 Welcome, welcome, welcome back. I hope you had such a healthy and beautiful and replenishing bio break. We had some of the best anti-racist action circles. Oh my gosh, so many beautiful discoveries. Our community is so talented and so smart and we look forward to returning with those learnings at 230 with the Aesthetic Equity and Ensemble Theater, a foundation of racial justice. But before we do that, we are here with some amazing national leaders. This is our Strength Through Alliance culturally specific organizations. These artists, leaders, practitioners are joining us for this hour to help us learn more about them and the ecology of our community. A big shout out and thanks to Elena Chang for facilitating this conversation. She is the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Director at TCG. I have had the deep pleasure of collaborating with her on so many rooms with national theater leaders who are working to create a foundation of racial justice and to dismantle white supremacy culture and racism all over this country. She's an incredibly intelligent arts leader and organizer and we're real pleased to have her here. Thank you so much for facilitating this conversation. And I now officially pass the microphone to you. I do not have a microphone. I wish I did with that cool, was it pink? Anyway, hi, my name is Elena Chang. She, her, hers. Yes, currently Director of EDNI Initiatives at Theater Communications Group. Also, former program director at the Asian American Arts Alliance in New York City. So being invited to facilitate this particular conversation with this amazing panel by Claudia Alec was especially meaningful. With my inside out, outside in approach to making an impact in the theater field, really excited about Strength Through Alliance today and the representatives of various culturally specific organizations who are taking the time to join us as well as all of you who are watching live. So we have with us the Latinx Theater Commons, the Black Theater Commons, the Middle Eastern North African Theater Makers Alliance Menopma, Alliance of Jewish Theater, Unsettling Dramaturgy, and Arts Administrators of Color. What a group. Certainly this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all the culturally specific member organizations nationwide doing the work within community. But hopefully today we'll provide an opportunity to hear about some of the great work that these particular groups have done and will continue to do in the field through their unique lens of cultural identity. So I'm going to pass it over first to the folks at the Latinx Theater Commons. Actually, is Daphne here? Daphne's not here yet, but happy to pass it on to somebody else and we'll come back. Yes, let's pass it on to the Black Theater Commons. This is Cheyenne and lovely to see you and let's kick this off with you. Hello, hello, my name is Cheyenne, she, her, hers. I'm here for Black Theater Commons or to represent Black Theater Commons. Black Theater Commons is a network of theater practitioners who self-identify as members of the Black or African diaspora. We activate our collective resources to amplify, nurture, and support the work of Black theaters and practitioners through advocacy, convening, networking, and knowledge sharing. Black Theater Commons is a connecting piece of the other Black theater networks that exist throughout the industry. We act primarily through our archival initiative to store, collect, and share information surrounding archives for Black theaters. We are also working on a project that is coming out this fall around revolutionary theater and what that means in a post-COVID, during COVID world. And we're really excited to be here today. I'm gonna pass it on to the Alliance for Jewish theaters. Thank you, thanks Cheyenne. Nice to be on this panel with so many wonderful experts and their cultural specific institutions. I'm Jeremy Aluma. I am the executive director of the Alliance for Jewish Theater. I took over this position in January of this year. So it's actually been an interesting and exciting opportunity to kind of serve the moment. The Alliance is an organization that the mission is to develop, innovate, promote, and preserve theater with a Jewish sensibility. And so of course, there are a lot of Jewish members in the organization, but also members who have an affinity for Jewish values help wanna fight anti-Semitism. And we're an umbrella organization for theater artists making Jewish work and theater companies making Jewish work. We have about 600 people kind of in our network and our community and about 150 members who are actively engaged, who pay membership to receive specific benefits. It includes around 30 artistic directors of different companies around the country and around the world. Our largest imprint is here in America, but we have members in Canada, across Europe and Israel and South America. And essentially over the last few months, a lot of the work we've been doing is in connecting people together, facilitating programs and really just trying to get people together to figure out strategies, solutions, and ideas about how to move the field forward, the larger American theater, as well as Jewish theater specifically. And what I love, I happen to be Jewish and what I love about being a Jew, one of the many things, it's a really intersectional community. We have members in every other community, really, that exists. In fact, I'm a Jew of Iraqi descent and so I convene with Mena. I think now the acronym is Minata and Kate Heaney and that group from time to time as well, the Middle Eastern theater makers. I'm gonna tell you just a few of the things, specific programs we've been doing and then I will hand it over. We've been putting together Zoom webinars. I've gathered artistic directors, so we had six