 Welcome everybody back to the seagull talks here at the Graduate Center, CUNY, the city university of New York. It's a nicer day in New York today than the days before, where it was cold and rainy and even snowed last week. And today we have, as always, a representative from the global theater world, someone who's work has been strongly connected to social change, to the idea that theater has a place in society, that it is there to reflect, to make us think, to give meaning. And Guy Regis Jr. from Haiti, who also lives in France and who whoops between the world, is here today with us and the translator is the great Judas de Miller from NYU, from the French department and quite translator who also happened to translate these plays, but many others we have also done at the Seagull. So both of you, thank you for coming. Thank you. And we think it is a time where we have to listen closely to what artists have to say, in our case theater artists, this is our field, this is where we work. We have been on the right side of history and the right side of social progress. And looking back, one wonders why didn't anybody listen to what the artists had to say, countries would have saved a lot of trouble, a lot of pain, a lot of sorrows. And now again, we are in a real crisis, a crisis that often in theater terms, you know, brings the solution or is the turning point, but we really do not know where we are exactly. So it is good to hear from colleagues, from artists we admire who we think are leaders in their fields. So Guy, where are you right now? Judas will translate my questions and also the answers. Where are you right now, Guy? I am on the island of Léron, close to La Rochelle. It is a small island, normally in this period where there should be a lot of people. But I have been here in the residence of writing since February and my residence was finished in May. Let us translate. So Guy is in France now, he's on the island of Léron, which is outside of La Rochelle, which should be receiving a lot of people about now because it's time for vacation, but that's not happening. He's been there since February and he's in a writing residency that goes through the end of May. But of course, he's also not able to leave either. So Guy, you are normally a wanderer between the two worlds of Haiti and France. How do you feel at the moment? Normally, you travel a lot, you are a nomadism between France and Haiti. How do you feel now? I think what we live today is completely scandalous, so I feel completely scandalized by what's going on. He thinks that what's happening now is scandalous, and so he feels very frustrated in a state of scandal himself because of what's going on. J'ai l'impression d'être de vivre dans une dictature acceptée. So he feels like he's living in some kind of a dictatorship in fact. Et c'est très dur pour de vivre cette dictature-là qu'on accepte avec nos enfants et la génération d'après, c'est-à-dire c'est à fraud qu'ils aient à vivre ça avec nous. And it's particularly hard to live this dictatorship right now with thinking about our children and thinking about generations that are going to come after us. Je vais m'expliquer, il n'y a pas longtemps, des jeunes ont pris, on sont sortis de par le monde, pour nous mettre dans les yeux, aux oreilles, une situation désastreuse pour la planète. And it's a young people have been trying to tell us all across the world for a number of years now that this is, we're in a disastrous moment for the planet. Cet événement-là, c'était un événement capital et sur lequel on devrait tous se mettre ensemble pour dire arrêtons tout. And this is a moment in which we should all put ourselves, we should all be together to say let's stop, let's stop everything now. On sait pas arrêter, parce que c'était des jeunes, par contre on accepte une dictature d'un virus. But nothing got stopped in order to take a look at the situation of the planet and what has stopped us is a little virus. Et c'est la même chose que je vis à mon niveau in Haiti. And it's actually what I'm living in my own level, in my own particular way in Haiti. En Haiti, je dis oui, j'ai un festival qui aujourd'hui va avoir 17 ans. So I'm running a festival in Haiti, which is 17 years old now. Et cette année, on allait fêter les 10 ans du tremblementaire. On allait faire des spectacles autour des 10 ans du tremblementaire, le tremblementaire c'était en 2010. And this year, we were going to celebrate and recognize memorialize the 10 years after the terrible, terrible earthquake that happened in 2010. Ça fait 10 ans que je digne ce festival et chaque année, je suis toujours dans l'impossibilité de le faire parce qu'il y a des situations politiques, il y a la violence partout qui m'empêche chaque année de le faire. And he's run this festival for 10 years and for 10 years he's wanted to do this kind of memorialization of the earthquake and every year he hasn't been able to for political reasons. De septembre 2019 à novembre 2019, Haiti était un lockdown. Et en fait on a appris au monde ce que c'était que lockdown. So we already were teaching the world what a lockdown was. On l'a vécu avant. We lived it before everybody else. On n'en a pas parlé beaucoup dans le monde. But nobody talked about it. Et cette situation-là que via Haiti, ça fait longtemps qu'on vit cette situation. And we're living in a kind of situation of lockdown for a very long time in fact. Je n'ai jamais connu une année scolaire normale. In my life I've never known a normal school year. Il y a toujours trois mois, quatre mois, deux mois où