 live. Welcome everybody back to the seagull talks here at the Martini seagull theater center, the guided center CUNY and today is a very special day for us and of course all days have been inspiring. We had artists from Hong Kong, China, Italy, Germany, from Taiwan yesterday from Italy and and so so many many others. Taylor Mack and Kristen Martin from New York for their great trickle up nyc.org website where you can subscribe now on a kind of a Netflix based service to support artists and we heard from really from people around the world, from Egypt, from Lebanon but today we have the enchanting and beautiful and wonderful marvellous monk with us, one of the shamans like a she and petty smith and others who are like really the who represent New York City, the spirit of New York like really nobody else and their leaders in our field, their work is astonishing, groundbreaking, remained vibrant and alive over all the decades and she has been a good friend to the seagull, has been with us, we ran in each other at the nomad at the great nomad library cafe just a couple of weeks ago and nobody sort of would be now so the seagull talks are trying to create some meaning to know what's on people's minds and what they are thinking, be here from politicians, economists, virologists but I think and I feel strongly we need to hear from artists this is what it's all about and since we can produce we in our homes we need a place to reflect the outside world, a stranger than fiction and we're all wondering is cyprus based real or not now it's one of the few real things that do exist and how we can connect so first of all Meredith, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. You're so welcome, I was saying to Jackie earlier that you know it's so hard to figure out what we can give now as artists in this world and you know I can't be in a hospital helping so how can we give in this time and in our world so I feel like making contact with people is something that I can give. Thank you, Meredith. So Meredith, how are you? Hanging in, some days better than others but you know some days I feel that I'm just drowning in sorrow, I do work and people that I know dying and people that I know having the virus and then so that comes up and then I just try to acknowledge it and let it flow through and then there are some days where I feel very inspired and I'm working on a new piece and you know the days that I can center myself and do that I really feel that you know this is what I'm meant to do you know it's sometimes I think I've talked to a lot of people that you know the kind of distracted quality that we're all going through in a way it's hard to keep the discipline and yet every time I start working I just feel that the joy of discovery and creativity is the meaning of it you know like this world you know will it really mean anything you know when we pass through this time but I think the meaning of it is the joy of creativity and discovery and that's meaning enough. So do you discover do you? Yeah some days we're you know working as I said on a new piece and so I'm at the piano and or working on ideas and yes I think that it is coming along little by little. For how long have you been personally how have you been inside your loft? It's been three and a half weeks. So three and a half weeks you have only leave once a week or once a day? Well I've gone to the mailbox twice down the street. The first time I just went to the mailbox and back I had to you know I had to send in my rent check and in bills and everything and so that was a very strange day because it was a cloudy and cold day and really was like a ghost town there was nobody on the street except for one mailman and he was about half a block away and I yelled thank you for your service and then he didn't even look at me he was waiting and I realized this is going to really be quite an adjustment when we speak to each other face to face you know they'll probably still be a little bit of fear and discomfort you know along with the exhilaration of being able to be close to people again so that was that was sobering and then the second time I went out was on Saturday again to go to the mailbox and I allowed myself to walk around the block and there were many people out there so it was a beautiful day so again I think that was a that made me feel good that people were out but at the same time I think in New York we have to be very careful about density of human beings I see yeah so like as like good New York or you don't have a mailbox in your building you go out to the post office to get your mail well I didn't go to the post office that would be risky no mailbox no I have we get our mail in the building but if you want me to mail out your rent check yeah mailbox now you have to go to the mailbox and really I get it I understand it so the Marinist in your loft you have been since 1972 right yes so as you said so have you have you ever spent such a long uninterrupted time there oh you mean in terms of not going out at all no never have you normally tour you go out and and you sing so how does it impact you to be with your things and with your mind and with your imagination but having less input from the from the outside world you guys we all experience now well what does it do to you well I love solitude and I even you know I spend a lot of time in New Mexico where I'm really really in what I would call retreat so first I thought that was going to be my long waited for retreat when this started and I was really really really busy of this whole fall and winter it was kind of non-stop touring and doing so I actually thought this was going to be a retreat time and I realized that it's not quite because part of the I think part of the beauty of this time is that we're making more contact with people even if it's virtual contact um you know that's very much part of and I've never been afraid to be alone I love my solitude um so it's now I realize that I have a kind of schedule and so I have to really make time where I say this whole day is going to be a day of silence and meditation and and working at the piano so I literally have to still really discipline myself