artistic directors from major Jewish theaters around the country and the world get together and speak about the issues of theaters are struggling through COVID and what they're hoping to program in their future seasons. We were able to do the same thing with a group of playwrights. We set up an anti-racism training session through Bahola Shon, which is a multi-racial Jewish organization and we have this wonderful woman, Lindsey Newman. Actually, tomorrow I have to miss some of the sessions because it's our second anti-racism training session of three that we've put together. And we also finally have a thing called Talking Circles where we try to gather people from similar roles within the community to, again, talk strategy solutions and so we got the 30 artistic directors together and they gather once a month to talk over different ideas. We're about to gather our playwrights together for a similar thing. And if you wanna hear more, you can go to alljuicetheater.org, theater spelled R-E. We have a conference coming up in late October. We just put together our performance proposal request forms. We're looking for artists to submit projects. We're paying the artists. It doesn't cost anything to submit. And if you get a project chosen, we're paying the artists. Anyways, I'm really happy to be here and hear more from the other artists in this circle. I will hand it over to Kate Morheny and Minata. Minata, is that right? You'll let us know. Thank you everyone. Thanks so much, Jeremy. Yes, I'm Kate Morheny. I use she, her, hers pronouns. And I'm with, it's actually we're a monatma. So we're the Middle Eastern and North African Theater Makers Alliance. We know it's a bit of a mouthful. So and our mission is to amplify the voices of Middle Eastern and North African theater makers and to expand how stories from and about our communities are told on US stages. And an important part of our mission is that we define the Middle Eastern North Africa really broadly and inclusively in order to embrace the multiplicity of ethnic and religious identities that are within our region that we represent. That's an important part of our mission. And we're a relatively new organization. We were founded pretty recently after years of organizing within the MENA community, sort of individually, and then also at actually convenings like this, we met up at the theater communications group conferences. A group of us met also at the LARC. They had in New York, they had a bunch of convenings there and also at Golden Thread. And so gradually this group and this idea began to form and we realized that although there are several theaters representing our communities across the country, that we didn't have sort of a unified network. And we were really inspired and nurtured by so many of our colleagues who had these wonderful organizations. I'm thinking about LTC and BTC and CATA, so many organizations that came before us. And so we decided to create this group to really try to bring the community together in order to advocate for our needs and our work on American stages. We have a steering committee of about 14 members. Deborah is actually on the steering committee and we have created a few subcommittees that are creating programming. We have mentorship program in the works. We have an anti-racism committee. We have a committee that's working to bring folks together for larger group conversations. So we're excited to be moving forward in this way and we're looking forward to collaborating with our other networks, our other networks of color and culturally specific companies to continue to lift each other's work up and support each other. And I invite everybody to check out our website. It's MeenaTheater.org. We can find out a little bit more about our mission, what we have going on and stay up to date as our organization evolves. Great, and with that, I will pass it off to Cheyenne. Oh, wait, sorry, you already went. I'll pass it off to Mia and Rue. To not get any temp, Nia Delessa-George-Warn, Nia Nietam-Rue, Yainisman-Rue, Yain-Katab-Rue, Yain-Kamping-Sawacha-Hare, Hawo, Hawo-Kuri, Hawo-Nietam. Hi, everyone, my name is Rue. I'm a citizen of Kataba Indian Nation where the only federally recognized tribe in South Carolina and one of two in North Carolina. I'm calling to you from the beautiful Green Earth Reservation where I live. I am a co-coordinating artist with unsettling dramaturgy, which has been a project that we've been working on since 2019, January 2019 approximately. We were convened by Nia Susan Amir, who is a nursing, her beautiful, beautiful baby, Amad, who is joining us. So coming into this, my background is in indigenous theater and thinking through how we can decolonize and unsettle the theater spaces around colonization. And what I really loved about this project is that we're bringing together indigenous dramaturgs and theater artists as well as crypt, mad, disabled theater artists and talking about the ways in which colonization is excluding both of our communities and the ways in which that we can reconstruct theater and performance towards abolition, towards liberation. One of the amazing things about this is that we are spread out across so-called Canada and so-called United States. And so we have necessarily been meeting through digital spaces since January 2019. And so what we've witnessed is this giant shift towards digital spaces that we'd already been exploring through questions of access, questions of land acknowledgement. How do you acknowledge land when we are sharing a Zoom space, for example? And thinking through what are the fissures and the tendons, the connective tissue between our communities and how can we work together towards that future? In terms of practicality, what do our meetings look like? We have about 10 collaborating artists, including the