l'école est fermée parce que là oui est impraticable. There's, there's, there's, there've always been two months, three months, four months when school had to close because you couldn't go out into the streets. C'est pas des raisons politiques, c'est des ouvrablements. If it's not political reasons, it's the hurricanes that are hitting us. C'est tout que la dernière pour revenir à une maladie et la dernière catastrophe qu'on a vécu. And the last catastrophe that we lived. C'est que l'ONU est venu en Haiti après le tremblementaire avec beaucoup d'Ong. So that was when the United Nations actually came to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 with a lot of aid workers. L'ONU et donc toutes les ONG sont arrivées en février après le tremblementaire en novembre, c'est-à-dire dix mois plus tard on avait le cholera amené par des casques bleus. And these nonprofits arrived and 10 months later we had a outbreak of cholera. That was brought by the United Nations soldiers. And there were 10,000 deaths at that point. After, I'll add this, the 300,000 at least from the earthquake. Et l'ONU a pris le temps d'admettre que ça a été amené par les soldats bleus. And it took the UN a very long time to admit that the cholera had been brought by the UN soldiers. Je trouve que ce qui se passe pas pour Corona, c'est très important qu'on en parle. Mais c'est un peu injuste de ne pas parler du paludisme en Afrique. C'est injuste d'ignorer complètement les 6 millions de morts de la guerre du Congo au moment où l'on parle. Et chacun avec nos téléphones portables, on finance cette guerre. Moi ça me pousse à me poser la question sur pourquoi est-ce que c'est quand un virus attaque les grandes citadels que sont les grands pays qu'on en parle autant. Yeah, these are significant statements and how is the situation at the moment in Haiti. I know you have the City of Poetry project and others. How is it? When were you there last and what do you hear? Alors Franck, il dit absolument que ce que tu dis est choquant et important à dire. Et il voudrait savoir comment se passent les choses en Haiti en ce moment. Est-ce que tu as des nouvelles? Qu'est-ce que tu entends? Oh oui, régulièrement, chaque jour les Haitiens qui sont à l'extérieur ont plus de nouvelles souvent que les Haitiens à l'intérieur parce qu'ils surveillent chaque seconde. Yeah, so he said yes, of course he hears and in fact Haitians outside of Haiti know more about what's going on in Haiti often than Haitians who are in Haiti because they're paying attention and I can see. C'est la même chose que je pourrais dire aussi par rapport à l'aide internationale. La majorité de l'aide internationale vient de la diaspora haïtienne aux États-Unis ou de la diaspora haïtienne un peu partout dans le monde. Yeah, and most of the help for Haiti is actually coming from the Haitian diaspora wherever it happens to be in the United States in particular but elsewhere in the world. La situation est compliquée parce que justement, tout cette diaspora qui pourrait aider Haiti elle est malade. And so this complicates things quite a lot because the help that was coming from diasporications is not necessarily coming because some of them are sick and they're all in lockdown. Vous savez, la population haïtienne qui est aux États-Unis et c'est souvent une population assez vieille parce qu'on fait partie de nos parents quand on a fini de gagner un peu d'argent on les fait venir vivre un peu de l'Occident. Yeah, and it's also true that the Haitian population in the United States is an older population because it's kind of a play thing that Haitians do is when they when they get to be a certain age and made a little bit of money they go to live in the west. Moi je suis en contact direct avec des artistes qui depuis l'épidémie sont très actifs et ils vont partout dire de faire attention ils vont partout donner les consignes de sécurité un peu partout dans le pays. On met de l'argent ensemble on collect ensemble pour acheter des masques pour donner aux gens de savoir et tout ça. Guy is in touch with a lot of artists and they've been very active. They've been very active as people who want to make sure that other people take care of themselves, wash their hands, wear masks and so on. So they're going around Haiti to talk to other Haitians about it and they're putting together money in order to buy masks for people and bring the equipment that is needed. So it's the artists who are actually doing that. Mais vous allez entendre dans pas longtemps énormément de manifestations parce qu'hier déjà il y avait une grosse manifestation contre le gouvernement malgré le coronavirus. Il y a un gouvernement qui a complètement perdu confiance du côté de la population du fait de la corruption. Donc la situation est très difficile mais qu'est-ce que je pourrais vous dire je pourrais vous dire que c'est un pays qui vit une situation difficile depuis plusieurs années. So the situation is really tough. It's very difficult but this is a country that's kind of used to living in difficulty. It's lived in difficulty for many, many years. J'ai plus peur pour ce qui va se passer après parce qu'on va tous s'occuper bien sûr des grands et ensuite on va se dire ah bah il y avait les petits qui étaient là. J'ai plus peur pour l'avenir. J'ai très peur aussi pour les plus précaires les artistes. En Haiti on entend parler beaucoup des artistes à l'extérieur mais officiellement ils n'existent pas. Yeah so people talk about Haitian artists and know about Haitian artists outside of Haiti but officially they don't really have