 It is wonderful to see you all again. Thank you for joining us on this journey with the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation in our virtual weekend. We are Roland and we are loving it. My name is Andrea Asaf. I'm the Artistic Director of Art to Action, zooming in from Tampa, Florida on the land of the Seminole people. We invite you to say hello to each other in the chat and also let us know where you are zooming in from and whose land you are on. If you are following along on our HowlRounds or wherever, I would like to invite Suzanne Cross from Pangea World Theater to do land acknowledgements together. Beautiful, thank you so much, Andrea. I'm so excited to be here and on screen with everyone. Pangea World Theater and Art to Action acknowledge that we are on the sacred traditional lands of the first people of Turtle Island. For Pangea, it is an honor to live, work, and create art and community alongside Dakota and Ojibwe and the first people in the Twin Cities and Minnesota. Art to Action in Tampa, Florida is on the land of the Seminole people. We pay respect to Indigenous peoples' past, present, and future. As we grow in our work of decolonization, we build relationships at the speed of trust and endeavor to move from acknowledgement to action. And we invite you to acknowledge the first peoples of the lands where you are currently. Please name them in the chat and to learn more, you can go to nativeland.ca. I think the link is in the chat as well. So it is my great honor and pleasure to welcome today Sharon Bridgeforth for our masterclass. And Sharon's bio is on the screen and will be in the chat. But I just want to say personally that Sharon has been with us on this journey with the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation for a very long time, being a voice of reflection in our first gathering in 2012 and wrote a beautiful article, which I hope you all will check out, reflecting on that first experience and has been a master artist and mentor at the Institute as recently as 2019 and most recently appeared in the Black Directors Roundtable, which how round streamed, if you have not seen that, you should check it out as well. And it is just always an honor and a pleasure to be in the presence of Sharon Bridgeforth, to experience the work and the creative process that she has to offer and the wisdom and joy of her creative process as well. So without further ado, please welcome Sharon Bridgeforth for this special masterclass. Hello, Sharon. How are you doing today? I'm fantastic. I'm so grateful to be here. It is such an honor and a privilege. And I want to start by just really thanking you all for making this happen. Pangea and art to action and the labor, the love in action, all the years of creating and holding space for us and inviting us back and building and world changing that this is that you all have done and continue to do. I just feel extremely humbled and grateful. And I invite everyone to just drop into the chat, your gratitudes. For me, I know this is a place where I know I'm loved. I know I'm seen, I'm welcomed. I, you know, we can have the hard and sometimes messy conversations and things and still rise closer and more fully ourselves and encouraged. And for me, that is really precious. And in this, I feel I'm able to honor my ancestors and the people that have sacrificed and shaped these moments that I'm in most fully and then carry that out. So I invite you to drop into the chat some of your gratitudes as we move forward. What we are going to do during our time together is do a little bit of writing. So I encourage you to get something to write with, whether it's your computer, a paper and pen, whatever. I'll start by giving context. I will offer prompts throughout our time together at some point I'll ask the people that are here live with us in Zoom to go into breakout sessions and make work together. And while that's happening for the folks on HowlRound, there'll be a video playing and then I will pop in there and chat. And then we'll all come back together and the folks that made work together will be invited to share. So that's just a little bit. So I'm on Kislan. I'm in LA, the place that I grew up in and returned to about three years ago. So I'm home, very grateful. And thinking about this institute and all of you here, Diane Rodriguez and Lori Carlos come to mind. So I just wanna lift them up. I'm so grateful I got to spend just earth time and spirit time and work time and play time with them both. And so I just wanna say their names. And so I invite you to take a moment and both in the chat and in your notebooks or whatever you're writing with to just name some of the people now ancestors that you're grateful for in this moment. So write some of those names down. You won't have a lot of time, but write some of those names down. It's beautiful to see the names rolling through the chat. And we know that they're here with us always and that we can continue to commune and be with them and learn from them and make them laugh. Take a moment if you would and just and during our time together and write, the prompts are gonna be written in the chat, but also I invite you to write the prompts down because the truth is we could spend a half year doing this, but we've got two hours. So you won't have as much time as I'd actually like to give you to respond to prompts. So I invite you to take the prompts with you. And if you need to see the prompt, like if it escaped you and I don't repeat it, just look, scroll and you'll see that they will be written there. But use them for journaling, use them for walking meditations, whatever works for you. Take a moment and just breathe into whoever feels most with you right now, thinking of ancestors, knowing that there are no veils, that the living, the dead, the unborn coexist, that the past, the present, the future is now. Who of light and progress is most with you in this moment? And what is one thing that they said to you are saying to you that resonates deeply? So for me, I'm gonna say two people actually as example, Lori Carlos and she used to always say everything's already in the room. And I'll say my dad, who's from New Orleans, Algiers. And we would say, dad, do you wanna move back to New Orleans? And he'd say, in the morning. So anyway, pick one person, you can do more of this on your own time, but pick one person and write down one thing that is really with you that they have told you, that they have shared with you. And then take a moment and write the story of that. What is the story of that? And you're not gonna have a lot of time, but get it started. So take about another minute. All right, bring that to a close and we'll keep building. But I wanna take a moment and give a little context for how I work, how I've been shaped and what I'm offering. The book about the theatrical jazz aesthetic, which is the lineage that I'm a part of artistically is this gorgeous book called Theatrical Jazz, Performance Ache and the Power of the Present Moment and we'll drop a link in for the book. The hard copies are no longer available at the moment, but you can, it is available as an e-book. It is by Omi Oshun, Joni L. Jones, and it is just a gorgeous really ethnographic work where she gives history, context, rooting, her own journey and specific stories and works with artists that work in this aesthetic. The naming theatrical jazz actually was coined by Aisha Rahman in the 70s. And you know, we black so soon as you name something, we like, what are we doing this now? So just like the musicians, it's not meant to be a tight box but what it is meant to do is help us name our family, our lineage and the tools that we're working with, which Omi roots all the way down into your spiritual