wonderful, wonderful Claudia Alec, who is, I understand to be one of the organizers for this thing. And we have a minimum of a three-hour meeting. And the reason for that is that we want to de-center productivity and specific timelines and goals when we're meeting. So usually our entire first hour at a minimum is spent simply checking in and understanding how we're all doing and understanding that not doing okay is totally fine for a myriad of reasons. One of the things that's been particularly instructive for me is that I don't come from an experience of disability as I've identified it, even if I've been in solidarity with these communities. And so I've just been deeply moved by the understandings that I've been able to glean from these artists as well as the mutual understandings. And that moment of you've just said something that I've never heard, but I immediately know it to be deeply true that I get from working with these wonderful artists. If you're interested in learning more about us, we've done a few engagements. And I just tried it. If you Google unsettling dramaturgy, surprisingly no one else has used that name before. And so you can immediately get connected with our websites and our web presence, including our HowlRound series. But I'm gonna hand it over to Mia to clean up and make nice what I've said so far. I don't think I could do much more. Thanks, Ru. My name is Mia, Susan Amir. I use she, her pronouns. I'm joining you all from the unceded and occupied territories of the Muscovam School, Homish and Slewa Tooth Peoples, colonially known as Vancouver, British Columbia, where the air is very thick with smoke. I believe we have the fourth worst air quality in the world right now. And I'm thinking deeply about my friends and family who are south of me, especially in California and Oregon who are suffering in this fire, time of fire, time of so many challenges for us to face collectively. I am a queer, crepe, mad, Jew of mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic ascent. I was born in Israel-occupied Palestine and I've lived here in Vancouver for the majority of my life. I am a transdisciplinary theater maker, a dramaturg, cultural organizer, and mother, and very, very honored to be the co-coordinator of Unsettling Dramaturgy. I really wouldn't add much more to what Ru described about our work, but I think one of the things that is really most exciting for me is the way in which we are actively creating a third space wherein our communities which have been intentionally both marginalized inside of normative theater practice and in the theater ecologies that I'm part of and where we've, with great intention, also been separated from each other, are creating self-determined space to create new standards of cultural creation, collaboration, and really using our work together as a prefigurative act to write the world, to make the world in the ways and the shape in which we imagine and know it to be possible. And we are not asserting our project as a new offering. We are building off of long legacies of organizing and of making that come from indigenous communities and that come from queer, Crip, Mad, disabled, deaf, chronically ill artists. We are working from great inspiration and from great power at our backs. And we're very lucky to be able to intersect with each other in this long-term project. We are not bound at this time by time in the ways in which I find a no theater to be operating, at least in the world in which I circulate in a very kind of time-limited way. We are unwriting and rewriting the time signatures of capitalism and colonialism and ableism and allowing ourselves to collaborate in a kind of long drawn-out process which really allows us to center the kinds of critical relationships of radical care, mutual aid, and exploring what then becomes possible artistically, creatively. What ways can we dramaturg the world into a new shape through centering relationship, through centering embodied context and realities? And so one of our recent offerings was a series that we hosted with HowlRound, which was practice sessions for virtual collaboration which spanned four different themes and was our response, one of our responses, our first response to the COVID pandemic as a way of gifting to the wider communities that were part of some of the practices that we've been embodying through our work because we've been organizing virtually for such a long period of time and really leaning into decolonized, indigenized, and crypt ways of collaborating online. So I'll leave it there and I'm super thrilled to be with this amazing group of people and super honored to have been invited by Claudia. Thanks. And I will pass it to whoever's heart is fluttering the fastest right now. It's your turn. Erica, Armando, and Daphne. I'll jump in. Hi, my name is Armando Wipe. I'm here representing the Latinx theater commons. I am calling in from the essential lands of the Tongva peoples now known as Los Angeles. I'm in downtown LA where the air is also thick with smoke and ash from the fires here in Southern California echoing Mia's words of support to folks being directly affected. The Latinx theater commons is a national movement that uses a commons-based approach to transform the narrative of American theater to amplify the visibility of Latinx performance making and to champion equity through advocacy, art making, convening, and scholarship. We are a flagship program of HowlRound, of course part of ArtsEmerson nested within Emerson College. And I will say now I think that we are a national movement ourselves and we try to resist organizational norms while we're deploying our commons-based approach. And we are in coalition and in movement with the SOLE project, with Latinx Playwright Circle, with the emergent Nihente network of Latinx designers