to make those days that I am not going to make contact with the outside world because uh I love that concentration to um to reach out to reach out yeah there is a difference between of course solitude and loneliness but do you feel lonely at times no I love my solitude yeah I well I I did have one evening it wasn't loneliness exactly but you know before the lockdown in New York I guess I was more I don't know if I was in denial or I was more optimistic or out of contact I don't know what but you know I was really you know I'm a Buddhist practitioner so I was really working with fearlessness and blah blah blah you know all these these uh principles and then I got an email from my friend Ping Chong and he said there's going to be lockdown in the National Guards coming in and then it suddenly hit me I'm I'm totally alone in this loft and here I am stuck in New York and uh if I were ill perhaps because of my age uh you know I would just not be given the breathing mechanism you know it's sort of you everything falls away so actually a few days before that all our engagements fell away so it was this really feeling of suspension and greatness that as Buddhist practitioners we actually try try for and I feel like up to this time that concept was rather abstract for me and now I actually feel that we're living that in groundlessness and permanence um emptiness uh in the sense emptiness in the sense of everything changing and flowing so that evening I just had a kind of meltdown of a real fear and uh you know my mind going into all kinds of scenarios of doom um sadness that maybe this piece would never come to life sadness that maybe I'd never perform again just the whole scenario and then I realized that I was very grateful that I went through that because it really gives me much more of the sense of compassion for anybody who has fear and is you know scared and uh and I and I moved through it I saw how our minds shift you know it's like that could come up maybe in moments and then it shifts to something else and we all are part of this big flow of life and so I'm glad that I went through that you know so but other than that I I really don't feel lonely you know at all so how does your day look like you said you have a schedule or not but how tell us what do you get up where do you go I'll tell you the ideal day it doesn't work out that way all the time so the ideal day is I get up and then I do uh if I'm really together I sit and meditate for about half an hour have my breakfast and then I'll I'll go and I'll go to the piano and work maybe first I'll vocalize a little bit and do some physical exercises and then go to the piano and work and then after that talk to to people and find out how they're doing answer emails you know that kind of thing I've been very fortunate that uh so over the years I've done a wonderful practice which I think everybody who's done this would acknowledge that it's a wonderful thing physically which is Pilates I've done that it for many many many years and I have a wonderful teacher so I've literally been taking private lessons with her twice a week here in my loft and then she just went class a week and that just getting moving and and you know feeling my you know strength and flexibility has also really centered me and helped me a lot in this time and then vocalizing as well so doing physical physical work of just trying to stay healthy with the instrument has been very helpful so then you have afternoon is communication and dinner and then do you listen to music do you watch movies yeah read a movie tell me what did you see last I'm a total movie freak uh I finally I finally saw a pichot which is a classic Brazilian film from 1980 I've been wanting to get for years and what I'm haunted by it you know it's beautiful film so I've I really love film and film history and so um and I just joined the criterion channel which right yeah as I as I wrote to ping I said it's like a a feast for a starving person because I don't even know again there's so many things I want to look at so you know I'm a real fan of Japanese film particularly some of the more obscure early films of some of the Japanese directors so they have some of those and so I'm just thrilled I mean my big inspiration is is film this film yeah it's a great great service I think is also like Netflix $10 it's criterion channel.com but I'm interested in your in your Buddhist practice and and and what you do and maybe join a bit let us know the meditation how do you do that and you already went but did it change the meaning for it change for you in these days you mean during these days yeah well I feel like I you know have a much more regular practice now because of this time I'm very grateful for that um and you know usually when I'm in New York I you know sometimes I'm just running around so much I can't sit as much as I like to so in that way I am extremely grateful and um I mean it's hard to talk about these things but it's just a very simple Asian practice which is the breath you know going back to the breath and there are many different variations um and then I've been doing a practice that I received a long time ago which is the medicine Buddha practice and that's more chanting practice of just sending out energy for healing of the world and it's in Tibetan and you know that's challenging um and has been challenging to me but I think the point is the aspiration that you're even by by chanting these uh you know this these syllables this text it's you know the idea is just uh sending out energy you know healing energy to the world and I think the basic philosophy is you know we all have to just start working with ourselves in any way that we can and then by doing that and being more aware of our proclivities or you know or just being more familiar with our minds by working on ourselves it's really like throwing a stone into the water and then it starts radiating out you're you're not sure of how that's working but that's not the point the point is you have to begin by learning how to be friendly with yourself before you can really you know be genuinely friendly with other people so and that's easier said than done so I just