hello hi how are you but at least it's coming from a lived experience that they're relating to in some way work backwards in that way but the open text is not the way to get it we can have open text but they're still rooted in culture there is not a theme and we can argue about this but there's not a thing that is not rooted in culture so if you move in that way as an acting teacher or director acknowledge it acknowledge it and say this is what this is okay good that's what I wanted to say yeah okay no because I'm just thinking that's exactly I don't teach the Hendrix method but if I ain't hip hop all day and it's not like I have to code switch and show the depth of how I access hip hop but I kind of do ask me can I do this for extra credit and I have to come a little bit harder and tell them no not now we are speaking in a shared language that I have to meet them at and I'm happy to do so they come the course of the destination because they know that's what they're going to get and they appreciate the fact that they don't get that anywhere else so whether that's hip hop theater or whether that's a teacher who is plugged into the idea that it's universal I love how you put that I had never heard that before it makes a lot of sense that was you good job but I think hip hop is a great course to start with hip hop theater because it does welcome all cultures and all cultures have a stake in it in some way or form how do you feel about that because that's something that several hip hop theater scholars talk about hip hop is global and I absolutely love the work that I do at Lehigh because you know for the reasons I stated before but also because it's just a destination for everybody you go and sit up in that class and it looks nothing like the brochure of Lehigh University which looks decidedly different but then you go and look at Act Like You Know at CassieJohnson.com you can go and look up all the history of the classes they're always diverse at Lehigh University in general I have engineers dancing on my stage I have finance majors that are spin free styles like Lehigh encourages that cross-pollination of majors and stuff so I love never knowing who's coming through my door what you got and that's hip hop that's what that is and my job is to pull out allahendrick style what it is that you're on the precipice or the verge of I kind of like to dance I got rhythm here I go you absolutely do one and two and three you know so I meet them where they are find that thing and continue to propel it forward and it's hip hop baby if it's not authentic you can't do it but the minute it's authentic everyone will know and they will cheer you for it you know some of the hardest work I do is when we get into spoken word poetry where we have to tell our stories in one soul that we get when we do that work sometimes we dance sometimes you know the skin knees and stuff but mostly it's the spoken word and my job is to be a glorified bullshit meter I'm gonna say it I'm not gonna let them you know I just sit there like this like if I feel like you just faking the funk I'm gonna let you know but the minute that you speak in your truth we will know that too and we will never forget you for it now always tell my students the audience will love you more they aspire to and that's the beauty of what I'm finding about hip hop theater and the work that I do with my students is hip hop is all things you know getting where you fit in show improve how you express yourself authentically and at the very least if you don't do anything you can at least name yourself rename and reclaim yourself see yourself we was even freestyling before this in the dress room because anyway I could go on but I'll tell secrets now no I was just saying and she was talking about the engineering students dancing I was like I went to the show it was amazing they're really good they should be dancing that's all I was saying tell us a bit about the Hendrix method yeah the Hendrix method so I was I was trained in the Hendrix method and I still practice the Hendrix method Freddie Hendrix is an African-American theater director from Georgia who is still working in the country today I told him we were live streaming hope he's watching so Freddie Hendrix actually worked with students in high school and it's like high school mm-hmm it's called tri cities high school for the visual and performing arts yeah you're live okay so um tri cities high school for the visual and performing arts and so what Freddie Hendrix did along with his colleagues is he worked with students in the daytime and then he started the Freddie Hendrix Youth Ensemble of Atlanta that we saw up here and so those same students went with him in the evening to do shows the Hendrix method is a combination of empowered authorship musical bravado ensemble building activism effusive reverence of black culture some of the I have to name some of the people that train with Freddie Hendrix one of them is Kenan Thompson the Emmy award when he won Emmy Kenan Thompson from Saturday Night Live Candy Burris was in the singing group Escape and now she's on Real Housewives of Atlanta doing great stuff and then this is where oh yeah Justin Ellington who's a Broadway composer Saag Alja who originated the role of Fela Kuti on Broadway Seh Khan Simbla who played next to him um uh what's her name Sandra Isidore on Broadway um Juldi Lane who was the first local uh choreographer in Atlanta to be commissioned by the Atlanta Ballet Shellis Bird who created the pink lip for Nicki Minaj and I know and the list goes on and on and on um D Woods of Dannity Kane long time ago when uh P Diddy put that platinum selling group together Dannity Kane uh so you have this you have this and I'm missing some names Myisha McQueen who's on tour right now Talia Branson trying to get all of them in there but you you have this list and what I said was my god right they did not really go to college now as as as they kept training in the methods some of them did go to college one of them just graduated from Yale or is graduating now Juilliard, Amari Cheetham uh NYU uh University of the Arts so but they had this training that was getting them places that to me uh for there to be such limited roles for black people to have all of these students coming out of this one camp in Atlanta, Georgia something is going on something is going on that something is the Hendricks method so what does it look like in the book we talk about three three big tenets of the Hendricks method we talk about um devising which I hear you that's a tenet of hip hop theater we know we know in hip hop you have to be authentic which is also creating your material that's the key rule you don't go steal nobody's stuff and you do not wrap nobody's stuff well that what nowadays now it is yeah yeah go ahead keep talking I just okay so but yeah you know what I mean you you you you create your material so there's devising but you you understand the devising as critical which means there's usually an activist standpoint and there's reflexivity involved okay so this is what this how it plays in the rehearsal room in the studio is that you lose the partitions so in many BFA and MFA programs we have partitions called acting class dance class music class voice and speech LeBon right but you know we have these classes so the Hendricks method drops that partition just imagine curtains dropping and if we were doing the Hendricks method right now we would decide