that's forming. And in coalition with our fellow networks of color, BTC, Black Theater Network, Black Vitality Commission, Consortium of Asian American theaters and artists, so many folks that we are trying to amplify because we too encompass folks that are part of many different diasporas and their individual intersectionality. And yeah, we plan 2020 as our sort of retreat year. We're supposed to hold a creative renewal retreat for ourselves to sort of recenter ourselves in our values. And now that those field has like been shifting since our founding in 2013. And we are still figuring out how to do that. I will say that in particular, I will say that we are ourselves reckoning with our own anti-blackness in our organization and our movement and trying to unlearn that and deploy more anti-racist practice, which I'll, Daphne, invite you to speak what you would like to contribute to about the LTC. That wasn't by way of segue, by the way. You need to pick it up right where I dropped it, but if you'd like to. No, but I just think it's so important because like one of the discussions that we've been having in-house and we try to be as transparent as possible is anti-blackness in the Latinx community and the Latinx community. And what does that mean and what does that look like? And when you're talking about an organization like the Latinx Theater Commons, who is a part of the Latinx Theater Commons? And who is Latinx is the big question. And has there been an erasure and has there been certain people not in the room and who is present and who isn't present? And looking at that and how that affects, but then also look in our own Latinidad and looking at our own ways that we have been raised and having our own conversations that really look at blackness and the importance and the inclusion. And so one thing that I often, it is a quote from someone else and I can't remember their name right now, but soon as she started seeing posters that said like, Latinx for Black Lives, she's an Afro Latina. She's like, well, I'm also black and Latinx. So that becomes, you're raising who I am by saying something like that and sort of like the acknowledgement having those conversations and how all of that trickles into the theater that we do, how that trickles into the casting. So not just about what is occurring in the LTC itself, but how that triggers to that and triggers to our programming, triggers to the plays that we're selecting, the actors that are coming to Carnaval, the shows that are being shown at Carnaval. And what does that mean and how do we engage in those conversations and how do we have, it's hard, but I think it's really important work and the blessing of having this year of being COVID is that we can spend those times having these conversations and we will continue to have these conversations past this year and it will become a part of the LTC. Yeah, the comedy Carnaval, we're hoping to begin to unveil and set into the world in 2021. We'll be centering the work of folks creating Latinx comedy and we're thinking of that also expansively in theater, on YouTube, stand up, sketch and that will lead into our next three years of programming where we're working on gathering in coalition with the folks I mentioned before and the summit on combating colorism as well as trying to unpack and approach director designer relationships from a way that's not hierarchical and truly shares power. You can learn about us at howlround.com and I think the last bit is probably that we're managing and our comments is led by a steering committee of about 50 folks who meet once a month and are trying to steer this movement forward. So with that, yeah. I'll add that it's also it's all volunteer and so all of the steering committee members are volunteers who want to become a part of the organization and I think that that's really an important acknowledgement as well. Stephanie and Armando, thank you so much. It sounds like the LTC is not busy at all the next few years but with that, a lot of appreciation and lastly, we have Erica Hawthorne from the Arts Administrators of Color and after we hear from Erica we'll come back together with a couple of questions. Thank you so much Erica. Hey, thank you so much for having me. And as she said, my name is Erica Hawthorne I use she, her, her and I'm a board member with the Arts Administrators of Color Network. We're a nonprofit network organization that focuses on networking and community building through the arts. We advocate and fight for equity in the arts through collaboration, forums and other outlets that provide a voice for artists and arts administrators of color especially in spaces where there may not be an avenue for us to lift our voices. We actually started in 2016 as just a Facebook group and we have grown enormously since then. We formalized as a nonprofit organization we're completely volunteer led everyone on the board and our founder, Clonny Floyd is a volunteer and it just grew out of the need of our founder and another board member, Ariel being at all of these arts organizations and arts events and noticing that there weren't enough people of color in the rooms especially at those national events and figuring out like we know the artists and arts administrators of color are out there so why aren't they in these spaces and how can we change that? So our focus is all on working with organizations and people of color to lift each other and to help create systems change and figure out where we have influence to do that. And so I put a link to our website in the chat there's all sorts of resources and information about our various programs but a couple of programs I wanna highlight we have our annual convening coming up in November which of course will be virtual but the good news is you don't have to travel. And so that will