 Please, new mics. Welcome to the Martinis Eagle Theater Center here at the Graduate Center. And to prelude 21, start making sense. It is our annual Theater Performance Festival celebrating the work of New York theater artists and ensembles. And it's hard enough in normal times to create work for the stage and for spaces inside and outside, but at the time of Corona, we all are faced with exceptional challenges. And we are here to celebrate, again, the extraordinary achievements that come out of the New York theater community. It is time, I think, and we feel, to start making sense to ask questions. Why are we making theater? But also, how are we producing it? And for whom? And this is a great investigation, again, into the mechanics of making art in New York City. And we also invited theater ensembles from around the US, from Detroit, and Cincinnati, and Lewis, and Philadelphia, New Orleans to join us. And this will be extraordinary. Look into what is on the minds of artists right now. We also have many panel discussions. We have an award which we're giving out to honor outstanding members of the New York theater community. So I would like to all of you to join in and get an insight of what is happening. Welcome, everybody, here to Seagal Talk. And welcome to the very, very, very beginning of Prairie Down. I'm terribly nervous. It's a big deal for us that we were able to get it done. Many thanks to Andy and Tan. We thought, ma'am, really we wouldn't have been possible to do it. But also our 13 curators and all the artists that participated. My name is Frank Henschko at the Seagal Theater Center. So we're here in Midtown Manhattan. And we are starting today with the Seagal Talk, where we will do so every day in the week to bring artists and curators together so we get a better feeling of who they are, why they do the work, and to really listen to them. We would at this moment also like to acknowledge the Lenape people upon whose land we are gathered today or the evening in the airwaves. And we pay respect to the Lenape people and ancestors past, present, and future. So welcome, everybody. How are you guys? Fantastic. Happy Monday, everyone. Well, here we go. It's the very beginning. Maybe I'll just go clockwise. You say a very short sentence a little bit of who you are. David. Sure, I'm David Bruin. I'm one of the curators of Prairie Lude this year. I kicked off this chain a little bit. And I selected Daisy to work with as an artist. And I just want to say a quick shout out to Niall Harris, who's one of the other curators in this chain. I just think Niall is one of the most interesting artists working today, Prairie Lude alum. And it's just awesome to connect with everyone here. So thank you. Yeah, Niall couldn't do it. Malcolm. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about doing what you do as a curator, who you are and what you do. Oh, cool. I was a part of the chain because Niall Harris also. He picked me as a curator and I picked Erin as an artist. Fantastic. And Daisy. Hi, everyone. I really like this room. By the way, I'm happy to see you all happy to be here. I'm Daisy Press. I am a musician based here in New York City. I perform experimental music here and in Europe and also perform a lot of the music of Hildegard of Bing in on several platforms in the world and in the ether. So more on that later. Happy to see you all. Fantastic. Thank you. Arian. Hi, everyone. My name is Arian Wilkerson. I am the Artistic Director and Founder of Tamal Astro, which is a performance art and installation company. We make experimental, radical, punk, sexy, queer, hybrid, weed-loving, fucking, phantalizational work. And I'm super excited to be an artist and curator. It's my first prelude ever. And I curated the lovely and incomparable. Even if I'm saying that wrong, they're amazing. Dimani Pompei. Fantastic. And Dimani. Hey, y'all. My name is Dimani. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. I'm an interdisciplinary artist, movement foundation, movement focus, movement as survival, and also creating really visually aesthetic and important work for self and for others. And that's just where I'm at right now. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. And maybe say also a little bit about you. Maybe you start off and after your introduction, tell a little bit about your work, why you chose this and why you think it's important. We, of course, feel that, but also come to hear from you a little bit about your work. Now it's going to start off. But my name is Eng and I'm a dancer. Just do a lot of things, but I always think of them as dance. I don't know what I'm making really for this thing. And now we chat to me and we just talk a bunch of times. And I got inspired and I was like, let's go to Statue of Liberty. And that's what we went. And we just bowed to her for hours on end and there's some people there filming it. And yeah, that's pretty much it. I have no idea what I'm doing these days. I'm glad I did something. How are they feeling in this time? How is it, how does it feel in this moment to create work? It feels difficult, for sure. I think the pandemic is also catching up on me. I've been sick this past like a few months. Yeah, that's why my room is pretty messy, as you can see. You know, 18 months later, of course, the body has to react. At least my body is reacting. I don't know about everybody. But and then New York City has been pretty fast this past few months, too, which I don't know. It just feels altogether very difficult, even though I'm supposedly making. But I don't know. I feel like I've been on pause, but just pumping some things out for the world at the same time. Thank you. Daisy, tell us a little bit about you. How are you doing? And a bit about the Hildegard pumping, in which we, of course, know in Germany. And she's not so well known in Brooklyn. Exactly. I just want to comment on what I just shared about. It's so important to be honest about the twists and turns and the ups and downs of this time and how it just is hard, how it's just hard. And then there's a new level of hard that happens and another level of hard that happens. And so I think it's just so good to hear that I'm not the only person who's been going through that. It's not just me. So thank you. Anyway, yeah, so Hildi, as I call her, she's my buddy. Hildegard von Bingen, to tell you all, she was an amazing polymath who lived 800 years ago. And she was a composer. And she was in charge of a huge convent. And she had these visions. And she did these paintings. And she wrote an opera. And what else did she do? Oh, she was an herbalist. And she grew things in her garden. Possibly weed, somebody said. Maybe she was growing a little weed in her garden. We don't know. There could be an opera about that, I think. But so she came into my life in 2015. I had already been an experimental singer here in Europe. And I just came to a place where I really wanted to sing music that felt good to my body. I was like, you know what? This is going to be about pleasure. From now on, I really want to connect to the body. And her music came into my life. And then I started singing her music in unlikely places, like House of Yes in Brooklyn and in nightlife, in settings that were maybe not so sacred, maybe more towards the profane. But the sacred really seemed to work there. There was a musical that we made at House of Yes about the drug ketamine and all of its uses and dangers and fascinations in the world. And I would come in and sing a Hildegard chant to bring everybody out of the k-hole, so to speak, that was created with the theater presentation. So discovering the power of this music in places that are not up at the cloisters, although I wouldn't, of course, would sing up at the cloisters, but it was not at the cloisters. So I got to sing a lot of Hildegard Burning Man a couple of years ago, right? I have had the honor of singing Hildegard at the bedside of people who are very ill. And so during the pandemic, I was like, OK, what do I have to give? OK, I have music to give. I can bring people into the experience of singing. So I started offering Hildegard sessions three times a week on Zoom, totally free for an entire year. And that became something known as voice cult, where Hildegard's not necessarily the main deity. One's own voice is the main deity. But bringing people through these chants in a digestible way and getting people to sing this music, even if they had no musical experience, like, OK, yeah, we're going to learn this Latin. We're going to sing through these chants over and over and over and over. So it's voice cult is still online. It's been an honor to connect with so many people in different ways with Hildegard's music. And I was just in Italy, and I got to sing Hildegard in a monastery. That's a more kind of normal way to sing her music. So that was a beautiful trip. And thank you, really, that is quite something, though. Instead of reopening the musical that you had written five years ago, you created something very special in that time of corona that had also something to do with it and create it. Malcolm, tell us a bit about you as an artist and curator at Prelude. You might be off on your sound. Is that good? All right. How are they? Can I start? Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I'm an artist and I make my own work. But I feel like the pandemic has opened up this space of like, yeah, you can show up in the comfort of your own home. But also, I remember doing the beginning of the pandemic of being in this flight mode. And I guess like you putting that energy into other things, like, I guess like making clothes and, yeah, just other practices that was kind of like sustaining me. So I guess I think I'm thinking of, yeah, I guess like if the pandemic didn't happen, I wouldn't arrive to those practices and things. So I'm really grateful for that. But yeah, I guess I carried it airy in because I guess like how he uses like queerness, especially like black queerness. And I hope I'm not like assuming that I think of like, queerness as a place of like possibility and how it like pushes against this normative. So like the collages of just queerness and black queerness and reclaiming space. I guess when I think of black queerness also, I think of all of the ancestors we lost to like HIV and AIDS and like a longing for like a mentor. And I kind of see like Aryan's work in this dimension of like an archive that can be like passed on to like a future black queer young. Yeah, it's like, I guess there's so many levels. It's like always like pushing the envelope and pushing for something more as opposed of, yeah, just settling in like a comfortable place. So I'm going to say that's why I carried it Aryan. And yeah, I think he's also like amazing all day. It's also amazing and beautiful. And I'm glad that they carried it Damani. And yeah, on his amazing. Yeah, how does it feel? Yeah, Aryan, you want to, you really want to. Sure, yeah. I mean, I'm just going to like put it all out there. So like, Malcolm Damani and I have known each other since we were like 15, you know? So we've like, you know, and we met at this really problematic summer camp and like, and so like it was just like what it was. It was just like a really just like problematic place. But we, but we met, you know? And the people that we all met too, we still love to like, to this day, you know? Like 2008, 2009 is a particular time, right? Because Instagram and Facebook didn't have as much political power as it did back then now, like now, but it does now, which is fine. But we were actually, you know, Black queers a part of the internet era from 2000s to now. If you look about how 2008, that's not even 10 years in to the world of the internet, you know? With Google starting around 2002, you know what I mean? So like, if we're looking at the internet from like a mass standpoint, we're like truly like internet children of the Gorn, you know what I mean? And so like, yeah, I had a big respect for Malcolm. And I had a big respect for Dimani because at both spectrums, there were, there's word super beautiful technique that comes from Dimani. And then really experimental, defined, clean, like airy, beautiful shit from Malcolm, you know what I mean? And then Dimani comes in and then hits harder with just like eleganza and like things that are just really elegant. I just can't describe Dimani's work without saying that it's like, it's like viscerally elegant. And that's something that is hard to do as an artist and as a Black queer artist and for Malcolm to be viscerally here with you, to sort of take you into the afterlife or to take you into life is like the things that I was really interested in and why I felt like we sort of all rooted in each other's life. It's funny because, you know, my video has an age restriction because a lot of my work is very, a lot of my work is very out there and I do use my body as a subject. I am HIV positive. So, you know, I just always looked at myself as a part of an archive, you know? Like now I'm a number, a part of a system with millions of people who have died from AIDS and HIV and I'm a part of that archive. So let me just start adding to the archive. Like, it was very like, it was very simple too, you know? It was just like, let me just keep adding to, you know, who are Black young artists at the age of 30 who have HIV and still sub-dict and still feel proud enough to put their ass in a thong on and like, you know, and to parade, you know? And so, yeah, I think my work is interesting because I always battled with the line of technique versus post-modernism, you know what I mean? Just to be, just keep it real, like just the idea of like, foreign versus the ability to maintain form, you know what I mean? So like, it's all those things that are wrapped up in one and a lot of my work also influences sculpture and throughout COVID, it was different for me because I was in Philadelphia. I fell in love with this guy. We were protesting, we were looting, robbing grocery stores, all, you know, like, you know, like the whole nine yards, you know what I mean? Like throwing shit at City Hall, throwing shit at police. The film that I made was called The Sis Uprising that was funded by University of Pennsylvania and it was about queer and intergenerational legacies of fight, you know? And just looking at it from that perspective, it is still online. Unfortunately, fortunately, me and that man broke up. So it's all, it's all, it's always living. It's all T.R. Shade, always, you know? So, yeah, that's passive. I'm passing, I'm talking too much about it. Thank you, David. Can we come to you after this, Demani? Maybe you can react? You know, I feel really safe here and I'm so appreciative and honored to like share my work. I mean, you know, I made this thing, like I kind of killed two birds with one stone. Like I was getting off this project for some time because I was just like unsure about it. And I was like, no, actually I'm just gonna go in and do it. And then I have the vision, I have some resources and I'm just gonna do it. And I'm very happy with how it came out. And I'm very proud of myself. And this is the first time I can like say that out loud. And this has been just like a really rough time for me and I'm coming out of it. And I'm just like so thankful that people still will continue to see me for me. I quit my job that I've been working at for eight years who I've grown through with and now I've outgrown. And as you know, I love, but like, you know, like to just keep moving forward for the greater good. Also understanding that like us sitting here is like still such a privilege. And like being responsible about that and the art we make, you know, like and like how we connect with everybody we encounter, you know, just to like be good to people. Like it like costs 0.99. Well, I mean, I'm sorry, $0 completely. We get to other people, you know? And if the conversation gets thick or weird, like let's take it there and let's make art about it, you know, but don't run away from it. And like, and also like, if you're not prepared for that it's not no wedding tissue, but yours. Like, and that's it, you know? So yeah, I'm so grateful. I'm happy to meet y'all all digitally and I'm in a very vulnerable space right now. But I feel more empowered than I ever have in my life and more supported and more loved and it's very, very clear the pandemic has like really gifted us what we need versus what we want. And that is so important. Movement is important. Be careful how you move. People are looking at you, you know? That's it. Yep, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Damami. David, you've been a prelude curator. I think the last time you also did it in person live at the Graduate Center at CUNY and where we could people bring in still as close to the outside public. We couldn't do it. We did it again the second year. Last year also you curated it. Well, how do you see? How do you feel? Tell us about your choice, but also a bit, what do you see the theater performance at the moment? Well, first is just really great to share space with everybody. And I feel like I'm a little bit interrupting the flow here, but I'll say a little bit if I tie it back into what people are saying. I mean, the live in person experience is awesome. I mean, it's great to be there in the room. And I'm really, you know, I hope all of us meet someday, but even then it's great to connect with everyone in a certain kind of way. I guess I got, I have two things that people have talked about. I mean, on the one hand, I'm Malcolm invoke this idea of a tradition and I'm really invested in that. I mean, during the pandemic, I finished my dissertation partially because I lost all my other jobs. And so I needed to like get this professional credential. And I think a lot about the history of black art in the United States and Amiri Baraka is an Audrey and Kennedy are incredibly important figures. And I really see, you know, that's my birthday twin. Sorry. What'd you say? That's my birthday twin. We have the same birthday. Really? Me, yeah, me and Amiri Baraka. And I mean, I feel like I'm just, I'm still catching up, you know, to where he's been. And, you know, Fred Moten has been a huge help in that regard, not personally just through the writing and stuff like that. So I'm really interested in these traditions. I'm really interested in how that tradition continues. You know, when I was in graduate schools, MFA student, the story of the avant-garde was very European and