a topic the topic would be something that's happening in the nation sometimes when you do I said you know I think that it's you get to older actors and you have a group of students particularly black students and you're like okay guys we're gonna devise and you go the safe route that can be an assault too and what I mean by that let's say we're gonna devise which I want to devise everybody's talking we're trying to be diverse again and so we decided to devise something about um Build-A-Bear I'm just making up something you know and it's just like but we getting shot and killed we're gonna talk or we can devise something about jackets or we can devise something about brushing our teeth in the morning and so this happens in these it really does happen I mean it sounds silly but it happens and it's like students have something that they want to say all students I hear that from all students now all students are coming in this political climate and they're like no I want to talk about this I want to talk about the shootings I want to talk about the you know presidency I have things to say and you're asking me to talk about something that seems a little uh why am I wasting so much artistic energy on that yes I'll learn something but this I can actually take out into the streets and do something with make some change with somehow though I know that tooth brushing is maybe universal a little bit that's not really what I want to talk about in class but those types of things happen so the topic for instance they did team pregnancy HIV and AIDS um uh crime in black communities self love we're going to be talking about something that's critical that has an activist standpoint we're going to be reflexive in it you can do what you want when you are working in the Hendricks aesthetic so he might feel like he's a dancer but today I'm going to dance and I'm going to go over and dance with him and on this day he might not want to be a dancer he might not want to write a monologue today or I might want to you want to write a monologue or dialogue right well I don't I don't want to why does it have to be that binary what do you want to do I want to come up with somewhere I bob my head you know so you just have this full creative mode that's happening in the space where people are doing whatever they want to do and you also have musicians I would argue that the Hendricks method when you're working in the method you actually start with music some theorists would argue that that's very much of the black culture you're going to sing somebody going to beat on something tap their foot do something but you also have musicians there and you can go play piano so the piano would be set up and you can just float you know and push the person who's over there showing out off the piano and start playing the piano but we lose the partitions in the Hendricks method so when you work in the Hendricks method when you meet an actor in the Hendricks method they understand themselves to be creators alright so this is responding to black actors stereotypical roles well I don't want to play the maid they're asking me to play an animal again okay go create your own work create your own work and I believe it was Kayvon, Kayvon's in the audience we were talking about it not thinking of it as a burden because you don't think of it as a burden because we that kind of like right now it's like I'm a director what a playwright, playwrights have to shut up in the room right I mean I get it but ugh the director is the person who says to him everybody else shut up when you're a choreographer you come in and you dance you all watch the choreographer do the lights don't nobody mess with the lights they can't you know not right now we're gonna do the sound do the sound everything is like it almost feels like a little evil and like well I'm acting so I don't do any of those other things and you do we do that's what artists are so you don't look at it as a burden you understand it as you're asking me to bring my full self into the rehearsal room as a creator and then you find yourself when I am doing a show whether I'm teaching a high school student you don't have to you don't have to be like I gotta call a choreographer dang I can't choreograph to this Willy Wonka song you just right I can't figure it out versus if you're trying to do the Hendrix method you just do buddy do here we go I'm choreographing right I know music I understand what it means to go flat and sharp I know it's okay to go flat and sharp so you have these tools and you don't look at it as a burden as I'm trying to do everything you just understand that you're an artist and you don't have to be pigeonholed into one thing so when we do the Hendrix classes Hendrix method classes we don't partition in that way we'll have a class on black psychology possibly hip-hop theater as well we'll partition it sometimes but really we're all in the room like we did today working together and creating together and eventually as we go along we're devising we decide what to keep in what to pull out somebody gets mad there's no ownership so I understand that when I do that dance I write that monologue if I do write it okay she might be doing it and I'll be ready I'll be ready right yeah it is so beautiful and I know playwrights know this but it's so beautiful to know that you can create something for somebody else and I don't have to go this is my song I'm singing it I can go teach it and I can go over here and say can you find the harmony right and to be in collaboration like that with one another and the last two things I'll say because I've been talking a minute spirituality and hyper ego I'll let Jonathan tap on the spirituality part but you understand yourselves to be something greater than yourself and also yourself which is connected to everybody when you practice in the Hendrix method you can be in diverse beliefs we're gonna pray we are and you just need to figure out who you who you think in that moment you know nobody's gonna look at you and be like you better pray but when you know when you start bringing that into the room it just for me sometimes feels self-serving in a sense thanks somebody close your eyes and think about your grandmama and that nice pot of grit she cooks you know what I mean give thanks to somebody so I'll let you talk about spirituality more but the hyper ego is simply to believe that they are the shit even when they might not be in that moment and having them walk into this moment of greatness so I see myself into the future I can do it and believing that eventually the actor will walk into that moment how you do that is tricky and I talk about all this in the book it's tricky but it is attainable psychology is a part of it Freddie Hendrix gives people compliments and it can be about their phenotype too so instead of being jealous of the pretty girl you just start learning because there's so much hate that you can carry you just start learning to be like oh you so pretty that felt good I love those shoes so you just start uplifting people in very real ways you know because we try to act what happens when a kid tells you that somebody called me ugly they don't want to hear that that doesn't matter you need to call the kid cute does that make sense things do matter how people perceive us they shape us so the hyper ego is getting you to believe that you can do anything you want and not exing yourself out so right now if somebody walked in