be two days of programming where people will come together we'll have space and time for healing between sessions and plenty of breaks so that you don't have to stare at the screen all day and there'll be a lot of interactive opportunities we've explored some different platforms to make it feel as much as we can like it would be if we were in person. As I mentioned, I don't know if I mentioned this yet but we are mainly in the DMV right now but we're actually launching chapters this year to really focus on expanding that national platform. If you come to next Saturday we're gonna be having a block party a virtual block party where you can learn all about the chapters initiative and how you can potentially start a chapter in your local area and what that rollout is gonna look like. Other programs we offer are professional development opportunities things like having representatives from the Washington area, Walla Washington area legal, the legal people who come and help us learn about different trademark laws and things like that. We have healing spaces through the arts professional development on personal branding. So those happen periodically throughout the year. We also have this phenomenal mentorship program which is how I first got introduced to the organization. We are in our fourth cohort right now which is a huge accomplishment that is still going and growing and we have application fee of $25 and then it's only $100 for 10 months of programming and access to executives working in the arts. And those relationships for me I'm still in close connection with my mentor from that program and I actually work with her now which is amazing. Yeah, we also do networking programs. We used to have a lot of happy hours and local programs and now we're still doing that in the virtual space throughout the pandemic. We've been hosting weekly work from home happy hours which is literally just a safe space to come together laugh, cry, do whatever you need to feel connected with each other through this time. They're on pause right now because we just need to get ready for the virtual gather or the annual convening but we'll be picking those back up. We also have a podcast that our board chair Josh Jenkins and our founder, Kwanhee's Floyd host which I don't know if I can curse on here so we just talk smack about white supremacy and they, Kwanhee's just posted on the Facebook group page this morning that they're launching the new season and given current environment it's gonna go hard. We also have a Sankofa project that we are trying to launch this year which is all about honoring our ancestors and the leaders of color that came before us and paved the way for us. So more information about that is on our website. We also launched an accomplished leadership institute. I think that was this year or maybe we launched it last year which is developing programming and curriculum to support our white accomplices and learning how they can be better supporters and help change these systems and use privilege to influence change. And last but not least we launched the COVID-19 emergency fund which gives $200 micro grants to any artist or arts administrator of color that's been impacted by the pandemic. And we have been overwhelmed with a generosity that has come in through this program to date this morning I checked and it looked like we're at $83,000 that we've raised and have been disseminating out. And yeah, it's been amazing. So thank you to everyone that's been supporting that program and the application is very straightforward. There's just a few questions and then we just churn out the grants as the money comes in. So we're trying to keep that up and do it as frequently as we can to get the money out. So I think that's it, just a few programs. But I put a link to the website and please visit our website, reach out to any of our board members. I believe my contact information is there as well but if not, you can reach me at my email ehoffthorne at aacdmv.org and I'll be happy to connect you with anyone in our organization and answer any questions. Thank you again for having me here. Thank you, Erica. I mean, we still have a lot of time to be able to address a couple of questions and I don't know if we have the capability of taking questions from folks that are watching right now but I'd like to kick us off with one of the questions that I had based on the description for this panel and some of the things that I've been hearing so far. In many of my conversations so far, these last few months with networks of color and culturally specific organizations, there appears to be a spectrum of similarities and differences in how folks have spoken about mental, emotional and physical labor and noting that not one person on this call or within any network can possibly represent the entirety of a culture. I want to ask folks individually, I mean, whoever is willing to share, Daphne of LTC mentioned that so much of this work is volunteer run. There's something about culturally specific organizations and member groups that are really, I mean, the spirit of generosity is so real and I understand that you can't do this work without some level of passion but what are the ways that you as individual leaders can be supported in this process, you know? Because there are ways that also larger institutions will really just assume and expect that your unique labor will be free, right? And that needs to be disrupted and this is also coming from somebody who moved from working from a culturally specific organization to a predominantly white institution. So I just wanna, anybody who's willing to share do not feel the need to represent your entire network but I'm looking at each of you as leaders on the front lines of this work and I just have been feeling the level of hope and excitement but also