um you know just trying to stay centered and and connecting so in the mornings you sit on a sorry you sit on it you sit on a on a cushion and I sit on a little stool because I have a my back I have back problems and and then you breathe and then mm-hmm afterwards you do you do think I remember when you came to the seagull and we talked I often think about it you said you know don't be afraid of the unknown well I think that that's that's the thing that is amazing that and that's a principle uh because what I think is that we always are living in the unknown and we're always groundless and we're always uh uh groundless not not knowing what's going to happen next and in the sense of change and yet we're so busy that we're not aware of it in other words what I'm saying is this time is just magnifying the the truth of what our reality is because in fact anytime in your life you don't know that you could be walking out on the street in a cap can it you actually know someone that that happened to and she died um so in a way we're just living in a very very magic way what we're always living but we're just not aware of it you know because we're going a little faster in the reality of our obligations are you know what we do and everything so in that way it's it's really amazing it's an amazing time do you think we should be afraid now a little bit are you still say don't be afraid I think it's more just uh using fear in a positive way of being more alert and being more careful and not and um not dwelling in it but letting it come and acknowledging that energy of it and the way that it wakes you up a little bit and that's a natural thing or natural response to what's happening but to just try not to spin spin around in it and dwell on it because I think that that energy is not useful right now yeah yeah it's quite it is devastating um in New York New York City has more more cases you know as a state than most countries in the world or all of the countries in the world at the moment um um and I spoke with Melanie Joseph yesterday who was sort of devastated um of course next to Bernie her great champion got out of the race but also um what is happening we have five to six million people using a subway daily we have of course one of the biggest airports and of course New Yorkers are so close so of course everything that makes New York so great now in a way works um also against it yesterday in Taiwan it's how great they we thought that it's an island nation but they really prepared also in a way but it is it is really scary there and um and Ben has almost like an end of times feeling how is this for you you mentioned friends or a sick or your family tell us a little bit about your personal situation with your with your community it's fine so far they live all over the place my niece Karina uh right when the beginning of this started she went with her family and her husband upstate to some friends thinking that they were just going to get their bearings for the weekend and they ended up staying there which is really great um the rest of my family is living in different places so they're doing well there's two members of my ensemble that are ill but they are hanging they are they are infected yes who are they who are they I don't want to mention their names yeah okay sure but dancers dancers or one dancer singer dancer and one yeah two singer dancers and then my assistant also had it early on and so I was exposed to three people but it's been three and a half weeks since I've seen any of them and so so far so good and uh yeah so you know I I'm just very grateful that even though I was exposed I don't I think by that point we were washing hands and we weren't standing too close but um you know I don't feel okay and um they are seem to be improving yeah yeah I'm sorry sorry to hear that for your for your collaborators and also for you that in a way as you said what will I ever sing again it's something becomes very real something we often think about when does it and and um we often do say when I die or if I but we will do we will you know so and this of course is a reminder you know that as you said you know we do not know what happens next day in the normal days will we wake up or not so um the question is what what what do you think about making art now and should we do should we think about it is your thinking changing I feel you maybe is one who I've always had that dialogue already in the normal days but is something changing in your internal hard drive on the computer is a little update running well you know I've I've had my days during this time that I start to lose heart a little bit and uh wondering you know what the meaning of making art is and again when this is when we come through the end of this we'll art live art which is something that I you know really really believe in you know the power of live art that we are all in the same room at the same time infinity sign of back and forth uh you know I I still believe in that deeply and I'm working on a new piece called Indra's net which is based on a Hindu slash Buddhist legend kind of I guess you would call a teaching legend about connection and interdependence and it's uh the and I've been working on it thinking about it for 10 years and then I started working on the music in 2014 and then made cello songs uh you know which really felt like it needed to come to fruition earlier because Indra's net is such a huge idea and um so but I've been now I'm working on it and I had my I during this time I've been teaching at Harvard so you should know that I do once a week uh on Mondays I teach a music composition class and a choral music class of a young young young undergraduates that are learning my music so I'm teaching with Katie Geisinger from my ensemble we work together and um the the composition class I called interdependent I called interdependent interdisciplinary composition so it's uh graduate composers but I'm also introducing them to visual ideas or ways to just open up their idea of making music and you know just introducing other perceptual modes to them um and so it's been really amazing you know to do it on zoom and see all those beautiful faces in