cosmologies and practices. I'm gonna read just and short bits, and this is for context of an essay that Omi did that was published back in 2005 in the theater journal. So this was before the book came out. And there's also Omi has a website that has some audio and video of her talking about the book and that link will also be in the chat. Anyway, Omi says, this work began to form in the early 70s alongside the black arts movement in the sounds and motion dance studio under the tutelage of Diane McIntyre. Sounds and Motion became the artistic workshop for a host of legendary performance artists including Lori Carlos, Endazaki Shange, Jawele Willa-Joes Olar, Marlise Yorobi, musician Cecil Taylor, Craig Harris, Seku Sundiata, and Olu Dhar with whom McIntyre continues to create work. This simultaneous movement fused music, sound, dance, movement and spoken word was primarily initiated and perpetuated by women. It relied on breath as a spiritual fire of the work and set no limits on blackness. A theatrical jazz aesthetic borrows many elements from the musical world of jazz, improvisation, process over product, ensemble synthesis, solo virtuosity, and it disrupts the traditional conventions of Western theater including a single narrative with a through line and causal relationships that rely on psychological coherence, individual characters performed singly by performers and identifiable places and spaces. A jazz aesthetic uses gestural language as counterpoint to verbal texts. This gestural language is a blend of modern dance, contemporary dance, popular idioms and everyday physical references like washing dishes, getting dressed or chasing a ball. Some of the movement reflects West African aesthetics and galerity movements that pull to the earth unpredictable punctuation, but the modern dance foundation from McIntyre remains apparent. There is a fluidity of time and space in a jazz aesthetic now and then and will be coexist. There and here and never was is. Ancestors and deities and nature and humans float, sing, spin and make worlds together aware or unaware of each other's presence. Okay, Dr. Jones. Y'all know Dr. Jones, my wife, right? Anyway, but we've worked together for many, many years before we got together. And so very proud of her and grateful for her work. What is your aesthetic? Take a moment if you would and just name your, and you know, this is not about boxing, this is about expansion. So expansively just name your aesthetic and make sure you note a little bit about what it is rooted in, what shapes and informs it. Again, you won't have a long time, so make sure you write the question down. For those just entering or just joining, you can scroll through and find the prompts that we are currently writing through and that we have written about. Bring that to a close. As Omi mentioned in her essay and talks a lot about in her book, this form, this aesthetic is basically very much driven by ancestral connection. For myself, it is all my whole hearted desire to live a spiritual life, to heal, to be a healer, and to move the lineage forward is the work. How I tell stories, how I am in collaboration is informed basically not only by the people that mentored me and shaped me like Lori Carlos and Robbie McCullough who are the people that I'm working with and Robbie McCullough and so many others, but it's also shaped by my trying to tell stories as good as my family. So for me, growing up being someone that just was mesmerized by the elders in my family, I was the youngest one for a long time. I remember that they were always dancing. There was food always, folks laughing, singing, crying, like all these things happening at the same time. A lot of good timing and a lot of grief all at the same time. A lot of repetition, same stories being told over and over and over. And what I now know is that was all such a gift. That was how, what I had to lean into, not only as I make work, but as I grow and move forward in the lineage and in my own soul, what are the elements of storytelling that are part of your inheritance? What are some of, you won't have time to tend to all of them, but what are some of the elements of storytelling that are part of your inheritance that you use in your work right now? You'll just have a couple of minutes. And again, if you didn't quite catch the question or if you're just joining up, look in the chat, scroll through and you can catch it there. Bring that to a close and just kind of look through your responses thus far and frame things, circle, box, underline, frame things that jump out at you. So no right or wrong, just following your authentic curiosity and feeling. Go through and just frame some things. So you can return to framing a little later, but I wanna move towards sharing a little video clip, but before we do that, Lori is really present with me for many reasons, she always is, but she was the one that invited me to join her in 2012 at that first director's institute. I didn't know what it was gonna be, I just said yes and showed up like I always did when she invited me or pushed me on to places, sent me places and I'm so grateful I did. And I see a lot of you here that I love so much. And so again, it's so wonderful to be here with you and for those of you that are new, welcome. From the essay that Omi wrote, she named some of the architects of the theatrical jazz aesthetic. I wanna put some more names in there. Daniel Alexander Jones, Grisha Coleman, Helga Davis, Florenda Bryant, Virginia Grace, Sonia Perriman, Robbie McCulley, Jessica Haggadorn. It's a long, long list y'all, but I just wanted to drop some more names in. Zell Miller III, Jola Branner, oh God, it's a long list. If I say names that you've never heard, please look them up. If I've said names of folks that you know and love, reach out to them. I think we all really need to be in as much touch as we can through these interwebs and phone lines these days as possible. Let's check on each other. So yeah, let's, and while I'm thinking of it, I also just wanna acknowledge there are so many people working behind the scenes to hold this space for us. So thank you to everybody that's holding all the spaces that is the space and are the spaces that we are in here together right now. So thank you. But let's play the first video clip in just a second. This was the first time I worked with Lori Carlos. It was a piece I wrote called Blood Pudding. It was information about it, including who the performers are and all of that stuff will be in the chat. But basically it premiered at Frontier at Hyde Park Theater in Austin, Texas. Vicky Boone was at the time the artistic director of Frontier and you'll see Jola Branner, Renita Martin, Stacey Robinson, Zell Miller III, Florenda Bryant performing. And it was the first time I got to work with Lori and I literally just sat at her feet. So she directed this piece up until that point. And this is still my way. Like honestly, I don't actually identify as a performer or a director. I identify as a writer who works in performance. But the truth is, I collaborate to bring work to stage. And I'm using all those tools that are part of the jazz aesthetic, theatrical jazz aesthetic that Omi talks about in her work and all the ways that stories are told and embellished that I grew up with. And just my own curiosities as a writer who has been shaped by the world, by spirit and by people who've loved me. Up until working with Lori, I was just, I didn't really know what I was doing. And there's so many ways that I still don't. If we're lucky, we keep learning and growing. But this was pivotal because I got to sit at the feet of a master artist who looked at me and loved me and took me in. And when I later looked back on this script, the script to tell