very white. And you just cannot think about the avant-garde worldwide without blackness. I mean, the avant-garde for me really begins with the spirituals that the enslaved black people in the United States began. I mean, it was a creation that broke down the barrier between artists and audience. It was a response to the most horrific labor conditions you can possibly imagine. It was a mixture of high and low. I mean, that is it. That is, I feel like everything I do is a derivative of that thing that they created. And the other thing that really interests me about that, and so for me, that's more important than Wagner or more important than the symbolist. I mean, now we're getting into all kinds of academic stuff, but seeing that story and that sweep is just absolutely critically important to me and it tracks all the way to the present and into the future where people like the artists gathered here are moving it far, far afield of where I can see. But the other thing I'd say on that note is, you know, I'm interested in practices that are not just about an autonomous work of art that are about using the work as a way to heal or share as opposed to extract and collect value. You know, I mean, and so Hildegard von Bingen is that for me and this tradition that Baraka emanates from and returns to and Adrienne Kennedy and Reza Abdo and, you know, Marlon Riggs, me if we're going in other directions and Tragil Harrell and et cetera, et cetera. So I've been really excited because I feel like in the last two years I've seen more and more work that's not content to just be a work of art and people who are more and more committed to not just being an artist. And whether, in fact, it is, what, okay, so I'll say something just really basic, really quick is whatever. I mean, right now I work in the nonprofit industrial complex, right? That's how I make a living because I have to make the living. I think most people do, some people don't, good for them, but like, you know, and in that job I'm doing a little bit of reform every day just to keep the thing from fucking falling apart, right? I'm trying to pay people fairly and I'm doing an okay job. And, but ultimately there's a horizon in which we need to make an exodus from this thing. We got to get out of the nonprofit industrial complex. And so how to work at that intersection of reform and exodus and the practice of abolition, I mean, that is keeping me up at night and it should, but in any case that's what I'm thinking and feeling. I hope I didn't steal too much with a really great energy in the room. No, I think, you know, Pridut isn't at least a forum. We try to really listen to new ideas and hopefully also it's a little platform. We put you up very at the beginning, you know, but anything you want to add or say to it. Oh, I've said too much. I'm just grateful that what- No, no, no, no, not David. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought you were talking to me. Sorry, I'll mute. Sorry. No, I'm just absorbing, just absorbing. Like, I guess this time has really made me question the United States why I'm here, why I went to this place in the first place. I grew up in Vietnam for like 17 years and I left home and kind of thinking about war stuff and how it still percolates in my life. Yeah, the pandemic does allow that to happen for me. And I don't want to extract it yet. I don't want to exploit that work for art yet. So it's just trying to keep them separate for now. Sorry, I'm going all over the place. No, no, that's good. And you said your body was really in a way as a movement if your body was profoundly affected by- Yes, yes, I don't know. I like have thyroid issues. My mom also has thyroid issues. So there's been like that sort of maternal connection that I, yeah, returned to, through many ways. It's like my body is forced to return to it. I have a question for Ann because I love you. And I just want to ask you the question that you asked someone that I feel like will always resonate with me. Do you believe that abstraction belongs to white people? And as a person who lives in a canonization of shit like Kung Fu Kenny and Nicki Minaj, Chung Lee, and Wu Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with, but you know what do you think about Asian-ness and blackness as a marriage of abstraction? That's a heavy question. I don't know. I mean, definitely I don't think abstraction belongs to white people, but I think they invent a certain kind of abstraction and then monopolize on it for sure. That's all neutrality, pureness, formalism. And I feel like war is a pretty abstract thing, don't you think, like, trauma, things that you inherit. And I think I make abstract work and I look up to, although yeah, I'm definitely in the canon of that white abstraction, so I don't know. Can't divorce from that per se. No, but I guess I'm trying to squeeze out like, well, what do you think about that in the relationships of Asian and blackness? I mean, I was in love with the Cambodian person and we would talk about that all the time because I would always feel like, why am I not seen, you know? Like, why am I not seen, but also our coaches have been, you know, complexly intertwined since the 70s, since fucking blackization films, since that mixture of like, you know, since that mixture of what sort of that canon that fortunately, unfortunately Kung Fu did, like Kung Fu films did, to then how that reached over to shit like Jet Li and Aaliyah, you know, to have that. Like, you know, like I remember studying with, oh my God, his last name is Bennett, but he was like one of the founders of the House of Ninja. So he was like friend with Willa Ninja and he was talking about how Willa Ninja just watch a lot of Kung Fu movies. And created these vocabularies that are abstracted from this like white exotic gaze into Asian-ness. And he created something out of it. And I hope, you know, Chen Li could do that. I hope like, I hope things, I believe in getting things wrong. I don't believe in getting cultural rights. I don't believe in authenticity. Oh, the white people get it too wrong, I think. Oh, right, right, yeah, right. And I think that's so visceral too. Yeah, and it's like very exploitative. And it's very like, the getting wrong comes also with like exploitation, comes with primitivity, like all those things, like they think of you as inferior. I think there's, I'm dealing with that inferiority very viscerally these days. Whereas I feel like in those exchange between Asian-ness and blackness, something, of course, the power is not flat, but I think there's more capaciousness and generosity. And you can get things wrong, I don't know. I think that's what you need. A question to you all, I mean, I heard it was about healing. David talked about a kind of a change that we'll have to catch up to things that already happen, I think you all said, the personal, the private space and the common space, do you all feel that this is a time, is that a time of change at the moment? Is to feel your work you're doing, is there something different? I do, I do what I don't. Like what I wanted to say to Ann, like the last thing was I filmed my piece inside of the Asian Arts Initiative here in Philadelphia. It's like a, it's a building that's owned by Ann Ishii. If you ever come to Philly, I will introduce you to her. She's Dope as Fuck and she runs the Asian Arts Initiative in Philly and it's like a mini black box and a beautiful gallery and they do stuff for the community and it's right like in like Chinatown but like a little bit out of it so that it's just sort of be in that world. And she's dope and she's really like thinking, like we just always have these conversations about Asianness and blackness, you know, she's from LA originally. So that, you know, it's a different, like that's always a different thing, but yeah. And to just answer, yeah, like yes or no, like I think because, you know, like because, because like the universe is so fucked up and vast, I don't know. I don't know if, if like changes is like happening because for me financially, I need to fucking feel it. Like I need like reparations. I need fucking more fucking money. Like I just need to know what you mean. I'm like, like, I guess the only way I'm gonna ever feel it is when I can take my mama and my papa somewhere and fucking put them up and like, let them feel like they can fucking die gracefully. You know what I mean? Like, you know, like those are the things that to me really compact change. Right now it's still the fight. You know, it was just a fucking brutal ass battle, you know? And I don't think it's over yet per se. I don't think the change will happen until we start actually really seeing that financially, institutionally, like until it's really in our pockets and it's in our houses and we're all wearing hoes, you know, like, you know what I mean? So it's more like that for me. Yeah, what do you all think? I mean, you just jump in. Well, I'm gonna piggyback off of that because, you know, I, you know, growing up was really rough for me understanding identity, like as a first generation American person and being labeled African American and black and it was just new to me and also like the sensation of it all. I really truly had to like learn who I was. I think I just