the level of exhaustion, frankly because folks do wanna prioritize the communities most at risk and how to do that and sustain yourselves at the same time. So anyone? I wanna keep on that given my grant making background. I think that responsibility really lies in the funding community to support culturally specific organizations and to make more equitable grant making processes so that there's not so much bureaucracy and paperwork and extra labor to get the support to do the work that we're doing with our communities and we've received some just so much generosity in the last couple of months. Trying to think of what I can say we received a really great gift that was unrestricted grant money which really is gonna help us start thinking about getting some paid staff that can do pieces of our work even if it's part time and it's things like that, those major gifts those unrestricted grant dollars the general operating grants and the grant programs that are open to culturally specific programs that really make a difference in us being able to support ourselves and continue doing the work. Thank you so much. Other folks? Definitely. I'll share, I also teach at a university so my university labor is free labor because it's part of service, right? But what I think it's really important is that acknowledgement when I'm not teaching at the university like that kind of labor that we get paid. And so for example, if I wanna do my volunteer labor with the LTC, that's because it's my passion it's because what I love is what I represent but then myself as an artist, myself as a director as a dramaturge pay me, pay me for my resources pay me for my knowledge, pay me as an artist. And I think that that's a really important especially an acknowledgement that people are surprised like, oh, you charge money for workshops? Yes. You charge money for consultations? Yes. I was like, I did not spend an X amount of years living this experience, studying this experience, writing about this experience to give you just free advice. I'm like, that's not going to happen. And so I think it's a really important acknowledgement that even when you're calling one of us up from an organization that they realize that or make a donation to my organization. You don't wanna pay me donate $50 to my organization because every little bit counts. And I think that that's really important for people to understand. Because yes, I'm donating my time to this organization because I love it. Or some of these organizations or networks reduce their cost and fees so that we can be a part of that. They're not charging us $400 to be a part of they're charging $25, which is very affordable. That's like back in, when we could go to the movies that's a movie ticket. If you're seeing an IMAX and not eating popcorn. So like it's really, it's worth it. But that's what we're choosing to do. So the outside, when they wanna work with us, consult with us, hire us, pay us. I'm hearing a lot of like setting boundaries and being able to take on the things that make sense for you. And even when I get calls from, you know the queer Korean organizations to kind of support a youth led call. It is not with the expectation like folks you have to pay me for that labor. There's something inherent in that identity connection where when I grew up, I didn't have those networks. So there's nothing else that brings me joy. Ironically to be on like a four hour call with KQD youth versus let's say an institution calling me for an hour of my time to talk about yellow face. So it's different, right? It is very different. So thank you for noting that Daphne. I saw Cheyenne and can we have somebody who wants to go afterwards just to stack? Okay, thank you, Ru. So Cheyenne and then Ru. Thank you. I wanna add to that because the other side of asking for that, not asking but demanding for that compensation for your time is also having and setting boundaries for your time and your space. And with BTC, one of the things we've done continually over the course of the last year is making space for ourselves to say we don't have the capacity to take on this meeting today. We don't have the capacity to do this work today. And just because it is your passion and it's what you love to do doesn't mean you can't say to yourself I need time to rest. I need time to breathe, to be human, to feel joy, to feel just experience life, especially with, for us, seeing so much trauma around black identity and black body and black culture. So taking that time to really say, yes, we love each other, we wanna meet today. We are commons of volunteers who say we wanna be here today. We can't do it and that is okay. And moving at that speed. It sounds like there's also a shared agreement. It's not like the traditional ways that people like to say guidelines. And if you can't do this, you're out, right? It's more of like sharing the labor amongst yourselves with the understanding. If you can't carry it today, you could tap in and out. I love it, I love it. Thank you. Rue, and then Armando. Yeah, hello. I'll keep it brief, because I know that Mia just messaged me asking if you could follow up. So maybe Mia and then Armando, if that's okay. But I, thanks Armando. Yeah, I really appreciate the brilliance that y'all shared around this question. Our personal experience recently has been, we were very lucky to be funded by the Canada Council for the Arts for this project. And so having that level of monetary support has been really great. But recently we've been thinking within our group about like how do we respond to the movement for Black Lives and thinking about like how we can actually support Black disabled, Cripp death artists and Black Indigenous artists through material means, right? Very similar to what Erica was speaking about. And one of the pieces of brilliance, and