 Welcome everybody back here on Segal Talks at the Martin Segal Theatre Center, the Greater Center CUNY in Midtown Manhattan part of the City University and we are continuing our long engagement since March, since the last weeks of March, exploring that time of Corona, the place theater and arts and performance has in it and though we listen to the voices of artists and the workers in the vineyard of theater. After our break in September we went back and enlarged a little bit our view. We had sessions already on dramaturgy, on theater, of the real documentary theater with Carol Martin, we're talking to producers, curators and we think these are artists, theater artists in that definition of Joseph Boyce of an enlarged understanding of what we are doing and and I think what Diane Taylor always reminded us that what is performance art has many many roots and what is performance art in theater and how it's created and put together also has many many members of a team and they are all of significance. With us today we have someone I think is a very significant voice, an important voice and also in a way a unique voice within the field of research of theater, Bati Ferdman, she is here with us and she herself is a practitioner, started out with physical theater, I understand remember right also was clowning but then went into a field that perhaps called her more which is the research and also thinking about the field of theater performance, the philosophy of it but also her true love to teach and to discuss and engage in a discourse with theater artists but also with students and people so here a little bit about her, Bati first thank you for joining us it's great that you could take time out even at the end of the semester I know how hard it is, Bertie is an associate professor at the Borough Manhattan Community College BMCC and she also teaches at the Columbia University School of the Arts and I hear from many people how brilliant your work there is and how influential and it is she researched on the field of site-based performance which is an interesting word urban drama to a G's and curating performance, the idea who curates, who is the curator, why do they tell you what, so things also we in a way here focus on, she has some significant publication the Bloomsbury Handbook to Performance Art, she did together with Joanna Stokic off-sites contemporary performance beyond site specific and I think this is what we will talk about a very significant look I think on that very important field that defines in a way contemporary theater and also many many other things curating life arts, critical perspective essays, conversation of theater, on theory and practice and she has been published in TDR, the great TDR, P.A.J. wonderful one howl round actually here and also theater journal theater survey everything performance research and currently she's working with Peter Akersoll on the book curating trauma to a G's which will come out by Rutledge in 21 where they talk to a big number of curators about their practice and why what we do here to to listen and to understand the form we are engaging with so this was a lot we always say this is about radical listening and then I go on and on and on in the beginning but about he really thank you for taking the time and where are you now? Oh well first of all thank you for having me it's always an honor and a pleasure to be part of the Martin Stiegel Theater Center series I listen to quite a few of them especially when we're in quarantine and this is my kitchen. Are you in Puerto Rico in France? Brooklyn, New York Park Slope. Brooklyn, New York Park Slope yeah yeah yeah you just told us that you know that the big astronomical answer in Puerto Rico it collapsed right the big yes we the the observable observatory in Puerto Rico it's very sad actually it just collapsed a few days ago and yeah we were talking before my husband just texted texting me a photo when I was there when I was 25 it's crazy I mean insane that this just happened like right now yeah nobody was hurt but it's really tragic it's actually one of the biggest observatories in the world yeah it is it was I don't think even a James Bond film was filmed that I know you have deep roots to Puerto Rico where your family lives but it's also a sign that something that observed the universe collapsed and maybe that is a good good symbol to start this talk the universe of theater performance you know what do you think of it you know what is it collapsed it collapsing it's completely closed here and it will be closed perhaps till till next fall there is some news that you Jackman will play the music man in September next year on Broadway but nobody knows what will happen and how safe it will be so what are your thoughts on the theater and performance? Well it's funny that you mentioned I mean it's kind of tragic and I was thinking and then you mentioned Broadway and I was thinking I don't know that I've been kind of falling the news a little bit on it but I don't know that they're gonna rebuild it or that I'm talking about the conservatory or that they have the money to rebuild it or to maintain it the way it was and I guess that's what you mean by a good metaphor for the theatrical landscape because I guess we're gonna have to rebuild from the ground up and I don't know where the money is gonna come from or what kind of institutional frameworks gonna good they're going to create to sustain a theater you know in the ways that people want to have I guess theater because it's been kind of imposed been imposed on us for a while so yeah I guess artists are gonna have to reinvent we talk about that in my Columbia class a lot and I think well we have a great future in our hands with them they all I mean they think about these things all the time so I think you're right we are in a historic moment and we're gonna see a lot of changes we're not gonna go back to what was their artists are gonna rethink what to do and how to do it and with whom and for whom and yeah what do you think what will be the changes what will we see well maybe I can start by telling you what I saw this morning that's a big question I was just this morning I wake up very early and some I don't know why I don't often do this but I watched Bibi Telas she's an Argentine director doing biodrama and they were supposed to premiere blood wedding bodas de sangre with Cecilia Roth and very kind of famous ensemble think it was back and I don't remember a few months ago and obviously they couldn't do it so they came up with I don't know how they quarantine the actors but they filmed they're doing it in three parts and it's it was incredible it was it wasn't film but it wasn't theater it was something that they did on their own on the stage that was very very intimate and yet it's recorded