this grid and then trying to figure out problems that they could you know compositional assignments that they could fulfill some uh some frustration involved with that but it's also pretty interesting you know to figure that out so uh so that um and then part of the Harvard residency for me has which was had was just so blessed and such a wonderful wonderful thing was that they allowed me to work with my whole ensemble on this new piece for a week in uh February um at Art Lab which is a new beautiful building that Harvard has opened up I mean just couldn't be better and we had one we I had one week with my ensemble working on Indra's Net um and last fall I had worked with students at Mills College because that's going to be where the piece is going to be performed first they were instrumentalists so this piece has eight um singer actor dancers um and I think 16 or orchestra players so at last fall I was able to work with the instrumentalists at Mills and then had this wonderful week with that was incredible incredible beginning so no you know not being able to do that again we were supposed to do it this week as a matter of fact that was pretty sad you know so that was part of this thing of you know how do I keep this going you know how do I keep the inspiration going is this meaningful because the piece is so much descriptive it's strangely enough is so descriptive of what we're going through now because Indra's Net the concept of Indra's Net is the story is that there was an enlightened king and he lived in on this mountain and he made a net that covered the whole universe and at each of intersection of the lines of the net was an infinitely faceted jewel which reflected everything else in the universe so every every corner of that net is or is an infinitely faceted jewel that reflects all the other infinitely faceted jewels in the universe so it's really the concept of interdependence and connection and my my idea was so spatial because part of it was all is is going to be an installation piece where people can walk through it and there are these points in the space and I even in the live part of it I want to have the audience in different in different configurations during the piece so you know the live thing seems really important I don't know if I can conceive of a virtual way of thinking about it at this point so I just feel that I just at a certain point had to this is very reflective of what we're going through right now it's it's a kind of prayer to the continuation of the earth there are some sections that really have that a sense of prayer and healing and I feel that it's something that could be very hopefully healing to people even when this is over yeah yeah and then I go back to the piano and start working again and I'm finding new ideas and you know it's and we're in other words I'm saying that we're just continuing on the process with the with the faith that it will come to life in the way that it needs to come to life uh yesterday I had a wonderful zoom talk with my costume designer but also real artistic soulmate Yoshio Ibarra who's I've been working with since the 1980 and we do a lot of conceptual thinking things through you also spatially because he's also a scenic designer so we had a talk and we are starting to work on the thinking about the costumes and just taking it step by step you know with also knowing that the process itself is meaningful I know you spend also some time on restoring the film of query and it was also a way to look back at your work and and about something that in a way is lost that legendary time in New York City when it was being produced when you found and created something and just covered also something if you look when you looked at it again even before this case what what what came to your mind what what were you thinking about also about the city of New York the tremendous changes we went through and this also will transform the city but what came to your mind was the film and do you see new connections with the time now I well I think it's interesting that you your response even when we did the showing was more about the time that that it was made and the community that we had at that time but I don't actually strangely enough that's not the first thing that comes to mind when I look at the film I guess what really shocked me about looking at it is how prescient it was and how it's so much about what's going on in this world so you know I think of it more in those terms and then also how amazing each of the performers was in the you know in that film such brilliant artists and how they were so unique and and inspired and and just a way of thinking about things so maybe that has a little bit to do what you're talking about you know there were a lot of principles that maybe we knew as a language of perception and and performing uh that it have probably changed now maybe the quarry has quarry is it was done originally at the Lamama Annex which was is a huge 100 foot long I'll keep on putting my water down but sorry uh a huge 100 foot long space and 50 foot wide space with two um what I say um wooden it's like scaffold and my idea was to have the audience in a sense be the set you know that you actually were uh you saw this crowd of people across from you and yet it had so the space has a kind of epic quality but and yet you're very close to the performers so the performing style had a lot to do with a very not projecting but just being in it centered you know neither projecting or pulling energy in but just literally being there because some of the audience was seeing you very close and yet a filmmaker director mentality composer I I love that the audience was looking down at the piece because I wanted the airplane view of the piece and and you could see this gigantic space in some of the uh sections and then yet there were some sections that were very intimate so you know in that sense it was like long shot and close up within one piece so uh you know that that live situation was very important to the piece what do you think about new york city um in general now that it over the years that gets changed do you feel it is that what how do you experience