discovered who I truly am like in two years, like ago or like right the second. Like it's just so important, like, you know, and then going to institutions to study dance and not really be told how to survive with it but like giving you all this old information that like really doesn't pertain to me. Having a professor literally say out his mouth, like, oh, I can tell by your feet that you had slaves for ancestors and that didn't flinch. Really? Institution that I'm paying for, like just like things like that. And then really wanted to get out and really wanted to share myself and share all my emotions when in fact like nobody cares about me. Like at the end of the day and like I don't have ownership of my own temple as a mover. And so like the pandemic just really helped me realize that there's always more work to be done but like specifically how still everything is. Like nothing is based off innovation and innovation is kind of like harvested and saved for certain spaces that aren't black. You know what I mean? And that if one thing I can do to heal myself and heal people that look like me and to give back to people who will resonate with my work without fear like is to create and the power of creation, you know? And it's like all the balance that brings in your everyday. Like if you're constantly thinking about these like little pockets of transitions in life, you know, like then you see it in the real world, you see it in the instinctual world, the animal world. And like we just kind of like we're just operating so far away from that right now. And like the pandemic has just checked our ass so hard and like some people can accept that and some people can't. And the people that can't accept that they're kind of being left behind because like people really want to move forward. Like everyone's tired of this shit. It doesn't make sense, but he just stopped acting like we know what we know when all we know is what we know, you know what I mean? Like we don't know, we only know things we can prove but like there's so much more to be known and we don't even have the capacity to think that large yet. So that's where I'm at, you know? Healing to be open as a channel as a vessel to like be open to new information. And we seem to like build information as opposed to just like really realize that it's on us and in us and through us. Daisy, yeah. Yeah, just wow, so much to absorb here. And I was thinking about, yeah, to piggyback on that our relationship to the unknown and how, yeah, a pandemic can really check us and show us that there's so little that we know and when we become dogmatic and certain about things that turns really fucking evil really fast. You know, turns real bad real fast. And since I am, you know, then coming from this tradition then of like mystics, white mystics in this, this very Catholic tradition, you know, and thinking about their relationship to the unknown and why is this relevant today? And, you know, I think Hildi was, she was very humble about what was coming through her and she knew that it could be interpreted in a lot of different ways. And thinking about also Gregory of Nissa who is another mystic somewhat in her tradition and he talked about meeting God in this cloud of unknowing. So like literally you can't see anything you're inside of this cloud. It's like it's blinding white or blinding gray, whatever it is. And if there is to be change and positive change from this time, I think it will be through and hopefully it is and I see it in many artists like through this very humble relationship with the unknown and willing to transform oneself through that willing to let go of many, many, many certainties and to do that in a space of love which I think is what a lot of the mystics said anyway. So that's, thank you all so much for like how fantastic this congo is, thank you. I wish people could be like that, could have such a capacious relationship to the unknown because I don't know, I don't think anything has changed. It's like this past few months is like people start performing again and everybody goes back to their old habits and just crunch things out, put people in the seeds or put people online, produce, produce, produce. I don't know, it's like, why did you not learn any lessons? But I mean, yeah, I've been in psychoanalysis these days so four times a week that would be and it's very clear, it's a traumatic. Yeah, we just lost you in case you can hear us. Can you guys hear him? No, I'm coming back, I'm coming back. Yes. But yes, I was talking through traumatic repetition. So I'm actually more interested in how we don't change than being obsessed with changing, changing, changing, because I don't think change happens that often. Well, change really requires everyday action, like initially from the moment you rise out of your slumber to like, even in your daily, you know, and it's like crazy to like really witness how humans really identify change as something else when in fact it like really just sits in your own space, you know, like you have to move forward. You have to like make a choice to do something different for someone else. And like, it's just crazy that that concept is glorified and also just like, you know, put in a box with a ribbon on it, there's so many things wrong with that. But like, you know, once again, this is why I think it's so important that people know movement, not movement as dance and performance, but movement as like survival to like get you to the next day. You did not cross the street when you were two years old without looking both ways and people don't know how to do that right now as grown adults, you know what I mean? So just like facilitating change actually requires more than the idea of action, but the actual idea of doing like physically moving your organs to do the thing that you said you were going to do and keep your word to say that, like that's it, you know? Yeah, I just want to add, oh no, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. No, welcome, go. Malcolm, yes. I guess like, yeah, a lot of things are like resonating with me because it's like, yeah, I guess I've been in this for like questions since the pandemic of, I guess just like, I guess how is the institution showing up for me? And I guess like it really like the pandemic like really proves who like all these institutions was pulling like the labor from. And like even, yeah, even in these spaces that like, you know, say we're prone to, yeah, I mean, we can't take it to like a virtual space, but it's like, oh, the places that was like when it was like actually running the people that was on the front lines was like, you know, black and POC, that was like most vulnerable to like COVID-19, but yeah, I guess I'm just thinking of like even after the like pandemic of like people just like losing their, I don't want to say like shows, but like losing their crafts and the institutions like not showing up and offering like any compensation or like any relief. And luckily like it has been like, quote unquote, some relief, but it's like, oh, why do I have to go to an application process to apply for like, you know, something I need? But yeah, I've been, I guess I was answering Frank's question about change or, but yeah, everything was like resonating. I don't want to be like here blabbing and blabbering. No, what you're saying is, I mean, what I was going to say is so over the pandemic too, and through my process of like, I guess healing through what I did throughout the pandemic and this relationship and things like that. I started reading Sadiah Hartman's beautiful, We Were Lies Beautiful Experiments. And it just was really, was one of the most resonating things here because I was based in Philly and I'm basically essentially everywhere in New York, Connecticut is where I'm from, Maine. So I can be based up there if I wanted to. So it's hard because a lot of my work sort of lives in the ether of this sexual migration and so much of We Were Lies was about, I guess, how did black people actually regain intimacy after slavery? Like what did it look like to be touched, to behold, when your body was literally, like not a body, it wasn't, you know what I mean? Like you didn't understand organs, like you don't have doctors, you know? And it also traced the lineage of rape of women and how a woman could be raped 12 times in a day, you know what I mean? In those times. So it was really, it was really brutal and beautiful because to be wayward is to be vigilantly, constantly sort of pruning your body. Your body is not even an actual organ, like vessel. And you know, it's like we've sort of just now got to understanding what maybe being a vessel for something could be like, because all of that shit was a simulation for what we're like, compacting ourselves into right now. And so that's why for me, like when I look at my body, I'm always trying to think about how liberation is like constantly like happening. Like in order for me to be liberated, I have to resist ever being loved or ever being sort of like fantasized by society because to be liberated is to sort of always be constantly breaking the chain. It's to constantly be to be like moving yourself away from the gaze, you know what I mean? And like that is like that was, you know, that's just really