we can all watch it so the I watched it because I want to see it live the part two is coming out I think it's Saturday tomorrow today Friday yeah so I wanted to make sure I saw part one and going back to your bigger question about what what it's going to be I just think that people are going to have to use the the what's available to them and they're going to have to go off-site they're going to have to use theaters in new ways use spaces in new ways engage with their own communities and find ways of being more human even through technology it was incredibly human this this performance yeah it was very honest it's funny there's nothing fake about it which is well I don't know how much you want me to talk but it um when we I was paying attention to the way they were performing on camera in this bare stage with nobody around and they were talking about real events of their lives that were quite tragic and it was it was a performance of the real we were talking about this before about the kind of the authenticity so I think maybe things are going to take time for things to be more authentic through performance through spectacle actually yeah that somehow we our radar to detecting what's real what's not what is essentially what's important is here is being you know it's going to be functional on a better better software your book off-sides in a way um delt looked at that field in a way you anticipated perhaps I'm going to even say you know this this field what is now um being practiced by when we've talked over 100 um theater artists under 150 actually 180 and the production that we're done in a way would fall most probably under your category when you created that idea of the off off-site and tell us a little bit what is that and why do you think this is important why should we read your book well I don't know if you I mean I don't know if you should or shouldn't read my book but I definitely think the notion of off-sides it's incredibly important to the history of theater and performance I mean first of all theater with a capital T is an invented notion that comes from western settler colonialism that kind of stems from the history of european theater as they created it and kind of settled it around the world and that's not the notion of performance at all as it was invented by humans um I mean you know the notion of storytelling embodiment and celebration and being together has been going on since homo sapiens existed and it's um always been done off-site there's no building proscenium stage fourth wall the notion of wanting to engage with others in an authentic human way is um is a is a human need and the the artists for for so long whether I mean of course I am in the book I'm engaging with the notion of site specificity so I'm engaging with it through histories of visual art discourse which come from minimalist art because they're so obsessed with the autonomous realm of the artwork being separate from reality and then that you know kind of gets all enmeshed with minimalist sculpture when you have to have the spectator kind of interact with that work and then coming from theater where artists for so long have been doing things of course outside of theater buildings but also engaging with with real life with new ways of viewing, seeing, spectating, um not necessarily not necessarily having a separation I mean and just in this century thinking about invisible theater, Bualian notions of specced actorship or specced participation um and so the notion of off-site it's not really new it's it's just that it's ways that artists want to engage with authentic ways of being in community um not necessarily always architectural although that that is that might be a component but not always um and you were asking me I think uh I don't want to miss the last part of the question I think you're asking me about the term off-sites uh simply has to do because I've seen so many performances that are happened to be outside of theaters but they're all super, super different and so I was trying to understand what were kind of how artists doing it it wasn't just that I want to go see a show uh in a hotel and and I don't know there's a show in a hotel it could very well be that um there's different forms of engagement and so there's or this was somebody was you know creating a new way of uh merging reality real life with actors with fiction and those worlds would blend so I was looking really at you know all these different approaches to site specificity what you were saying in the beginning about site base so the term off was kind of like oh I'm so off it I'm off-site I'm so done but really it's more about an off-ness uh where like the term off-site is like oh guys I'm gonna work off-site and that's really actually relevant to today we're always off-site but we're always on you know we can never kind of so it's kind of a conundrum between um being here and there at the same time I say this in the intro to the book my family are immigrants or for example I was born and raised in Puerto Rico my family is from Argentina I live in America in the US so I'm never quite whole I'm never quite home always here and there at the same time and that's really something I saw throughout the pieces I was seeing how artists were engaging with space place and it's historical and sociopolitical context but at the same time wanting to kind of unveil something that's hidden so it's like that here and there at the same time and the notion of like never quite a whole always incomplete to answer all of that no I think um with so many artists or curators producers we talk when we say you know what what what is changing what are we focusing on and I think there is that turn to that authenticity that seed of the real there is the audience participation and that kind of socially engaged art but there also was the work people point out their relation to community and to the places the spaces outside what we would call the black box the Italian style theater Milo Rao said my idea for this fall is and this in the coming spring let's not do anything inside the theater so what examples have you you know have you watched we say this is an interesting way of course it's a multiplicity of engagements but maybe tell us a bit about productions and you have seen or you have looked at there you feel this they found something well I think I could think of a couple I just before I gave examples just to kind of expand on what you were saying about going outside of theater because I think engagement is a really important part of it once you um let me just backtrack a little bit in in theater um you know you have the proceeding at the stage and I'll give an exact a few examples in a second but that's kind of our frame that we work in and you can control that that and that's the same