and said hey y'all we auditioned for the next cast Black Panther 2 I'm just making something up right we need to know who can trap he's I'm getting up y'all I'm getting up and I'm staying in the room and when they drop the little when they drop it down I'm gonna pretend like as long as I can until they realize she didn't lie okay so it's just having the understanding of not exing yourself out from any opportunity and saying I'm gonna stay here until something until they carry me out and that has been in our history in black history I will stand right here I'm not moving you gonna have to carry me out of here it's just having that hyper ego and I also say I call it the ego capital because the social capital a lot of black people don't have you know what that means is my daddy is not Aaron Spelling but we don't have that our fathers are not Will Smith all the time so we don't have hey can you call your dad and get him to get me on Broadway absolutely come on right how does she do that anyway so we don't usually have that kind of capital but that ego capital nobody can mess with that ego capital you just believing that you are amazing because you are amazing you are amazing you are amazing and understanding that nobody can take that from you and yeah you might have a bad day here now or a bad week or a bad year or a bad you know five years but you but you come back to that somebody told me that and I believed it and I believe it and so what I see in the Hendrix method is you tell you know folks that they can sing and I've seen Freddie do it and he's like Freddie they cannot sing you know that's what you're thinking right and then one day they just start singing and it's like oh you can sing and I really think it's just that changing that mindset I can sing I can do gymnastics I can trapeze I'm gonna do it right now the only thing that's keeping me from doing it is doing it like that um video that's going around right now people at the edge of the pool trying to jump right we're our biggest we can be our biggest enemy I sent her that video okay I'm done I'm done so that is that is some of the Hendrix you did that is some of the the Hendrix method and what it looks like to work in the Hendrix aesthetic spirituality about it I'm up here enjoying myself so no there was actually a lot in there that you mentioned that when I was re-reading black acting black acting methods that that first chapter about the Hendrix method and when I was re-reading Jones's Trio's article I was looking I was seeing the parallels there so there's a lot in the Hendrix method that coincides with black psychology or those African values in black psychology and you were talking about how in the Hendrix method it oftentimes starts with music and so I was thinking you know in a black psychological tradition we might call that the rhythm aspect right this sense not just in rhythm as in purely the musical domain but rhythm in the sense that we're all interconnected in that moment because you start you know doing out a beat then everyone gets on that same beat so everyone's moving in the same way everyone's feeling the same thing right that's that rhythm that's that synchronicity right that's a part of that African ethos right so that's when I was reading that I was like oh that's from us well then if you would have read to the end of the book where my chapter is you will also see that we start my classes off the same thing the drum music the same so I'm also chiming in and yes but continue so that's the first piece and we and we know that in acting classes today that we start off similarly I talk about that in the book the circle you know that's very much afrocentric we get in the circle we start with somebody catch up you know what I mean a lot of a lot of these things have been co-opted or appropriated and not giving due just so you're connecting them back to the early 1900s but you gotta go back further all the way back you gotta go back further to see where they're coming from to see where they're coming from and what did those people get because we're all here on this earth together what did those people get from those methodologies from watching black people work you know right yeah um so yeah so I was just drawing those parallels but when we think about spirituality in particular black black psychologists believe that all is spirituality so everything that we're talking about is spiritual right um again it's not spirituality in the sense of I need to go to a certain place to embody the spirituality we're we're we're spirits right now in this space we're enacting our spirituality in this space when we are helping other people be more of themselves we're enacting our spirituality so when Freddy's telling someone you can sing you can sing and they start to believe that right developing that hyper ego right that's a spiritual act that's a spiritual act in that moment because now that person has permission to move beyond self protective into self enhancing to evolve even more to a higher and higher place right that's why it's so important to always be thinking about the ways in which we help each other and move beyond when I hear you talk about those engineering students um in your class and they're moving into their bodies and learning how to dance and expressing themselves that's all spiritual and you know what it makes me think about real fast in regard to what it makes me think about we talk about this in the book since we're talking about the hyper ego and spirituality and how that's together an example in the book is Freddy Hendrix encountered Tia Schaefer's daughter at a party a couple of years ago and she was about five and I guess the spirit came over him and he started talking to Eden her name is Eden and he said Eden you know people are going to tell you that Eden you think you are all of that we know some of us have gotten told that we were kids you think you are all of that people are going to tell you Eden she thinks she did she thinks she did because she talented because she could sing she's beautiful she's smart she wants to be a scientist and he said when they're in your face tell them that you turn and you tell them yes I am I am great you're absolutely right because my mother said so my grandmother and Freddy Hendrix said so I am going to affirm what you are feeling from me so what they got created I think for a lot of youth is we call that stuck up right so stuck up is dismantling that ego you don't want anybody to think you're stuck up you're talented stuck up kids are usually real talented usually a lot of times they got some nice clothes or they're talented or they can't sing but it's usually when you think about the stuck up kids it was kind of like justified in a way yeah they thought they were all that not that I think about it they didn't have something going for them right so that's stuck up so it's rethinking of that so if my child comes home and tells me they think I'm stuck up keep it good just be nice to people but what are you doing to them did you do anything for them to say no you know kids come up to you like you stuck up I heard you were stuck up I got called it all the time right keep that nurture that good to good to people because right there's where you start to dismantle that ego that particularly black kids really really really need to have that hyper ego be stuck up be stuck up when you walk into the rehearsal room he think he got that part she think she