any status they're not recognized. Yeah so country to a lot of other countries there's no state sponsorship but there's no private sponsorship either. So if Guy is in France right now it's because he has to go elsewhere in order to write because this is where this is where there's sponsorship for the work that he wants to do it that he does do as a as a writer as an artist. And so I can't really complain I feel lucky. And so there's really no no no no economic situation put aside not no help no funds funds for artists and since for several years now there really hasn't been a theater space either. Which means that we've done remarkable work in the streets every year. So in the festival that I organize and that I run we do theater in the street but it's not street theater because the theater suddenly is up the streets are the place where theater happens and happens everywhere. And I started doing theater before 2000 I was doing theater in the streets a lot in many different places in Haiti. I was doing theater in public administration we were doing learning everywhere in cemeteries and even in public administration buildings what we were doing happenings. But it wasn't until he arrived in France that he realized he was doing contemporary theater. And so while I'm 45 years old I'm actually the old guy in this group of artists many many young artists who are still doing theater in Haiti everywhere. So there are a lot of initiatives and there are more and more festivals all year long in Haiti. Yeah so the question is now what are they going to do in this precarious economic situation which they find themselves. I've seen some artistic initiatives through social networks they are very very everywhere of all these artists. So there's a lot of social networking going on so there's a lot of online work that's happening that's interesting. Yeah and so what is what's interesting for Haiti and other so-called third world countries is they're actually very modern and they use all of the technology that we have to very good advantage as far as artists concerned. And it's a even even though there's less money either less opportunities a lot is going on because the population is also very young and very very technology wise and savvy. This is an interesting thing to think about in terms of democracy because the majority population in Haiti right now is younger than 18 years old which is when the voting begins. So it's in a complicated situation with on the one hand this young group of magnificent people so young and then the political class which is basically made up of old farts who base their work that they do on looking at what's happening in other countries where there are. Old farts that's not exactly verus but it's close to it. What is very worrisome is the amount of violence that has taken over certain popular popular neighborhoods certain lower economic neighborhoods in Haiti with armed bands of young people. So one could ask this question about about this situation in an international way. Yeah this is the question how is it that a young guy in a very poor neighborhood could find himself with a gun worth $10,000. Who makes these arms. Americans make them Russians make them French make them and they have to sell them. So today we find ourselves in Haiti in a country that's over armed incredibly armed and it's very contrary to the way things used to be. If I were in Haiti right now I would be more afraid of being kidnapped than of getting the coronavirus. Yeah and imagine so these are all the things that I have to work with when I'm thinking about creating my festival. When I'm trying to do theater every day. And because we don't want to let go of those young people in the poor neighborhoods we go to them and we do theater there because they have to be looked after. And I was financed for several months by the open society that allowed me to go and do theater in a number of different neighborhoods. And everywhere the graffiti that was showing up on the wall is called to kill. And the gang leaders asked the question who wrote the key I create the poem. It's just a sentence, the poem that I asked for a tagger to write everywhere. A poem that is called to kill. No, just to write the poem to kill. To kill. Kill. So he asked the graffiti artist to write on the walls poems that had to do with this theme of to kill. So he asked a lot of us as young people to think about composing these poems yes poets to think about composing the poems on the theme of to kill. He also asked graphic artists to design wall paintings and public art on this theme of great violence, including gang rapes. And that was really everywhere in all the neighborhoods. I also asked a very great musician to compose music against violence on children. And so, so those scenes were kind of everywhere in the in the in the poor neighborhoods and he asked a very, very well known musician to compose something against violence against the violence against children. And that violence starts in the families but it's also political violence that's imposed on people and it's an international violence that's kind of out there. To explain the situation is that we had the presence of the soldiers of the United Nations in Haiti from 2004, just a few months ago. And at the moment where they left and today we are in a gang of violence all the time. And it's since they left that there seems to be this invasion of gangs. It's quite surprising because normally their work was just to disarm everyone. Yeah, and so it's it's it's incredible it's unbelievable