interesting to me while being here and being alive is that like I understand death and that I, you know, just from being a young person, I understood that I have to die and that is a real reality. And yeah, and so because of, you know, intergenerational legacies and I make a lot of art with people who are in their 60s or in their 70s, I just look at it very differently too as well, you know, and just think about that relationship of cultural competency, connectivity, but also from a sexual lens, which yeah, that's just my frame. David. I don't know how much I have to add. I mean, I think what I've been inspired by has been the efforts and ongoing efforts to organize and to share and the ways in which, I'll give you a new example. As Frank, you know, she had him on Siegel talks, you know, Chris Myers and a group of other the actor based in a group of other comrades that formed a working group, ongoing working group called anti-capitalism for artists. And I think that's just incredible that people are not siloing race, gender, sexuality, class, but the level of critique and analysis and organizing around shared structures that are slowly killing people has been just night and day in a lot of ways, at least in a certain kind of public sphere. So that's been really inspiring, but man, it's hard for me not to also see as everyone else already mentioned, like the really devastating continuities. And I think what's really hard, I mean, Malcolm, you talked about like applying for relief, right? What's really hard is like, it's really easy. Okay, so I'm on the other side now, the nonprofit industrial complex because I run this small theater in Maine that, you know, I'm trying to keep working. And on the one hand it's like, yeah, it's good that we offer relief, but the condition of possibility for that is that it makes you an individual, right? The institution individuates people when otherwise this wealth should be shared and not, oh, are you good enough to get this? Do you know what I mean? And it's the same thing for, it also applies to the same thing about the police, right? The police are here to separate us from our social wealth. The condition of possibility for carceralism is the individuation of what otherwise should be an ongoing shared social life. Okay, so why am I saying all this? Because, you know, defund the police absolutely, cops off campus, absolutely, as someone who's taught in a university. But the majority of policing that happens on a college campus happens in the classroom by faculty. And the same thing is true of the nonprofit theater. The majority of the policing that happens in the nonprofit theater happens by administrators, especially including me. And that's the thing that like, I have to be vigilant about speaking for myself. And I think that's so hard for the institution to change because the structures in which these things have got up from which capital is hoarded and extracted and which people see things. I mean, it's really difficult to understand. And I don't wanna say, I don't wanna complain here about it's really hard for people who are nonprofit ministers. Not the hard thing is Arian said is wanting your parents to die with dignity. That's fucking hard, right? How to fundraise from the Ford Foundation is nothing compared to that challenge. But, you know, at the same time as part of my job, I'm just figuring out how to triangulate those two things. How to get, whatever levers I got to pull, how can I get a little bit closer to that? So the people around me that I share space with that create for me and show up that their parents and their family can stop dying a little bit less. So that was a rant, but that's, you know. Just a question to all of it. What could, what would really help? Or what are examples? What really, what could make a difference? Or what do you guys need? Or what does our society need? Or our city of New York, you know, where people go back to performance. What do we need? Meaning what you fucking say. Following up with what you, ah, it's just like, all you have to do is follow through to care about someone else and then do it. That's it. Like no facades, no portfolios, no applications. If you really say you care about this thing, then care about it. Is this that different? I mean, just that simple. Like whatever insecurities you have about you, you cannot project that into a situation when it's about others. That's it. Fix your shit. It's your responsibility. And you can't hide behind money. You can't hide behind clothes. You can't hide behind art. Just deal with it in a space. And then when somebody's in a space who knows how to deal with it, don't treat them like they're fucking crazy. Cause like you watch all these people on the street. My, you know, my grandfather was homeless here in New York city and he knew five languages and he used to be rich, but he was generous and he gave so much till he was empty and he literally died empty. And like just mean what you say. If everyone was doing the same thing people would be training reaction. And I still haven't seen any perfect example of that yet. And everything I've ever known in my existence and my life as being an American citizen has all been lies. Everything, everything has been a lie. So I'm just waiting for some truth. And if I'm sitting here trying to figure out truth, I just, I demand truth. And that's it. Like I'm not gonna sit here and be gaslit anymore, you know? People are not great at telling the truth. Like it's not actually a skill that's taught and it's not actually something that goes over so well in the company of others in any way. Like telling the truth is kind of dangerous business. And, you know, I was just thinking about, you know, this business model of like, you know, under promise and over deliver, which is like kind of a nice way to go about in your life. And I was thinking also about what Onset about seeing a lot of art institutions, establishments, clubs, places like going back up now, kind of like the way it was before. And seeing that, like seeing that on social media and being, I question myself, I'm like, is it just cause I'm shy or I'm like jealous of it or is it FOMO or being a little bit disturbed by that? Being like, I can't just go and start back up in full swing. I'm not there, I'm not there with it. So yeah, the truth. And I think what we're supposed to be doing with art is telling the truth in some way. And that can look like so many different things. And, you know, to quote what's been said in here too, this idea of like just moving, just moving is a way of telling the truth. Actually, it's not talking, it's not thinking, it's not promising, it's just moving. And for me, when I'm getting goosebumps saying this, for me, that's like just open your mouth and fucking sing. Bring somebody else into it, it's just singing. If I sing, I want them to, thank you. I mean, if I sing, I'm going to change the energy of my physical body and myself around me, right? Same thing, so it's just, we have to do the thing. Just do the thing. Do the thing, do the thing, do the thing. That is telling the truth, right? In some way, we have to check that too, always, but it's just moving. Sorry, I really loved that, thank you. I was piggybacking off of you, so thank you. Bless. Malcolm, what do you feel, what does it need to be? I guess, I felt that, there's no one answered to that question, obviously, but I think institutions can start things like reparation funds and just even say, yeah, the artists that they do support have access to a reparations fund, because I'm thinking of how, well, me specifically, like being like this downtown experimental dancer, whatever, like how a lot of these places were built off of slave labor and these churches having slave galleries and being a part of these spaces and I guess knowing that and being aware and being conscious of if I enter this space, it can conjure up anything inside of me and my body. I think the mining is also resonating with me because I'm also from New York and it's like, yeah, just being in New York and always being in this space of I have to produce something, I have to be doing, I have to be this machine, but the radical act being like, oh, giving myself permission to rest or even thinking of like, yeah, I don't have this like access to capital that I can possibly be homeless in a given moment and like die when I enter my name. So yeah, I'm thinking of all these things, but I feel like, I mean, yeah, there's no one answer, but I feel like, yeah, if you are in a space to give resources of considering like what does a reparation fund look like, especially for a black artist, and if it's like, you know, if you produce a show and you know, yeah, I don't know, it's all, it's not tricky, but I guess like one step forward is in a better direction than yeah, there's constant cycle of like white supremacy and patriarchy just like killing us. Yeah, in thinking about reparation, I'm like, I've been thinking a lot about how really amazed that this one war that we grew up in Vietnam, and not just the war, like the spirit of sacrifice. Like that's how we won the war, you know, like we sacrificed whereas here people give up like philanthropic generosity. That's their relationship to the other. Like here's something, take