got that part they think they got that part I do in my mind I do right and I would just I would redefine stuck up because what I interpret what you're saying is it's not so much about being stuck up in an arrogant way but it's about what you are and often times we do know who we are right and taking back to spirituality there's a sense of all of us that we know who we are and that's that connection right that's that we're we're physically manifesting that connection to that something higher right that that infinite but often times through the process of living right whether it's in our own families or the outside world right we get disconnected from that because people are telling us something wrong that we know who we are you know when I was in first grade I was like I'm gonna be a doctor I'm gonna be a doctor oh no I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do that I'm gonna read this book everyone's like right and I thought something was wrong with me right but then you know luckily I read a lot and I knew about black history and I was like yeah but why people being brilliant and I'm just in the lineage so there's actually nothing wrong with me what's wrong with you why are you not owning your brilliance right so yeah so I think we have to think about what redefining what stuck up means because a lot of times what we're calling stuck up it's a knowing of ourselves and the owning of that now and as a question we also are at the university and as you know we do place high value on the history and writing things down and creating a history of legacy so when you created the book and when you ask what did you just cover what were you surprised while you do the research while you did the book is there something that collect I mean I think one of the first things I was like my god I cannot believe this hasn't been written down you know and I understood why because everybody was working in the field doing the work you stop an artist who's doing the work and say you gotta write this down they're like okay I gotta go teach these I gotta go teach these classes but you want me to stop and because it's hard writing is hard you know I mean it's it's writing is super hard and it takes a lot a lot to do and so is the work in the studios so that's something that I feel like I discovered that I couldn't believe all and then I was like oh yeah I can believe it you know at the beginning it was I couldn't believe all of these things are here in this orbit now and more people need to have access to it it was a beautiful it was a beautiful experience to to talk about blackness and to have diasporic black people coming in you know also Latino folk and some folk who just identify as multiracial in the mix talking about black acting methods and us teasing through that blackness moment which we talk about ad nauseam in the book but that was really cool to kind of talk about that and to see again it wasn't new that these this has been this has been talked about from the ancestors yeah thank you I know you wrote your contribution after you know you right well I mean for me it's just about being you know in great company for all time as long as this book shall exist I shall be a part of this wonderful conversation of comparative methodologies so you know writing is hard put that on a t-shirt I'm sure it's there but again I remain grateful and thankful for the opportunity because with this first anthology then the question is what's next and what's next is now the black acting methods studio where we get to apply and you know for me in my work like by writing my chapter I had educator professor Ellen Maranek in Bronx community college try and see how my work translates with her students back in the Bronx like can hip hop theater go home to the birthplace of hip hop and can it hold up and she recognized as the white female professor that she was just like look I need to connect with my students more thank God for this chapter cash now come and let's see how we can make this live so I have started to open up the things that I've been doing in my class slash laboratory for 10 years and now taking a walk on the road and it's really proving it's an interesting experiment you know like does this only exist through me or can this exist through the work and then I hope be applied elsewhere in other places you have some other institutions University of Madison Wisconsin using hip hop as a very important part of their curriculum but you know far and wide hip hop is finding its way into the academy in very interesting ways because we as academics are of the hip hop generation so we here you know I just happen to be in the theater performance piece and I'm really interested in seeing how I can infect more people nationwide and internationally with the work to see how you know how it can continue to live because I know how liberating it is for me as an educator and for my students and the audiences so yeah yeah yeah and so yeah to answer your question thank you for bringing that up it led to the black acting method studio because it was the beginning of the work you know I finished the book and thought it was the end okay I'm kidding y'all but I mean the call for more the call for now the call for right now like somebody my assistant got an argument with somebody in email because they wanted to come to the seminar and they were really like arguing they had like told why and I was like this is amazing you know they wanted to come to the what I wanted to say is that the black acting method studio is rolling out programming we're going to have the first international black acting method symposium in Atlanta Georgia in September before that we will probably be be back somewhere in New York City that's getting set up right now and then we do consulting and coaching and also we are going digital we are going digital as well putting some of our programming online so it's a lot of work to be done and we're trying to figure out how to get it to the folks who are asking for it which are a lot of people and going back on tour when the book came out I went on an HBCU tour so we're going to go back on tour and go to some more schools so it will be based in Atlanta the studio or the studio is based everywhere the symposium is in Atlanta where will the studio be based I hope everywhere where is it going to open that is a good question but it operates now so right now we've been going around the country so it's a mobile studio it's not a building yet it's a mobile studio like how we came today and we did a seminar it would be great to have a building but I think if we have a building we need to have several a whole bunch of buildings and get also folks trained to teach black acting methods and also the Hendricks method when do Q&A yeah I think it's time to to go over maybe have a little bit of light for the audience and we're going to give you a mic maybe you come over here so yeah some some questions before I ask more questions you know or comments hi maybe introduce shortly who you are my name is Charles Fenner I am a BFA acting student at Brooklyn College John Cox I want to hear your opinion you talked about for the Hendricks method in regards to like the partition because I am in that process the LeBron the LeCoc all of those methods Stanislavski, Meisner and everything you were talking about I am going through this current time and you mentioned something about as a black actor you feel like you have to