because their work was supposedly to unarm and to pacify and something has gone wrong. So again, how is it that the children who don't have enough to eat that have their wearing sandals, have these huge, hugely expensive guns, that's one of the really terrible situations in Haiti right now. But for me, that's the situation in Haiti today. And of course, with the virus, when we go on social networks, apart from the point now in Haiti, to find out what's going on in Haiti, there are all the time scenes of violence and gangs that are masked not with surgical masks, but with masks. Yeah, and so what right now, what's so paradoxical ironic perhaps about all of this is when you go on social networks, you see people masked, but it's not people masked against the coronavirus it's the masked, the masks that people are wearing or in these games. He's sorry to have to talk about all of this, but it is what the situation is right now. That's what I want to say to the world, I want to say to the world, to those who make weapons, to recover them and to let this country breathe a little. Yeah, so what he really feels like that he wants to say to the world and especially to those countries that are arms manufacturers is get get away, get out, leave us alone, let us be tranquil for a little while. And, you know, it's just not just Haiti that concerns me I'm also thinking a lot about immigration about refugees, trying to get into Europe trying to get into the United States. We can no longer stay at home and imagine with this little problem that everything will go well. Yeah, you can't stay at home anymore and with whatever little problems that you have and imagine you can solve them and that everything is going to be okay. That's why I wrote this text. There's no question about me. So, so actually, I've been writing something lately about about borders, because the coronavirus has made me think about the notion of borders. Since the Haitians have been leaving Haiti since 1950. So there are almost four to five million Haitians outside of Haiti, versus the 11 million that are in Haiti right now. When we opened the border, the Chile wanted to receive people to just make these factories work and make their capitalism work. After just a few months, two or three months, there were 100,000 Haitians at the Chilean pot. Four and five thousand Haitians applying for this kind of work within a very little time, a couple of months. Yeah, and it's not just the Haitian situation right now, a lot of countries are doing this kind of thing, a lot of people are doing this kind of thing, but it has been the situation of Haitians since the 50s. So I was kind of raised in this notion that I would go somewhere, that one goes somewhere to get to save oneself. And then here comes this virus that puts us in a situation where you can't go anywhere. And instead of getting together to try and face this and think about how we resolve it, everybody retweets to their own whole. And then afterwards, after this is in the aftermath of this, everybody's going to be accusing everybody else of not doing anything. It's not possible to do anything unless people get together. And yet what we're seeing now is the systematic closing of all of our borders. And so as an artist, I find that my role and what interests me is criticizing that closing. We should be making fun of the mask. We have to be questioning and destabilizing this whole notion of social distancing. Yeah, so suddenly Brecht becomes relevant in terms of social distancing, which isn't exactly what Brecht had in mind. And it seems that artists are being told to shut up as well. I think that's where we should see how we are very small in the chain of what a society or the world is made up of, artists. We are very small, we are nothing. And then we begin to think maybe that you're very little in terms of what counts in the world that were maybe just a little bit, a little nothing. Ah, no, I mean, let me take it back. I mean, we are thought of as nothing. Nothing, nothing, but okay. So he's almost positive that nobody ever asked the artists how we ought to think about these things, whereas artists nonetheless are human beings who analyze who think who interpret who have a have an objective kind of take on things and are paying attention. And I find it absolutely ridiculous that I have to listen to somebody like Trump tell me what to do when I think I have things to tell Trump, I might even be more intelligent than he is. And he finds that the world is kind of short of ideas without ideas at this point. And that's why he likes to think about this we does think about this as a kind of a dictatorship that that we have accepted, because no one is speaking out. C'est pour ça que j'ai refusé de faire des spectacles. Yeah, that's why he's not doing any kind of theater work on social networks, because he doesn't he does theater in order to touch people to be physically present with people to be engaged with people. So this this notion of physical distanciation or social distancing in the theater isn't possible there's no theater with that. And this kind of question what we're experiencing right now with the social distancing is going to really question our society is a question who we are, what we mean for a very long time after this is over. Nobody is going to be able to sneeze in a theater space anymore without being a suspect. So if we're being transformed into this kind of sterile world, we have to fight against it. It's not just the politicians who should be telling us what to do or what we might do