with you know what we might call in visual art the painting where you know you frame it and it's plot and it's very the objective is to kind of get rid of everything else everything is it's very anti-brekthian right you're you're like hiding everything that's behind and so that's where Brecht came in and wanted to kind of unveil the apparatus that was making that function as what was happening with the incursion of the spectatorship engaging with sculpture let's just say in visual art history so the second that you want to do work outside the theater or engage the space or audiences differently in the way that's been kind of bogged down to us with a capital T you are by definition creating different systems of support and engagement you're you're engaging with let's just say the wheel and different levels of production by definition because if I want to go um urban artist let's say wants to go do a piece in my home um I have to talk to my neighbors I have to you know I have to rethink if I'm even going to charge tickets like am I going to bother the neighbor upstairs and you know that's going to be all part of the conversation um and so I can I should probably just say it I want to see a show many years ago uh and the show uh was a control thing they wanted to do a theater in the apartment um and order and it was something about memory and I can't quite remember exactly the name of the company but you know they wanted the the show is like once you open the door there are the actors in the kitchen and the actor goes to the bathroom and so you follow you know it's very private intimate space only five spectators at a time but what ended up happening is that those artists didn't take into account the fact that this happened in a co-op building in New York City um and so how are you going to get you know you couldn't really tell the neighbors it was like this whole thing that had to be let's just say hidden so so that's the real right infiltrating the fiction and so then what happens is that you know people were kind of sitting in the lobby and then other residents complained and you know what ended up happening is that the guard who happened to work in the building got in trouble and so there's real repercussions to you know this kind of autonomous realm of the artwork that that need to be that should I think um become part of the work so production is not a separate realm it should be part of the aesthetics and you were asking me I think the second party question was to give examples of things I've seen so uh sure I mean I can think of I guess two off the top of my head like a few years I think it was 2018 I was in Bahia Brazil FIAC it's an international theater festival and they had invited um Rumini protocol did a piece that they've done around the world I don't love all their pieces but this one was amazing home visit and it was they had developed a game tailored to every location that would be perform because it wasn't really I mean it was a game they created a situation this is the notion about off-sites it's not always a performance a show sometimes an orchestration of a situation a way of having a conversation and this this was a game about capitalism in Bahia and we would and it was at a person's house so the host of that really home would invite us to their home and we would play a game that was quite orchestrated um through the dramaturgy that Rumini protocol had set up and I think they've recorded um they did like a map of all the answers to the questions based on you know real people like as participants notions of what that game was that's one example uh and of course there's um I mean I love the work of John Malpead and LAPD Los Angeles Poverty Department who's been doing incredible work using artists that have lost their homes and they've been working they've done pieces around the notion of drugs and narcotics they've done a work called RFK and EKY which was a reenactment of Robert Kennedy's poverty tour right before the Bush election I mean I could go on and on but that was something that where their engagement was for many years the show is not just a simple actual show it's a whole process of of you know being on site to talk about like a historical moment in order to talk about the future so it's a radically different engagement with the idea of you know when we now think oh when will theater reopen when will the off-broadway and off-off you know where we present the the great plays of the world would you say uh wait a minute think through what what are you what you're doing and is that a moment to to perhaps present work that doesn't need these spaces um yes um I I the the first thing that came to my mind when you made that comment is I'm thinking about my students that are studying that are playwrights uh and how they're thinking about what writing is for the theater because now for the theater doesn't necessarily mean on a stage in a proscenium it could be through some technology you know could it now involves different forms of uh technology uh it could be in different spaces occurring at the same time so the idea of writing plays for a proscenium is definitely changing just even in the notion of play itself the they are incorporating um this off-sidedness all the time you could write a play that occurs in different locations at the same time you could write a play that engages with um that has different forms of engagement or that distributes itself through different medium for example I don't know if I'm being too abstract I think um you know also for that let's for theater companies or theater artists listening now I think that idea of the off off-site um of course it's something in COVID you know that is actually working and possible we just had you know the chariots project they said yeah we did our play a gordoni kind of unknown one we did it of course outside not in our space and they adopted masks surgical mask for your comedia mask and else but they did it in a way you know to engage just in with the housing departments where they played it and the community and ever and so it was if I understand quite quite popular would you say to theater artists now that this is a form so what you wrote about of course before corona but this is a form that actually can successfully be adopted and should be taken serious so don't wait till you get back in the black box use the form that has been proven of of of interest you know to scholars in the field and theater artists yes we talk again yes uh so so all the time um it's just if if you are taking for granted that theater you know means this and you don't question the form then we're going to be stuck with the same thing all the time but that's the beauty of art is that it's not just about the content it's about the form and so uh you know why do you