push and prove and that's where I'm at because the conservatory that I train at I do get a lot of animal roles and I do get the off the millers and the Eugene O'Neill's and it's starting to play have a mental effect on me in regards to I have to prove that I can speak like Shakespeare I love Shakespeare but when I say with my Bronx dialect they're like no no no that's not she like you're it's it's it comes off as if I'm disgracing the work but that's how I identify with it so my question to you guys what advice would you give someone who's who's going through that who who has to always feel like they have to try to put themselves put a stamp on their work and feel like there's a line being drawn because sometimes I'd be in scene classes where they would ask me how do you feel and I'm like you really don't want to know how you know I mean like I know I did my best work you know in regards to playing you know a white character but how I personally feel I don't feel that my that was my stamp on the work that it becomes more of a pleaser for the audience rather than saying like I own that I'm an artist I own that scene for me as Charles so how would you what what advice would you give to someone who's going through that what year are you I'm in my junior year okay so what I what comes to my mind is contingencies of self-worth right so you're in this space and you you do need to meet the requirements right I always tell my students in my psych department and say you know they never talk about how this applies to black people so on and so forth so I was like yes but you still need to learn it yes we know Erickson when he did those psychosocial stages he did not have us in mind but you still need to learn them so learn learn your mindset right learn all that stuff get your degree right however know that the degree does not make you you're already whole right you already have everything you need right I was a great therapist before I got my PhD you know why cuz I knew how to listen right you're a great actor before you get any piece of paper the paper is for them not for you right so connect to those ways and those moments in which you can be whole both inside the classroom and outside of the classroom you may need to do their art to please them to meet the requirements in this moment but I would encourage you to find ways to be creating outside of that create be creating in ways that affirm you that tell your stories even while you're going through this process of meeting their standards right because we'll always have hoops right as long as we choose to participate in this game you could just be like I'm done I'm not I don't want to participate but as long as you choose to participate you're always gonna have hoops but you know out again afro-centric paradigm says both and it doesn't say either or it's both and so how do I move through these hoops and continue to affirm myself and do what I want to do and create in ways that affirm me and tell my stories and the stories of my community and my ancestors and how do you sustain that energy to get through those hoops what books do you pick up what what you know how do you feel I wish I went to school with the internet yeah I'm dating myself now you know what I mean because just knowing the world that is out there that is just there you know it's sometimes what you need to know that there are others that are just out there pushing and struggling and nodding and stamping and snapping just like you it's just getting to that next and to that next and I affirm exactly what was said you stay long enough so that you can then get that elbow room to create that space for yourself and every time you get that feeling of putting your stamp on it as you said hold on to that shine brighter because of that Hendricks yourself all over that and then feed yourself from that because it will be in fits and starts it will not always be mana you know and that's when you really got to hold on to it but don't stop don't stop and you know what they for you know I'm classically trained in Shakespeare myself and boy they used to roast me because my I am big pentameter read was hip-hop baby it wasn't on the you know what I mean but but look it you know we're here we're here we just have to stay long enough to be seen and known so hold on that's what I was there because you can't control the outcome all you can control is the intent what is the intent you're putting behind it are you acting with integrity and and the character are you making your ancestors proud that's what you can control you can't control what role someone cast you in but you can control what you bring and as long as you know that you're bringing it in a way that's that's filled with integrity then you're doing what you need to do right you're doing what you need to do and yet read read black activists read other things that self-care is so important and you know we're at a critical time where as a black act you know there's the whole conversation now about color conscious versus color blind casting and hallelujah for at least having enough awareness to have the conversation that should we be having this conversation I mean that's a that's that's progress you know and and fill that space when then when that conversation that yes be in there with all of your whole self never fold never falter be who you are and let them embrace that I never want to see and that's what I think Jonathan means I don't want to speak for you but the integrity piece is real if you can play that animal role with integrity and you know why you were doing it then then it's a win for everybody but if it compromises who you are and your soul and your being and you get nothing from it why waste your time why would anybody no matter who you are we know it's hard we want to give you a nice answer with icing and cake but it's just just know that you're not alone and we can talk more but just know just know that know that you're not alone you might feel alone in that space but know that there are so many actors that have the same question and it's just like you know I don't you have to like we're saying you have to decide in each moment what you're trying to get what is the end goal is at the paper you know that doesn't mean play something that you don't want to play but you have to figure out when when when to push and when to kind of pull maybe and when to just kind of breathe and take the temperature of your professors you know that it's hard to take the temperature of the professors who are like the allies because what no I'm just saying because because because because it's hard to tell an ally I know you've been working around the clock to not support white supremacy and not to be racist but in this moment actually the past five weeks you've been real racist so what I will say is this I'm saying take the temperature of your teachers because some teachers who may have never even kind of thought about diversity that way what I mean by is this and I might shake them up a little bit but you decide don't get kicked out your program but um but I had two students once all I'm saying is this and this is problematic and you don't have to agree with me I know everybody's I'm like I cannot believe she said that but I teach and in my classroom because it's a classroom this is my philosophy because it's a classroom I let students and body roles that are not in their race I know it's problematic but I'm always wondering one