 We're going to break this session down, we're going to introduce ourselves in just one minute, we're going to break this session down into a couple of different kind of compartments and we'll leave some time at the end to talk for questions and things like that. We are going to use the mics and if you have something to say, I'm going to run around and give you mics as well because the lovely hell round is live streaming this. So we'll make sure and be good about the microphones. So also just a little tiny piece of business, I'm going to, we really want to capture everyone's contact information, both TCG and the lab and GTI are trying to create a sort of networking system of people who are working in the international arts sector and instead of, I had this plan of doing like a really like elaborate like database in my computer and you would all sign in and then I didn't do that. So welcome to 1995 and here's some pieces of paper that you can fill out and like stick on this chair and I'll enter it all tonight. So thanks for doing that. So just so you know also this is this session goes until, pardon, oh yes I'm so sorry also there's an evaluation form on the app, kind of like rate this session and if you wouldn't mind when this session is over going on there and rating that and other sessions that you go to that would be super. Thanks for doing that. Clipboard icon next to whatever session you are at. Yes, great. Thanks Jordan. Also just so you know this session goes until 12.15 we're going to try to stop around noon for questions and then there'll be a short break but we're actually going to sort of continue the conversation. So if you do want to stay with us through the lunch session we'll continue to talk about things but we'll want to make sure that we invite people in that want to come in and those of you that want to go. Also Teddy Roger from the lab is going to be joining us so feel free to stick around just hang out with us for a couple of hours and talk about international work that'll be great. Okay so we'd also like to begin today by recognizing the indigenous people in place where we stand the Seminole and Mikosuki people as well as all of the indigenous people who have stewarded and traveled this land. So let's start with introductions so that you know a little bit about who we are we'll be really fast. I'm Julie Hendren. I'm the executive director of Tricklock Company. We are a 26 year old physical devised theater ensemble based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We do a lot of international work, international collaborations. We also tour quite a bit but we also run the global corridor program and the flagship event of that is the Revolutions International Theater Festival which is a three week cultural festival that happens in March. We bring companies from all over the world for performances and gatherings and workshops and things like that and 2020 is going to be our 20th festival. So yeah that's who I am. Woohoo. Good morning. My name is Joanne Ceele Glamparder. I prefer she, her and hers and I'm the director of education and community programs at Imagination Stage. Imagination Stage is a theater for young audiences outside of Washington DC and we are newer to international work but it has really been a formative part of some of the experience that our youth have experienced with us and I'm excited to share a little bit about some of the cultural exchanges we've had with youth and some of our international work has been a large part of our professional theater. I'm the founding artistic director of Golden Thread Productions. We're a theater company in San Francisco focused on the Middle East. We were founded in 1996 and from the very beginning we had free exchange with artists in the Middle East just through personal connections and contacts, guest directors, guest performers and I would say by mid-2000s it became more difficult so I'll get into that a little bit more. Our programs are Reorient Festival of Short Plays which happens every two years now and this year in October and November it will take place. We do a youth outreach program. We have collaborations and commissions for new full-length plays as well. Hi, I'm Jo Jo Roof, she-her-hers. I'm the managing director of Theater J which is based in the Jewish Community Center in Washington DC. I'm only four months into that job so when Julie and I first proposed this at the time I was the managing director of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics which is based at Georgetown University and we do a ton of international work. We bring international work to DC and sort of perform it both on Georgetown University's campus and within the DC community and then we also develop work and tour it internationally and I was also part of the founding of the Global Theater Initiative which is a partnership between the lab and TCG and participated in a bunch of different international collaborations and was knee-deep in visas for many many years so that is a lot of what I'll talk about. Hi, my name is Ravi Jain, I'm the founding artistic director of a theater company called Why Not Theater based in Toronto Canada. We're an international theater company. The work we make celebrates difference and challenges the status quo of what stories are being told and who gets to tell them. We basically do three things. We make and tour our work. We share our resources to support and develop the work of other artists who don't have an infrastructure and we provoke systemic change through innovative producing models and through the presentation of international work that's often not in English in Toronto. So you know especially kind of amongst us we do have a lot of years of experience in the international arts sector but we certainly we're not experts. I think especially because the world is changing all the time because governments change, policy change so we really are interested in a conversation so we hope you'll you'll stick around and spend time with us but we do want to share some of our experiences here from you and talk a little bit about this and we are going to talk a little bit about the problems of course the issues but we also really want to talk about the joy and importance of this work. It's absolutely doable for those of you that maybe are interested in it but haven't delved into it yet. It is really an important thing to do and there's there's it's a it's a fantastic thing to do and it's really rewarding so so we're gonna try not be too dismal up here. But to start I'm gonna I'm gonna start and then and then hand it over and we'll go into kind of the nuts and bolts because what I what I'm just want to kind of plant a little seed amongst this group of people who are interested in this work. One of the really great things about running a an international theatre festival is that I get to spend quality time with artists really talking to them from all over the world and hearing about their experiences and one of the things that I have been hearing lately that especially the past couple of years is a little bit about what I would kind of kind of say like that the ethics of this work and a little bit about sort of a code of conduct and how how this work should be done and it's you know there isn't we've talked about like there isn't a manual and we don't really have that but so the example I'm going to use really fast is a teaching artist a dancer in Ghana who you know there was a