you honestly, if it's not that well written, but they performed the fuck out this script. Lori directed the hail out this thing. And by being with her, I was able to gather more tools and learn more about myself as a writer and also how to imagine more fully my work on the stage and how to work with others. So, okay, anyway, let's play the clip. It's short and that cast. So in blood pudding, I was trying to write my way into understanding more about my birth family on my father's side, which I didn't start living with until I was a teenager, but felt always haunted by them, literally. And for real, when I first went to New Orleans, but that's another story. But anyway, so I did a lot of research, a lot of digging up of blood memories, a lot of just kind of writing my way through, but really looking at the history of people of African descent in New Orleans. And so that was the bones of the piece. And I had written, I don't do stage directions. Even then I didn't do stage directions, but what I had written, I had written a song and it said in parentheses above it, song ring shout. And then there was text that followed. And what Lori did was she took the ring shout and she turned it out and created the movement with those gestures and the breath. And I always felt like Lori, her signature as a director, one of them at least, is that she would tell the story that the text was telling with a lot of little photographs that moved. And so anyway, just one of the things that was so impactful, many things were impactful, as you can imagine about that experience for me, but one of the things that it did that was really important, what it was, it freed me as a writer from trying to tend to directions. So for me, I allowed myself to be even more curious than I had been before about what my collaborators, performers, audiences, whoever, the visual artists, like more curious about what they would bring to the work than about me telling them what to do inside of it. And so then my job as a writer was then to write in a way that held space that was specific. And so the writing was the architecture and I do not like my words being changed. So I was being very intentional in the writing and for me, the use of language as music, but then somehow, which is just so much fun for me, helping the page to invite and hold space for other people's vision to be inside of it. And so I guess a prompt I have for you, huh, there's Florenda, a prompt that I have for you is what is it that you have learned from one of your mentors that you are still exploring and expanding? What is it that you've learned from one of your mentors that you are still exploring and expanding? Hey, Flo, we just showed blood pudding. Okay, give you a moment. So again, if you didn't quite catch the question, you can scroll and find it. So bring that to a close and I'm gonna share another video in just a second. This video is a documentary, so we're only gonna see a little piece of it, but the link will be in the chat. But in it, I'm talking about a piece called RiverSea that premiered at Lynx Hall in Chicago in 2014 and talking about kind of like the architecture of the piece. And so in this, I really found that I wanted the audience to be more engaged, accountable, responsive and activated inside of the piece than in previous pieces. So the audience has always, I call them witness participants, been really important to helping to create the experience, but with this one, I really wanted to activate the audience more. And I wanted to be more active and I found that I had to put my body in it and I created some physical signals to help offer improvisational responses from the performers and from the audience that were from the text and from the world of the piece but also improvised based on my invitations. I had been deeply inspired by Lawrence Butch Morris whose work I found out about in the 2000s because I got to work with Helga Davis who worked with Butch and just his conduction. And so if you don't know his work, please look him up. Lawrence Butch Morris, he's now an ancestor but he created as a jazz musician something called conduction where basically he'd invite, one of the things that he did was he'd invite musicians from all over lots of different instruments, musical backgrounds and experiences and they would have to learn his signals. So they weren't getting a sheet of music. What they were getting was his signals and then they would create music improvisationally live and Helga directed a piece of mine and I think 2004, Love Contra Blues at the University of Texas in Austin in the John L. Wolfield Center for African and African American Studies and Helga's direction was very similar to that. And so it just took me years to get the courage to actually do it but I had been moving towards this thing of putting my own body in it and composing live. So anyway, let's play just a couple of minutes from this documentary. I'm Sharon Bridgeforth, the writer and composer of River Sea. River Sea is a theatrical jazz performance installation and what that means for me is that the text serves as the structure that improvisation happens from. So the text is, or the script, is handled by Sandra Parks who plays Sea, S-E-E. And the text is a series of blues stories and in these stories Sea tells us about her family, her ancestors, her dreams, and her community. So move in the light, see the sea come there. Everybody get it, get it in the light. I have developed a series of gestures that are requests. This means change, sonically, follow me, walk up and down the center of the crossroads for the egu or the dancers. This means warrior, dance, do what you feel. Sea means process, go get her. When the audience comes in, I ask them who feels like gossiping and I give them bits of text that are gossipy. I say who feels like praying or sending light and I give them bits of text that have that kind of energy. And I'll ask who feels like translating and I give them bits of text. We're gonna invite you to a little x-tree. Look, I do this, I'm asking you to gesture. So just try that. It can stop it there. You don't have to, I'm doing it. In fact, thank you. So again, you can see the full thing online. When we go into the breakout sessions where the folks that are with us live on Zoom are gonna be creating work, those of you on HowlRound will see a clip from the performance. So we'll continue that conversation in that way. A prop that I have for you is what is the thing that you are most afraid to do? That is a thing you need to do in order to realize your work more fully. What is a thing that you are most afraid to do that you need to do in order to realize your work more fully? So write that prompt down and then you'll just have a couple of minutes to respond. I'm gonna offer one more prompt and then we're gonna go into the breakout sessions and then again, the folks in HowlRound there'll be a video and conversation happening. This final prompt, at least for now, is what is the story that you need to tell right now that could offer the most healing for you? What is the story that you need to tell right now that could offer the most healing for you? So take just a couple of minutes. So bring that to a close. Thinking about theatrical jazz, thinking about Laurie and the piece that she directed of mine that I shared from Blood Pudding. What I learned from Laurie is that she was always listening for what hadn't been said yet. And sometimes she would hear it through your gestures, your everyday, like if this is my gesture, I'm just talking to you, that gesture, if I was a performer, that would end up in the thing. And somewhere underneath that gesture, something would shift in me that needed to come forward. I think also in theatrical jazz, we're working