person gets this benefit this time then what am I willing to sacrifice so one time I had a black actor and a white actor it was trifles and it was ruined okay they came up to me they decided to do ruined and I love both of them they're great I decided to do ruined and then the black actor said dr. lucky after about a day dr. lucky it's such and such is really really really feeling bad so we're gonna do trifles I said well why because the white actress is not black I said baby you're not white so there's a conversation that needs to be had why does that mean just because your partner is white why does that mean you have to be subjected to whiteness go find a scene where it's a black man and a white man maybe it's in sweat by Lynn knowledge do you understand what I'm saying versus because you're basically saying to the black actor you're you're ignoring you you know the black actor the other actors of color you don't matter this is universal we're gonna do all my sons I know you lie I know everybody was like oh my god you know we're gonna we're gonna do all my sons right that is a disservice to your black actors and your actors of color go find a scene where they all can work and if you can't find a scene create the scene you act like you can't write a play write a scene and it'll probably be better than something this out that then you'll be on tour with your one acts one acts will be like you know what I mean we love one act festivals do a one act festival and be like you know they're creating it but I just wanted to say you're not alone and it is a very tough question just stay in the fight and if you want that degree get that degree yes and I know what I said it's controversial but I would I would do it for you do you understand that doesn't mean I'm gonna sacrifice you so then flip it ask a white actor these black actors these actors of color have been playing white roles for a long time would you be willing to do something else versus catering to you because my education is getting compromised every time every scene every monologue and I want to say too it's okay if you don't like Shakespeare you don't have to say anything but I want to say it's okay but I find a lot of times that people like they talk bad about Shakespeare like I love Shakespeare you know it's okay if you don't because Shakespeare is pushed down a lot of people's throat don't say it pushed down it's you know it's one of those things like push down your throat and it's like it's okay some people like certain playwrights some people don't it's okay but he loves Shakespeare y'all hi miss some Shakespeare okay I'm done I'm done hi I'm Malcolm from Instagram I have all the questions yes I'm here I made it so my my whole thing I just recently got my MFA in acting from the actress studio drama school so you know very Stanislavsky very method all day and I and your your book was very helpful to me during my second year because I had a particular situation with one professor this one particular professor where we just weren't connecting I don't know if it was the work necessarily but her and I just weren't we weren't on the same page about what was happening and it took a lot of time for me to understand where she was coming from when she was trying to give me notes and for her to understand where I was coming from when I would approach things because it before grad school I didn't have a way of expressing what I was feeling on the stage or if I what I was feeling up there doing work in front of class and and I had a teacher who also is from Atlanta who kind of taught me something similar to the Hendricks method but not the Hendrick without the devising I would say but everything else so my question to you all is really of how do you build a strong sense of identity for this work and or the hyper ego I would say because I don't think going into grad school I had a really good sense of my identity of who I was and what I had and what my value was to the work compared to when I walked out of out of there in May I felt like I knew myself way better you know and I had a different understanding but I still don't feel that I'm quite quite there yet and when reading and going through your book I'm still I'm trying to pick up little things so I'm just trying to understand how many organizations are you going on currently weekly weekly I get out I'm a teacher right now okay so my point you know what I mean you got to be in it to win it you got to kick in the door waving the four four you got to experience it in order to know what it you know like how do you how can you assess that you're not quite there yet how do you know if you ain't putting yourself through the door like three times a week just three you in the city right I'm in Jersey I'm in Newark so yeah I'm close no three still three at least you know a week just kick in the door and see what's good but that hyper ego comes alive when it's challenged I was saying I just I'll throw it over to Cheryl really quickly like the first time I recognized that I had that hyper ego was before my MFA it was when I was doing my grad school auditions and I realized those people in that room were the only people that stood between me in my future destiny of acting training for free but I was going for the scholarship right and everything I had up until that point when I I mean it was energy I don't even think I touched the door I think my energy just blew those doors open because you know I was not going to be denied and I had to have that adrenaline and the opportunity and it was big and it was important and it tested me and I will never forget it because I conjured and I call on that feeling for the next 20 years I did that super ego of knowing that there is nothing between you and me I get to show you what I got for the next 90 seconds and you gonna remember me you gonna at least ask me what my name was one more time before I leave you know I mean like sharing that thing so I'm just saying don't limit yourself prove to yourself that you're closer than you think it's about doing it you know and no pressure I know you got job you got whatever you know what I mean but you're closer to it than I am I'm in Bethlehem Pennsylvania I can't or Allentown I can't you know just go and kick in the door three times a week but if I was here I definitely would be you know that's what I said I was just gonna say Malcolm I think I understand your question you're saying how do you enact the hyper ego in your career right now it's yes yes because it's something I've kind of put on the back burner when it came to myself I think it's a couple of things so the Hendrix method is something you have to train in right it is in that book some of it though we talk about three tennis and then the folks who train in the Hendrix method trained in it for a couple of years they trained it for years so I'm not gonna say it's something you can read theoretically you can hear about it but you have to also practice it and be in a space where people are practicing it as well to kind of see how it operates and what it looks like I will also a way I think I maintain is therapy I'm looking at Jonathan because it's gonna go there and yeah I'm saying black in black culture you know we have this thing where we don't like to go to psychologists or psychiatrists and we need to be right up in there you know talking to them a lot so I would say a therapist and therapy to keep yourself sane and also staying connected