U.S. artist who got a small grant she went out there she did a like one-day workshop then she returned back to the U.S. where she then started teaching like master classes in this sort of indigenous dance style and was charging people and without sort of having the conversation with her about it without sort of really you know talking about what is the best way what's the best practices around things like that and um you know so I just kind of want to plant the seed of like what what what is the collective sort of code of ethics around doing international collaboration how do we not colonize that work how do we not appropriate it how do we have the conversations about how to dig in and make shows and other places and collaborate with artists without um you know in in a way that is that there's reciprocity is that the other room of me okay um and so that's just kind of a little a little seed that I wanted to plant I don't really have answers necessarily I may have a lot of thoughts about it and um and but I would I I think it's a conversation that as we dig into this work we should continue to have what is um the best way for us to be doing this kind of work in a way that isn't um yeah that is is with good with I don't know good behavior I mean we all know that as travelers right like you know like we try to pay attention to how we travel culturally like you know is it okay to wear a skirt into this and you know making sure to ask questions and and things like that but especially thinking about especially now I feel like our mission is very much um you know diplomacy through the arts that we are diplomats that that is our job especially now I feel like especially us artists that this is a great way that we can continue the diplomacy around the world and so uh how can we be good diplomats so I just want to drop that seed in and if you want to have more conversations with me about that and again hopefully with we can create a network um like I said we're figuring out how to do that where we can continue to have these kinds of conversations as well as the visa questions the travel ban conversations the funding questions things like that so okay so speaking of that let's talk about everyone's favorite thing visas hooray great okay um so um when we were first thinking about this uh so several years ago when sort of the international conversation first started at TCG there was um as sort of Julie likes to talk about there was like a handful of people in the room there were like I don't know 10 of us and it was like the same 10 people sort of in every room and so I feel like we're excited that it's like expanding in really important ways um and I think a lot of what we heard and what we wanted to do with this session is sort of demystifying the fact that like bringing international artists to the US is is too hard it's hard but but it's totally feasible and I think Julie and Tricklock are a really great example actually it doesn't actually take a huge amount of money to do it and and Joanne can certainly talk about this as well um so I was just going to do a really quick sort of visa overview and I'm very happy to answer questions and again I am 100% not an expert I am like speaking from my experience of being sort of you know knee deep in it in a variety of capacities um and uh both sort of in my role at the lab and then continuing at my role at Theater J right now um but just wanted to do sort of a really quick visa overview so getting really into the nuts and bolts but um so sort of the B1B2 visa is the visitor's visa you can also come on sort of using business while you're here but you can't get paid for it um you can get an honorarium but you cannot get paid as under B1B2 visas and then p visas are groups performing and O visas 01 or 02 visas is for individuals who possess extraordinary ability in the field so in the arts um and there's two sort of major changes that um that I've experienced that have really shifted the field um the first one was in the summer of 2018 um where when people are applying for visas um they now um when sort of the US consulates are looking at sort of what your past applications have been they will actively research whether the artist had violated visas in the past meaning they've come here on the wrong visa intentionally or unintentionally I've had experiences where artists were part of a group and the group you know unintentionally applied for the wrong visa for them um but they're using they're now using any and all available resources which includes like going into other departments and like researching the IRS and googling you and so I think as we think about bringing international artists here the importance of of using the right visa and applying with the right visa is sort of more paramount now than ever um and then the second change um is in September of 2018 um is that unless um so the you can now apply for uh excuse me so when you're going through the process and the individual um doesn't have uh for instance a letter from artists from actors equity saying that they're allowed to perform here or they're they're missing a form um or the US CIS thinks that they're missing a form um it used to be that they had a chance to basically apply for to pause the process submit additional paperwork and then continue the process um now there is no extension of that period of time you're just denied and you have to start from the very beginning um so the process is just it's a lot more sort of laborious and um and ultimately ends up taking a lot of time and and I've worked with a um visa attorney um uh Jonathan Goldstein um who are excuse me Brian Goldstein um out of New York um who basically recommends that you always apply for as quick of a visa as possible so you basically pay for extra the extra money in order to go through the process because you can be denied and have to go back to the beginning of the process again um and I know we're going to go to the travel ban in a second um what's what I've also been told is the travel ban is really hard for people to come here as visitors it's actually just as easy in some ways to apply for P1 or 01 visas even under the travel ban but I'm curious I have not experienced that personally so I'm curious your opinion on that Taranj um so yes I can throw it to you sure yes happy to answer questions um I think we're going to have a little bit of a more like deep conversation about this over lunch um and I think the the bottom line that I've experienced is that it's like the detail oriented nature of it is more important but it's and it's challenging and there's there's a lot of paperwork and it's it's a process but that um at the end of the day there are people there are lawyers who are working pro bono there are lawyers who you can pay to help you as well but that the most important thing is to not apply for the wrong visa because it penalizes both the organization and also more importantly the individual um and they can be denied from coming back to the United States for three to five years if they've applied on the wrong visa um and so it can really affect them in the future and sometimes it can affect even just um just being able to travel of course like if they do the ESTA with the if they do the tourist visa because they're like I'll just come it's cool and then and then it is found and then just even trying to come again on an ESTA as a tourist to come and visit this this ban is really and they you just can't travel