I hope Claudia is okay with me sharing this, is that she brought to us was that it's often the people who have the least resources who are most willing to share that with other folks. And my day job is grant writing, program management for my tribe. And what I continually comes back to is, there's enough resources. Nature lives within abundance, right? This is not about there not being enough resources. It's about who has those resources. And so I'm very much of the orientation at the moment that I want to demand that large organizations in particular are giving these resources. In the United States in particular, you see folks who are actively involved in the destruction of social programs, the destruction of healthcare, who are also funding theater programs. And so I'm not so interested in accepting that there are limited resources. I'm more interested in us saying, no, we know that the money exists. We know that these resources exist and we know we're doing important work. And so I want to make sure that that is the conversation that we're having and not a conversation of what do we do with what meager resources we've been given. So ha-wo and I'll hand it over to Mia and then I guess Armando. Thanks, Ru. One of the things that unsettling dramaturgy is endeavoring to do is to amplify platform where we center the practices that we've been innovating in our communities from time. And so one of the things that has been happening in the Canadian context is kind of this advent of interest in disability arts. And that meaning that bodies of funding have opened up and that meaning particular institutions and organizations applying for those funds and then asserting programming that they propose to be active innovation without consulting and without centering the people who've actually been at the forefront of making the transformative practices that we require as a baseline to be able to be participant to and to create on our own terms. And so one of the ways that we can be supported is with true invitation being made for us to take leadership in those spaces where institutions are endeavoring to create transformation and to not be expected to do that in isolation as individuals, but in our relational context so that we are not independently responsible for dismantling toxic, destructive capitalist, colonialist, ableist systems, racist systems but that we're doing that supported in our own right in on our own terms and that our leadership is being valued in the ways in which it deserves to be valued and that the changes that are made are not contingent on the moment because there happens to be a funding opportunity but that these are transformations that get embedded into the ways in which we think about who we are in relationship to one another, how we are doing what it is we do, why we are doing what we do, where we are doing what we do and all of the inextricable layers of power that complicate and make often very violent those spaces of creation and making. And so that we're, yeah. I've just seen a lot of institutions jump on opportunity without any reference to what has already been happening. Inside of spaces that as so many people here have said are not funded or volunteer led or led because we simply need those spaces to exist for our own existence. So throw your resources to where the work is already happening and where it's been happening and lift those folks up at the front of your celebration of your organization's transformation by actually resourcing them. So I know we have a couple of minutes left and I do wanna hear from Armando. There is one other question that I do wanna tee up but thank you so much Mia and Ru. I mean the realness of funding and resources and then those in power with those resources especially now, you know, you hear oh well because of COVID we don't have these resources and I love the idea of flipping this question like actually we know there's money. How are you prioritizing where those existing resources go? Like ultimately it's a question for you and you do have the power to prioritize where those resources go. It's no longer about, okay we don't have money so you're gonna have to wait in line. The boldness of that direct ask, right? Thank you so much. Armando and then I have another question and I think we could hear from a couple more folks. Armando? Yeah, I think first I should probably come out that I am contracted as an independent contractor to facilitate this year in committee and so it's not, you know, that level of volunteer that this is a development that happened six years ago now, a couple of years after the founding of the LTC because we thought it was important to dedicate resources and have someone dedicated to holding the space and holding the container and helping to maintain that. And we do of course resource the directors and actors and stage managers at our convenings. And then through the support of the foundations who support us we're able to allow folks to attend free of charge. And I do wanna like pick up on something that Ru said that made me think of this idea of coming from a place of abundance. And some of that also needs, we need to open up what we think of as resource. The commons in its purest form is an alternative economic model. And in that means that there's resource, there's an abundance of knowledge and wisdom. There's an abundance of spirit that is very present at our convenings. And it's so tough right now in this COVID moment where we're not able to come together because that is really truly where the magic is that I think that that is the thing that is being, if there's an exchange or like a symbiotic, a symbiosis amongst the folks in the comments, that's really where it's most potent. And so I think, yeah. And then lastly to say that in terms of like the LTC, the kind of