you know do you need an audience member how many do you need where do they have to be how are you going to engage with them um uh you know and that that question of where they have to be um is very important they don't you could be in many places at the same time now which has to do with distribution of your you know it could be filmed or not filmed I mean I'm going like this because I you know you're far away you know I'm here um you know so in other words the thinking about the theater is what you're saying about Milo Rao like it's really a whole event it's about dramaturgy is now implicated into the event of theater and so questioning every single facet of that is very important which just in in architecture is just one part of it because the notion of sightedness is not just physical like I'm at this site working it can involve the conversation it can be a discursive site that you're interested in it can be something you experience so sometimes this is just for example sometimes I would go to see a show that happens I don't know outside in a sidewalk but it's not so much the sidewalk that's important it's um it could be sure related to the history of the space but very often it happened to be outside because the artist was more interested in a conversation that related to that community they wanted to stage a situation that engaged people of that community to have a conversation for example um so so to go back to your question about theater and you know artists I don't know um yes the it's a whole event I remember being at um panel a long time ago on at APAP of all places I think Philip Beither was talking about curating um they I think it was a panel with like Ralph Lemon and uh Wesleyan has a program I don't know if it still exists that's called I think it does it's called um something about curating performance etc etc and most of the people in the room were um artistic directors of repertory theaters and um Philip Beither was trying to whose uh curator at performance at the Walker Art Center uh was trying to kind of share that or or uh yeah share that you know it you we can get out of this booking a season philosophy um why not have one show all year that's durational in time or you know why not like the national I mean he wasn't saying but for example National Theater of Scotland is a theater without walls so was the Foundry by the way who just they just um finished with their last project which was a book um that's one of their projects so that you can found a theater um of course without walls and that will get you to think otherwise or um they got theater with directed by Eric Alada I mean they uh based in the south of France for example their projects are not just like Foundry it's not like we're going to do this show in this theater they start with an idea and then it develops it could could be a video it could be a walk they do a lot of audio um um audio walks uh so it depends on the idea that the artist wants to do but theater can exist anywhere and in a way it has a closeness in a way to the visual arts right it's part of the home for offsite would you say that well I think what's um okay well since you're mentioning visual art I think what's there's good and bad things in in terms of the visual arts I think what they have encouraged historically is both much more of um engagement with with theory uh and artists thinking theoretically or abstractly about what art is so in their in their work uh and so that has shaped you know conceptual art institutional critique uh social practice based works etc etc um but on the other hand um you know I think we're at a wonderful advantage in the theater part of it because our work is people-based it is communal-based it is social practice by definition so all these kind of new forms and I say new because you know in the visual arts whether they call it ephemeral practices or you know um that's what that's what we're good at um so yes I think a lot of the most interesting artists and the ones I write about in the book um are engaging with with kind of a mixture of both and um looking at uh using the theatrical practices they have very well through through new conceptual frameworks let's say the living theaters street performances bright and puppet or shackner did work I think also and then diner um the wooster did work outside and and so do you detect is there something in the in the 21st century is there something that changed or is it a continuation is there something new happening in in that field you look at at the upsides is there something that has has changed compared to the traditional avant-garde in that sense so offsides is simply the terminology I use um to engage with site-based practices um like but yes site-based practices have changed a lot since the especially since the 80s that's the first time I kind of heard it uh I think historically in theater that that's the first time the term was used I heard it I mean I was going to say in the UK it was perhaps used a little earlier but the term used to kind of be environmental theater and then on on guard arts any hamburger started using the term probably because she comes from a visual arts background um but it used to be a merit monk and a lot of people in dance we should mention that a lot of this has been going on with dance for quite a while um Charles me was writing plays um you know that were site-specific uh to be directed um yes absolutely the 21st century changed it used to be kind of large scale pieces where you would um where artists were interested in staging things as you were saying outside of theaters as a production where people could have access I guess to places that were closed or abandoned or and they tended to be large large scale whereas abdo is very important here in this history um who staged along with on guard arts uh father was peculiar man uh in the in the 90s so that was you know big then and um absolutely we've seen that we've gone through right now especially in the last 10 years kind of more intimate performances no sets uh using I mean for lack of a better word like the real life so for example um I saw a piece by big at theater uh directed by Eric a lot that was hidden stories um where you kind of followed it it was it was not long ago here but it was created a while back and I saw it in for no not in Fort Green downtown Brooklyn where there I think there were like five actors and you you put on headphones and you you individually kind of observed the inner world of these performers um and they would go anybody else in this in the neighborhood wouldn't know that a performance was going on because they just kind of blended in unless you had the headphones I hope you're understanding what I'm trying to say um and and um the other one was uh Anne Hampton's well I also wrote