 Welcome so much. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to the 9-11 Village Gathering Reflections and Conversation with artists James Scruggs and Heather Raffo. I'm your host for today. My name is Andrea Assaf. I'm the Artistic Director of Art to Action, Inc., which is based in Tampa, Florida, the land of the Seminole and Tokabaga peoples. I am a light-skinned Arab-American woman with short black hair sitting in front of a colorful painting of Islamic design and a row of notebooks and some other things in my office. In this session, we will be streaming the video documentation beautifully captured and edited by Casey Anisa's staymates of an outdoor performance event that took place on Saturday, September 11, 2021. On the 20th anniversary of 9-11, Art to Action, Greenwich House Music School, the New York City AIDS Memorial, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Village Preservation held a village gathering at the New York City AIDS Memorial Park in the West Village in Manhattan. Performances included music by Scott Johnson and Victor Caccesi, who you just heard a little bit of, and James Scruggs, reading from his new work, Severe Clear, myself performing excerpts from 11 Reflections on September, and Ash Morinaccio's 20 years later project, Featuring Stories of Youth, all hosted by the wonderful MC Troy Anthony. So today, we're going to share with you the film of the entire event and then have a conversation with James Scruggs and Heather Raffo. So before we see it first, let's welcome them and say hello. James and Heather, welcome so much. It's so great to see you. Hey. For those watching, James Scruggs and Heather Raffo are both nationally acclaimed award-winning theater artists, theater makers, playwrights, performers, interdisciplinary collaborators, and incredible talents. You can read their bios on the HowlRound page and in the event description, and I really encourage you to visit their websites to learn more about their extraordinary work. But they're here today, I should say we are here today, because we are all artists whose lives and work were profoundly impacted by the tragedy of 9-11 and its aftermath in the last 20 years. So I'd like to invite Heather and James to say hello, let us know where you're zooming in from today and include a visual self-description if you're able to, and tell us briefly, just by way of introduction, why 9-11 is a topic that you continue to talk about or that continues to impact you and your work 20 years later. James, would you like to start? I would actually. Hi, everyone. I am calling it from Plainfield, New Jersey, and I'm living and presently calling from land stolen from the Lennie and Lenape Indians who inhabited New Jersey, Delaware, Southern New York, and Eastern Pennsylvania. From what I understand, Lennie and Lenape literally means men, but it is usually translated to mean original people. I am living and presently calling it from land where stolen people were enslaved in New Jersey, which was the last of the northern states to abolish slavery and ironically the first to apologize for slavery. Injustices originating with the act of stealing land and stealing people are not erased or diminished by this acknowledgement. I am a bonafide, technically dark-skinned black man wearing glasses that are reflecting things that I would rather have it not reflect, and I am wearing a shirt that is probably deemed teal. Behind me are great curtains hiding books with titles that are provocative. And why 9-11, why now? When it happened, I was working in the World Trade Center and I knew it was never going to go away. And part of me was always wondering what would it be like in the 20-year anniversary, and it is still relevant and painful and important to remember that we were attacked and that many people died, 74 of my coworkers, my job gone. And I'll stop there. This is supposed to be brief. I guess I passed brief a little while ago, but I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much for being here, James, and I look forward to sharing some of your work a little bit later in the broadcast today. Heather, welcome. Hello, I'm Heather Raffo. I'm an Iraqi-American playwright and actor. I am currently in Brooklyn, also on Lenape Land, and thank you, James, for that incredible acknowledgement about Lenape Land. I am a light-skinned Arab-American woman with blonde hair. I am in my apartment against my window with a bookshelf and lots of windows and headphones on. And 9-11, I agree with James entirely. I also felt that it was the minute it happened, it would be with us forever, that it would change American identity, even for generations that had not been born. I've been doing a lot of reflecting also on these 20 years, because as an Iraqi-American, I've marked time in those 20 years in watching my Iraqi family deal with the aftermath of 9-11. And we can talk more about that later, but I would say that the costs are why I continue to write about it. The costs and the grief, unhealed grief. And for me, the costs were that I had a family living in Iraq, for as far back as anyone can remember. For thousands of years, my Iraqi family came from there. I had 100 family members there at the start of that war in 2003, and now I have two cousins left living there. So that sense of being part of this global refugee community, and just the sense of belonging and how home can change and where we say we're from is, the uprooting is something that I'm still dealing with, both as an Iraqi and particularly as an American. I think the divisions have now, we are all apparent that there are divisions here as well. So that's why I continue to reflect, to write, and to speak about it. Thank you so much for that, Heather and James. As you can see, if you're tuning in, this is an extraordinary group of artists that we get to be in conversation with today. And both of you bring so much to this national and global conversation that I'm really excited to see what we will reflect on together after viewing the video. I want to just let folks who are tuning in know that we're going to screen the video of the entire gathering. It runs a little bit over an hour, and then we'll be back for reflections in a conversation with James and Heather. They are also seeing the video documentation of this event for the first time. We're all witnessing it together. And so our responses and reflections will be fresh. And then we'll dive a little deeper into the reasons that we still talk about and make work about this particular tragedy and all the tragedies that came after it. But I hope you'll enjoy the music and the performances. And we'll be back and see you again after the video. Stay with us. Thank you, friends. Thank you for that beautiful piece. Give it up again. That was in Scott Johnson and Victor Cochessi. Hey, everyone. I'm Troy Anthony. And we are here to honor and celebrate the lives and remember those from 9-11. This is a village gathering. And I think the first thing that that means is that we can all gather closer if we would like. Come on in. Come under our shed memorial tent. On behalf of Art to Action, Rattlesnake Playwrights Theatre, Greenwich House Music School, Village Preservation, and the New York City AIDS Memorial, I just want to welcome you. And I'd also like for you to help me welcome each other. I want you to look to the person to your left and your right. I just want you to introduce yourself. Just say hello. Beautiful. You know, in this pandemic, one of the things that I think I took for granted before was the ability to gather. And so I'm really grateful that we can all be here and gather together today. Before I go any further, I would like to acknowledge a few things. First, I want to acknowledge the land on which we stand. I want to acknowledge the Lenape people who are the first inhabitants and caretakers of the unceded land of present-day Manhattan. These very grounds we stand on. We acknowledge the Lenape people's painful history of genocide and