with the idea of ensemble, working as an ensemble or working as a collective and virtuosity, always virtuosity, but solo performance. So sometimes I'm the one that's the lead voice, the lead voice, and then sometimes I need to step back into the collective. And so we're shining together and we're holding space for each other and we're listening for what hasn't happened yet, which means that sometimes dissonance gets created. And sometimes out of the dissonance, the unexplainable phenomenals happen. So what are the risks? I said that was the last prompt. This is the last one for right now. What are the risks that you've taken your work as a director? What are the risks? What are the ways that you risk in your work? So let's bring that to a close and then I wanna check in with our team. I think the breakout rooms are not working. Is that true? That's the word on the street, Sharon. Okay, we're rolling with it. Okay. Yeah, we go roll with it. We know how to do that. We go step and shift. So for the people that are here with us on Zoom that wanna be in conversation live, if you would keep yourselves muted but show your, you know, like, unstop your video and we'll have a conversation and we'll see what happens. Oh, gallery. I wanna do, yeah, there we go. Hey! Oh, snap. Oh my God. Okay, I'm just so happy to see you all. This was like a Christmas gift. It was on, all I could see was my face and then I did gallery and there you were and I'm so happy you all are filling my heart. Yes! I invite you first to just look at each other. What you find selves. Just take each other in. All the memories we have, all the new memories we make in, all the love that's here. Oh, all the power. Blessed be, good God Almighty. Oh, Lord. Thank you. So I just wanna open. I think we can still make some work together but before we do that, I just wanna open and see if anyone wants to share anything either that they responded to in the prompts or anything that has come up about your work, how you make work, who's influenced you, anything you feel moved to say I invite you and don't feel free to not raise your hand like we can just pop in, you know and if two people end up talking at the same time we'll just figure out how to have one person talk. Well, listen. Oh, Linda can't hear you. I think you're talking but for some reason I can't hear you. Now it's muted. I think we need to ask our team to unmute participants and allow participants to speak. Okay. There we go. Okay, now try it, Linda. Oh, still not hearing it. Still not hearing it. Well, she's muted now. Yeah, we're working it out. See if we can just take a little time. Thanks everyone for your patience and for rolling with it. Okay. Let's try again. Okay. Linda, you wanna try again? No. Okay, well while the team's working on that I'd like to ask you all to go through some of your responses and find a thread that you wanna follow. Like if you were to make a little mini story right now what would that be just based on whatever writing or maybe you responded to drawing or, you know noting music but with your responses find the thread that you wanna follow and tend to it for a moment. You'll just have a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes, sorry. Sharon, can you repeat the prompt please? Oh, sure. Does that mean that the sound is working? Cause I heard you. Mine might be on. Okay. Check one, check two, check one, check two. Can you hear me? Oh, go flow. I can hear you. I can hear you. Thanks team. Okay. All right. So the prompt was look through your responses to the prompts that I offered earlier and find a story or a nugget that you wanna follow. So basically the invitation is to find something in there and make a little short bit out of it. And you're not gonna, you don't have that much time so, you know, it's not full story. It's just probably gonna be a couple of sentences. Okay. Bring that to a close for now. All snap. They got the breakout rooms ready. Okay. That's actually perfect. So take that in to the breakout rooms. We know how to roll, don't we? Shout it. Okay. So in the breakout rooms, I invite you and there'll be roughly five people per room. You're only gonna have 15 minutes but I invite you to share what you just crafted and then together create something. So each creation should have at least one word from everybody. Maybe there's a way that you have all the lines from everyone but at least one word from everybody. It should have some gestures and it should have something sung. If you have the capacity for it to be multilingual, let that rise in there as well. When we return, I'm gonna ask each group to share what they created. So don't let it be like, keep it at two minutes just being mindful of time. Again, if we were meetin' live in person, we'd have bays but we got two minutes here and that's good. So again, in the breakout rooms, everyone shared the piece that you just tended to gather, create something, make sure the thing that you create has at least one word from everybody but you could decide that everybody's words all get heard. That's totally up to the group. Should have gestural language or some gestures in it, something sung and if you have this available in your group, multilingual. You'll have 15 minutes. When we come back, we'll ask each group to share no more than two minutes of what you created and then we'll talk. Any questions? And then folks in HowlRound, you all will see a video and I'll pop in and chat with you before we all come back. Suzanne also wrote our group instructions in the chat if you need it. Okay, let's do that. Let's do that. Break out rooms, hi. So I think in just a moment, you'll be getting an invitation to join a breakout room. If you see that pop up, you can just accept to join it. Yes, click the message to join blue button as you get the invitation and we'll see you on the other side in just a few minutes. I don't know, maybe we'll keep hanging out. We're rolling, going with the flow today. Yes, it has been so inspiring already Sharon. These prompts are just golden gifts. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you everyone. So is anyone seeing the invitation to join a breakout? Can I see some head shakes or nods? I've seen a lot of no's. The invitations are not popping up. I'm saying that out loud for our tech team. Ooh, there's a little wiggle now in the background. I see you, Oba. Hi. Hey. If breakouts do not pop up, we can just continue the conversation and stay together. Absolutely. You can just have Oba dance for us. That's right, that's right. That's always good. Right Oba, do your dance. I think the hell room of folks, I'm kidding the joy of all the dancing. All the dancing. Maybe we are in gallery view. This is clearly a dance break moment. That is what has organically happened. So I say we all just take the dance break moment. Yes. Yes. Shake it out. Oh yeah, that's my song. Who's got music? Well, what should we do? Tanya, do you have a message for us? This is a great moment to introduce and thank Tanya Neumeyer who is working tech in the background all this time. Hey Tanya, what'd you say? Hi, so I just went over to a breakout room and I chatted with Oba. And I think the thing is that because we had to initialize them a little late in the game, our apologies. My best guest, thea, you can tune in on this, is that it's only working for people who joined late at the meeting because I can show you the screenshot that it works on my end, but I think that may be correlated to the fact that I left. So we just have to make a decision. Do we really want to do the breakout rooms? Then we all just go and come back to this same Zoom room. I think we can stay here and flow. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, appreciate it. Okay, all right, thank you. All right, and thank you for the song and the movement. So, first of all, I want to hear, Linda, what you were going to say earlier. Oh, we still can't hear you. Linda, it might be your mic. Let's go to someone else and then see if that works and give Linda a moment to hear it out. Okay, all right. Then let's play with the pieces that you created and then we'll do a little bit of that and then we'll talk. So anyone that wants to, I invite you to share the piece that you just shaped. So anyone that wants to just do it. Yes. I'll share mine. Thank you. So good to see you, darling. Yay, thank you. So I had two deities, Olurimi and Daddy, who created two mountains that they transformed into bodies that knew everything. They were wise bodies. They knew everything in the world, there is to know. When they gave birth to them, the two bodies bowed down and said to Mommy and Daddy, thank you for bringing us into the world. Now teach us everything you know. So they said, oh no, you're supposed to know everything. They said, no, you brought us here. We did not ask to be here. So now you have to teach us everything you know. Hmm, thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, so is it okay with you if we play with you with your piece? Okay, great. All right. In a moment, I'm gonna ask you to read it again. Okay. And this time everyone, as you feel moved to, offer gestures. So we're gonna add a layer of gesture. Okay, let's hear it again if you don't mind. Okay, so Olurimi and Daddy created two mountains. Then they decided to transform the mountains into bodies that would know everything in the world. So they created the two wisest people in the world. When they gave birth to them, the two children bowed down to their parents and said, Mommy and Daddy, thank you for birthing us and bringing us into the world. Now teach us everything you know. Yay, thank you. All right, thank you, everyone. Okay, we're gonna continue to play and continue to layer. Someone else, please, Adris, you stay on if you don't mind. Okay. And someone else, please share what you crafted. Okay, I'll share. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'll share. Okay, thank you. Everyone, we're together here at Tieta. So this is what I crafted. Returning to my roots, I seek the drive and passion to ignite the engine on the road to healing. Say that again. Yes. Returning to my roots, I seek the drive and passion to ignite the engine on the road to healing. Wow, thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, so now I'm gonna ask you two to play together. So Ova, if you would just repeat yours, let's just do it in repetition. You all really listen to each other. You'll have to figure out who is the lead voice or are you all in ensemble voice together? When the rest of us feel moved to offer gestural language in support. So it's not that you're doing with your gestures, literally what they're talking about, but it's almost as if you're in another layer of the world that they are in. So offer gestural language in support of what they are sharing. Okay, so you two go whenever you're ready. Returning to my roots, returning to my roots, returning to my roots, returning to my roots, returning to my roots, returning to my roots, returning to my roots. And Idris, you come in with yours? created a mountain. Returning to my roots. Mommy and daddy created a mountain. Okay, let's stop. Okay, so this time let's do it again and do the text as you have it written. Okay. And then over I think yours because it's shorter, you'll need to repeat it and you all may want to both repeat your text just to kind of, you know, find your legs together. We're giving space for each language or. I think you all in listening. Make those decisions in spirit. Okay. I want to add another thing will offer gestures as we're moved to and again it's, it's like we're part of a world that's holding the world that they are speaking to us through and from that's where the gestures are coming from. If anyone feels moved to add a multilingual lingual element and spirit and offering. That please. And there can be as many languages as are available to us. Using some of the words that they offer. Okay, let's try it. Mommy and daddy created a mountain. Returning to my roots. They turn that mountain into a body. They seek the drive and passion. The wisest bodies in the world. To regress or a lot of time. To ignite the engine. They created two of them. They will tell me races. To why is this people in the world. To regress or a lot of time. From the road to healing. The world that means races. When those bodies were born. Mommy. When those bodies were born. They bow down. Returning to my roots. The world that means races. They said thank you mommy and daddy now teach me everything you know. To regress or a lot of time. The drive and passion. To ignite the engine. On the road to healing. The world that means races. Wasn't that beautiful? That was so beautiful. Okay. Let's keep playing. We're going to add one more element and we're going to try something a tiny bit different. Okay. Okay. I would like to invite someone to sing. What you wrote. So one of you. So not Idris. We're having a third person, a third voice in. To sing. What you wrote. And it doesn't have to be the whole thing. It could just be some words. We'll continue the gestural support. So. The traditional choir of languages. This time over and Idris. Talk at the same time. So this time. You're saying different things. But you're in the same world and spirit. Talking at the same time. So part of what you have to then negotiate. You have to communicate. You have to communicate. You have to communicate with that, but you have to feel into that and just. Repeat. Your, your. Language as necessary. And then. To our, our, our spiritual chorus. Offering. Multi language and spirit to our world here. You all are also part of the same world. And so you're in support of. Our spiritual chorus. You have to communicate with the speakers, but we do still need to hear you. And you don't have to wait. Until there's a pause, but if you want to, you can, but feel free to. To, to, to hold them. As they speak. And then the person that is going to let's do this before we bring in the person that's going to sing. So let's try this one time. And then the next time we'll bring in. Yeah. Wait, I'm sorry. What are we doing right now? So right now you two are in the world together. Same. At the same time. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll still have the gestural language. We'll still have the multiple languages. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you now. Yeah. It's a miracle. Yay. Linda. Okay. That was perfect. Oh Jesus. Okay. Whenever you're ready. Mommy and daddy. To my roots. Created a mountain. Seek the drive and passion. They transform those mountains. Okay. I'm going to stop you. Talk at the same time. Okay. Okay. I know, right? Yeah. I got you pinned the address. Just so if you want to connect. If you go on your screen and there's that three dot, dot, dots, there's one video. You can pin me and I'm pinning you right now. So. How do I pin? That'd be, um, if you look on your, your video, uh, click it and there should be three dot, dot, dots on the top, right? Oh yeah. And then it says pin me to, so go to my video, pin me. And then I'll show up on, on, on screen with you. Okay. Does that make sense? Let me try to do that. I don't think I have that. I'm on my phone. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's fine. I'm here with you. I'm, I got you. You got me. All right. Here we go. Mommy and daddy. My roots. Created two mountains. I've been passionate. Transform those mountains. In general. Two bodies. Two wise bodies. The world. That means races. I've. Add. Everything to ignite the. On the road to healing. The two wisest bodies in the world. The road to healing. They said mommy and daddy. I've been passionate. The world. That means races. Thank you. Okay. Let's do it one more time with the, actually we're going to do it two more times. Cause we're going to add a, a final layer, but this time let's invite the. The singer in whoever is going to sing. And whoever is singing. You are the lead voice. So you'd be louder. Then everyone else. So. Yes. Just say something. Hi, Sharon. Hi. Good to see you. There's a setting. Yes. Okay. I put it into the chat. There's a set. In Zoom that. Makes. That, that this allows for voices to speak over each other. And that's. And be turned off. Oh. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think the setting can be turned off. So that. Okay. Yeah. I think the setting can be turned off so that you can speak over. Or speak together. That's why we couldn't hear the text. Together. Tech team a second to work on that. But we're not a hundred percent sure. Let's just keep rolling and, um, and see how it evolves. Okay. All right. Okay. Hey. Yeah. I think my sound. Yeah. Oh, you did. Oh, great. Okay. Awesome work. Turn, turn, turn on audio or turn on. So just go ahead and click on that. Do we turn on the original sound or turn. The device sound. I think it's turned on original sound. I think. Let's try that. Yeah. And who's singing. I think your Hannah is singing. Oh, wonderful. Oh, hi. Oh good. Okay. Let's make sure we can hear you. Can we hear you? Can you hear me? Yes. Perfect. Okay. Great. Okay. Let's see what happens. All right. All right. So. Breathing in being present. Being playful and curious, allowing what wants to happen to instruct us. And if we had more time, we'd work all this shit out. But for right now, we go play and discover. All right. Thank you. Let's go. The engine on the road to healing. Return to my roots. No. You. No. You don't say it. They. Its. So I miss. Races. The. Thank you, Mami, again. I always said that the life of my children is worth more than mine. The mountain is worth more than mine. The engine on the road to healing. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So kind of in closing, I'd like to invite all of you to read or sing or offer gestures and just play with timing in a way that feels good and right for you. But if you'd like, let's hear all of your voices. And it can be a cacophony. So there might be dissonance. Maybe it'll be really bright and beautiful. Maybe it'll be creaky. But let's see what happens. So I invite everyone as an ensemble to offer. And be sure to add in gestures. You can sing. It can be multilingual. You can repeat your texts. But let's hear everyone that wants to at least participate. And go. Next up, she's... Hi, we're here to go together for a surprise. Check out the jumps that came at night. He's from Mother's Day. He came home to the mountain. He's from Mother's Day. One and a half weeks. And a half. Now, release words and let us up your nose, release words and let there just be gestures. Yes, y'all! Yes, family! Ha! Beautiful. So, thank you each for participating, for offering, for being present, for going on the journey, for being so generous and courageous and kind. So, yeah, let's open it. We'll, you know, we'll follow each other, whatever you want to offer, talk about, share. Let's just be a conversation for this last bit of time. And if there are questions from the HowlRound stream, we can also have those join us. I do, I do want to say that, you know, the deepening of the questions, the prompts, was really had impact, you know. It went from, oh yes, I can answer this to, oh, that calls for a deeper examination. And the progression was really good. And I just wanted to thank you for that, you know, you're an excellent facilitator of this workshop. So, thank you. Thank you so much. That means a lot coming from you, because you are super badass. No, you are the badass. I'm just trying to hang in here. Trying to figure out myself. Thank you so much. Okay, who else wants to share, offer? Oh, Nova Co. Hi. I miss you so much. No. Oh, so good to see you. You know, actually, the way you left this was like jazz. Oh, you know, it just felt like jazz itself. So, even though, you know, you're going with the melody, and then all of a sudden you're going, okay, you know, we have some offsprings from that melody, and then it confused me, and then I try to find my way back to the melody, you know what I mean? It's a fascinating process, and one that I could relate to, because I love jazz, and it made me ask a lot of questions about, you know, my, these multi-cultures, you know, we live in a blurry, you know, we live in this mixed up world, and to say that we only are one thing is crazy because we're not, and that can be very confusing at times. How do you bring those different voices and those different aesthetics? Yeah. One place and have them work for you is a question that I have all the time, and how do we express these multi-worlds that we live in in a way that really helps people synthesize their own lives? Thank you so much, and you're masterful at that in many ways, and one of them is in how you create space and offer the Bonne Festival. Would you talk a little bit about that? Well, that was another stumble. When I worked with Quetzal, and he took me to a Fandango class, which is, a Fandango is when people make music around a platform called a Darima, and these small guitars called Haranas, players. It's a very participatory situation where people who are not necessarily professional musicians learn how to play these instruments, learn these three or four chords, and they start singing these songs and making verses up as they're going. And then I saw, because I've written some Obon songs, which we dance around the platform, and the musicians stand in the middle of on this platform. So I said to Quetzal, I wonder what would happen if we bring these two things together. And when we went to Reverend Kodani, who of a temple that I'm part of, he said, well, it shouldn't be a fusion, it should be a conversation. So each of us had to stick to our own aesthetic and yet figure out a way to create a conversation. So that's what we did with this music, and then what happened, and it had Spanish and Japanese and English in it, and what happened is, and we created this purple band, and what happened is the Japanese community picked this up in their festivals, and it's being done all over Southern California and beyond in these different temples every year. And they feel perfectly comfortable hearing Japanese and Spanish and English in the same song, because that's how they live. And it makes people feel comfortable. Well, this is the way we live anyway. How come we can't dance in a circle and remember ancestors, which Obon is about remembering ancestors? Why can't we remember all of our ancestors? It's an insane circle. Now it's a festival that's been going for eight years, and now we have African, West African dance, and Sufi Muslims, and so we've learned how to take in all of these different elements and put them in the same circle. So it's very enriching and fun and challenging too. Thank you so much, and thank you for sharing. I'm so grateful I got to go to the festival that happened last year, and it's so awesome. And I think I feel like there's a thing that we're trying to do in the Jazz Esthetic too, that it's like I felt right at home. And some of it is the ancestral wisdom around spirit connection and opening portals and moving inside of them together gets activated in circle with colors, with sound, with language, like it's like it was just it was it was a spirit moving experience, and one that I felt really at home at because I think that's what I'm always trying to do too, even though it looks different, you know, even though it's in a different venue and form. So anyway, thank you. I love you so much. I love you too. Anyone else want to share, offer, ask anything? Flo, what you doing? Look, I have to call on her. She my baby. I'm here. I'm trying to, you know, step up, step back, because you know, I'll get in there. I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty and hungry for working with the people. I'm like, how much more time we got? What are we going to do? So I'm good. I know all, yeah, I know this. I know that it works. And so I'm just, I'm just chilling. I'm trying to be everywhere and follow, you know, attend as many workshops, follow Sharon around and get my life. But that's it. I'm following you back. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, and I have a new piece of development, which is really interesting because there are a lot more characters that I normally deal with and a lot of the things that I haven't, you know, always looking for that thing like what's not being said, how else am I not exploring in my body? And then what does that look like to do so much work around the body and how folks that are in, by finding out the long term effects of COVID and people that are artists that have been sick, how people are engaging back with their art, you know, I've had it, my breath is different. So just exploring different practices to help me explore that and figure out how, you know, how we're all, because I've been, you know, a lot of us are dealing with that right now. But hey, everybody. Hey, thank you so much, Flo. Thank you. Hey. Yeah. How, how are you? Yeah. What's some of this? Yeah. Well, I was also going to say to Sharon is so funny. The thing is, is that dancing and singing is still on my list, like that my writing, the things that I'm still not like, it's very, you know, interesting that once I wrote that, that there is just like this, it's like a mummification, but it's like a self-imposed like mummification. And, and things that I rely on other artists to kind of do now, especially from a directing perspective, when it comes to creating the work, is like, oh, but you're still not singing and dancing, which is funny. After 20 years, we're still pushing, but yes, I'll let someone else be. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thank you so much, Florenda. Sharon, I just loved, loved, loved this exercise. It was so beautiful. It kind of made me go back and reach right into a memory that I had not accessed in a very, very long time. And it was a very beautiful memory because it was of my dad, actually. And, you know, you made us think about ancestors. My dad has joined the ancestors many, many, many years ago. And, but he used to sing the newspapers headlines. Wow. So he would, he would sing all the lines of the newspaper. So even if it was like, as I, you know, I have four projects, Sharon, right now, like four artistic projects. I'm not even talking about Pangea. Yeah. You made me think of a fifth artistic. That's awesome. That's awesome. And then I have, Myla and I are working on something, want to work on something together. It's like, that's the sixth one. But, but my dad would sing. How are you going to relemet and relegate me to number six? You're number one. You're always number one. I'm a slacker. I'm only doing two. But I, I, I seriously, my father would sing the newspapers in the morning. He would sit in his comfortable, this thing. He would sit on the chair and then he'd be sitting under the most dire news. I mean, I was just thinking of that because, you know, we listen to such dire news right now. I mean, it's like people are not giving up their presidency. People are like, you don't know how they're going to get out of the White House or not. I mean, you know, so my dad would sit there in his chair and then he would sing out like all kinds of things like man got sentenced to 25 years for killing his wife or Donald Trump Jr. says he'll pass time by cleaning guns. So everything would be reduced to this. Like we would all be like around him laughing. But it would take the bite out of the news because of the way he would sing out everything. And then suddenly out of all of that, there would be like the strains of a very good singer. So he would sing a karnatic, like in Tamil, a karnatic music classical song in the middle of that. And then he would score Shakespeare after that. So I feel like that's where I got my love for literature because it was like all this very eclectic, you know, and so it made me think of, wow, I should turn that into like some kind of piece that is, you know, that thinks about like my growing ups. I don't know. Maybe it's there somewhere, some seeds somewhere. Yeah. Oh, thank you for thinking of that. And I love the way that this aesthetic, you know, I just want to say another memory of mine, which is anyway, so that's one, one thing I just want to share with everybody because it just made me go to a personal place. But the other thing that I remember seeing that Adlin actually acted in was this play that Laurie directed. We hired her to direct a Banana Alba in 2009. Seriously, it was one of the most brilliant Banana Albas I have ever seen in my life. It employed the jazz aesthetic from beginning to end. It was just movement. It was like abstract movement. I mean, it couldn't be anybody else but Laurie who directed that piece. And that's what Deepankar and I were like in awe when we saw the piece and saw how she had directed it. The people didn't necessarily understand it, but it was brilliance and action. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. And she, you know, and really so much, so much love and respect for Laurie Carlos. Seriously. Yeah. Absolutely. I was in that piece. I was in that piece. Are you kidding? Oh man. Yeah. I was in that Banana Alba piece. It was amazing. It was amazing. Wow. Learned so much. Learned so much about that rhythm and that counterpoint and the use of movement and to denote so much. It was really a fantastic experience. What was your experience of working through the text, paying attention to other cast and the simultaneity, particularly sparked by movement? For me, it was a lot about listening. Listening to what Laurie was saying because to understand Laurie, you have to listen in a particular way. At least I have to. I have to put my brain. I have to switch it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And so it was like learning in my, again, it was like learning a dance. It was like a choreography. A choreography that included words, movement, and listening, and listening. And so that's the only way that I could tell you that from what I remember. There was a moment in Banana Alba where all the women are sitting or they're talking about the man, this man that has come to rile up everybody, right? And she had us sitting in chairs with this huge cloth. And then just asked us to start talking the text. And then gestures came up. And so with this cloth, as we're all sitting there, we're not looking at each other, but we're talking. And do you see that the man is coming? And do you see why he's going over here? And do you see why he's saying the things that he's, and everybody has their, and it's like a dance. It's like a dance. And I agree with what Mina is saying that a lot of people that understand the dissonance with the sound of the music over it, my mother was in that audience and she was like, I didn't understand certain parts of it because of the sound or whatever. But she said, I have never seen anything that just flowed so beautifully with words and movement and that it wasn't said, okay, this is a dance thing or this