it well I think that what we did have in the in the 70s in the 60s late 60s and 70s was a sense of community um you know we really of all the arts you know because there weren't so many of us so there was a uh you know what we call the downtown world and that was people from across the board in terms of art forms trying to push past the boundaries of those art forms and there was a lot of communication between artists of you know of different art forms so that was a beautiful time and then I think things changed a little bit in the 80s because of the political situation that it became a little bit more business-like and um people were uh thinking more about making money I think when we came to do art in the in those 60s and 70s I mean we did it for the love of it and I you know we were able to survive on very little and doing other jobs and we were doing our work for the love of it not thinking that was going to be the way of earning a living and then uh the 80s came and then the money thing came in and you know the commodification of art came in strongly and so that shifted a little bit and then you know through the 80s and the 90s and now I feel that we're back to to square one in a good way that the young people that I know they're the love of making and the love of discovering and the love of creating and the only thing that I think is more challenging now is that it's harder to earn a living so people you know when I came to New York people were living in tenement apartments that cost seventy five dollars a month and you could live alone which I you know really which was it's very helpful uh on one level now I think young people are living more in groups and and sometimes that's a beautiful thing like you know almost cooperatives um you know to be able to survive so that's very different but it's pretty spread out I think there's a sense of it being quite spread out so knowing that what the whole community is is a little bit more difficult to uh you know to get your hands on you know it's it's pretty spread out in many ways so I think that's different do you think New York I'm sorry do you think it will be a rapture a disruption for New York City will your life be different after corona will it maybe go back to a community or do you think it will be just impossible and it will will be the same way as it was before what I don't think it can be the same and I do feel that people are really there's such an acknowledgement of of the love and care about people for each other now you know and what we've meant to each other over the years and and the young people what they mean to us and I don't know to me it will never go back to what it was before and maybe for for the for the better because I think value system wise we were really going really down a bad path of uh you know you know what this I hardly have to say this but you know of greed of violence of of uh polarization of hatred I mean it was just pathetic you know on on a certain level so I feel that hopefully this will bring people to their senses on you know and that the that we have a start you know that's that would be my big hope and start going back to what's really important in this world but I was going to say you know um so I'm on west Broadway now and when I first moved here this was a very obscure neighborhood there were just uh one Teddy's restaurant one coffee shop and three artists here and some spice factories it was like a very industrial area so that haunted quality of old New York uh you know was very prevalent and now it's Tribeca so you know that's very you know yeah but my other loft that I lived in before I moved here was um on Great Jones Street and I remember Broadway at that time so that's like third street or Great Jones Street for people that don't know New York um that well you know there were hardly even light bulbs on Broadway in those days there was nothing I mean it was like completely dark empty people were living in lofts you know like and they were factories and now sometimes if I am going down Broadway I I don't even know where I am it's like um you know it's sort of like James Stewart and it's a wonderful life you know what happened to Tom's drugstore you know now it's a now it's uh uh you know a gambling casino I mean it is so crazy you know with all these stores and uh you know lights and everything and so that is just again the natural principle of everything changes but sometimes it's really hard to you know identify with it let's put it that way yeah the world really did change so dramatically and especially for you who lived it also in a way shaped it we are in a way the world got smaller we are connected so so fast and through this room and Skype and internet and email radical changes yeah that I think is a really positive thing like uh you know the boundaries between nations are melting if we stay with this you know that the medical profession they're communicating and and everybody is trying to solve this problem truce in Yemen now uh you know I mean amazing things are there's there there's in South Africa the drug dealers are now delivering food and and medications to people rather than drugs I mean there's such a possibility that's coming up and um and I guess my prayer would just be that we don't go back to where we started and just that all this other impulse you know of human nature begins again I hope that we just can keep some of these ideas uh because we're working you know we're literally the boundaries between all of us in the on the whole planet are melting and we're tiny tiny we're just tiny specs on this planet you know and just to think in those terms that we're so we're so connected to each other and just the survival of the planet I've just been starting to read Joanna Macy's work she's an extraordinary environmental activist and also Buddhist practitioner oh she's you know if anybody out there can just get any of her writing it's just amazing and um you know it's she said you know it's like meditation on your feet it's like it's one thing to be sitting but it's other the other thing is that you're getting your hands in the dirt and you you know you're really working on something we I