forced removal. We honor their ancestors and pay respects to their continued presence. I also want to acknowledge where we are. I want to acknowledge that we are hosting this event in the New York City AIDS Memorial, which is built to honor New York City's 100,000-plus Americans who have died from the ongoing pandemic of HIV and AIDS and to commemorate and celebrate the efforts of the caregivers and the activists. And of course, we cannot forget we are gathering in the middle of a pandemic. And I want to honor those lives that have been lost to this disease and also those who are working to keep us safe and healthy. Today marks the 20th year marking of an event that I think we can all say changed our lives forever. We gather here to honor, to remember and to celebrate the ones that we lost, the ones who became heroes, the ones that fought and continue fighting for justice and for understanding, for peace and tolerance. And I think it's also important for us to acknowledge those who were affected by our response to 9-11, those people in the Middle East, and all the lives that were lost on both sides if there is a side. And I want to acknowledge that we're all here. I don't know how many people here are under the age of 20, but I was in the seventh grade when 9-11 happened. I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. And my teacher, actually my seventh grade acting teacher texted me this morning, we keep in touch. And he asked me if I remembered that I was in his class when the first plane hit the tower. And I did not remember that. I actually remembered being on a field trip of some kind. I was roller skating and I remember seeing things happening on the TV. And it was not until much later in the day that I realized what was happening. And I want to acknowledge that we have all survived, are moving through and healing from the trauma of that day, that we continue to move through and live. So today is about all of those things. As a society, as a generation, as a city, we continue to celebrate life, to support one another, to stand together and spread love. I want you to take a moment to just invite in addition to the people that are here. I want you to invite an ancestor or someone that you love that you also would like to invite their spirit and presence to be here today. And I want you to call their name out loud, just whenever you will. And I'll start by acknowledging Hilda Marie Morris. Go ahead. Thank you and welcome. We have more special guests with us here today. I want to acknowledge my favorite borough president, Manhattan Borough President Gil Brewer is here. Hi. Big fan over here. I also want to acknowledge Senator Brad Hoylman who's with us. And hopefully our future city council member, Eric Botcher. Hi, Eric. And for the record, that's an official Troy Anthony endorsement like nothing else. Just me. Welcome. I also wanted to start with a little bit of an invocation. You all don't know me, but I am a choir director at heart. I've been directing choirs since I was 12. I'm not going to make you sing. That's the first thing. On a normal day, I would. I would make everyone sing together. But we're not doing that today. We're just going to read a poem. And this is one of my favorite poems. It's by a wonderful woman named Asada Shakur who you can look her up. But she is a civil rights activist, a poet, a social justice warrior, my muse. And she wrote this poem called Affirmation. It's a poem that I look to in hard times. I return to this text all the time. It's like a scripture to me. And so your part is the refrain that Asada uses a lot is I believe. So every time I say I believe, I would like for you just to respond I believe. Is that okay? Let's try. I believe. We love it. Affirmation by Asada Shakur. I believe. I believe in living. I believe. I believe in the spectrum of beta days and gamma people. I believe. I believe in sunshine in windmills and waterfalls, tricycles and rocking chairs. And I believe. I believe that seeds grow into sprouts and sprouts grow into trees. I believe. I believe in the magic of the hands and in the wisdom of the eyes. I believe. I believe in rain and tears and in the blood of infinity. I believe. I believe in life. And I have seen the death parade march through the torso of the earth, sculpting mud bodies in its path. I have seen the destruction of the daylight and seen blood thirsty maggots prayed to and saluted. I've seen the kind become the blind and the blind become the bind in one easy lesson. I have walked on cut glass. I have eaten crow and blunderbread and breathe the stench of indifference. I have been locked by the lawless, handcuffed by the haters gagged by the greedy. And if I know anything at all, it's that a wall is just a wall. And nothing more at all. It can be broken down. I believe. I believe in living. I believe. I believe in birth. I believe. I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth. And I believe. And I believe that a lost ship steered by tired seasick sailors can still be guided home to port. And we say, and so it is. Okay. Today is not about listening to me talk. Today we are going to share stories. I think that stories are healing. I think that the telling of stories are healing. And I believe it's our way to work through what we've experienced. So today we're going to highlight stories told in three different ways. We've already heard a story told through music. And we're going to hear from three different people. The first is a wonderful individual. His name is James Scruggs. James Scruggs is a writer, performer, producer of theatrical work. And he's going to share his 9-11 story, Severe Clear. James Scruggs. A lot of people. Hello. Thank you for saying hello. Is that good? Can you hear me all the way in the back? I have never experienced weather playing such an important part in my memory of a tragic event. That late summer morning sky of September 11, 2001 in New York City was a bright, alarmingly azure, crystalline, blue, blue, blue, cloudless sky. Airline pilots called days like that with seamless, endless visibility, severe clear. The weather was so distinct that I feel like I can count on one hand similar days that have occurred like it since then. I'd like to take you back to 2001. Okay? Okay? A gallon of gas costs $1.46. A New York City subway was $1.50 and they still use tokens. Rudy Giuliani was the mayor of New York City. George W. Bush was president. It was illegal for international visitors to enter the U.S. if they had HIV. You could bring bottles of water and you could wear your shoes through airport security. And the number one billboard top 100 song was fallen by Alicia Keys. I step out of the elevator and I'm urgently drawn to the windows. I peer down. I see people that look like tiny insects and then a fly much bigger than the people below in comparison appears. Three quarters of an inch away, silently buzzing outside the thick window. I didn't know flies came up this high. Immediately upon looking down, I experience the recurring ritual that I seemingly have no control over in response to being up so high. I get an intense tingly feeling in the pit of my stomach and then the voice starts. My very own unreliable narrator. This is really high up. I wonder how long would take to fall to the ground. When this happens, I never let the loop go to completion for fear that I will actually jump but I'm safely behind three quarters of an inch thick window. The longer I look down, the more persistent and insistent the voice becomes and I recently found out that this phenomenon is not singularly mine. There's a name for it. High place phenomenon. The French call it lapel de vide. The call of the void. Feeling like a spirit hovering in heaven. I consider my life and my death death. We are largely in deep denial about one of the things we will definitely experience death. The artist Jean Cocteau says you've never experienced death. Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive. In 1996, I started the highest paying job of my life. I worked 1200 feet above the ground on the 106 and 107 floors of the North Tower in the World Trade Center at Windows on the World. A restaurant, bar and conference facility employing 405 employees speaking 300, I'm sorry, not 330 languages. I was director of staging and technical services. In August of 2001, I lean over the desk of my boss and schedule my vacation. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this was a bona fide life changing moment couched inside of a mundane administrative event. I was scheduled to come back to work on Monday, September 10th, 2001. I argued that I would do a couple of extra days and eventually my boss agrees. That I could come back to work not on September 10th, but instead on Wednesday, September 12th, 10, 12, 10, 12, 10, 12, 10, 11, 12. That one digit numerical replacement spared me from being there in 911. Four men from my department were there. John, 47, the oldest, a true MacGyver type. Johnny, 43, the chillest, a soft-spoken guy and a gentleman and kind. Allid, 43, the tallest, a good 65, a talker who was also a listener. And Sean, 21, the youngest. His sister, Cammie, persuaded me to hire him. They were both there that morning. They all died that day. It's almost vulgar to say he died. She died. It seems more polite to use euphemisms. They passed. Here's the thought. Death can be a choice. If you're metaphysically advanced and in a fatal circumstance, you might see and call your own death. You might choose which path to take. I'm not talking about suicide. I'm talking about embracing a death of your choice. I'm fortunate. I had a mother who always seemed grounded and pleasant and at funerals. She stoically doled out comfort to all who needed it. She would often say, they've gone and done what we must do. I was my mother's only child. I could never visit my mother long enough. There was always a reason for me to stay for an extra couple of minutes, except on the last day of her life. When I get to her hospital room, she says, I'm worried about how you'll handle my death. I hold her hand and I ugly cried like a baby. And she calmly continued. She said, James, you know, I didn't come here to stay. I was shook. I still am when I hear this. And then she does something she never did before. For the very first time ever, she dismisses me. Go, go James, I'm going to be all right. I'm sure you have things to do. Hours later, the hospital called and said I should come. She had passed on. She had passed away. She died. I saw her body. That body was not my mother. Seeing that body and viscerally knowing that my mother was indeed somewhere else helped facilitate closure for me. I truly believe that she called death to her. She went quickly on terms that she negotiated her choice choices. Although victims of 9 11 went to work that day, they did not choose to die. Even if they had omnipotent knowledge of all possible options available to them, those trapped above the explosion in the north tower would still perish. I watch in disbelief. A hijacked plane, a Boeing 767 flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles carries a full tank of fuel. 92 people. We never know who will witness our last moments or what the final images will see or whose faces will see last. The last images those passengers witness were of each other's faces. Strangers at New York City skyscrapers seen through the tiny windows, scary close, zipping by at eye level as that plane banks, aims, pierces, explodes and disappears inside of the north tower. Soon, tiny people on my TV wave tablecloths then comes my realization. Those tiny people were my coworkers. I watch and wonder how can they possibly escape. I was home alone. I called my boss. We watch silently on TV. I see people grabbing strangers on the street. It is so massive. We all look to another to witness it with us and then live on TV. Another hijacked plane with 65 people aboard, pierces and explodes, disappearing inside of the south tower. I've spent years inside of the World Trade Center. It's impossible not to put myself into this catastrophe. I could have been there. What would I do? La Pelle de Vie, the call of the void without a thick glass window, then compounding the impossible, the unthinkable occurs. Silhouettes, blurry, contorted forms drop from the heights to the ground on my television. Live, broadcasted, unedited shots of bodies silently free-falling 1200 feet for as long as 13 seconds, reaching speeds of 150 miles an hour. First responders said of all the horrors of that morning, the absolute worst was the loud explosive sounds. They began hearing, not immediately apparent, but that sound was bodies hitting the structure made to keep rain off of people entering the building. As tragic and impactful as it was, I did not could not cry. Emotionally, it was too massive for me to even process. After 9-11, I see flags everywhere. Every day looks like the 4th of July. I am no longer seen as America's biggest threat as a tall dark-skinned black man. I am embarrassed to say that America has a brand new nigger. This one doesn't really get a moniker that sticks, but this Middle Eastern man and woman are deemed America's number one threat. For several months, I find making the simplest of choices a major task. The mere act of extending my vacation saved my life. I feel that every decision could or would be a life-changing one. 74 people showed up to work at Windows in the World that morning on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. None of them survived. Whenever I am fearful or nervous like now telling my story, I think of John and Johnny, Allen and Sean seeing that plane coming at eye level through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the 107th floor of Windows on the World. And I remind myself that that's what fear looks like. Everything else pales into comparison. On September 12, 2001, at 45 years old, I decide what I want to be when I grow up. I decide I want to be a writer, performer, producer of experimental theatrical work. Twenty years later, I am. I make little more than the money I spent on dry cleaning my suits, yet the quality of my life is exponentially better. Choices. Our lives are composed of millions of tiny little decisions that accumulate, forging a specific life, and the finale for all of us is death. It is inevitable. It will happen. And it is natural. I am striving to be okay with that and actually embrace the fact that I did not come here to stay. Thank you. Thank you, James. Our next reader is Andrea Assef, Artistic Director of Art to Action and Writer-Director of Eleven Reflections on September, a multimedia theater production that was recreated during the pandemic as a digital film. She will be sharing a few short excerpts from Eleven Reflections, and if you would like to see the full work, it is available online, free and on demand, through September 16th, as a part of the Arab film series presented by the Arab American National Museum, Art East and Arab Film and Media Institute. A QR code linking to the film is available on the flyers that are around on the stands. Please welcome Andrea. Hello, everyone. How y'all doing? Thank you for being here today. I want to just acknowledge that there is a therapist here today, if anyone needs to talk. Can you just wave and say, hey, yeah, just because I know we're dealing with some heavy memories today. So I'm really honored and humbled to be here with all of you and with all of the organizers. I want to thank everyone who brought us together and say thank you to James again. Your work always moves me so much. I know that this is a very emotional day. Today we mark the 20th anniversary of the tragedy of 9-Eleven 2001 here in New York City. I also have to acknowledge that in a few weeks we'll be marking the 20th anniversary again of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the longest war in U.S. history. Even as we watch further tragedy unfold, even as we witness our country repeat the