to Zaza that the found reproduced um in uh in a cafe um and Anne Hampton did the library piece I think PS 122 uh produced that in a library so actually the library one is a really good example of it was just two audience members at a time you go to a library they would give you a headphone and you simply they go through this kind of staging of books by yourself and the library becomes your stage and it's a form of invisible theater nobody else you're in a show there's no actors you're your own performer um and so I hope you're seeing like so the shift went from kind of experimental staging practices to more experiential situations created by the artists um yeah that were so that are sometimes more invisible and more of an infiltration of the real and fiction in that sense so and in that sense since you mentioned visual art I think that there was much more of an engagement or fluidity between what was going on in the visual arts um and what was going on theatrically I mean you make a clear distinction between site specific and off site maybe tell us a little bit why you felt it needed an update that that field or the term for it so okay I'm not I just want to make it clear I'm not like categorizing something as off site or not off site um I was simply using the word the approach off site being here and there at the same time like introducing a kind of offness to contemporary practices that move beyond the site specific so whereas before and Robert Smithson from visual art talks about this difference and we maybe have more specific examples Richard Sarah the famous tilted artwork that happened um in lower Manhattan that was site specific right if you move the work you would destroy it um but we've gone we've you know we've gone much more than that even visual arts you can have site based work that tours um and it's the artist that travels um or you have pieces that are made locally at different places so the the notion of sightedness went from being very grounded um Mi Won Kwon talks about this in visual art history her book is is is is precisely about that but coming from visual arts um and and in theatre so we we go from say specificity to site based practices that but again that don't prioritize location or architecture necessarily as the most important part so to give you an example and going back to John Malpead um who who did the piece RFK and EKY yes uh LAPD had to do that piece um oh my god uh uh in Kentucky Eastern Kentucky RFK EKY right because that's where but but and of course it's site specific because you cannot not do it anywhere else but the engagement um the participatory element the durational component the way you engage with the piece those are just as important if not more and the upside in this off-sightedness in that chapter I just talk about temporalities the notion of time because by using that site he's bringing us to an off time like a you know engaging with a different time in order to to move forward so playing that it's a it's I'm just using the word off-sight as a way to kind of recognize the varied approaches that artists are using um when they're engaging with site in this conceptual way yeah yeah no that is a big conclusion and by the way John Malpead is the brother of Karen Malpead you know the playwright quite the theatrical family yes I really admired also the work for decades what they have done and uh you know highlighting you know the complex uh history of immigration and the political um fights for civil rights and how they how they were able to read they recreated the march right they um people they um had some actors representing um Kennedy but also civil rights and they went through through the landscapes through the towns and um so but it comes to validation I think you know with plays there are you know the Tonys there the Obies and this and that this is you know what we've been taught that what people achieve for in the off-side world I think it's a bit it's more complicated right it doesn't have a real footing or even now in academia I think you're one of the very few writing about there of course others but I'm also in producing I know Andrew Kercher who is a also studied at the Graduate Center and was hired at the Public Theater because they found out we can produce we know how to produce a play but they had no idea how to produce you know something that's off the side and a remedy protocol came to the Brooklyn Public Library for the under the radar and they thought oh they have Wi-Fi at the library of course you know that's fine we can shut away and remedy said no this is not professional of course this will not work and also there were complications with it so um so that whole field is complicated in a way and that's perhaps why it is not as much in the center as it as it should be do you think that from observing the field is it a wave that's going away do you see more it will more we will see more work especially now in COVID time or do you think it will not gain as strong a foothold perhaps as the forms of theater we are traditionally look at okay so the short answer to your question is uh yes it's gonna only get bigger yes I think theaters with the capital T I don't know Lincoln Center I mean St. Anne's warehouse has been you know engaging with this but BAM actually the the the engage a lot with off-site performance but more and more theaters will have to go out and look for new not only new spaces because new spaces by definition when an artist engages with new spaces they're engaging with new forms of theater so it's just gonna get bigger and bigger and not in scale I mean in the amount of artists looking for new ways of engaging with theater practice um and yeah institutions are going to have to accommodate and therefore change their producing dramaturgies or the way they produce it goes hand in hand aesthetics and production are are are not again separate things as Annie Hamburger has kind of shown to my go arts or even Melanie Joseph's we found we theater but what's important about your question besides the fact that yes this is just going to get more uh I don't know bigger more more artists are going to engage more with this kind of work is that questioning more what theater with the capital T is and inventing new forms and by the way as counter said you have to get out of theater in order to make theater uh you know or invent new forms of theaters sometimes you have to kind of get out of the meeting in order to discover what it is to see it or look at it differently from a different angle but um this is going to have a huge impact and this I mean this is why I got into writing about curating and and producing because um especially with with curating practices it's and going back to what I said before about you can't just like think of it like oh I'm going to