so you it really could affect artists that are trying to come just even in the way that they travel anyone from anywhere yeah yeah and I'll just say one last thing I think um we've all had like variety of experiences of of artists from all over the world um and um but I'm currently in the process of applying for um a British citizen a British British citizen who's a choreographer coming from London so like in some ways he's he's a white male like he is he should be like ushered in and pretty easy to come in and we're flying him too Belfast because it's it's too hard to get him an interview in London um and going and still applying for expedited visa processing and still hiring a lawyer for this and so in some ways just like the the everyday challenges of it are for everybody they are certainly um increased if you are from specific countries or specific regions of the world um but that even that this British choreographer we are trying to get to the United States for you know for our first show of the season like having to go through sort of additional processes for that so it's expanded across the board absolutely Steven yeah I will speak into the mic thank you you said you could come on a tourist visa for a stipend is there a limit to what that stipend is I actually don't know the answer to that I don't I think you can get an honorarium and I don't think that there's uh um like a maximum amount but I actually I I have not applied for that so I can't speak to that okay thank you um there is a limit to the honorarium I'm not sure of the amount it's actually pretty modest but if you exceed that amount then they are able to all of this information is on the IRS page um they would have to then regardless of where they're from report it to the American government yeah and I think that I think that there are two things here so one is what type of visa you're allowed to apply for and the fee associated with it which it sounds like there is a limit I think secondarily to that taxation on artists that come here so you do have to pay federal artists do have to pay federal tax and sometimes state tax depending on the state and then the amount is determined by an agreement between their government and the US government and if there is no agreement then it's their tax 25 percent oh 30 percent okay this is one of the reasons oh yeah why also having a network like the more of us that produce when artists come being able to come to New Mexico and then to DC and then to California is really great because we can like share the burden yeah I wanted you guys to start talking about the um relationship between IRS um obligations and the whole visa process because now artists who don't file their taxes which most artists don't because it's just very burdensome and you know have you ever tried to do your own taxes um so now they're clamping down on that and so if you don't file your taxes you don't get to come back and they are cross referencing and now the IRS because it's been shrunk in terms of personnel will only look at um uh at taxes for artists who make over ten thousand US dollars a year and many artists who travel here absolutely don't make that so it just it just keeps becoming more and more challenging to do this work hi I was wondering about the difference between like student visas and if you can get a student visa and still perform in an international theater and how that affects that if you're like studying abroad so my understanding I feel like I need to stipulate at the beginning of every answer that I'm not an expert in this my understanding is you cannot perform as a student and in fact the new regulation that was passed if anybody knows differently please correct me but my understanding is that so the regulation that was passed in September that if you come in on the wrong visa and they can sort of look through google they can look through the IRS in order to determine in the past whether you've come in on the wrong visa is actually targeting students more than anybody else and so it's students I think largely overstaying their student visa and continuing to work but I think you need to there's a way I think that you can sort of stack visas too but you you need to be here and be operating under the regulation of the current visa you have and that again my understanding just to clarify perform professionally so if you were studying abroad and you were performing at the school you were studying abroad with or performing not for pay or you know enhancing your performance skills that would certainly be okay performing for work. Just this may be self-evident to some but one thing I've been struck by is that the legal landscape of this in terms of incredibly well-intentioned people on the front lines of doing this work have a very very different senses of what the right thing to do in certain circumstances are so just to kind of be aware that that the landscape is so shifting and I would just put an unsolicited plug for the work of Tommy's Dot the organization TAMIZDAT and Matt Covey's work which has really put itself out there as a kind of a non-self-interested resource for the field in terms of engaging this and I think is a real kind of if you're kind of getting this advice from this lawyer it's a it's a great additional resource but it's that landscape just because one lawyer tells you something who may mean well you might hear something incredibly different the next the next conversation. TAMIZDAT and Covey Law they're in Brooklyn and they're great and when I also when we email I'm happy to send those links as well and there's a couple of or they're really I work with them too they're really great and but there's a couple of other organizations too and there's one in London and things like that we'll try to send those resources as well. I think just the other thing is the landscape is also constantly changing and so like the the lack of funding to the state department means that there are fewer U.S. representatives in other countries able to take interviews and and so there's just like the ripple effects of this and that it really is changing sort of on a day-to-day basis and that and that it's incredibly hard for anybody to stay on top of it and that and so like following the regulations that you know to be true but then like really could change month month to month. Okay let's do one more and then we're going to move on to to travel it but don't worry we're going to talk a lot about visas at lunch too. Yeah and less about visas and more maybe it's the move on thing but just to say yeah that all sounds complicated and bleak and expensive and and it is situational it's project to project what country is it emanating from what degree of mastery do they have and so what we've done at arts Emerson is just say you know what we're going to do this one at a time not get overwhelmed by how crazy it is and just solve it project to project and in the seven years and probably 30 projects that we've done we did lose one and it was only lost on a visa issue it was lost because of the sequester not because we couldn't solve it other way so just if you're thinking about doing it yes it's a whole thing but just like art if you you get overwhelmed if you try to do all of it just do the thing you're doing and make your way to the end of that one and then go on to the next one. And again one of the reasons we're trying to gather us all and create a network is so we can help each other right David