actually even have a piece in Indra's net that's called hands in the dirt song yeah no no no that is important yeah well one of the artists from Taiwan yesterday said the first time the world was really connected it's it's invisible but we are now in the history of mankind he he said but going back to the world that got smaller but also it got smaller in a way that we are in our own small spaces in a way it's this paradox that globally it's got smaller even so it's far away but now we are in small spaces end up far away from the normal life we are in so um you you you suggested that a bit earlier maybe could we have a little look at your small space at your life it's a mine is pretty big yeah mine is pretty big your big your big west Broadway life I could well you know through the apartment a little walk and sure I mean that's you know I had to get over being very upset that I couldn't go to New Mexico which is my kind of soul place um but then I you know I sort of worked my way through that and now I just wake up thinking how blessed I am that this space is so big and airy and open and um you know I'm so fortunate so I'll I'll take you on a little tour that let me know if you can see this so yeah so since 1972 yes and a lot of people are saying it's like a museum which it probably is because I don't I guess people aren't working so this is one little shrine can you see that yeah so these little shrines so this is these are friends and artists or no this is my teacher and then also people that have died and a Buddha and you know it's just like a little shrine and then I'm going through the living room here and then this is going towards the window I'm gonna back back around but I wanted to show you my turtle oh and I can let's see I this will see if I can manage this crazy thing so can you see see of this little cage yeah yeah and can you see her yeah what's her name Neutron uh-huh so hi my name's Neutron but I oh not Meredith she's had me for 42 years but I don't even know who she is after all this time a little bit higher so we can see her face yeah oh there she is yeah oh my god for 42 years oh yes she's been my mommy for 42 years but I don't even know if I even know can recognize her because I only have a little brain I see and so do you look out on the street of New York from your aquarium she does sometimes can you can you give for our viewers from outside maybe a little look on the on the streets sure and the industrial rubber products uh a sign which you have there so what what street are we looking at here uh I'm on west broadway and we're at the street um that's catty corner to us is white yeah yeah we lost your audio for a moment so this is great great Jones no no west broadway and no this I'm on west broadway and we're looking at white street white street yeah great amazing so as you can see it is empty a few people um um there and um notice the place they float on notice the rainbow flag on white street across white street yes yeah yeah yeah yeah incredible now I'm going to so get us yeah let's get back in your apartment so here's the we're walking down you know through the living room and here we're going into the kitchen I'll turn on the light uh here's a kitchen bathroom in kitchen bathtub you see that beautiful yeah that's a beautiful Victorian bathtub yeah yeah bath bathtub in kitchen and now this is the special place this is the studio oh my god that is so beautiful and this is my piano uh so every day that's where you rehearse where you just have where you this is where I work alone but this is also where we rehearse the ensemble and there's been many many pieces that have uh been born here you know quarry was born in this space I mean many many uh many many it was quarry was it in 70 76 76 yeah um this is where I sleep so you sleep in your studio in the place you dream where all your works were born yep my family on pictures and um this is another keyboard one you know for we were going to be performing with bang and can all stars in their marathon and we were going to use the this keyboard rather than a piano and that's John Hollenbeck's drums we were going to be doing a duet at the big ears festival and that was also canceled and here's another shrine can you see that yeah yeah yeah yeah maybe if you go a little bit lower with the camera we don't see the window yeah yeah this yeah that's perfect that's good yeah a beautiful shrine so you really think of your friends and collaborators and family in the chinese tradition ancestor shrine so some of people have died that are here but then you know some people are alive like the Dalai Lama and this is the medicine buddha shrine what is that a medicine buddha shrine um well you know this is again this is all like um you know kind of metaphoric uh so um here's a mirror um you know it's just more a kind of energy um and then it's uh what would I say it's um manifest in a figure but the figure is not you know it's just a manifestation of a certain energy and aspiration so when you do that chanting it's really more just invoking the energy of healing yeah that's amazing I have a hard time not asking you to chant or to sing but I know we can't do that here maybe one day and so what I wanted to show you a little bit of artwork that I so this is a beautiful and Hamilton and um I wanted to show you a beautiful uh photograph that I love by Clemens Calisher who uh which uh so that is a photograph that he uh took in in um 1947 of displaced persons he was a he he died recently he was a very very uh brilliant photographer you know one of the best beautiful photo so much love and that so are we still on are we still on yes we are still I've lost no okay maybe you have to go yeah you're back and in the back is the Kimono you have there yes oh let me like I can show you that is that can you see it yeah so that came from Suzuki the the wonderful Japanese director uh I performed we performed education of the girl child in the 80s at his toga mora festival in in northern Japan and everybody who participated in that festival uh he gave us uh that's a performance kimono performance kimono wonderful it's a good good thing to have and also in front of you went to