heart-wrenching scenes of the withdrawal from Vietnam, we watch a new refugee crisis ensue, and we watch Afghanistan once again fall to the always horrific combination of religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism. 9-Eleven was not only a tragic event for us. It was an unleashing of continual tragedy. It was a catalyst for political forces that propelled us into two decades of war, xenophobia, racism, and militarism with which we are still living. And when we say never forget, we must mean all of it. All of it. I'm Arab-American. In September 2001, I lived on East 13th Street. I woke up in that same apartment apartment this morning just south of Union Square. That day, I was out of town. I was in D.C., ironically signing a contract on what would be my first experience working remotely. I could see the smoke go up from the Pentagon, from where I was staying, and I had to watch what was happening to my city on television. And I was not allowed to return home until September 17th. The poems I will share today were written between 2001 and 2003. I lived through that time as a New Yorker, and I also lived through it and the two decades since as an Arab-American. And it suddenly, for the first time in my life, became difficult to be both, because the backlash against anyone who looked Arab or looked Muslim began immediately. So this work that I'll share with you today, 11 Reflections on September, asks us to remember and honor what happened here in New York on that day. And it also asks us to look honestly at the impact of our actions as a nation, the wars that followed, the xenophobia that became national policy, and the people who have been impacted. It asks us to hold these multiple truths and honor all the lives lost here and in the wars that followed. And it asks us to be accountable, to be honest, to look at the impact of our own actions, and maybe even to change. But it begins with that day. One, down. I was trying to remember the beginning of September. And everything that came before, I was blank for the first few moments just void. I blinked. At the white down, someone else's blanket I'd been under for days. See, I was trying to remember the beginning of September and everything that came before, the shattered glass, the acrid smell of asbestos and flesh, singeing the lungs and soul. I was trying to remember where I had been in the days before. And what a beach looked like. Oh, yes, the beach. I remembered the collapse, of course, and apple pie sliced out of the Pentagon and tearing the screen to lean out the window so that I could see what was smoking. But I was trying to remember the beginning of September, but I couldn't see past it. I couldn't see the past of it. I, for those first few moments, under the down, everything that came before was void. September 17th. Journey toward my embattled city. After a year of estrangement like an identity exile, I braced myself for the absence, that moment of not seeing. Lower Manhattan, so much lower now and forever laced with this smoke of memory. What were we bracing ourselves for? What were we warring against? A fear of annihilation and agitation building a suicide bomb within fortified by this need for vengeance as if 3,000 vessels of flesh were not enough. As if the taste of blood left in our mouths inspired a hunger for meat, warships surrounding this island like so many wars before. Tell me, are we protecting the natives or destroying them? Should we leave you there parked in the ominous murky waters, a cold reminder of an imagined threat you wait while we destroy each other? Should we fly our flags high and hope that bravado will indeed be enough to keep us safe my embattled city? What made you think you were the center to begin with? How could we declare ourselves the nexus of commerce and trade covering the blood of chafed hands and broken bones in ticker tape and 200 floors of files now carpeting the streets, now blankets of ash turning our world a visceral color to black and white turning back history to a silent film covering every action in shades of death. A finger lying in the rubble beckons to be found why only to further this torment of being lost the bombardment of images relentless our minds invaded hourly by covert operations and armies of media melting into propaganda manufacturing any enemy will do because now retaliation is more important than truth. There's a new enemy the cowboy says reinventing the Indian yet again but the cowboy always stays the same because 500 years of practice makes perfect and repetition creates reality and what is real collapses again and again dissolving crumbling falling and I am riding the wreckage down trying to decide whether or not to jump and I wonder who would take my hand. The last piece I'm going to share with you comes later it was written in 2003 it's called judgment and it was inspired by something that the great poet Suher Hamad said to me while we were waiting in the wings of the Bowery poetry club she says again we will be judged for not doing enough to stop it stop Afghanistan stop carnage stop for not Iraq to stop didn't do we didn't do do to stop enough to stop I didn't do it I didn't stop enough to do we've enough to do won't do didn't do we didn't do it we didn't stop another round stop deploy stop delay stop not in my name stop every 30 seconds stop 10 9 stop another spin media spin stop spin stop spinning spinning stop can't stop spinning stop it why won't you stop it another round stop I didn't stop it's due to stop overdue stop paid our dues stop enough enough to stop it enough stop up m burr m re m burr step in at up set up set in burr up re m burr stop remember stop re m burr up set in burr stop set in burr let's just stop thank you thank you um I want you all to do an exercise with me I do this a lot in my days when I feel overwhelmed um it's just a short breathing exercise and uh what I'll do is I'm going to count to six and you're going to inhale for six counts and then you're going to exhale for six counts and then I'm going to count to five you're going to inhale for five counts you're going to exhale for five counts and I'll go down until we get to one and the goal is that for every time that we inhale and exhale that you take the largest most full breath that you can and that you then release as much air as possible okay uh and if you're sitting that's amazing you can also stand but just ground yourself and because we look silly breathing um you can also close your eyes if you feel comfortable or just gaze put your gaze down okay are we ready great inhale one two three four five six exhale one two three four five six inhale one two three four five exhale one two three four five inhale one two three four exhale one two three four inhale one two three exhale one two three inhale one two exhale one two and inhale exhale thank you our last story um comes from a wonderful group of young people that had the pleasure of meeting today this is an excerpt from a piece called 20 years later a documentary theater performance created from testimonies and interviews with people age 20 and under exploring what they have been taught about the events of september 11th the play is comprised of testimonies from young people and those who were teenagers on september 11th 2001 investigating what it means to be the post 9 11 generation this play has been devised collectively and produced by doc block a new company committed to bringing together artists working across documentary genres to create live performance this is 20 years later i've always had a weird thing with history when i was 12 i could tell you every single detail about the titanic and then it was pearl harbor and then the romanovs i have a lot of second hand memories of 9 11 my mom she worked in the towers in the 90s and she left when i was born i found my old visitors pass from january 2001 my friend her mom also worked in the towers and on 9 11 she was sick that day so her mom didn't go into work all these second hand