has so much experience and you know Derek in the lab and so being able to say okay I want to do this is the first time I've ever done it who can help me we can help you I mean a little bit you know at least send you in the right direction. Okay let's talk about our second favorite thing the travel ban. I thought maybe I'll start a little bit by just clarifying that golden thread we work with Middle Eastern American artists and we produce locally in San Francisco and we work with Middle Eastern artists in the Middle East as well as the global diaspora and over the years obviously there are more and more Middle Eastern artists spread across the world. We have in the past been able to facilitate long-term collaboration among American artists and Middle Eastern artists to create new work for example a project called Benedictus that was between Iranian Israeli and American artists that we were able to produce over the course of a three-year development supported by a university and then locally produced in San Francisco. We have been able to do for example artistic exchange between Middle Eastern American artists in the US and Middle Eastern artists across the world teaming them up to create new work together and then presenting that at Reorient Festival. We have been able to benefit from partnership with larger organizations that specialize in international in presenting international work or working with international artists such as Theater Without Borders. We have partnered with them to host eight Palestinian playwrights to come to San Francisco to Reorient Festival and we present a showcase stage reading of their place and present their work at the festival. With San Francisco International Art Festival we've partnered with them to bring productions from Syria from Germany of a mix of Arab actors from Egypt and from Iran via Europe to present in San Francisco at the international festival. We've certainly had a lot of success which kind of makes the current situation even more painful. In recent two rounds of San Francisco International Art Festival we have partnered with them to present work from the Middle East including with Middle Eastern artists who have passports in Europe from European countries where they are now refugees and we have experienced rejection. The first round the artists were rejected outright. This recent year some artists their petitions were approved but then when they went for their interview their visa was rejected. So this is probably the most extreme situation that we have experienced. Golden Thread as an individual organization kind of stopped even trying to bring international artists because the work was so extensive and we felt like we're just banging our head against the wall but we did have success with the International Art Festival so this is surprising and I know that it didn't only happen to the Middle Eastern artists. I know that other troops I don't know exactly from which countries but I know that two other troops as a group were denied. The San Francisco International Art Festival has a process where the visas are when the petitions are rejected they move up the request to a local representative's office so in our case Nancy Pelosi's office the girl of the house or Diane Feinstein one of the longest standing senators. So we petitioned their office and they are happy to intervene and support the petition but in this year even Nancy Pelosi's intervention did not questions I can answer because I actually have no answers. The things I want to say is that you know for many of the artists the you know it's not as simple when when they're applying for a visa it's not as simple as like you know taking the bus to your local embassy and applying for a visa because for example there is no U.S. embassy in Iran so Iranian artists in order to apply for a U.S. visa they have to go to a foreign country to a U.S. embassy to apply for a visa and then they go back to Iran waiting for their appointment and then once they're given an appointment they have to travel again for that interview so that's already two foreign trips that they have to take just to go through the process so it's a bit of dog ear that if there's time in our conversation to start addressing a new issue it's not really new but health care and medical care for our artists and vice reciprocal how is that challenged I've had a couple of our artists that have had exports especially with extreme theater physical theater anybody who does circ type arts how is that handled and vice versa and going into volatile countries like Venezuela now where their health care systems are collapsing and you know the different relationships that how are you guys addressing that and we don't have to talk about it now but I just want to put that in there as something that we do need to talk about collectively that's a really great issue and if we can't get to it now maybe we could talk about it a bit at lunch does anyone have anything though any thoughts on that outside of okay we should yeah we'll put a big star by that that's really important any other thoughts on the our questions for the no answers that we have here here we go so we we actually did have a group leader into herself on our experience I can I'm just going to give you some nuts and bolts for working with youth in cultural exchange and including the group leaders working with the youth so we and I if anybody in the room um is a youth or works with youth and is considering cultural exchange I really um can't promote it enough it has opened our eyes it has been an incredibly rewarding experience it just takes a lot of organization and it's a little bit like being a camp counselor on steroids because you have to have all of your ducks in a row times 10 but if you do it it will be very rewarding so we we are new to it so I while I am no expert on visas I can share all of the mistakes we made on the logistics end um and are continuing to learn so we traveled with a group um of teen dancers to a festival in bricks in Italy last June so recent um and that was an incredible experience but here are some things that we learned along the way logistically and those include having an itinerary very explicitly typed out printed and with you because as a group leader you can't be with the student as they go through security and immigration so that each student needs that in hand with a letter from the festival um having all medical information for each student and a plan from your organizations uh insurance so that if there is a medical situation you are covered um and then additionally really thinking about how you're preparing not logistically but ethically for that international exchange so our students most who had never been outside of the country also had never heard a performance not in English so they were not prepared to experience other art forms or art forms not spoken in their language and that took a few days to settle into and so now 2021 I would have prepared more with them about what they were about to see so that they could have had taken away the best experience possible um so I'm gonna fast forward a little bit and get to um some of the exchange between bringing a group here so our students made a very um incredible connection with a group from Russia it's called piano theater and that the students from piano theater are students who are at boarding school that's specifically for deaf students so those students are deaf um and they are