we're thinking about what we should be doing there. The other people should be also asked to suggest what we might do next. So he is, as he said earlier on, scandalized by all of this, and he hopes that other people will be as scandalized as he is that no one is asking opinions from other people, but that we're listening entirely about the opinions of the of the political class. Thank you, Guy, really for sharing your thoughts and what is on your mind. This is very important. And this is a place of course to talk about this and this is also what we want to hear. As a theater artist, when you did your work in the streets of Port-au-Prince and Haiti, what worked? Yes, so Franck now asks the question of what worked. When you did your work, when you were active in the streets of Haiti, what worked the most? It was a large table of two meters high, three meters high, three meters wide, where there was a simulation of collective violence. It actually was this huge, huge tableau almost two meters by two meters of a gang rate, a painting. He did it as a huge poster. And he put it in a lot of places. So there was not just one. He put it in a lot of different places where it could be seen and where there were a lot of people. It was very shocking. And it's strange that it was such a shocking poster in the sense that everyone knows that there's a lot of gang raping that is going on right now in Haiti. And the Prime Minister called to say that he had to remove the table. Because it was just on his August when he was going to work. Because it was on his road, in his way, in the way he got himself to work. I think it's the work of art. Why is a painting that is really not alive? It can still shock people. So we used this painting to tell them it's not possible that there is this violence in the country. The purpose of the shock was to get people to talk about it. That's what I was saying earlier. We have to leave the place between us artists. Or we have to think about what is going on right now. We really live in a dictatorship of speech and of gesture. We have no right to speak. We're locked up and I feel suffocated by what is going on. people not to talk. And the way that people are being forced to shut up right now is actually suffocating him, he feels. I'm trying to learn, of course, because I always write, I write regularly. He's writing, but he's able to write. He can't not not write. I finished a piece, and then I'm finishing another very long, well, it's something that I was already writing. So he's finished one play, and he's finishing up plays that he started earlier that is completing. Le fait d'être plongé dans mes écrits, ça m'empêche d'être moins énervé. Mais dès que je vais me promener, que je vois un gendarme, je me sens vraiment, enfin, je ne comprends pas. C'est du délire pour moi. So when he's plunged into his writing, he does okay, he can forget about things, but when he goes off for a walk and he sees a policeman, he gets him all riled up again, and he asks himself why, what's going on? What's this all about? Wait. And so how does your day look like? How do you, when you get up and you're right, and what do you do? For how many weeks have you been in quarantine? Comment est-ce que tu structure ta journée? Tu es là depuis il y a de temps, enfin, qu'est-ce que tu fais de ton temps, etc. Alors, je travaille la nuit. I work at night. Donc je dors assez tôt. I go to bed pretty early. Ensuite je me lève vers trois heures ou quatre heures, j'écris. And then he gets up around three o'clock, or four o'clock in the morning, and that's when he writes. M'as-je lu un texte, une fraise de Karen Blixen, citée par Maurent Camille, qui disait, j'écris un peu toujours sans espoir, sans désespoir, mais j'écris. So he's citing Karen Blixen and saying that I write always. I write not necessarily with hope, sometimes in despair, but I write nonetheless. I write. Et le matin je me lève, on va marcher. And then I get up in the morning and then I go and I walk. Et puis après, on revient pour un petit déjeuner. And then I come back and I take and I eat breakfast. Ensuite, on travaille beaucoup ici parce qu'il y a le travail de quatre chemins, le festival que je dis, oui, il faut continuer à chercher les sponsors. So then he starts doing his administrative work that has to do with this festival called the Festival of the Four Ways of the Quatre chemins because he's looking for sponsors for it. Je l'ai pourchasse pendant jusqu'à, jusque dans l'après-midi. Yeah, so he looks for sponsors until late in the afternoon. Je leur demande, est-ce qu'ils vont maintenir leur aide? Et j'ai reçu pas mal de mauvaises nouvelles, mais j'ai aussi reçu de bonnes nouvelles. So he gets good news and it gets bad news, but he's on the phone with a lot of people around. I suppose on email with a lot of people, maybe even on Zoom. But tu n'esoumes, toi? Hum, mais... I'm just zooming people as well, just to... And the news has not been great, but there have been some good surprises. J'ai beaucoup de chance parce que je suis en résidence aussi avec mon ami. And he's also lucky because he has a friend with him during this residence. Et on travaille beaucoup ensemble aussi, donc elle aussi elle continue à travailler sur le spectacle que j'avais en cours. And they can work together, so they do some rehearsing together and she can work on what they had been doing before they went to the Ildon, on the island where they are in this residency. J'avais un livre, bah mon livre qui vient de sortir chez Gallimard les cinq fois où j'ai vu mon père. And