and just think we got some some questions here for our um seagull talks one is from Alan Fisher who says I admire my artist's work for so many decades and I've been lucky as an artist to work with her over the years my question how important is it to be daily informed especially in these travel times or better as an artist to separate and envision a better world I think I'm trying for a balance now I'm not getting 100 caught caught up and um I I feel like it is important to know to not forget what's going on but uh I'm trying to balance that and not just get obsessed by it and then you know really give myself time to go into my imagination and um and and just try to work on alternatives and I'm just sending my love love love to Alan Fisher who is one of the great one of the most beautiful performers uh alive today thank you um we have here a message from um Noe Kujar who said you're marvelous thank you for your continued transformative work what is your response to the possibility of a more persuasive mediated interaction between people through screens as a result of this pandemic is it possible to transfer that kind of unmediated presence your work has so potentially so greatly carried out through that years do you do you feel there is a presence possible I'm struggling with that right now you know as I said earlier though I've always believed so strongly in the live presence and the live performance as a form that you know short of being in a church or you know that kind of gathering you know it has that possibility of the live energies um so so I'm so I'm a little bit because I'm just trying to figure that out you know I don't know you know that's something I'm struggling with right now um you know even knowing a number of years ago that maybe live performance was like a dinosaur I always say you know sometimes I feel like a dinosaur uh because everybody's so screen oriented um I still would want to affirm live performance because I I think that it's something that's you just cannot you you just cannot substitute the screen for what happens on you know in live performance but I feel like right now I'm just trying to contend with what happens if we don't have a live performance I mean you know it's I'm struggling with it yeah I think for a while for a while that that was a that was a question within the Catholic Church and um uh if the Pope's blessing will work if you see it through television or if you had to be on St. Peter's Square and like church had to uh had a big council with all their you know cardinals and whatever but they came up with a solution that you have to be there in person but if you're too sick or you can't by any way get there even if you wanted to it does count so uh it's uh perhaps a little guideline um to to to think about it and um and of course you know I I do think the screens actually create uh even more beauty for a live presence like books are so precious and great now because we read so many electronic males and things which is great we can write letters we can write emails we can write instagrams I'll be really writing a letter now means so much more it's great to read books and I think uh performances live embodied on stage will even be more significant but yes also for that new generation these children's of the digital age as we say it here the Siegel and variation of Brecht's dictum of the theater for the his theater for the children of the technological age I guess there will be also new forms that will exist next to each other and perhaps we can learn from Japan where they say yes we have buto we have no very old and something very new next to each other and in 200 years buto will be an old tradition but something new um will come up here's another question from London from Jonathan petter and he says he was in one of your voice workshops last year the omega are asking questions oh yeah and oh your friend good maybe they want to connect to you and this is your way of you know giving something as you said it's important to hear voices from the artists and from you in the times of corona we live and she said I wonder if you could say a little more even you said already about it about the arc of meditation practice over your life so the arc and how it has impacted your creative practice the also your meditation how significant is it and would you suggest that artists should do that well I think as a young artist I intuitively was drawn to some of the principles that I learned later on were actual actually basic principles of buddhism so what principles yeah well a space of fluidity of time and space presence um immediacy of stillness silence uh you know I think that those were part of my aesthetic and when I was a young person I think my my art was everything um I don't know if there would have been space for meditation and certainly wasn't there was not a lot of space for developing myself as a human being so I mean I was pretty obsessed but at a certain point in my life quite a difficult point in my life personally uh I had been introduced to uh buddhism because I was teaching at Naropa Institute in the mid 70s so you know and I had always been a searcher you know always a seeker and uh the talks of Trump by Rinpoche you know who was the teacher that started Naropa Institute uh it's now Naropa University I mean I went to all his talks and you know and they were amazing but I wasn't ready at that time for like an organized anything and I was skeptical and blah blah blah you know but then of 10 years later uh I was going through a hard period in my life and started reading some of his writing um you know really applied to the suffering that I was going through and so I started doing a real practice and you know there's and I remember some people saying uh you know because the western tradition has this myth that the more neurotic you are the better artist you are you know as in cut off your own ear kind of you know there's a tradition of the uh you know that that art comes from neurosis um and so to think of maybe giving that up you know doing practice maybe I'd be get all cleaned up and I wouldn't be able to do my art but that is so not what practice is practice is