book my season this play then this play then this play you have to shift the the the way that events what events are and who they're for and who are you inviting you know um it's not and and this actually has to do with the diversity question and the whole notion of um you know rethinking our institutions and who they're for because it's not about bringing this diverse you know black play right into your company you have to re shift like you know who is the institution really representing you it's not like then you know fixing a thing with a band-aid you have to like heal from the inside from you know what I'm saying and so this is gonna this is that moment corona is gonna have to do that because it's it has shown um for lack of a better word like how unequal um you know and unsustainable the system is short answer to your question and also not functioning right the big houses are closed they're not set up if they were set up with an arm for off-site work what do you call it they would be still being out there producing in the parks on the street like in small units right well I mean I think that the artists are not going to wait for institutions to produce them you know I think that the artists are creating new ways to do work and the and you know if you know they're going to be their own institutions it's going to be from the ground up there's going to be grassroots movements that are building up and you know those established or I guess formally established institutions are going to have to you know it's going to be something like this they're going to have to not impose but see you know what people are building from the DOI movement to kind of shift their producing models we're not I mean we can't just have artistic directors we're there for 20 30 years they you know we need new blood every few years that doesn't you know and it doesn't have to be vertical can be horizontal I mentioned national theater of Scotland yes before that is an institution that has always been horizontal meaning equal partnerships equal um authorial uh control over it's not like one person picking not not a star curator or a star artistic that's old that's that's not going to be the decided not to have a space they said the entire land of Scotland we go everywhere we go in existing places you know also Adam borough who should get it they said no we are mobile it's a mobile it's an incredible natural and run by artists and created by artists actually not through a government structure at the city really has a say in what they want you know that's the thing they're there it's not like I'm commissioning this artist to do you know some idea it's like what does the community need what are they I mean not what they do what are they asking for um and not subscribers you know not that whole model I'm not sure how long that's gonna last yeah no it's a it's a great model and uh but I think off-sides of course is something in this time of corona I think already it was I think a very significant field but I hope it will also get more attention also the significance of it as an artistic impression expression as an as is an authentic way to engage with the creation of meaning for the artists but also for the audiences and it has something and that is unique and powerful and perhaps you know like theater of the real the entrance of the the the spectator the normal person the expert of the every day as Romani says into theater productions but also then the notion of the off-side that happens to be perhaps also outside but it's not defined by the space it is more an experience often more intimate as you said you know of a moment of life and a moment of deep reflection that perhaps helps us to look in a different way oh sorry no go on no that you mentioned a word that I think is really crucial and it's what experience uh I guess as artists do we want to you know create so it again it goes back to that notion of content I'm thinking back to uh Phil Salton of an artist I worked with I had the opportunity to work with so many years ago but I really really admire his work and yes he was doing things uh or engaging with spaces that perhaps were not in theater but more than that it's that he was looking for new ways to experience or to create an event for the audience for the performer um you know like questioning again the form not to take it for granted and yeah always in ways that were integral to to what he was researching in the work yeah no it's a great I if I not mix up I remember his piece I think it was in the parking lot where he taped a square you know and performers and actors were standing outside almost like in a soccer game where you say you have this is the white line if you're sitting on the bench even as a great player you don't do anything but you get into the game you step over that white light white line you are in the game you perform you do things and then it's over and he did this I think in a parking lot and then you know people stepped into it and over a dance or a dance house and it wasn't clear who is in five miles I think it was um Peter well not uh was it called um not the hour to get the name of it now great great great concept my question is adi in the time of corona do you think we talked about this also here that you know theaters often have ballet uh drama opera you know we said we wonder will there be the digital division theaters in Germany now hire um digital dramaturgs I think they spoke with someone from Augsburg that's her job she's a drama just for the digital new department they are creating because they say it's here it's going to stay who knows if the next corona comes or not are we going to engage in that art um do you feel do you think that theaters instead of you know letting the artist doing some self shouldn't institutions host artists open the space I mean Helen Shaw yesterday said what I hope for is that big institutions will open for artists for small institutions open the space they do what you want we help you do you think that movement will come as you said independently or do you think there has to be a serious support from existing institution to this art form which is contemporary which is new which is emerging and of significance because it has to do with our times oh yeah that reminds me yes um but what you're talking about I think has to do with funding perhaps or um indirectly which is something I had forgot to mention in the question before about uh sure with institutions or established institutions what comes is um you know funding uh and and one of the issues that we have and I'll answer your question about yes because I think they have to open their spaces and think you know wider and bigger conceptually um but it's also uh when we because you had mentioned obis and awards and tonies the categories