events like if i hadn't been born when my mom have been there i find myself thinking about 9 11 a lot and i wish i didn't because it really plagues my thoughts i i feel disconnected from it because i i don't remember it and i don't have any first hand memories of it but i have somewhat memories from people who've talked about it who are there so many questions what was it like that day going to bed knowing that all of this happened do you expect to hear from people if they went missing for a few days how do the people who survived feel about seeing the social media posts each year were the photos and videos we've seen taken on cell phones why do people make jokes about it do people feel safer now do people feel less safe now was it bush i would like some first hand memories of it i've always wanted to experience something historical but then when something happens it's always like oh no not like that we don't talk about 9 11 much i remember the first time i heard about it we were driving into the city and i saw this block of space and my mom said there were once towers there we used to talk about it a lot in middle school there would be these firefighters that would come in and talk about taking bodies out of the buildings for me it was traumatic i was 12 when we started doing this we were all shocked because we knew how bad it was but we were shocked to learn how many people lost their lives and how affected people were hi my name is emma i was born in 2003 hi my name is mariel i was born in 2001 hi i'm siella i was born in 2006 hi my name is jason i was born in 2000 hey y'all i'm christin i was born in 1998 hi i'm kyla and i was born in 2001 the following section is made up of verbatim interviews from people who were kids during 9 11 i have friends and cousins who were born in 1994 and 1995 who remember traveling to disney in the old way and they remember the switch i don't i just know that in my lifetime there was this switch that happened for everything i was one year old when that happened and i was born in santa cruz california i moved to brielle new jersey the following year my dad was a radio show host at the time and he was on air when it was happening he was in the middle of his weather report when it happened by the time i was two or three years old 9 11 was everywhere in new jersey i mean in my preschool on the back of the classroom door there was a photo of george hw bush with the bullhorn and a whole written speech like all that preschooly stuff but the photo wasn't his inaugural photo it was the rubble photo and i find it odd because i look at people older than me and i just don't i get it but i will never really understand it and it's weird because i go there to the site and i look up and i try to imagine the towers based off of these photos and videos i've seen but i can never really picture it it's this loss that i will never truly be able to grasp at you know when it feels weird to not be able to do that as an american because i'm told it's something i have to do i can't i i can't understand that loss i don't remember i don't remember what it's like to look at the skyline and see the twin towers i don't remember it's like trying to see a ghost you can stand there and you feel the power of the lost life there and that's powerful but it's not the same way that the older people at the memorial around me feel or it's similar to like when you're looking at a picture of a grandparent who died before you were born it's like that's my grandma and i know that and i have this emotional sadness because i'm told i do and i genuinely do but there is just some barrier between me and the memory of those towers that i just can't explain i cannot articulate it in the same way that my millennial and gen X counterparts can i was 10 going on 11 when 9 11 happened my school ps 234 is the closest to the world trade center site we are one block closer than is 89 in stuyvesant my family lives in the neighborhood my parents work in the neighborhood and sister is at stye everyone who went to school lived in the neighborhood or varying degrees of it we had to literally walk away from our neighborhood we moved back in within two weeks of 9 11 needed to wait until electricity was back february 4th 2002 was the date we were allowed back into our school the school lyland my class was away from her home for three years those kids you see in newspapers those are the kids i went to school with that was my elementary school people were face masks for months and then you get above 14th street it was like nothing happened that was fifth grade i grew up in washington heights 16th and broadway i was 16 when it happened so that's sort of the age that coming of age novels happen and this was emblematic of that of not being in control i'm curious to know what kind of person i would be that didn't happen i mean so many of my politics and world view are made by living through that time and considering how i exist on a scale bigger than myself the notion that there are people a thousand miles away from me who are ready to inflict violence on you and fight you and you have to wonder why i have genuine fears and it's dark i wonder how long i will live it's an uncomfortable thing to grapple with 9 11 was the first time i ever got that feeling i originally came from new york uh when i was about six i moved to new jersey but the rest of my family went up north to bergen new jersey um i was about 10 years old when this happened so it was fifth grade elementary school and at that moment in time there were teacher strikes happening so i saw everyone going home and i was excited because i thought it was a teacher strike and and my brother came to the door of my elementary classroom and he looked worried and from down the hallway i see my mother hysterically crying she had worked in my school in the school system and at that point i knew something was really wrong i knew my uncle worked in manhattan and that was the day i found out he worked in the towers he was in the second tower on the 84th floor he saw the other tower collapse he knew he was going to die he said i love you so much this is what's happening goodbye when he was young my uncle had night terrors he'd really disturbing dreams he had these reoccurring dreams about being burned to death he died a terrible death but he had a terrible premonition this was going to happen i feel like people our age are really into nostalgia and at a relatively young age i mean it's interesting to see people in their 30s drinking the 90s kool-aid and i have to wonder how much of 9-eleven factors into that like watching an old tv show is a completely different world the towers have almost been scrubbed like when you watch the old tv show the imagery of the twin towers and what was there is completely erased what's left is this narrative we are told about it the imagery i think that kind of fear marks our generation a lot mayor juliani had a fund like when i was little we would get free things like one year we got a free trip to disney world i was poor i grew up in a poor family we would never have gotten to go to disney after 9 11 we got to go to disney we would get wish lists and they would mail us christmas presents for like five years or so and when i was 13 or 14 my family won a lawsuit it was enough to redo our house go on an island vacation they bought us cars my mom had never seen any of that money in her life and because of the 9 11 lawsuit i was able to have access to things i don't think i would have had otherwise i could buy new school clothes and bags i didn't have the right clothes growing up i wasn't in the end group i grew up in middle town where people care about what your house looks like and then the car you drive and i was finally able to have things and fit in more even though emotionally i wasn't the same as everyone else and just as quickly as the money came in it went we burned through it 9 11 was the day my childhood ended and i lost my innocence i started hearing adult conversations