mmm and people say this all the time but I'm gonna say it to being around other people that have hyper egos because as I continue to do the black acting method studio to do this work walking in you know in my purpose in this hyper ego moment I need people around me with hyper ego there's no other way that doesn't mean we don't have our hard days but I know that you strong enough to catch me and I'm strong enough to catch you and we're checking on each other because it doesn't mean that life is part is perfect but surrounding yourself by people who are walking in their purpose yes that's important to who are you surrounding yourself by you know and it's not that you're not walking your purpose maybe you are teaching right now which is fine I talk you know what I mean and also don't be so hard on yourself you know like you the hyper ego is not necessarily like something you can go like this it's not it's not a touchable it's something that comes up out of you maybe every now and then so it's not like I'm walking down street like this maybe some days I am right but it comes up out of me one day in rehearsal when I tell him I'm not doing this no more or comes up out of me when I decide to leave I heard recently something in it in it released to me it said leaving sometimes is the best revolution I recently turn but but I was like oh I needed to hear that but but so I would say this since you since you're not training in the Hendricks method right now surround yourself by people who are doing stuff okay and who seem to have hyper egos or even trying to just work on themselves to be better people yeah no I was gonna say I just turned down something and it was so liberating recently in my life so yes leaving is a revolution no I was gonna say yes as a psychologist therapy right and I know therapy can be sometimes it could be inaccessible to some of us but it so doesn't always need to be formal though if you can do formal therapy I recommend it but just having someone who's gonna listen and not tell you what you want to hear and who's not gonna give you the tough love auntie advice either though because you don't want that either but you really want someone who's going to oh don't call me then you don't want the auntie advice not so but also being rooted you know you were you were saying about you know you're trying to figure that out who you are you know being rooted in something right so so blackness and Afrocentricity we often times think about it in terms of race but again from a real Afrocentric psychology a black psychology perspective it's about that spiritual aspect is beyond race race is so small it's not it's not about having a particular phenotype it's about are you manifesting spirit that are you manifesting the infinite right but because we are in a world that often emphasizes phenotype it could also be very important to be understand our history right and the people who have gone before us as you were saying earlier dr. Lucky and knowing that because they did it I can do it as well right but we need to be rooted in that because you know Audre Lorde talks about historical amnesia and she says historical amnesia keeps us reinventing the wheel every time we go to the store for bread right so you don't need to do all this work there been people who's done it for you before understand their stories ground yourself in their stories understand yourself to be in the lineage of those people and you're keep moving that's that's what gives you that hyper ego that can give you that ego resiliency because when I think about myself as a black psychologist as an intellectual I'm like I've had Baldwin I've had Audre Lorde Tony is stunting every day I just discovered a speech Tony Morrison did in 1991 at Chicago humanities festival I was just like every time I think I got something Tony already said it she's so brilliant Tony but but every time I do something those people are there with me I'm continuing that lineage so I'm just as great as Tony I'm just as great as James I'm just as great as Audre I'm just the only thing that ain't happened yet that happened with them is y'all ain't recognized it y'all recognize it tonight cuz y'all in front of me right but I know who I am you know I know who I am I'm waiting on y'all you know so that's what you bring with you every time but you got to be rude into something hi everybody thank you so much I'm just really really grateful to be in this space and like here you all talk about the book and in person I remember first encountering black acting methods to you dr. like it when you were on you and dr. crystal Chanel trust guy was speaking about it Muehlenberg I think that was my sophomore year of college before I left the school and since then I've just been thinking about afro-centricity in the theater and really really I said this earlier when we were like recording it just helped me notice and especially more deeply after reading the book in full and keep continuing to reread it that growing up even before I got involved in theater in high school I had these artistic impulses these things I wanted to do and so I would write and then when I couldn't feel like I could get that impulse out when writing I started drawing and when it couldn't do it through drawing I wanted to do music and I just kept jumping from these different things but there was this impulse and I didn't know what the name for it was I couldn't really like and so I wouldn't dive into it because I didn't have a name for it I just thought it was something I wanted to do and couldn't find and but the moments when I would dive into it something would come out that was really affirming to me really beautiful and but they were in those small spurts and finally just thinking about afro-centricity and the sort of wholeness that that for me it drives me to war is helping me dive into that a lot more and so I say all that to say thank you and since beginning that journey I've begun realizing that yes I dropped out of school and I'm on the fence about continuing with college and picking back up on it I'm not sure if I want to but the work that I want to do I still want to do and now my mind is more just like after having read the book and beginning this journey of diving into those impulses and stuff like that though I'm not in school how do I get connected to people who are doing stuff like this you know because I think not being in school does provide a barrier for a lot of people but being in school is not available to all of us like right now for me it's not available to me but I know it seems like a lot of people doing this type of work are in those spaces so it's like how do I because there I have lots of ideas and if we're talking about hyper ego it's awesome stuff like it's stuff people have never heard of like I'm and but it's like who do I find who can help me nurture that dive into that impulse even more when I'm not in in school you know there's these barriers how do you get around and we can say create your own but how easy is that for all of us especially from 21 and I'm not you know I like to tell stories not really but I was going you know um sometimes it always amazes me how people feel like people won't respond to emails or people and where I'm going with that is um if you feel like the work is being done in the schools okay because I'm sure it's been happening outside sometimes you can email people and all um all professors might not let you because of