he also has a book that just came out with Gallimard called The Five Times that I Saw My Father. Mon père qui vit d'ailleurs aux États-Unis. My father who actually does live in the United States still. J'avais beaucoup de rencontres autour de ce livre qui sont annulés. And he had hoped what he thought he was going to be doing was promoting this book and meeting a lot of people and talking about this book about The Five Times that he, The Five Times in his life when he saw his father. But all of that has been canceled. Et après, je continue, je dors et je recommence à écrire. So then after all of this, he goes to bed and then he gets up and he starts to write again. En fait, là, j'ai essayé de vous décrire comment je vis régulièrement quand je suis en train. That's that's that's kind of his regular day. That's his regular structure. And j'écris surtout le soir. So thank you. Thank you for sharing. Do you feel the world cares about Haitian theater? Do you have strong connections to countries or do you feel there is a attention is being paid to that country? It was the great also history, the first revolution perhaps in the world admired in France or whatever, but New York City once that it was very felt close to that what happened. But do you feel at the moment it is isolated or do you feel there are strong connections? Oui, alors tu comprends la question aussi. Comment est-ce que tu ressens le monde par rapport à Haitian épilothéatricien? Est-ce qu'on fait attention? Est-ce qu'on laisse tomber? Est-ce qu'on est là? Est-ce qu'on est présent? Est-ce que vous sentez soutenu? J'ai eu la chance d'avoir un projet justement comme je vous disais avec Open Society et puis j'étais aux États-Unis il y a pas longtemps. So he certainly been supported by the Open Society. They've been great. And he was recently in the United States. Et puis je suis venu aussi à CUNY où il y avait, j'ai dit aussi. And then he had one of his plays done at CUNY at the festival that we did on Caribbean Theater. Yeah, and also after the earthquake, right in 10 years ago, you came right away like five, six weeks. We invited you, we are. J'avais vu Kaniza Skal. And it's where it's when he met also Kaniza Shah who we really appreciate it. Je trouve que les États-Unis ont toujours été très éloignés d'Haiti alors qu'on a quand même une bonne communauté aux États-Unis. So he finds that the United States is actually quite far away from Haiti. Oddly, because there's a huge Haitian community here. Je ne comprends pas que Noam Chomsky connaît plus Haiti que Obama, for example. And he finds it odd that someone like Noam Chomsky knows Haiti better than Obama did or does. J'étais très déçu du discours de Berlin, de Obama, où il parlait des Noirs et il n'y avait jamais cité le nom d'Haiti. And for example, in the Berlin speech of Obama's, when he talked about the situation of African-descended people, he never mentioned Haiti. Il y a deux grandes révolutions très importantes, celles des États-Unis et celles d'Haiti. And as far as he's concerned, there are two great revolutions, the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. Et dans la révolution américaine, à Savannah, des Haitiens ont participé. And in fact, for the American Revolution, there was a great participation of Haitians working out of Savannah. Combien d'Americans savent ça? How many Americans know that? Et moi, j'attendais que justement que ce soit le président Noir américain qui parle d'Haiti, qui soit plus proche d'Haiti. Et jusqu'à aujourd'hui, je pense à ça. Et il a attendu que ce soit Colin Powell est plus proche d'Haiti que Obama. So he always thought that Obama should have known that, should have known about the participation of Haitians in Savannah and the American Revolution. He never understood why he's been thinking about it ever since. And it's strange that it's actually Colin Powell who knows more about Haiti than Obama ever did. Il y a beaucoup de choses à dire de ce pays par rapport aux États-Unis. Vous imaginez que, je parle d'après la évolution haïtienne, les haïtiens ont doublé la population de la Louisiane. Yeah. And also, another thing that's not necessarily very well known is that after the Haitian Revolution, the immigrants from Haiti to Louisiana doubled the population in Louisiana. There's that big a group of diasporications now absorbed. I'm sorry, I'm editorializing. Yeah. So the great influence, the musical influence, the theatrical influence in Louisiana and New Orleans at the time was all coming from Haitian artists, in fact. I think at the beginning of the 19th century, right? So after the Haitian Revolution in 1804. So it's a country that has had enormous, an enormous exchange with this colossal country, which is ours next door. And yet, it's not known very much. Because it's still not far away. And a really evolutionary story is very close. So that we are even, I think, so far away, in fact. So it's very, it's very odd that we should be as far away from each other as we are intellectually, given that we are actually quite close. Yeah. You know, being far and close, we did get a question from one of our listeners, actually Johannes Berenger, wrote that we could ask a guirurgie about the physical theater of touch, what he talks about. How can you do it when there are rules against the touching? So where is being controlled? How could you even imagine a theater of touch? Well, so there's a question that comes from someone who listens to us and who would like to know how can we imagine a touch theater, not touch, in a moment where we can't