and i wanted to be part of them after 9 11 i had an intense fear of fire to this day i still flip out over flames in the kitchen i've never smoked a cigarette because i'm afraid of the the sound silly but the lighter so i play video games a lot and it started as an escape i remember if i like would have like a remotely bad day at school i would just go like that was my last draw and i would just cut class the next day and go play video games with my guilds where i am the strongest and coolest person on the server so nobody suspects that i'm 12 until i tell them which i did a lot i like to say that i grew up digitally like video games made me feel more powerful and in turn like actually become more powerful like i remember the first time i had to join my guilds voice chat for a guild raid um i was 13 i was scared to talk to strangers on the internet so instead of talking to them i just pulled the mic up to my mouth and i just screamed out like and all of my guild mates were instantly like on me you'll fly hippo you're right to speak gone you're out yeah so so i had to learn my social skills pretty quickly after that and video games don't just stop at ourselves when you're like exposed to like this infinite vastness of the online world you feel like you can make anything and that's what games are for for you to be able to build the world that you actually want to live in so i don't think i'll ever stop playing games but any gamer will tell you that there comes a time when you just like sit back in your chair and you just stare at the screen and go like wow i am not having fun anymore and maybe your friends aren't playing either and maybe you keep on playing or maybe you quit you move on so i grew up with this game series called civilization that i have absolutely adored for like the history and the fantasy you would like lead your world leader like throughout the ages and like build a civilization up from nothing and win the game and i loved that because it just felt so far off but like yo there's this trend in games now that they're trying to capture realism like whatever that means in all its glory when you're saying realism what do you want to capture is it like grit is it like you want to be knee deep in a trench like know what it's like to fight someone else's war for oil or maybe it's like oh yes i want to know what it's like to sit in that chair and press that nuke button or maybe it's like maybe you want to feel like what it's like to commit a war crime they really put war crimes and like a system for war crimes in today's games and i play these i play these games because i run away from the real shit but this shit is just too real so i was playing civilization six the other day and genociding a bunch of barbarians on my continent and that hit too close to home that's what it took me to quit i quit damn i have spent 20 years of my life just escaping gathering anger like this generation defining angst at our world all the while not knowing that i could change it will change it i will change this world and make it at least a slightly better place to live in because what makes life different from a game because because when your game your world doesn't have all the toys and tools you need when it reaches this violence and colonialism and just apathetic acceptance that players are going to die and you've seen the real shit so you can't run anymore you make yourself another game you build yourself another world wow wow wow wow wow thank you friends those are all the stories i want to thank you all for listening and witnessing for gathering um for being with each other will you turn to someone and just say thank you for being here thank you thank you for being here thank you i want to let you know that there are two other ways that our remembering continues today the first is we have two people here who are collecting stories where are you friends hi here are friends they're collecting stories um that i believe are centered on 9 11 yes if you would like to share your story with them um they will record it for you uh so please visit them we also have these beautiful ribbons who has the ribbons ribbons there are ribbons ribbons and ribbons um you can write the name of someone that you would like to remember today and then you can take it and tie it to this structure that has held us and can impede us today um this is not planned but i'm going to close with a song and it's a song that um i would say maybe is the mantra of my life and then we can go if i can touch somebody as i travel along if i can touch somebody with a word or a song if i can touch somebody as my life journeys on then my living shall not be in vain my living shall not be my not be i can touch somebody as i sing this old song then my living shall not be in vain thank you all for coming thank you all for um staying with us through that video and i want to say thank you to everyone who made the Village Gathering event in New York City possible all the partners and the incredible artists and the filmmaker Casey Amisa for that beautiful documentation and now i'd like to invite our guest artists James Grugs and Heather Afo um to share reflections on what we just witnessed and experienced together um before we start the conversation it's just really striking me that today is September 17th and the poem of that date was in uh what we just shared and um this everything that was shared resonates in so many ways and i'm excited to hear James your thoughts on having been in it and what it feels like to see the video and look back on uh that experience now and Heather um you're seeing it for the first time today what resonates with you and what your thoughts are so let's just begin a conversation i have so many thoughts but i first just want to say to James and Andrea just what touching and moving performances it's it's incredibly deep work and the honesty with which you approached um sharing those stories um through your art was really really riveting i'm so moved and i'm really shaken thank you and those young students too oh my goodness i know those stories the interviews the young actors um just amazing to to hear their voices and and i want to also appreciate the curation of the whole event and rattle stick playwrights theater just beautifully done James what's on your mind yeah i was wondering how i was feeling um i um i just uh i appreciated the whole event Troy you wrap the whole thing in warmth and love and you know in a really mature um sincere way you know i felt really taken care of i didn't cringe when i saw myself which which is you know the 13 year old girl in my head it's usually going so please you know um i didn't um and i i really i got a chance to see your performance andrea which was great i guess i was so far away i was like craning my head to see it and um and to listen to um what um these young people were saying about like i don't have a personal recollection of 9 11 it's a historical event and what that must be like and you know it's just you know it was really interesting the generational thing i am 65 years old i'm clearly an adult i got a medicare card okay so i'm like old i'm official you know but then you have we had these you know like um 20 something year which you know they not 11 is like like Pearl Harbor for me you know um and it was interesting to to see it from these multifaceted points of view from a from a black gay man from uh an arab woman you know and speaking our truth it was it was much more extraordinary than i expected it to be and i was there i am real i was really appreciative both the day of and then seeing it again of um of the way that we were able to have as you're saying james um multiple perspectives pointed points of view generations experiences in one event i feel like that's the way we can begin to get at the truth of something in in the sense of and i really i really mean what i said that you know we we think well not maybe not us but many people think of uh september 11th as as an event a