it. Like there's no sense of cultural sacrifice and not just the US, I really think the West with this individuation and it's just so brutal. And I know I wish my work could somehow access these rich people and like give them a sacrificial ritual and like make them give up something. But I don't know how to do that. Otherwise these people are just gonna hoard. Just hoard, hoard, hoard, and they give when they want and they give out a fraction of what they have. Yeah, I feel the same. I feel like what we need is access, resources, sustainability, foundation, access. The ability to have shelter, transportation, food, water, sleep, toilet paper, you know, resources. All the rich white people that you know that fund the JFK Center at Asalaka Lika and all of the things that they be funding all around the world, resources, you know what I mean? You know, sustainability. The ability to let my parents die with dignity and that my aunties and my uncles and the grandchildren and the nieces and nephews after me can have a life better than me, sustainability, foundation. The ability to build, but not just to build institutionally but financially, spiritually, leisurely to have rest as a root of foundation, to have love as a root of foundation, you know? But we'll see. And then, yeah, you know, and then as an artist, we'll just take it to the next level. You know what I mean? I think as artists we just are meant to take shit to the direct source of the human that needs to feel it, you know? It's like, oh, you don't really understand this really brutalized, you know, idea. Like, you don't understand the poetics of health, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like, you know? So it's like, I gotta bring you directly to it, you know? And that's the beauty, I guess, of that. And I mean, I just also wanna say thank y'all too because this festival has, you know, it's a little history. I know Marina has also been a part of this festival. I love it, yeah. Yeah, you know, so it's like, it's interesting that we are like connected in this narrow lineage of people like Marina, you know what I mean? And now we're here, you know, doing something that isn't about going beyond it, it's just about the trend, it's about the how it transcended, you know what I mean? It's about itself to, you know, to where it is to me personally, yeah. Malcolm, I think you had your head hand up if I saw that right. I was scratching the back of my neck with this. No. You didn't need to hand it back, I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, so then I'll say sign. Go ahead. No, go, go. No, no, no, Malcolm, come on, go, Malcolm, go. No, no, I'll come back around, go. No. So then I guess I have a question for you, Martin, like how do you want to see the world change drastically, but also someone, like I guess I'm speaking from an intergenerational standpoint, like how do you feel about witnessing a lot of the world change time and time again and the brutalisticness of it, but also like did you even really see it? When did you see it? When did you decide to see it if you saw it? You know what I mean? Wait, who was that question for? It was for Frank. Oh, sorry, Frank. Yeah, you said Martin. Martin, sorry, I said Martin. I'm sorry, I was thinking about Martin to God. I figured, but like, it was the only one. Thank you. Thank you, Giovanni. The spirit is here, it's there. I was like, Martin, his name is Martin, to me. It's a good question, it's a good question. I mean, I was in Berlin when the wall came down the day when it happened. Okay. When it was announced, I saw that. I was here when, you know, the 20 hours when they fell down, I saw that. And I think also prelude, corona is something which is a fundamental change that has happened. It has already happened. I think we might not be aware of it. And we are worried, you know, I feel like the big might get bigger and the smaller places get smaller at the moment that actually that what that change should bring as David pointed out and on and Daisy, you know, that it should actually be a time to learn something. What have all these people died for, you know, if not to learn from it what his life is about. And so I do think that something fundamental at the moment is happening. I think you guys are artists are, you know, anticipating the future. You put your finger on something. We barely live in the presence of normal people but artists often anticipate what is coming. And it's a bit gruesome a lot, what we see, what we hear, what we feel. And I think the ideas of movement through body and healing of Daisy or people singing, singing songs, moving to music. I think to bring people together in circles, but not as feeding the machine. I think you all talked about that, you know, that there's a big machine and the machine is hungry but you're part of it. And you also work for about to say, no, we should not feed the machine. We should actually sabotage it. Sabo was the idea for wooden shoes. I think that's the name people throw at French workers in the machines and they stopped. And I think we have to understand that perhaps theater is, you know, fighting against the idea what a commercial theater really is and not try to get into it. And I do hope that there will be something that there is something at the moment that is changing. We closed basically our center. I really don't know what we're gonna do in the upcoming year. I feel we maybe have to reach out and do work in the parks or create a city-wide festival. We're gonna talk about it. But I feel strongly, we all feel strongly something visible have to change. If we don't change, who else will? Who, if artists are not part of it, who else will it can't be that the Michael Jackson musical coming back up again is a sign that, you know, all is good? So yeah, so I don't know. I wish I had good answer, but I feel we are in profound in a time moment of profound change. And that's why I think the idea of the 12 curators or 13 inviting all these others that perhaps we can give some answers. We might not be able to do that if they're right away, but you guys and who he listened to you and to really being open and listening to what you say. I think this is important and it's a first step. It's a small step. We are tiny also in the like a homeopathic pill in the big body of American theater or America in itself. But I feel we do something here that is different. We changed it through our structure and it's a little sign for it. Is it good enough? I do not know, but for me part of change is to really listen to what you all say. We need some money and I'm joking. I'm joking, we got paid. Yeah, I mean, we are a very small organization that's fairly surviving, but we pay, you know, I think a relatively good amount. And we also with the award we're gonna give out to Shadeh from the National Blacks Theater. We give a real support. So we really are trying. It's a very, very large amount. And we don't even know the theater of our own, we had a university, so it's easier. But the public universities are terribly underfunded. You know, David will know if you go to, you know, I think Harvard University has $56 billion in endowment. I don't know if CUNY has 10 million, that must be a lot of 20 for 20 colleges. And there is a real imbalance here. And they still asked for a long-term full tuition for people to study acting, to create art. It's shocking. You know, I think universities also have to change, as David did say. But I would like to know what inspired you in the time now of the corona? What got you through that? What made you change? You're thinking, did these things change? Did it confirm or was there something what you saw, what you did, what you read, what you listened to, what you moved to, or what you created that was meaningful? Um, so the world stopped and the uncertainty first, but then still, like, you know, waking up that day to those videos of, you know, George Floyd and that Sandra Park woman. And like, just being like, you just can't get a break. You know, like really just like, because, you know, before you would say these stories and they're just like kind of flushed out all the time and no one listens to you, you know, like you experience these things with people you know. I'm actually experiencing something right now with people who like don't really realize they're inherently racist and that, you know, saying that you're a black-owned restaurant with no black people working there and then there's only to be one is problematic. You know, just like things like that. Small pocket of spaces. Anyway, waking up that day and just like being truly disrespected, just like feeling that everything I fought for means nothing as it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. You know, like we own nothing. We only own the time that we are gifted being here. We have no understanding of our consciousness and what that means. And we don't even know how to relate to each other. So that really is what pushed me to do what I've been doing. And like this project was actually came right before the pandemic. And I was like, how fitting was this when I was like questioning, who are you really? What should hits the fan? I don't want to know who you are when you want to grab drinks or grab dinner. We want to