incredible physical theater performers so their work is incredibly physical and their group leaders are incredibly physical we were lucky enough to receive a TCG global connections grant to bring um four of their students and two leaders over to the US to work with our dance students so from a budget perspective that grant was $5,000 and then we also had we're able to pull some funds through other sources so our students who were participating in that exchange um because it was over spring break we were able to make it tuition based and students who couldn't afford we were able to pull from our scholarships so our total budget was $7,000 that we were able to do it with um so some things to consider in that process include housing so when we did the application we thought we'll do homestays and our our friends in Russia said yes they would love to do homestays that will be incredible experience for them but the reality was we did an Airbnb and the reason for that is because the logistics of then trying to arrange each individual student coming day to day was going to be incredibly difficult and our students and their students also wanted a central place to gather and to be together so that we quickly rebudgeted and reallocated our funding the second thing is to have a plan in the states for if somebody gets sick so none of the students got sick but a group leader hurt her knee really really badly she could not walk she couldn't walk and that was um but our organization had things in place including our HR director was very in the know of the of the group coming and it was very in touch we are lucky enough to work down the street from an urgent care and she was prepared because she also had had her help we were able to work with her health insurance the woman from Russia and our and our office and our our doctor at the urgent care but having a plan in place ahead of time was incredibly important um some other things that we didn't think about ahead of time I felt we had an obligation these were students who had never been to the US before so for them to spend all of their time in our lovely dance studio was not going to be enough so really planning through what else they were going to do during their time and some mistakes along the way I thought well we could what we should watch a rehearsal at Gallaudet University which um would be an incredibly appropriate experience however we took them to see a rehearsal and the rehearsal was a group in partnership with Gallaudet but was was mostly using spoken words so that was a really tough experience um so that was a mistake along the way um trying to think of some other mistakes along the way that might be helpful um I would say um just really also working if you can with any other cultural organizations that might have an appropriate time so it was very important to the group that we worked with from Russia to connect with the Russian embassy in the US um and so we had but some things that were challenging is so our two groups created a performance together um and we wanted to invite the um members of the Russian embassy but they do not work on the weekends so we had to like reconfigure everything to make it fit and it had to be before 5 p.m at the Russian embassy so just thinking through all of those logistics were incredibly important um and the last thing I'll share is that um it was you have to sort of you're you're a host so you're on call the entire day and the entire night and that includes like a trip to the grocery store um a hurt knee transportation but it at the end of it um our students were cooking together and it's the last night and we were very tired the adults were very tired and my um one of our students said Miss Joanne can this please happen again when can we do this again I think I said I think I think I said something like we'll see yeah in my mind it was in my mind it was it was never um but we are getting together with that group again in June in Canada so and they invited us and I and I said why are you know they were invited to be a part of a festival and perform at a festival in Canada and I said and they have invited us to bring some of our students and to perform with them and I and I said I asked why I mean in a you know why us why and and the response I got was because this form of cultural diplomacy is incredibly important and for Russian youth and US youth to work together in this way is something that the world needs to see as a picture of the US and Russian youth and I that has stuck with me a lot because I just I thought you know I felt like we gained so much from from them because I I learned so much but to see that it was visible and to understand why they wanted to work with us was also important um just in the interest of time and speaking of Canada let's hear from Ravi so we can hear a little bit about you know producers and and artists who are working outside of the US and and what's happening with them and things like that and then we'll have some time as well for some continued um conversation and questions yeah thanks so um it's a big part of the government's plans open borders and building international relationships so yeah sorry I'm sorry and the Raptors won last night so I'm just saying uh yeah I'm just saying I'm just saying uh starters not revenge all right okay all right all right um they're gonna revoke my visa yeah so it's a very different context there's a lot of support and energy uh towards uh international uh producing both import and export and I guess the one little thing I can add in terms of presenting internationally so we we for the last eight or so years have been presenting work from abroad that's not in English and one really exciting thing about that is you know Toronto is a multicultural multilingual city and English is a real barrier for a lot of people to go to the theater um so we started producing shows from India from Brazil from Japan and uh one of the things we realized was in in uh in terms of the question around ethics was um a lot of communities in terms of accessing the tickets didn't want to access them online they didn't want to put a credit card online they didn't want to do it that way so we worked a lot with a lot of community organizations to sell tickets through grocers through finding different unique ways that each individual community wanted to access and deliver tickets it's super complicated we lost a lot of tickets that like just disappeared but but we did sell out each of the shows I mean the the presence of the community was was there and part of that was really the strategies of working with local community groups and ensuring that we were really working on their terms um uh and then the other thing I thought I would add in was just you know as an artist how do you get your work out there it's such a hard daunting scary thing and again we we've had a lot of support and funding to do that and you know uh Edinburgh is such an important market to try to get to if you can it's super expensive but if you're an artist and you're trying to get out there uh I don't know what the visas are for for Edinburgh but the last time I remember going through for Canada because we're a Commonwealth it was like you just go to the border and there's a special Edinburgh visa where you just go and you say I'm going to Edinburgh they're like okay great you go through so it wasn't an application process it wasn't a big big thing at least for Canadians so I don't know