singular tragedy and i and i think of it as an unleashing of tragedy that we're still living in and so how do we have those conversations across generations and i feel like this kind of program uh with all the partners working together begins it gives us a way to start to get at that um way of holding all of the perspectives all of the truth of it at the same time which is i think what ultimately history must reflect right um now we're at the point of we're writing history and if we don't write all of it what are we doing i can imagine also how the audience must be so grateful for the way each of you as artists brought brought words to an unspeakable event and unleashing i mean i know that that i found myself finding the threads and the common points amid the work just how james offered the void and andrea you picked up on it and then the young students moved into the nostalgia right and through all three of the pieces i of course was thinking a lot about loss and how we hold loss but you know we're standing at this moment 20 years later that is 20 years later from this particular event and i love your unleashing i agree it's not an event it's an unleashing but we're in the middle of a different one we're in the middle of covid we're in the middle of this right and i and i i very much think that um i wondered in watching all these pieces have we got any better at dealing with loss really james your piece was so about that and i personally got the sense that you had absolutely but i'm saying nationally or globally or let's say even just as people from the united states that don't like to acknowledge loss or grieve or have rituals so much a wrap right and here we are on the brink of climate change where we're coming up against loss and extinctions and right like can you see those the young people dealing with that my 10 and 12 year old like anyway these are the links that i was seeing and it really it really put i was thankful for this ritual that you created asking these questions about loss but i do just wonder in these decades how how have we really how have we yes we've grappled with it but have we evolved that's funny i just recently read publicly a piece of james bulgur's work from him the bulgur buckley debate in 1965 it was written 56 years ago but it could have been written two weeks ago and it's like yes we've come a long long way and no we haven't come anyway it's like this is whole conundrum and i you know i am very aware that i am a a black man of a certain age and i'm in the middle of two pandemics a biological one and a racial one and a 20 year remembrance of 9 11 and my my i'm uneasy you know i am uneasy and i thank you so much andria for stating the obvious that it was not a day it was not just it just didn't they didn't wake up and say oh let's let's do this on 9 11 it was it was a horrific catastrophe of of hatred that perpetrated a very peaceful religion of islam and and and um and inflicted this catastrophe upon us and it is uh the facets of it are you know still with us you you said and i wrote it down that we must not forget all of it you know it's and i think all too often when we think about 9 11 we think about 9 11 what about 9 11 what about afghanistan what about the aftermath what about the opening of the portal of hatred and how hatred has was was uh not invited into islam but hatred was injected into islam and somehow that was okay for a small segment of the population and now hate is like it's it's we live with it on a on a regular basis and i feel like it largely started at 9 11 and and we are in a lot of ways still kind of like really from from it i want to there's so much to i want to say in response to this conversation is it's really great that we're we're getting at something which is i think this question of how our nation handles grief heather that you're raising and what you're saying about hatred james and and we have of course have to remember that there's a there's a tradition of hatred in the united states under the umbrella particularly of white supremacy that also has resurfaced course 9 11 in this particularly explicit and and insidious way right and i really think maybe there's all kinds of factors but it it has it's some relation to this question of how do we grieve because you know i wonder if the us as a nation will ever get to a place when something painful happens to us that we won't go to revenge will we ever get to a moment where anger and attack isn't our national immediate response you know this hunger for vengeance where does that really come from i think i feel like it's deep deep deep in american history and and i and i wonder this question that you're asking heather if we came to terms with how we handle tragedy and grief differently as a culture like our entire culture would have to shift would we not act out in that way with militarism every time there's a crisis um that's one thing on my mind and and the other thing on my mind is um one of things well a couple things also what you're saying heather about this compounding of of crisis that we're living in right now um james i think you and i were talking about that on this day um there's the anniversary and then there's um you know the movement for racial justice and there's climate change and there's covid and there's the 20th anniversary of the longest war in us history coming up in a couple weeks and it just feels compounding and i had the same conversation that morning i hosted an online story circle and an artist and colleague in new york uh who i'll give a shout out to poetry ronka manis who's the artistic director of um kinding sundale uh music and dance in in new york city um poetry is a choreographer but an artistic director but also a nurse a nurse who has worked through the aides pandemic a nurse who has worked through the covid pandemic and uh recently was um assaulted in an anti-asian hate crime when she was trying to just give people masks in the subway and also she was talking about this compounding this layering of of trauma and crisis that we all seem to be dealing with and it was so interesting to see the young people's voice hear the young people's voices and hear those interviews and see all the things that they're unpacking and trying to deal with in this really fraught historical moment and look and at the same time looking toward their future that video game monologue gets me every time that was just amazing amazing writing and wonderful performance of um you know finally getting to the place in life where we shift from the kind of response to video games or even news as entertainment and start seeing the reality of of violence and history and and then choose to stop perpetuating it well it's not i mean it it's not a mistake that we as a nation had our longest war right and then became a more violent country right and it's not a mistake that we labeled something a war on terror and then grew increasingly patriotic and that that patriotism turned to terrorism on our own soil and it's not a mistake that after 9 11 um as in your james in your piece there was a visceral memory of um you said people holding each other hugging each other and i i mean i remember being in new york on that day and then my apartment became where people were fleeing up to friends that had to walk that had to walk to harlem and i was they could stop at mine or what we were doing in the sandwiches of the i mean all the things what we would do for anybody alongside you know 10 minutes before we got on today i'm reading the new york times that a hostess at a restaurant in manhattan was punched by three people women three women from texas because she was enforcing the mask mandate that is come down by law for new york city but can you imagine punching a host like to have gone from like i will help and and this is an american trait there's a hurricane everybody rushes in to help like this is this is a this is a something special too about how we want to be heroes and save people and yet look where we are in this