hee-hee-ha-ha all the time, ki-ki. Like who are you really? Like if the world was sinking into a hole and there was a fence, are you going to help me over the fence? Are you going to teach me how to climb the fence? Like let me know who you really are when it's a moment of life or death. Because you know, we have all this time to think about it in this safe space of America where we are on top of the world, all that shit. But I'm like, I can't think about the amount of people that haven't had time to save their own selves from someone else's shit. You know, like bombs are being dropped on their head. You know, like kids are fucking like literally bone thin. I like watch a video of like a kid that was so hungry that they were eating their own nails. And then we have all this food here. I mean, this is too much. That's what woke me up that day. And I was like, this is something I already knew. But like just while how disrespectful for it to still be a thing. And like I have to sit here and watch that for 10 minutes. And that could have been me. And as someone that grew up in a police system, like I was a 71st precinct explorer, which meant like I was basically training to become a cop. I'm at a certain point, but I did all the drills and the camping and all of that stuff. And I'm in those costs were lovely to have that mindset to then go, oh, I'm college and I'm polished to then go me being beat down by five, six, five men, and then being made fun of, like as I'm bleeding and then literally making fun of me. And the one black person in the precinct was a black woman and she couldn't even look me in my face. And I was like, oh, oh, this is what justice is. I'm literally limping because my IT band is shot because that punched me so hard. And they're like, why are you limping? My IT band is shot. What's an IT band? I'm like, oh, so you touching bodies out here. You don't even know anatomy. And I had to fucking, you know what I mean? This is what got me up and it's gonna keep me up because I have zero tolerance. It's irresponsible. I don't care what you look like or who you are, you know? Like there is motion for humanity to do better. Just do better. Just be better. Just be more curious or seek more inquisition, like have more conversations, you know? Like, if you're scared of it, admit that you're scared of it. Like, I don't know what's so hard about that. And if it's the emotion and the sensation, then you need to move your body. You need to sing a song. You need to write something down. I don't know what to tell you, you know? And also when you see Second Skin Imposter, you're gonna feel that shit because it's beautiful. And not just that, it's beautiful. It's like, it's weird when you have an artist who feels so interconnected to very radicalistic shit, but then can transform it into a wave that's like completely refined and distilled and direct and just the modalities within the movement and the ways in which the dancers are like in the frame and the ways in which they shake the frame and the body and the way that Damani literally choreographs these fucking human beings that are just like elegant strings of time into these very neutralistic, toned, weird shape people, to avoid you attaching any other personality besides the personality or the mentality that Damani wants you to be within, you know? That's just hard and that's just beautiful. And that's why when you watch it, Second Skin Imposter, at the prelude in YC, you're gonna see that shit is dope. It's incredible and the angles and the camera, it's rich as fuck, it's cinematic as fuck, it's luxurious, it's sun, you know what I mean? And I have to just apply it like it looks that way, but I'm really good at making something from nothing. That's all I'll say. So yeah, I mean, I'm very happy. Sorry, Malcolm, did you, what you're saying? Something. Hey, you keep running. Hey. You keep running, I saw through. Malcolm, what did you say? Or Daisy. Yeah. I can say something. Yeah, I guess while Ariad and Damani was talking, I kind of want to have her flash back through like Emia, but in a good way of just being like, I guess I was of that coming of age of like, I kind of don't remember anything or like, but I remember like these two individuals as like, I guess for these like experiences and the camp that like shifted me, like I feel like I wouldn't remember like a lot of any of the other people, but I guess it was like, I guess it was in conversation into, I guess just their ability to be present, but also I guess like within like this, not camp, but within like these like set of movements of like how they kind of like surpass that or like, yeah, just like the shapes was just like very like particular and like different, but like stood out. I hope I'm making sense, but. Yeah, it's complex as you're saying, as many say, but what do you think it is? Develop into like what it is now. Again, it just has this like, yeah, this futuristic like, yeah, not in this normal sphere, but yeah, you know, yeah, I love you a little bit closer to the end of the second session, but my question is you all created work actually and people put you out, Q and A state, what these artists have to say is meaningful with what you created now, what we see in extra bits of work in progress, of course the real piece will come later, but what is your whole, what do you feel, what contribution camera should it make? I don't think there's an answer to that. I think we all make art for different reasons. I think the overall umbrella concept of art making and art providing is to affect. Now, we don't have any control of like how it's going to affect because people will receive it as they receive it, but you know, there's something about like, there's a reason why artists are poor. It's like, you know, we see life in the way that, like we think about possibility and you know, hoping that, you know, we change someone else's lives to get out this mundane thing that you think you have to do put us like a capitalism and capitalism isn't survival, you know, like we don't need it, but like here we are participating in it and just to be free from that, to imagine worlds, to broaden the sense of imagination for the greater humanity, like on the backend where it's like this sort of energetic thing and this kind of hopeful thing, I don't, yeah, I don't think there's an answer to that. Like, you know, like it's just like the hope that it will make sense and that like culture, if it is perceived as culture that it will be respected and cared for, soaked in and shared and then also self-experience. Like I want you to go do something too, you know, like it's not about me telling you how I'm seeing the world. It's like, no, this is how I see the world through all of our eyes, you know, so. You wanna say something? I mean, I don't know. I just wanna bring back some sense of religion, not even like spiritual movements, devotion, which is hard to video, but I think the theater is a little more conducive to that, to be honest, surprisingly. Yeah, as I said, I would love to facilitate a sacrificial ritual, so if you know anybody who is a good fit, let me know. I think. I also wanted to, I didn't wanna get too heavy into that conversation, but you know, I have a specific relationship with Asian culture that I'm so disconnected from, but so connected to, because my grandfather was from Macau and you know, he died before I could ever even learn about that past. And when I lived in Shanghai for a month and a half, I felt more at home there than I did here in America. And when I came back to America, I was kind of like, wow, that's so crazy that I was conditioned to think that China was dirty, China, you know, like, you know, like, you know, just like all these things and communism and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I stayed in this whole ass very, very humble motel and it was literally next to a slum and those people walked out with dignity and clarity, like looking better than me in suits, even though it was a slum right there, you know what I mean? And I was just like, oh, like, we are about the thing that Daisy said, I forgot, like overproducing under all of that. And I was like, you know, but I'm like, but I felt so at home there. And like the racism that I, if it was, I don't even know if I could call it racism because like the racism there is definitely nothing compared to anything I've experienced here. You know what I mean? Like it's inquisition. They're like, they don't have many black people. They have questions. They don't know how to ask the questions because, you know, imperialism, communism, blah, blah, blah, staying in a lane, blah, blah, blah, whatever. It just makes sense. Whereas here it's like, it's actually hate, you know? Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you because it's like something like that's gonna be a life journey for me. Maybe Daisy, we're gonna hear you tonight, right? It's seven o'clock. You will be one of the performances here. Each day at seven o'clock we have one life element. It's online, but it's live. You can actually see, I think, all 13, 14 presentations right away on the web. You can look at it. But Daisy, what's your hope? When we click on tonight and we listen to you, what do you imagine for your audience? Well, I'm just really into ecstatic states and I wanna take you with me. I just want you to come. I don't know if you will or not. I don't know. I don't know what will happen, but I mean, I think, yeah, ritual, the word ritual has been mentioned, but I think sacred music is really important, not just as somebody who, it's important for sacred music to feel like it belongs to a lot of people or everybody. It's not just like this performative thing. And I feel like what I do with Hildegard sort of has two prongs, I do perform it, but I also do bring people into it all the time. I want people to sing with me. It's not complete for me unless other consciousnesses, other people are brought into it. Maybe Hildegard will show up. I don't know, sometimes she does. Sometimes she's like, hey, what's up? I'm here. And so yeah, ecstatic states. And it was funny, I was thinking about this answer and then I was like, God, is that frivolous? Is that a frivolous answer? And I was like, no, no, it's not. There's pleasure in that. There is an element of the unknown in that. There is, there can be hopefully humility in that. There are questions about it. There's a transformation or possibly transformative experience. And that's really, oh my God, that's really saying a lot about tonight. I just wanna have a really great conversation with David tonight and sing a little bit. Those are the things that I would like to happen. But overall, that's kind of what this project is about for me. Yeah, and I love how it became like over-generated. It's under promise and over-deliver. Yeah, yeah. It's not a corporate speak, but yeah, it's like so, it's so deep, I think about it all the time. And Damani said, what's really happening, people under-promise, over-promise and under-deliver, right? She said the opposite. That's what's happening. We have about five more minutes, Malcolm and David or Aaron, something that you still, I mean, you create work. That's why we feel Prado is a celebration of the art. It's so hard to make art anywhere in the world, but in New York, it is especially. And for you guys, especially with everything what we heard about, you know, so, what's, I mean, for me, I know this. I have a live show. I'm about to do plugs because it's like 122. So I'm plugging it. I just wanna say, shout out, Thompson from Mars, shout out Hilton Palmer, shout out Kevin Hernandez Rosa, shout out Nicholas Serrambana, shout out Marisa Williamson, shout out Noah Michael Smith, shout out Hano Hano, who did some music out of Mexico, shout out Klein, who's this really dope sound artist in London, shout out Damani, shout out Malcolm, come see me perform in Philly in December, December 17th, 18th and 19th, the show was called Equators. It'll be at Icebox Project Space. It's about blackness and climate change and natural disasters. It's been a project that I've been doing since 2018. So yeah, you know, like that's my whole thing. Like, I might just come through and just try to see as much radical shit that you can fucking see and, you know, and like I wanna come out and see everyone's shit as much as I possibly can, but that's just what I needed to say last minute and just to plug it. And everyone shout out, you know, pray at the festival and watch Quinn Quinneal because it's dope, it's fucking weird as fuck, you know, even Quinn Quinneal is that shit. So yeah, cool. I'll just say, as a prelude alum, I'm really excited by this chain curing experiment. I think there's no other possibility in which this static, pissed off, fabulous configuration of artists would have come together. So that's really great. I've never been to Philly. So December sounds like a great time to go there. And I'll just say really briefly, you know, the two things I'm really working on or that I'm trying to move through and with or in my own, you know, the theater that I'm responsible for are fair labor conditions. That's my main priority for the next 12 months. I just started the job a couple of weeks ago. So finding every lever I can pull to get more money into the hands of artists and to have those artists bring their work and share their work with people who want to show up for each other the most. That's the most urgent thing in the register of reform that I'm working on. And then the larger longterm ongoing always project is to how to defend the chorus that Saidiah Hartman talks about in wayward lives, beautiful experiments. You know, it might be because I'm, I've been thrown into the historical social position of whiteness that I can't be a part of it, but I can help defend and I can show up even though, again, it may not, I may not be able to be included this historical juncture, but that book, you know, I just had to say it was really inspiring to me. And if anybody hasn't checked it out, it's called wayward lives, beautiful experiments by Saidiah Hartman. Probably one of the most important thinkers just thinking now forever, I don't know, you know, but it's a really extraordinary book about black women in New York and Philadelphia during the turn of the 20th century and how they survived these really brutal conditions and how they found intimacy and love and expression, all these things that Therian was talking about earlier. So it's really great. It's like the book that I use when I've sort of been making my latest work and when you come to Philly in December, I can bring you to where she was talking about 700 Lombard Street. Oh, yes. Where W.E.D. voice lives, they have his little thing where he lived and where he wrote the Philadelphia New Negro, which is a part of, you know, Saidiah Hartman's finding, you know, within that whole thing. Yeah, Du Bois is a really interesting character in that whole saga. Very funny, yes. And now again, since we are so close to the Malcolm, we did stretch our back this time, but say something and we're getting close. I'm two of you know, and you did both, you know, you're participating in Curate. So tell us, what's your, if there is something hopeful or something where you say this is, why you do this? Yeah. I normally make my own work. I was like picked by now Harris and we've been working like closely together. But he curated on, yeah, I guess like this curation seems like, I guess like a given back or like an offering to like, you know, my community. And I feel like, I guess that's what the chain of curation like has created. I think David said it, I guess this, we wouldn't be in the same room if it wasn't having like these like, I guess like mean and full dialogue, yeah, between like the works and the conversations. Yeah, I feel like there's obviously a shift that happens since the pandemic, but I feel like with these, it gives us the space of possibility to show up where we are, as opposed to like having to show up to the institution that I can be in my home. So yeah, I guess I'm hopeful about that and interested to see how like they do like continues that. Yeah. And I think that's a great thing to say what we are doing, you know, what it is a meaningful dialogue, hopefully and a meaningful conversation. That's a big thing and that's important and meaningful listening, I think I would add. So really thank you all and we could go on much more. Each one of you could have been, I think, you know, a full session and to go a deeper, but we will go on and this is just an idea and to inspire, we will have the 12 noon panels going on through the week. Tonight at 4.30, Helen Shaw, the great Helen Shaw also was a theater critic who was a political one. She put together a panel with young critics, new collective that come together that also say we have to look differently and we have to write differently about theater. So it will be interesting. They just formed what they say and what change might mean to them. And then of course tonight at seven, Daisy. So we all can't wait and it would be great if Hilda God shows up and she is there and she is with you and she's a quite mystique and they're quite an important thinker and as everybody pointed out, they were moments in time, turn of the century or others, now is such a time of movement and we have to be in it and we also have to be the change we want to see. So and I hope that you also feel a bit inspired and through our prelude festival it really is a celebration of the work and to say this is what you guys do is important. This is a meaningful and significant contribution to the life of the city and it's not commercial and it's not out there to advance a career is what you do is real. It's significant what is artists struggling and sharing their experiences. So thank you all. Thanks again for the Segal team and I will see you hopefully some of you tomorrow but please all check that a prelude festival so much work went into it from all the curators. So I hope there's something that is meaningful to all of you. Thank you all and thank you to our listeners. I know how much is out there at the moment. When we started our Segal Talks last March there are very few conversations most people should repeat. Now there are so many conversations online and now we feel now we have to show work again. So it's a great privilege for us to host this really. Thank you all. I'm very thankful and onwards goodbye. Bye bye. Thank you. Thanks for you guys to take time.