touch. I don't know how, I don't have the answer, but I think we have a lot of, when we create, we look for several ways to do it. He doesn't know. I mean, it's hard to know, but when you're when you're creating, you're also looking for ways of doing things. I could answer you better, I read yesterday, someone who said, when you don't know what to say, I don't know yet. Yeah. So maybe maybe the answer is better from this is from an essay that he read yesterday. I don't know yet. I could even talk to you, I could give you the answer of a touch theater, I mean, we can imagine a physical metal theater, a theater that goes beyond the physical, too. And maybe we should go back to a touch and actually think about a physical theater. That is a theater that goes beyond the physical. In any case, I think there's really material to work on and we have to work on this material. And in any case, it's going to be necessary to work on these kinds of questions. I think it's a question that's going to come up soon. Yeah, these questions are coming at us in a hurry. So what are you reading at the moment? Or what are you listening to? What do you, how do you? Oui, alors qu'est-ce que, donc c'est une question de comment tu te nourris, quelle lecture, quelle musique? Ah, je lis actuellement Murakami, Murakami. So he's reading Murakami. Ben, comme il vient d'une terre de tremblementaire comme moi, ça m'intéresse de lire. Yes, so he's also an earthquake writer. He comes from a country of earthquakes, so that interests him. Je me nourris de beaucoup de films quand j'écris. And when he actually writes, he watches a lot of films. It nourishes him, too. On regarde énormément de films. Tous les films aussi, documentaires, fictions. Documentaries, fiction films, there are all kinds of different films that are interesting. Je suis capable de garder 10 films par jour, moi. He can watch 10 films a day. Non, je me nourris énormément de ces images. Je regarde énormément Arte, aussi. And he also really likes the television network Arte. Je me nourris de radio beaucoup. And also radio. Parce que la radio, ça permet justement d'arrêter les images et de coller ses yeux sur les écrans. So the good thing about radio is that he stops being kind of inundated with images and being kind of stuck, always looking at a screen. Et parmi les choses les plus marquantes que j'ai vues il n'y a pas longtemps, c'est un travail magnifique réalisé sur le Mexique, sur la drogue dans le monde entier. Donc il y a une bonne partie sur le Mexique. C'était marrant de voir qu'une des premières barones de la drogue, c'était une femme au Mexique. Mais c'était un film ou c'était un film? C'était un film qui est encore sur Arte. So one of the things that he just looked at, an Arte that he liked a lot was a film about drug trafficking. Dans le monde. It crossed the world. And who's the leader of this drug cartel was a woman. Et c'est incroyable parce que très souvent on se dit pas qu'il y avait des femmes très puissantes comme ça dans ces histoires-là. And it's pretty incredible because one rarely hears stories about women being powerful in those particular kinds of enterprises. Je me nourris de ça aussi parce que je termine une pièce très longue. And it's this has to do with the play that I'm this very long play that I'm working on right now qui doit durer. Six heures. It'll be it'll be a six hour production, probably. Et ça s'appelle quel dernier grand conflit pour satisfaire la haine entre les hommes. And the title will be something like what will be the latest, the most recent terrible conflict in order to satisfy hate among men. Ha ha. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Je travaille sur tous les conflits. So I'm working on all kinds of different sorts of conflicts. Conflits individuels. Conflits dans la famille. Conflits de la guerre. Tous les conflits et c'est des. We're familiar. Oui, oui. Pardon. Individual. Oui. Édividuels, la guerre, les régions, les, les, les, la, une mère qui dit à son fils qu'il y a un enfant du viol. C'est au niveau de vraiment tous les conflits. The situation of mothers who tell their children that their children were born of rape. All kinds of different conflicts. Difficult. Incredible. So again, you also ran or you were director of a national theater school in Haiti. Is that right? Oui, alors un certain moment donné, tu as dirigé une école de théâtre. What is since we also coming to an end and again, thank you for your such an honest talk and sharing your emotions and your feelings and also your analysis. So what do you tell young students that I know we have many student listeners around the world. I've just got today a mail that said in Hungary, you know, people will find it as, you know, so important to hear the voices come around. But so what would you tell students young artists at the moment should what should they do is that what what time do we live in what is demanded of them and what should how could they find meaning. Qu'est-ce que tu dis à un jeune maintenant un jeune artiste qu'est-ce qu'il devrait faire comment faire en sorte qu'il y a le sentiment d'exister de compter maintenant. De ne jamais être d'accord. To never be to never agree. Just just de faite ne pas être d'accord. To live kind of in a state of opposition. Bien sûr, je dirais un jeune aussi de lire. And to read. De être passioné par ce qu'il fait. To be passionate by what they do. De travailler beaucoup parce que justement quand on travaille beaucoup c'est toujours pour avoir raison parce qu'on a tout essayé. To work a lot because you