of awards that we have are incredibly outdated um the because they're so compartmentalized about um you know what what a theater who a theater artist is that they they don't take into account in their interdisciplinarity of what contemporary theater has become and and that has to do also with the judges um uh you know who are hired for the or whatever who represent you know whether they're playwrights or not or I mean I've been in panels where I'm the only theater person and everybody else comes from visual art and unless that um artist is you know challenging theater forms they're not going to get uh funded or awarded and vice versa I've also been in panels where the other panels were very classically trained or coming from very literary drama notions of theater um and so for example if you weren't an amazing playwright and you were a performer you weren't going to get the award so so the categories are some things that we're going to have to play around with um just as yes institutions I think that to your question about uh how we're going to see a shift in theater I guess I mean I don't know in Broadway because it's all going to depend on economically how their needs commercial theater and not commercial theater works very differently but ultimately it has to do with um how open you you you want to be with funding and you know are we still going to have you know the Broadway then creative capital and you know it's so it's almost so um predictable so something's got to shift because I think even I see the new artists they're you know the younger generation they're they're not going to be you know um playing the game the same way they're going to change it they're going to change the game so I don't know that answers your question no it's true I think it has to change and also it will change and we are maybe already it has to change it's not not visible yet and I think your book The Offsides is you know shows us a little bit of some rules of the game or shows us the map on where those games could take place with lots of uh areas um and also then to um to discover so I think it is really a significant uh and thought that these times where you cannot get into the space and they're suffering there are other possibilities and as you said companies like the foundry LAPD and Los Angeles and others you know have said even in the time and the supposedly good times say no we don't want that space you know it's like a uh uh men Ray the great artist also conceptual artist who was a great landscape painter but as he started out but he said no it's no longer an appropriate expression of the time I live in where we have you know radio phonograph typewriters we had at that time cars airplanes he said you know we have to be different and he moved you know into the solarization installation and they abstract art as an expression that is connected to the time and I think this is after all what art has to be doing has to help us to create meaning and in a way prepare us also for all the changes that make us comfortable with it and see what is good about it what hasn't been there before in a while of course also preserving existing forms but um so yeah so really really thank you for your work I encourage everybody to um to also check out um what you're doing I hear also in the in the corona time you had some activities that were not connected fully to to theater as a in the business idea if I can ask you is that true yes um so this is because Frank and our friends outside of the marn sigo um with my girlfriends we started um a mescal brand where of course everybody's a little bit into drinking so uh uh two of my friends are from Mexico um and one has been to oaxaca quite a few times so you're a mescal lover um we'll see if it comes to fruition but the idea is to um start a small label of mescal with women palinqueras palinqueras are the ones that um make the mescal so also kind of a new way of um creating a mescal brand where part of proceeds go to the um families who produce them yeah and who knows one day you might come up where that uh offsite experience is connected to mescal that if I remember right has some kind of psychotitania a bit of psychedelic additions um there may be in it and it is very different so that's quite interesting but also it shows you know as you say the idea of the experience in the loneliness which we experience now in the solitude you know and also um that perhaps there is something to experience and something like like um that you know connects us to an inner world and we look so much everything comes from the outside world relentlessly and and I think we need to connect to inner worlds and I think actually that kind of offside really does especially as you said in the experiences of the walk around the audio tour the you know being along but among others so questioning reality but having a dialogue in a way also then with yourself where you are the performer it's a radical difference than being the consumer yeah since you mentioned digital um I think it was La Jolla Playhouse they have like a site specific festival and uh they had to change because of corona of course because of the lockdown we couldn't even go anywhere outside um but Marike um Splint did this fantastic performance all online live called you were here that I believe is still accessible you know even though I saw it live online um the way she gauged with google maps and the digital sphere it was very site specific to the condition that we're living in so no I really I really do think that that is a very significant outcome and I would encourage everybody who creates theater and performance you know to really think about this form especially in the upcoming year we need uh there's a thirst a hunger a necessity necessity as for me and many others you know to see work engage with it to um have this kind of uh some of that they would apocalypses. Calypsus really means revelation in the original meaning of the divine on the earth or something you know that you take the lid off of something so to reveal to us also the mysteries and the miracles of life as John Cage said about his art and this is a way instead of you know not doing anything or if you are running theater you have funds instead of saying we cannot do anything in our theater this is a way to employ artists to engage an audience and to really experiment and find a new form that perhaps might as you said inform the practice itself you have to go outside sometimes in a form and then you return to this is a moment and there are possibilities and it's great great great work really has been done and by all these artists David Levine and Marina Bramovich and and so so many others who worked in that field what the flock and I don't know if you have other names you know what people should look