about Americans um but to go there uh you know these festivals are where everybody goes and presenters curators from around the world they're just normal people and it's important to just talk to them and say hi and introduce your work and to not be afraid like that's their job you're helping them if you if they find great work they want to meet you and so don't be shy to build relationships and as as Julie was saying just the networks of people also around you a huge resource that we had was um there's a very important international festival in Vancouver called the Push Festival um which was really um a huge platform for us Norman Armour who was the former artistic director there presented one of our shows and was just a champion he would tell all these people so like I would go and meet a presenter and they say oh I know about you because Norman told me about your show and just this the communities are actually quite small and the more people you can meet the more people who can advocate for you and get the word out there the better it is uh what else did I want to say yeah so it's all about relationships and partnerships and um you know it is a funny thing the line across canada and america is is tricky like uh it's a new we presented a couple shows in the states but to the it's not often we we're seeing less and less work coming to canada from the states and to the the word kind of uh unanimously around the communities it's hard to get into the states without an american agent so the dynamics of those things are all kind of new terrain for me as well and I don't know if that's because of the visas I don't know if that's because of the money but it is strange because we are neighbors and and the work is in real dialogue with each other and so how to foster more of those collaborations is something I'm pretty passionate about um and another area that is great to get to if you can is new york in january has everyone in the world in america they descend upon america on new york again these things are really expensive like I don't want to I want to at least from my perspective and uh but it not but and I would see it as a way of thinking about it as an investment in your work that you're gonna go and ideally meet some people build relationships and and try to get your work out there um and really it's about just yeah making those relationships and really quickly one um one thing that we just we talked about yesterday but um for many years the um the embassy of canada in dc would send a dc artistic director to canada to sort of scout for work and and with the aim of bringing work back into dc and that happened for years and years and years and then I don't know six years ago seven years ago it stopped and it just started for the first time this year so my artistic director is going up there the summer for a bunch of different trips to scout canadian work so I also I don't know why this this changed maybe because of the increase in funding from the canada side but it does feel like it's potentially a moment like that feels really exciting that um sort of the the border can be more permeable than it has been in the past and again as we as we do create a network thinking about strength in numbers and thinking looking at the modeling of how canada is doing it I do I'm really curious about how we can impact policy change I mean one of the frustrating things about visas is that our U.S. government does not understand what artists do they don't understand what you know international collaboration is that's part of the problem so so how do we also how do we make that known how do we change that how do we how do we fix that how do we you know how do we try to to put these policies into place I don't know the answers to that but I'm curious about trying to make real systematic you know impact in that so yeah do you think the U.S. government not understanding what artists do has been true for a long time under the Obama administration and okay and it's just gotten worse with the current administration well I think I think what's gotten worse is just well a lot of things um I mean it's just just just just crossing borders in general I think it's just gotten worse but I think I think in general unfortunately there's you know I mean we could go into a long conversation about it but you know they understand like cats like we were saying yesterday like they're like that's theater I understand that like you're gonna bring a giant the Lion King comes that's theater but I don't think they understand like why would you bring the like Venezuelan clown political clown like they're like that's not I don't understand what that is so I think that is is is what the problem is they don't understand the breadth of what theater is like outside of the U.S. what theater is is so many things but in the U.S. I think there's an an understanding of one thing not with everybody but with some people and I think unfortunately with our government so they're like it's so it's like the this category these categories of what visas are you know I mean I do a cultural festival so sometimes people are coming and and they're getting small honorariums but they're actually doing a like immersive workshop is the work that's the theater they're you know so and so they don't understand they're like I don't understand what visa to apply for and and and it gets denied a lot because it's like oh you're from a you know a challenging country and I don't understand what you're doing so you just can't come yeah I just wanted to add that in the 70s at least there used to be American cultural institutes in various countries for example in Iran there was one in Lebanon there was one and then through American University in Beirut or American University in Cairo would actively facilitate artistic exchange and present American artists work in those cities and that has stopped did you have a question or a comment I guess I don't have to talk I was just gonna ask like as a young person I definitely have a lot of thoughts on how systemic it is but then you guys jumped right into that conversation but then just like adding in just do these opera houses and like the Lion King are they able to do that because they're able to pay for it because they like governments value them more also because they just have enough people and resources in order to get the same visas for their artists so that would be my as anybody here produce the Lion King and the big opera house I don't know I don't that's not what I do so I mean that's my assumption I don't know about I don't know what America like outside of world class like Yoyoma touring internationally I don't know what other American artists are currently traveling internationally or touring but you know many countries have ministry of art and culture many countries have cultural attaches that really facilitate these kinds of artistic exchange and to my knowledge we don't have such an institution in the US and whenever I bring up this subject people are like but you know it's it's something that we lack as a country companies like Broadway Asia which is Mark Routh and Simone Genet Broadway Asia in Asia they love Ethel Merman for example but if it were Lion King doesn't happen to be their show but the producers is theirs nothing against Lion King but whatever product is there they have a reciprocal so it's almost like a bicultural an office that's based in Asia and on Broadway so they've circumvented all of