organizing principle that I'm operating under too is how, because folks who are volunteering their time at the LTC are coming as artistic directors or scholars, directors, independent artists who have their practice and how can we as a collective minimize our financial impact on the field to get the money, the financial resource to the projects that need to be created and made. So I'll leave it there. Yeah. Thank you, Armando. So this last question again, anybody who is willing and wants to respond. Friends, we are still in the midst of multiple pandemics and there's been an increasing data points supporting how most at risk culturally specific groups, including and not limited to BIPOC, TGNC, LGBTQ disability communities. What are some specific concerns that are becoming more evident in your conversations and work? And I want to think about the future as well. How has your organization been able to respond thinking about what the future could look like? So I know it's like, there could be an American theater piece on this alone and maybe I will follow up with you on the possibilities. But just as a starting point, I'd love to hear from just a couple of folks on this specific concerns that are coming to light within your organizing and the ways in which your responses kind of set the tone for the future. I'll keep it very brief and say one thing that I have been so blessed to witness and experience and be a part of with unsettling dramaturgy is that access is an ongoing process. And one of the things that we do in our space is we ask during our hour long check-ins what are your access needs? And then also the explicit understanding that those may change. And so what I think is really interesting is being in this space with unsettling dramaturgy for a year plus prior to the pandemic is that I now see everyone very concerned around access and realizing that access is a conversation that we're all having. It's just in the modes of being prior to the pandemic, a lot of us who don't identify as disabled, crept, deaf, mad are secure and safe in the assumption that we're gonna have our access needs met in most spaces. But the fact is that this needs to be a conversation that we're having when we're in community with one another to make sure that we're caring for and providing for one another. So that is, I think it always has to be specific and it always has to be in the time and space in which an event or a program is happening. Thank you so much, Ru. Would love to hear from some folks from other networks. I'm just trying to think and take notes. Yes, Minatma Kate. Yeah, I think that as I mentioned, we're a relatively new group. So we're still sort of figuring out what our internal structure is, but I think something that's been important during this time has been the ability to pivot, to handle certain needs within the community, especially when it comes to COVID, especially when it comes to everything going on right now. In terms of the crisis in Lebanon, our organization took some time to draft a list of resources. We've been partnering, certain members within our group have been partnering on certain fundraisers and events and that was not a part of our initial goal that we set out to do, but we were able to, because right now we have a flexible sort of structure, we're able to pivot in that way. And so I think that will be something that we'll continue to do as we contend with the effects of COVID going forward. Thank you so much, Kate. Would love to hear from one more person before we close out and noting that I do plan on following up with all of you. There's just so much to unpack and I think that this is growing with these groups here on board, perhaps we could hear the perspectives of other culturally specific organizations as well. One more person would like to reflect on, thank you, Cheyenne. Yeah, I'll keep it really brief. BTC has a whole series of work coming out this fall. Again, a call for Revolutionary Theater 2020. We're actually calling on our varied and very, very wide network of folks to comment on this very question of what does theater look like? What is the industry now? What do we need? So I think, yes, Elena, this will be a very big discussion. I'm really excited for BTC to be a holding space for all of these different thoughts and ideas about this. And for me personally, I think this is the most beautiful opportunity to adapt in all of the ways. Appreciate that, Cheyenne, and all of the work that BTC is doing as well as the other organizations on today's call. All right, well, I'm gonna pass it over to Deborah to help close out. Once again, a lot of love and gratitude, Claudia for inviting me and everyone here. Deborah? Thank you so much. I'm gonna let Claudia say a few words and then I'm gonna take us into the art shares. I am floored, y'all, thank you, thank you. Just again, gigantic gratitude and thanks to everyone who came here to help us do this labor and work because thinking about these things and talking about these things and crafting all of these strong ideas, this is the work of the field. This is how we have a field. This is how we do the work. This is the work. So thank you for joining us in it. Thank you for allowing us to help others to understand how vitally important and necessary you are. We do invite folks to go to the expo section in the Hopin 2. In that section, you might find some more information about some of these organizations. Also, check out every single link that was in that chat. There's so much great information. These convenings are part of the ecology of the American cultural producing field and we are very grateful that you joined us to do this labor and building. Like to hand the microphone over to Deborah so we can get some more art on. And I'm gonna go join you in the audience now in the Hopin 2.