at the other artists you feel look at their work well like I Marika Splint's piece you are here is fantastic um yeah sure David Levine was doing work um before I'm not sure what he's working in the parks yeah well he did before Huppetry I think you know also they are these the Gulliver's travel you know that great company um yeah who did gigantic performances you know in a way on the streets and why not do something what people in their homes from their windows can watch maybe it could be on the street you know in Ferguson I saw that also via zoom that was quite powerful I mean the way they're reinventing the notion of sightedness via the zoom mechanism that was quite engaging who was that what company here oh okay so and I know that off-sides already is a couple of years when did you write two years ago it came out it came out in 2018 18 yeah two years wow there's probably much more updated artists yeah I think you should keep it updated I think it's a significant field and it should be taught it should be produced there should be the obi award for best offside work and the Tony and whatever and the Oscar but what are you working on now what's what what are you looking at what are you doing I'm shifting gears but I think it's related because I'm always fascinated about what how the art infiltrates the real and vice versa so I've been now shifted to looking at vulnerabilities and precarity within theater and specifically like actor training and actor training and playing also in children what why is something you know how is opening up to vulnerability provide a new form of presence or authenticity so it's totally new but it's around the notion of vulnerability and precarity in performance whether it be through actors or playing or or the performance or engagement of the space and how is that connected to off-site you said it's connected oh it's only connected indirectly in what my interests around theater are because I'm always interested in when fiction and real you know when they kind of when you don't have a separation between art and life so they're both connected but it's not really it's it's a totally different project the different construction site even though you have experience from the other we're coming close to the end of the talk we always ask that two-folded one is what would you say what do you say to your young students now what should they be doing next year what should what should theater artists be doing I really would like to hear from you and then what are you reading or listening to what inspires you at the moment the first questions what should they be what could theater artists or young artists of it kind of people who cannot work or at home what do you say what's your practical advice what do you say what you do you also run a company they should ask big questions they should ask questions question everything and that gets you to thinking differently about how you're engaging with the form so I would say constantly ask yourself what's challenging now and work through questions around that and that's gonna you know get you no work nope I mean no pain no gain I go get through the hard spots and that's going to make your art much stronger and the second one was oh I happen to be reading I don't know the full title but it's love by bell hooks it's about kind of an older book I think it's 10 years old it's really beautiful I'm halfway through lack of love in our contemporary culture okay good so well thank you thank you so much and I'm sorry we push you to come on our show in the middle of your crazy sprint at the end of the semester but I felt that it's such an important and significant contribution and we should have much more perhaps also we could make maybe a series a week you know with international artists who work in that field and listen to them and hear what they are doing how they are doing it and why and but it is certainly a form that is valuable and also possible and in that time we live and at the moment it has some answers that found something that but as you said it has a very very long tradition it's morphing of course into you know different contexts forms and shapes but but it is something that is possible doable and also I think necessary at the moment so thank you for highlighting it with us thank you for writing the book and for researching and giving attention to the field and and that you also did this I know there are so many dissertation of things about the contemporary American playwrights and Kushner you've said no I'm going to work on that that is important and you're focused on that very early on and I think it proved to be of significance and important so really thank you thanks for having me all around yeah for for hosting us and we're gonna see all of you next week and have a great great weekend and yeah think about the next book on off-site updated in a couple of years from now and I think it's an important field so thank you so much and I hope you all will stay safe it's as we know is a devastating moment up to 3000 people dying each day it's a disastrous but it really in time also really sink as Bertie said question everything what are we doing and why and it is an important time we have Alejo Gantner with us next next week who will talk about producing creatives he did the great PS 122 stand was the story so it's the Onassis Foundation and then we have Hilary Miller who will talk with us about the time when New York City also experienced a terrible terrible terrible time in the city it was devastating was bankrupt and perhaps when we look around in midtown it is a similar moment and then we have Martin K. Kreen with us and Ken Cheniglia from LMDA the literary manager and Terminator just association of New York of the Americas and we will hear about their work what is going on and also they did a lot of reach from Mexico and the work in dramaturks in this field where your discourse also really met us so much when it comes to curation and the off-sites and really looking at the structures of theater and as you said we cannot forget what Brecht said and Hanamura's theater itself represents a government a structure of the powers at B and we also have to be critical of it or at least be aware of it and not just feeding the machine but also questioning it and then and if we do this as Hanamura said without criticizing it it's treason to the original idea of theater and performance where we work through problems as complex issues in society in our lives and our families and our communities so it is actually of I think essential essential important so thank you all and sorry if I talk too much today because I but I very much about this this field also it's an important one and I hope this was a contribution to also highlight it thank you so much Batty and Frank thank you