this and still do it that way and other the other products it's international producers that have bought the royalties and rights and do the American shows but in their version and translation so there's the equivalent of the Mark Routh or Disney producer in Mexico and that's how they do it does that answer your question or I'm to just hop on that that is very true and it depends on the show itself too so for example Kinky Boots has been in the United States, it's been in the UK, it's been in Germany but it's actually just entered the Asian market recently and you're looking at I'm into China and then also in Japan at the end of the day it does come down to money so I'm to hop on what you said too in those contexts it's going to be Broadway commercial theater and they're looking at it at that avenue too and it takes a while to break down certain barriers for that they're not looking at the context of theater to be very much different than Midtown in Manhattan it's very different and then the communications I'm with Disney I mean you're looking at a global enterprise and again it comes with finances for money so I don't know if that answers your question completely I'm but yeah it's it's just so layered and tiered in so many different like elements within it but I'm gonna Julie I'm gonna jump in while you got it part of me wonders though David to your point earlier is so I've been told by a couple different um lawyers to make your artist look as close to the royal Shakespeare company as possible because that's a known quantity for sort of the reasons that you all are saying and while I think that's valuable because each individual visa application feels vital it feels urgent it feels important it feels like you know you don't want your show to not happen I also feel like we as artists maybe have a responsibility to show the artist as they are because otherwise we're constantly referring to them as we're constantly trying to compare them to the royal Shakespeare company and we're not actually expanding what people's experience are and so and there are examples of you know of at the lab or at arts emerson or at you know festivals at Tricklock at all over the country that have been able to get artists in who don't look like the royal Shakespeare company and look like the opposite of the royal Shakespeare company and so I don't know it feels like this weird rock in a hard place where you really want to get your artist in and so you want to do everything you can to to um portray them in the light in which the members of the you know US consulate and whatever country you're in can view them that way and also we're not expanding we're like trying to cater to them a little too much yeah we have a question over here and then i'll come over to David and Olga can I just add that is it the consulate's job to assess the artist artistically like is that what they're assessing or is it really like they have a host there's a program they're going to be performing they're going to come back like that those are the nuts and bolts why why should we have like why should we have to prove to them that this artist is worthy you know we're inviting them give them a visa yes along the same lines you know actually I am I am an international artist and a teacher and I've been on the the O1 visas for many years I had to renew them every year and I have to tell you first that indeed it got much worse for students for international students and international faculty in these recent years because they used to give us a list a visa for a whole year and now they are really giving the visa strictly for the academic year so you have to go back to your country by the end of May or June or so things got really really worse and you have to continuously prove yourself so for us I want to restate that it's so hard for us international artists and faculty to work in this country you it's exhausting now my new line is I'm not exotic I'm exhausted I I have to prove myself every freaking year to show that I'm doing things to give evidence and now they just requested new evidence so that's why I'm more than extended period because they requested new evidence that I'm an alien with extraordinary skills in the arts so it's again and again so on that note my question is indeed like Torange was saying so what are the US institutions like TCG like other national umbrellas for the arts doing for us to make things a little easier beyond helping with the visas what can we do on a larger level on a political level on establishing policies to make it a little easier for us international artists and students and faculty to work in this country yeah we need our own conference say um sorry okay hold on and then I'll come back over I just I mean piggybacking on that one of the things that we haven't talked about is the fact that philanthropy has completely shut down in terms of international cultural exchange it used to be you know 10 15 years ago that you know you could get money from Rockefeller you could money from Ford or you know increasingly from Doris Duke and now it's like you know I just heard that Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation is cutting its southern exposure grants program which was one of the few places that you could get artists from the Caribbean or Latin America support to come to the United States and so I just think that we as a sector really need to start thinking about ways to engage the philanthropic community both private and public if we're ever going to be able to tackle this above and beyond what the lady the exhausted one just said you know we we do need to put feet to the fire in terms of we're becoming more and more xenophobic country I was just with some of your Canadian colleagues at ISPA the International Society of Performing Arts last week in Guadalajara and what was you know so evident is that there are proactive policies going on in your country and the Mexican government had paid for 75 artists to come from throughout Mexico to participate in ISPA the US delegation zero it was just you got there on your own steam paying your own money there was no organization in terms of a governmental push so I just think that we really need to factor that in when we're talking about solutions yeah I all of these things I guess partially I'm by training and experience a dramaturg and so I'm looking at this narrative structure of the problem and in the large part we have not told the story well about why it matters and it's so clear I mean everybody sitting in this room understands what we are in the world and how we are in the world especially right now it was maybe a little less clear when we thought Obama was taking care of everything but now we know very directly our imprint on the planet is entirely negative and until and unless we enter the world and we enter it through many different doors but the arts are one that are directly a narrative art the funders don't have a story to tell so they don't know how to make a case for their trustees as to why they would invest in international exchange artists don't particularly we get stuck in the logistics but we don't actually talk about the the why and our role we and we get trapped in the old cultural diplomacy stories when back when there used to be in the 70s it was sort of this exportation of American values American exceptionalism is still the story in the world and it's killing the planet and so until we as an arts community actually