actually going right to those those hard places and and leaning in on them and actually accepting them and working with them like working with every aspect of yourself so uh over the years I think I so I think the only difference and influence that it's had on my work is well I would say that it's had more influence on me as a human being and and uh and being able to integrate my values as a human being and my values as an artist and not have this over here and that over there that's been really wonderful and also not being ashamed you know to say that you're making work that's a hopefully a benefit to sentient beings it wasn't hip to say that like in the old days of the intellectual old days because it was a very male dominant dominated sensibility in the art world so I you know so I feel like it's it's just been uh you know so it's fed my work in a lot of ways you know but I but I didn't start there yeah thank you we'll be getting a bit closer to to the end and also know you have a call at once we're going to shut out a little bit only a couple of minutes but um we do ask our our guests at the very end you know what what what otherwise would you give to artists young artists but perhaps with you also for our listeners or maybe for both what what would you say how to how to how to stay awake in these times what to do or how to use it what to think about is there something you can as a person let's marry this yeah I would just say you know try to find the parts of your life that you really love and uh you know and just affirm those those those parts of your of your life of what you do it could be anything you know because I think that anything that comes from love you know nursing making art teaching you know anything that really that you love it's so important to value that now and then also you have a lot more to give to other people and you know also at this time so and then I think it's finding a balance between what you need to do yourself and what you need to do in terms of giving to other people and and and just try to know that we we will get through this in one way or another and also to not give up to really not give up good yeah I think that's what we all have to say we're not going to give up just keep on trucking keep on trucking and for young artists someone who's already you know just think should I really go in that career it's so hard and now the virus had said the next generation the young generation will be more probably years of economic downturn of complications of problems what what is your advice to there always were frank there always were there always when we came to New York I mean it was so hard so I feel that the young people young artists should just take the time right now to do their work and to know that when this is over they will find a way you know I always said that to young people my students just follow your dream and don't let anybody tell you that you can't because you will find your way you know you if you follow that you're going to find your way but if you don't follow that you're always going to regret it and you know that's very painful I think now I would just say to young artists in this period of isolation to to work you know just try to work try to to you know just do the work and be curious and start with no expectations whatsoever and even in terms of making work like really dive in with no expectation uh no uh you know no no knowledge you know it's beginner's mind beginner's mind has a possibility has all possibilities expert's mind means that you think that you know something but I think we all don't know anything and so you know we're all living in the unknown we're all suspended and those moments of suspension are daunting and and sometimes scary but what an amazing thing that you could have those moments of gap of totally not knowing anything you know of of of of moving through your habitual response virtual patterns and behavior I mean what a great opportunity so even if you have moments of that it's worth it thank you thank you thank you Marilyn no no this is this is a serious and very significant um otherwise and I think you will have to know a lot to say that you don't know anything and you certainly do know so much and have done so much it's our uh a great honor to have um spent um that time with you and I hope we will learn from it someone said uh it is important to study history because you learn that people forget about history and um and I'm with you I hope that this will remind us of the history of the arts uh this is the Greeks and the theater and bringing people together and that community is significant and someone said in our talks a single area that right now people are more important than the economy they are more important than the production because now it's about our lives so it's something very essential what we are living so we really don't know what it is we will only see it when it um comes to us in 10 and 20 years later in documentaries where everybody seemed to know everything but Marilyn thank you for giving us a view of your life of your insides and really really that was very moving and real and very honest thank you thank you and my love to everybody out there yeah thank you and if you have the time tomorrow please do uh tune in we have Ariste Danarg from the Burkina Faso a great writer director of Queen Africa it's amazing work which also had this eagle actress also from there and to hear what what is um what is going on next year we hear a little bit more from also new york city we will hear from big dance theater from nature theater of oklahoma foundry melanie and erin lansman if it all works out we will then hear from france and then also from india um from pakistan shahid nadim uh and and others so i hope you will join us so please all do stay safe use your mouth and stay tuned thank you so much and thanks to howl round for hosting us the vj and the sequel team may and san yang and and jacky so and thank you and i hope you will join in thank you meredis i hope you didn't steal too much time from from you not at all bye bye thank you and thank you to christen for helping to set it all up okay bye bye christen bye bye