is now it's going to be a, you know, the dialogue. It's all weaved together. And with the use of culture too, because she had us doing the flamenco claps and she had us doing a lot of different movements that was just, I wish I could go back. I wish I could go back. So I could take notes. Oh, God, I hear you. Well, thank you for taking us back and what you shared. Oh, and Mina, please do all seven of those projects, but especially that one that you shared that came to you about your dad singing those headlines. My God. We just for a sake of time, maybe if there's one or two more people that want to share anything you want to share. And if you want to share about something that you're up to or something that, yeah, anything, no boxes on it. I just want to acknowledge that there was a baby in the room. Yes. Congratulations. Have beautiful, Stephanie. Thank you. Congratulations. Yeah. He's eight months old. Oh my God. You better go to sleep. Congratulations. Thank you. I do have a question, actually. Yeah. Thank you so much for this workshop. This is really, really powerful. Thank you. I'm wondering about specifically when you're talking about telling stories that you require in this moment for healing, what happens in that process when you encounter old wounds or when you encounter ancestors that you may not want to encounter or ancestry that you wanted to leave behind. How do you move through that or step away from that? How does that work in your process so that you can keep moving forward? Thank you so much. That's such an important question and thing for us to talk about. I feel like all of us have different ways, tool sets, understandings, methods of doing that for myself. The art and the life are not separate. So I'm always writing through my own healing and growth. So anything that shows up is something that is trying to work itself through me anyway. And so through years of just understanding my creative process and also my own personal commitment to spirit and healing, I recognize now kind of how to accelerate that. So it's the whole life. It's like that day in 1995 when I stopped drinking is that day in 2005 when I gave up sugar. It's like all the things. It's that time I got initiated. It's when I got baptized. It's my memories of the Catholic Church. It's like all the things and all the bits along the way have somehow given me information, places to turn. It's my therapist. Yes, I do call him. You know, it's how I care for my body. It's who I have in my life. It's that I've released toxic people from my close, from me closely. I've released and worked on my own toxic behavior because I was a fool in a hot mess for years. So it's like all the things and then it's the continuous opportunity to discover new things, new ways, new places, new people, new opportunities to lean in and grow. So I think that understanding creative process and for me part of that is research, literal research which has taken me all the way to Nigeria to Ile Ife. It's taken me to the archives at Tulane. It's taken me to prayer, crying on my knees. It's like all of that. And then having people that I am in close relationship with, that I trust and are trustworthy, that I can call and cry to, I'd be like, Flo, what happened was Flo, and she can hold me. So it's my community and then it's gathering other tools. Like I became a Reiki master, not that I practice Reiki, but I needed to experience learning about how to move energy. So I think it's all of those things and for me following the work and really, you know, I think there are some things that it's not time to tell. There are some places that we're not prepared to actually go to. So it's also discernment. There are some places that if we go, we'll harm ourselves or we won't be able to get up from. So I think the sermon is part of it and that's for me where my community, my art family can help me because they'll call me out of a dark place or push me towards it, if that's what's needed. So I think it's all those things. I'm sorry, Sharon, I want to just add, because I think the thing, especially being someone who's been in this particular practice for over 20 years, it is a specified training. It is a thing and you have to have that community piece that's not just about being in a circle with each other, but also about mentorship. And so then that way you're not ever in a position, as you get, or I'm hoping as I continue to get better at the practice, I know how to witness the emotion without becoming emotion because I've learned it from an elder in the practice who taught me that as part of the practice. You know what I mean? Like there has to be, you got to go to, you know, who's learning, like who's learning it? Who's training you? And then that belief that you can do something on your own, I think is there's no place for it in this particular kind of work. Like you have to have connections to people. And then a lot of that connection has to be in a mentor, mentee capacity, somebody who you can trust to snatch you up. And then one thing, as I've noticed with the work, then you run less is like, oh, I'm not hurting myself doing this work. I ain't got to kill myself to get to the beauty of a moment. And I'm in the right room when people aren't allowing me to do that as a part of my artistic practice. And it's definitely not, you know, there's some boxes that are too heavy, you don't lift it when you buy yourself. So that same thing runs true, I think with our work in that. Yeah, you got to, you have, you got to go learn about it. I think regardless of your discipline, like who's who's who's got your back. So I just wanted to just echo that. And I think that ties to the experience that I got to have with you guys in Minneapolis is that that mentor, mentee relationship is so, so important. Like who's training you? How are you getting the word? And then that way you're clear when it's your time to pass it on to the next generation. Thank you so much. And I'm getting notes that we're it's we're already at time. That was a perfect way to close this moment. But thankfully we have other things that we can come back and gather into. I thank you each. I'm so grateful for you each. I'm sending you each love and light and blessings you and all your loved ones and everyone everywhere. May we be the light and the love that that we seek and that we are most powerfully able to offer. Thank you so much, Sharon. Thank you. And hi to everybody because I've been like looking at this room and going, Hey, there's interest. So hi to everybody. There's Denise. Please know that I I see you and I love you. And that's it. Thank you to everyone, everyone for being here in the zoom room. Thank you so much, Sharon, for that gorgeous workshop and for modeling perfectly how to go with the flow and roll with the spirit and make it all happen. And thank you all. Institute participants who are here with us and everyone who's watching on HowlRound. We want to say thanks to HowlRound for life doing this weekend. And thank you to our amazing technical crew for figuring things out and rolling with us to Panjio World Theater, of course, and Art to Action and all of our funders and partners. And we want you to join us tonight for the night at 2020 Open Mic on HowlRound at Six Pacific, Eight Central, and Nine Eastern with your amazing co-hosts, Kayla Salcedo and Andresia Real mostly and DJ Ushka. If you don't know these folks, believe me, you want to know these folks and you want to get in on seeing all the amazing work that's going to be shared this evening. So please join us back on HowlRound then and throughout the weekend. We got more sessions tomorrow. Thank you, everybody. Love to Sharon. Love to everyone in the Institute. And we'll see you all again soon. Bye, Lani Nova.