sense of we sowed so much division in iraq that wasn't there sectarian division and now it's here 20 years later like to me these are just they are threads they are direct links it's absolutely this is what we've learned and be gotten in the last 20 years yes before that but and then you see those young monologues yeah it's so important to to make the links it's so important to make the links james you have a response to that and then then i have a question for both of you yeah i'm reminded of several things um one is that you know this the american experiment was was founded on two original sins you know the original sin of genocide let's kill everybody and take this country and the original sin of slavery let's enslave people and create a great country for us us is clearly not people who look like me and i'm reminded about like you know america as like almost like a like any family like you know we got you know there's all kinds of factions and after 9 11 it was an amazing outpouring of love and attention and you know just um uh i personally because i was affected by it i got so much because i felt like oh god it's going to be in i just want a house what happens to me um you know i got i got a help that i can't even imagine and if i told you now you probably would even believe it and the last thing i i want to say right now is it um one of the young people i can't believe i'm saying young people because when they say young people stand up i'm like you mean me right um but one of the one of the young people said i'm curious to know what kind of person i would be if it did not happen and i wonder and i guess that's a question we should all ask ourselves and i wonder you know would i still be working at windows in the world would you know what you can't go back and change things it did happen we are who we are what do we do now it's a question thank you for that um so here's something that's on my mind uh as an artist that i truly don't know the answer to and i'm curious how you both are thinking about it in your work which is um you know on on that day james we had a little conversation about 20 years what does 20 years mean why is it that we mark uh 20 years that was kind of a theme of conversation that day that kept coming up and what does it mean and does it mean we're ready to put something down does it mean a shift in what we're we're carrying with us in our lives in our work or is it like you said james this is never going to go away it's just always going to be part of who we are and what it is that we need to say and and what we create i think there was some part of me that thought um leading up to the 20 20th anniversary of 9 11 like okay i'm going to do a lot around this anniversary and then i'm going to put it down and now here we are a week after and i'm like am i though am i really um and so i'm curious about how do you see this influencing how you move forward in your in your work is it something you're going to continue to work on you know what does the future hold for your own investigations the piece i read was uh or is called severe clear it's part of a evening like monologue and it's um uh couched around another huge undertaking i don't know that it'll ever be produced and you know if it does or doesn't i'm okay with either one i've been able to share bits and pieces of it and i am really grateful for being able to do that because it was like i really i had just i had this thing i'm just i need to do this and i felt like okay at the 20th anniversary i'm going to let it go you know this is going to like like a balloon it'll just kind of go up um and i'm not sure i'm not sure i mean i think that it's always going to be this historical thing i think that there is a part of me that i am interested in letting it go i have been an artist who has largely been about look what they've done to me look what they've done to us and i'm shifting into striving to be the artist of what can we do about it um in a more proactive way i have examined trauma in many forms um and the trauma that literally lives inside bodies that look like mine at a biologically measurable level it is scientific it is there it is trauma and it is like ptsd and it affects me and it expects people who look like me they've studied it regarding the holocaust but when the notion comes of like what about ptsd for african americans who whose ancestors survived slavery and lynching and and we can't do that because then we have to talk about reparations and nobody's ready to talk about that so you know i it's it's i guess for me personally as an artist i long to let this go you know um i i would like to do a definitive version of severe clear and then and then move on i'm just gonna say i'm here for talking about reparations i think i think we should be talking about it for native americans and african americans um yeah just saying i'm here for that but i want to go ahead there your your thoughts about future work and and how this lives with us i'm also here for severe clear i just want to say i'm here for that too um i i i agree and understand and feel the same about being an artist and going through those waves where you've done something and you just want to let it go or it's not quite out of your system and you have more to say right like and and or you thought it was done years ago and then it comes up again or you right so i i'm i'm in all those stages um with with the way that you've expressed them i guess um the thing that's on my mind most right now though are are these links these links that pull together i'm so i'm 51 that feel like they're really pulling together either my lifetime or my my knowledge that i've gained from talking to people in my lifetime right and a lot of that a lot of that history makes me look at 9 11 as a moment in a time frame and then what's come since and so i do think that my artistry whether i do revisit something i've written in a new way or i'm just writing new things either way it really is about what are these links why aren't we seeing that now today i see this other thing happening in the next decade that's connecting me to this thing we don't talk about anymore right like that's that's kind of where i place myself and how i chew on stuff and how it sits and percolates in me usually for years and then comes flying out as something and and often isn't producible until shit hits the fan and then it's like oh yeah like right we've probably all experienced that too so um i just maybe i've just in process i'm just deeply in process i want to stay so thank you so much um heather and james this is an extraordinary conversation and i know i could talk to both y'all all day um but i just got the word that we need to wrap up and uh i'm i'm very uh grateful for this time and this conversation and i hope it will continue in lots of other ways so i want to acknowledge and say thank you to our interpreters kelly curdie and chris kelly who've been working with us throughout the conversation and i also um again want to say just thank you to heather and james for this um for all your incredible work and uh as artists and and this time together um which was really meaningful to me and i hope all the folks watching stream out there um if you are out there and you'd like to learn more about their work you can visit heatherroffo.com or jamescruggs.com and if you'd like to hear us um more in conversation you can also check out reflection sessions both heather and james have been guests in art to actions reflection session series and you can find the videos just released today of their conversations at arttoaction.org slash reflection dash sessions um for more in-depth conversation so i hope you'll follow us at art to action and follow james and heather and uh rattles stick and all of the partners that made this possible i want to thank you to thank howlround for live streaming and give a shout out to thea rogers and tanya newmire for holding down the tech and making it all run smoothly thank you so much everyone