spend time and I'm hoping in this database I'm signing up for let's figure out the story and let's start giving that story to the press to the funders to the diplomats to the politicians and actually make that case it's our job to get the story down and we don't have it yet and so I'm signing up for that I can share as you're going over I can share in Canada this lady mentioned there's a an organization called Capicoa which is an organization of Canadian arts presenters from across the country and they all they've all gotten together and I've just joined as sort of an ambassador where they're linking up with all these folks who present in any kind of capacity and we're an advocacy group to promote Canadian culture so and and international touring and presenting and so one of the things that they've gotten involved in is these trade missions because governments send trade delegations for business to China to Latin America to these different countries and so how do we get arts and culture to be central to that conversation because we also like the Lion Kings or the small companies we are an economic driver of culture in the culture sector so actually gathering folks like yourself and and the big kind of producers to get together and be a an advocacy group that's talking to government in some kind of way might be a great a great starting point I also want to add that you know there's value in American artists going abroad but there's also value in non-American artists foreign artists coming to the U.S. and make no mistake about it closing our borders serves a political purpose keeping this country isolated and insular culturally separated you know preventing us from having exposure to artists from other countries all these countries that are now being vilified Iran Syria Iraq all of those wars that are being justified those policies are being justified by preventing you from actually meeting human beings artists creative imaginative from those countries that's what those policies support um I would just want to lift exactly what you just said I was going to talk about how the riff off of you and answers some of your question so it can go as far back as the Reagan administration when artists become the face of the red scare the big enemy artists are dirty nasty creatures and you have that's when we constructed boards and artists couldn't nonprofits became a big thing and artists couldn't control the institutions and that they the craft that they practice and something that I was just we were working on a grant we were told by the cultural ambassador who's in this country to not use the word practice in the grant because it would advocate that we were sharing some skill with someone else and that that sent a red flag of don't approve this application because they're sharing something secret and it like hit me huge as as we're still there that's that's where we are in the work and I started looking back and realizing you brought up the need of a cultural institution here in America and I I think our first step is actually a national theater we need a place where America can say this is the epicenter of what arts and what culture is instead of the face of Broadway right now which is the the what supposedly culture and art is in America that's why it's so easy for those properties and those people working on those properties to move them around globally superfast the combo of David and Taranj and the conversation about narrative and exchange kind of took got to this but I would just say the power of not underestimating what it means to as an individual given the moment that we're in be somewhere where you're changing the narrative and you know just never would have imagined a decade ago that I'm in Bangladesh as the as the as an American who like is radically counter to what is expected in terms of what I'm offering to bring there that the work you know just was in Moscow where I'm introduced frequently as an American without horns literally with the reminder that like some of us and then are leading worship so like that is the foundation of the and you're all doing this work but of the kind of possibility in exchanges that just that like making that trip or inviting that person is part feeding the narrative and is like importantly political in this moment but David's right then we need to do we need to aggregate those experiences hi everyone I am Sarah Carranza and I work with the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance and we do an annual International Latin American Festival in Chicago so we've dealt with visas we've had heartbreaks with Cuba but my question is actually piggybacking off of what you had to say one of our biggest missions is about getting our Latinx Chicago theaters to the place that they should be and haven't been for 30 something years how do we prove that they are part of the American narrative on the international sphere and how do we get the funding that even the theater community has created about this trickle down economics that isn't making it to the theaters of color that are run by people of color produced by people of color and completely performed by people of color one thing I've been hearing recently from other people around with you're working with ambassadors working with cultural attachés and other countries is a lot of those diplomats are really upset with the current environment and so they are putting the funds that they have into making sure American artists can travel to their countries and also bringing some of their the artists from those countries into the United States so I've started a project of trying to find which ambassadors and which areas that are doing that the Balkans have become free of doing that quite a bit but to be a good resource for us to be able to assemble some of those that are making it easier to make these exchanges happen that's great let's do one more and then so oh do you want to do get out I just had a question as a young person as well what are we doing as a nation and as collaborators and artists what are we doing to really prove to the administration that international arts matter and that bringing people into the United States is so important to fully round ourselves as people like what are we doing right now what are organizations that I can as a student be a part of to really like grind down the fact that this matters and that it's really important yeah um so we we have like two minutes left in this session yeah at you what are you doing it's we've been at it for I don't let's not discuss how many years but you know it's it's like it's taking I don't know I mean it's take every decade there are new challenges new you know and things I don't I don't even know if things are getting better I mean things are getting worse so it's kind of yeah I don't know so if you have ideas yeah let's do that I know everyone's like me too um let's do this though so you know technically we have a lunch session at half past noon one noon um so and it's 12 15 right now so why don't we just take a little breath if you'd like to come back and continue the conversation we would love to and let's try to talk about some solutions maybe and we'll talk more about visas and and things like that of course yeah and just really quickly to name we're not we're not live streaming the next session so it will be I would say less microphone focused and more like a conversation while eating food yeah thank you everyone so so very much