certain reasons but you know we have something called auditing and sometimes people just want to float in you know go talk to them and tell a professor what you're doing and they might let you sit in on a class or two I'm just saying right but you won't know until you ask them I will never forget how and I hope they watch it I would never forget how I was introduced to Richard Shekner and I never knew how big he was and so when I was introduced to him I said oh that sounds like cool work I'm gonna email him and I remember my classmates laughed at me like that was that is the silliest thing I have ever heard you know it is the silliest thing I have ever heard how can she she's gonna email him as if he's gonna respond and so I don't know why they were laughing because I didn't realize how big he was so I went and I emailed him and I said can we talk he said yeah these are my office hours come on up and we sit and had this long conversation and then I got on his email blast he'd be emailing me I'd be emailing him back you know to me okay okay every now and then right but what I'm saying is because he'd be having his birthday parties what I'm saying y'all know he'd be having his birthday parties but what I'm saying is we have like you said we have the internet and I don't mean to be given all of my because here's the thing here's the thing even when I find even when I tell people that they still won't do it a lot of times where the places I've gotten in is because I've emailed somebody or I said hey can I use your gymnasium or can I come in and paint on your walls or whatever right I would like to plan a garden with you too they'd be like I've been waiting for somebody to ask me so I'm just saying that's one that's one option to if you know places that are happening see see if they're open to you just coming in and sitting in for a second and seeing what's going on and as far as black acting methods goes you are part of the community when you came to the seminar this afternoon she greeted you with love and familiarity and we know that's just like coming home in church like you know like so wherever she goes wherever you do intersect I mean this community there's a Facebook page for black acting methods I don't want to promote but you know Instagram there's an Instagram there's an IG but you represent and you ride for what the work that's being done that is awakening you and you know I mean that's how I have been doing hip hop at Lehigh for 10 years because the students that I know that want to rock with me are the ones who I keep in my you know that emailed me right are the ones who I think of when I'm doing a symposium or a seminar I'm bringing in a guest artist I keep them in my nucleus in my network and I'm just saying so you may not be we may not be a physical space black acting methods studio but whenever it does intersect across your path who knows it may be generative for you you know a place and you know scholars that are going to celebrate and when there's a Hendricks method workshop you will be one of the first to know I mean stay connected to the thing that brings you joy is my message in all of that and so if if it's through black acting methods so be it that's for all of you you know it has to feed you it has to sustain you it has to be your fan club your squad your team of hyper ego hyper we gonna have a crazy ride back home can you imagine what we gonna celebrate on each other and just my point is if you see it don't just think it's a fleeting thing be a part of that thing figure out a way to etch out your space inside of it and you know we'll be we'll all be better for it doesn't just have to be something here share it with us if you can and I just want to say one thing because I sent something and I could be off but I believe I sent something when you were talking about not being in college right now and I just want to say if you want to go back to college go back to college but also that does not make you less than it is not determined where you can go in life right if you tap into what you put here to do and you do that then you are on your path right people think oh you know I didn't accomplish it overnight I didn't accomplish it in a year or two right you may be working 20 30 years before you finally reach the thing that you want to reach but you got to keep working at right because you know corner West when he's talking about James Baldwin he says you know James Baldwin never went to college but about three or four different colleges went through him right so you can always be learning right you could be an intellectual never get a degree from anywhere August Wilson right so don't don't let that hinder you don't ever have that have you thinking somehow I'm less than somehow I can't speak to these people these audiences you can do all of that and more it's about connecting to spirit okay hi I'm Jasmine I'm Dr. Lucky was actually teaching at Muhlenberg my senior year before I graduated and I was mad that I never got a chance to sit in the class with you but I think that your book really just came at a moment where like I needed something because just being a black educator teaching theater in North New Jersey is just I was just trying to find a way well how can I get these kids to like to buy into like the class and like just really understand like how where theater can take them and I was just like thinking I'm like I can't even connect to the things that I'm teaching like Stanislavski my eyes I can't even connect to it how am I going to be able to teach that to the students and I think that your book just came at a time just like randomly like Malcolm was like have you heard this book like it's by Dr. Lucky I was like Dr. Lucky who and he showed me a picture I was like stop because I know her like it's actually kind of weird and I was like wait she has this book and I just like it just was just a moment where I was just like wow this is exactly everything that I needed everything that I wanted to do and I'm just appreciative of you have any spaces and just being the person that like to do this and so like I just had this huge dream and I'm like this is like the way I'm gonna go like this is gonna catapult me to where I need to go and like it was just exactly what I needed and so thank you and I'm glad that we got back into contact you know and I just want to say one last thing oh were you about to say something okay I just want to say one thing once you want all of you young people on your path and older people to go and create your own stuff too right don't stop here go and create your stuff Dr. Lucky has created a space she went through the particular programs she went through she didn't always see herself for a lot of different reasons because you're intersectional right so a lot of different reasons she didn't see herself but she didn't let that stop her and she said when I I'm going to get to a place and I'm going to create something and that's what she's done she's brought us all here together she created something cash created something at her university I'm creating something in the work that I do go out and create your own thing so that people will have something to do and you can bring them in it and they won't feel so alone the next generation won't feel so alone right that's our responsibility we're lucky enough so the ancestors do their work we have our work to do so go forth and do your work thank you turned off my mic I'm going to bar