have to work a lot in order to in order to know what you're doing. Mais quand on est jeune c'est vraiment le moment de ne pas être d'accord. But really when you're a young person is the moment to not be in agreement. To be the situation yourself as somebody who's in opposition. On va vous dire, on va vous dire très rapidement ouais mais vous ne pouvez pas rester dans l'opposition oui mais on a besoin de l'opposition. And people are going to say you shouldn't be in the opposition position but we need that more than anything else. On en a besoin parce que sinon on est tous bouillons sinon on accepte tout. Otherwise we're all part of the same mess pot and we accept everything. J'avais un poivre linguistique qui était quelqu'un de très connu magnifique qui avait travaillé sur le non-sense. Un très grand linguiste en France. And I once had a professor who was a really great specialist and he worked a linguistic professor and he worked on the question of nonsense. Et on lui a demandé mais pourquoi est-ce que bon vous êtes d'accord avec beaucoup de linguistes et pourquoi à un moment vous aviez voulu travailler sur le non-sense. And so you were part of a sort of mainstream linguistic movement, someone said to him. But then all of a sudden you wanted to work on the question of nonsense or the lack of nonsense. Il s'appelle Ducro. And his name was Ducro. Il me disait juste parce que je dois manger moi aussi donc je dois dire non ce qu'il a dit c'est pas bien et je vais trouver des arguments pour le prouver. And he said because somehow I also need to eat and I want to say no and I have to find arguments to support that. And in fact, finalement c'est devenu quand même un linguiste connu parce que le non-sense a du sens. And finally he became really quite well known because nonsense actually makes sense. Donc le non c'est très important. So no is very important. No one knows this. Thank you so much. And even if he says not to be d'accord, je suis d'accord avec Louis. I agree to that. And Guy, thank you so much for joining us at the table again. You have come to us French cultural services also helped us to bring you over for our festival of place from the Caribbean actually the very first time ever a festival happened of place from the Caribbean. Which we did together, Judith helped us quite a remarkable work and we will hear also from other writers from the festival. So Guy, really, thank you for sharing if people are listening and people from the theater will do support his work and his festival and go and travel there. And we all will be curious to hear your new work to just thank you for that most brilliant translation you gave us and you have also supported him and many, many others over in many ways it makes such a great contribution to make our world bigger and be also part of the Penn World Voices Festival, which was created by Esther Ellen and some at Rushdie and Paul Oster and others. And because they felt there was a tunnel vision in America, 95% of all books are English or American or British English is 5% is French and German is half of the we don't hear the voices from the world. It's unimaginable in music, we love world music it's significant, but we really don't listen and we have to listen and to be listening to Guy today how carefully we really should listen what a devastating account. And he gave to us and that he is still working and writing it even if there's no hope and I think his work is significant and important on the streets in Port-au-Prince. Thank you for sharing it and to our audience also thank you for listening I know how busy these days are even so we all confined. And there are so many things to do or we keep ourselves and our brains busy but it's important to also listen to the experience of others how we experience it is very different from others. So we have families and friends we always many people are alone there without partners, people who are in devastating circumstances who lost their work and their job and don't have anywhere to go. So we've had 500,000 people in India New Delhi try to get out of the city. And without anywhere to go, prepare to march a thousand kilometers to go to places so in Chile where a failed revolution came to an halt with the corona virus and also the account from Haiti. So a lot is happening of the world we do think the world is changed the world already has changed and revolution happens when things have already changed. So, and we will see what will come and maybe it's going to take 100 years till things completely change as it should be better and I do believe as we all in the social progress but this certainly is a game changer. I hope you will be with us tomorrow we have the great Jalila Bakar most probably the most significant voice from the Arab countries as a writer she's from Tunisia. She has also been at the CEO we published her, and then the great Peter Sellers, a great American director will join us and we are very, very proud of that Oscar Eustace who runs the public theater will tell us a bit about what it means to do that and he will be together with Tony Torn who runs out of his family house from his father ripped on the late return, who we all miss a 2030s the great theater in his home so it's we have both of them together snapshot of the New York scene. So thank you all for listening. Thank you again and I hope you will be writing good tonight and also do should know we are listening we are supporting you and we are with you and your work is significant and important so thank you all and tune in Stay safe and yes, bye bye.