 Five, four, three, two, one, and we are live. Welcome everybody back to Siegel Talks here at the Martin E. Siegel Theatre Center, the Graduate Center, CUNY in the City University of New York and in the city of New York in the middle of this grim, grim, grim outlook. We are learning every day more and more about the situation, how it progresses, how many more people are infected than we ever knew when the outlook is not good for the US and what is expected. So we are in the epicenter actually here in New York City of the entire planet Earth with most infections and most dead. So far, catastrophic, mishandling, most probably of a situation and we still have to find out and learn more. Everything is closed, theaters, restaurants, our bookstores, life has come to an halt. Someone has pushed the break for us on the global economy and the global way of living and we are experiencing an unprecedented time. And here at the Siegel Talks we do listen to artists, theater artists, that's what we do at the Siegel Center always or we bridge academia and professional theater, international and American theater. And but I think and we all do think that right now is even more important to listen to voices from the theater and the performing arts from around the world, artists have been on the right side of history right side of social progress. And they are the ones we really should have listened perhaps even more careful before they in their works, their plays, their films, their poems, their writings, they did warn us there were many, many signs we didn't take it serious, all of us. And so now we are in a situation where we are confined to our homes the world has getting smaller and the way we are connecting to Berlin and India and Pakistan or South Africa and milliseconds but also our personal life is smaller. We move from rooms to rooms, move things, right, connect but the life as we know it is not happening at the moment and with lots of uncertainty we do not know where it goes. But also it is a time to think, a time to find meaning, create new meaning, to listen especially also and perhaps reflect on what we have been doing everybody. We had also said we live too fast too much we did not really embrace the change that was needed and and often crisis are needed as we know from theater to come to a solution or a new solution, or to find our ways back to what was right. Today, we have a great artist with us, one of the great workers in the vineyard of theater and performance globally Lula Arias from Argentina, currently in Berlin since a year working with the great Gorky theater who was last year also at the Penval Voices Festival, the sixth place from the Gorky and Lola has been at the Siegel Center also before and she's a writer. She's a director and filmmaker. Her work has been very, very influential performance research just published a book on her work with my colleague Jean Graham Jones. I guess all the tours the book tours and talks have been canceled I guess so Lola first of all welcome tell us where you are what time it is and what neighborhood you are hanging out in Berlin. I'm in Berlin, Grozwa is 603. 603 so how does it feel for an Argentine Latin American theater maker who moved to Berlin to enjoy the city work there and bring your art here and now you are confined to your home. Well, I mean I think for all of us is hard to be confined. But I guess it's hard when you have your family somewhere else and you know you are not able to travel if something goes wrong so I think this is the most like personally the most difficult thing to deal with that I have. My father is 86 and he is in Argentina and sometimes I wonder if something happens, and I won't be able to travel I can't be there if he needs me, and this is sometimes like the hardest. Like in a personal way in a professional way and I'm happy to be here because I had been like working a lot at Gorky and developing projects with artists from all over the world that happened to be here in Berlin. And I have the feeling that there are many things that are happening during these corona times within the art field, and people are gathering and thinking together about strategies so I'm happy to be in a city where also a lot of people gather like with very very different different backgrounds and coming from different cultures different realities so the like the common thinking of how to go on is always very rich because people have many different experiences in their own own countries. So how long how is the situation in Berlin at the moment we heard a bit from Thomas Ostermaier some weeks ago but how is it for how long have you been confined. I know you have a five year old daughter with you and a son a five year old son with you. Sorry. And so for how long and how is it can you go out is he going to kindergarten again. Yeah, no basically since I was in in Italy in February when everything started in Italy so I arrived to Italy because I was supposed to make a project in Italy in Bologna north of Italy in Bologna in April and May and I am supposed to be now in Italy. So I was like rehearsing a project called Lingua madre mother tongue in Italy but in fact I traveled to Italy in the in February to make a workshop to choose the protagonist of the of the play and the day we arrived the next day the whole like theaters were closed and everything the lockdown started from one day to the other. It was such a shock that we didn't even know what was going to happen and at the beginning we thought okay no we stay and we find a way to make our workshop and meet with people, even if the theaters are closed or there is a way to start gathering and so on but then we realized that it was very fast, very dramatic in Italy and we had in fact we stayed for two days and then we had to leave. And finally we would have stayed more maybe I was not able to come back to Berlin so it was quite difficult moment to decide to like to give up the project and come back to my family in Berlin. But nevertheless I continue working with the people in Italy so now we develop a system that we are doing like soon rehearsals or workshops where we start to research on the topic. Because the topic of this piece was I mean was reproductive rights, motherhood and different ways to in a way understand the the rights to be a mother when and how you want to to make it or not make it. And in a way we were researching with a very different group of mainly women like trans women or lesbian women who had children with other women, women who had been through in vitro treatments or women who made adoptions men who made surrogacy in the States and we were like exploring the issue of of yeah of of how this tension between the law and the rights for you to like to invent your own way to be a mother or a father or to create your own family in the way you want it and what how many things we are like struggling with and it was very interesting and the project is ongoing so we continue doing like the zoom meetings where we discuss these issues and we do like theater exercises through the zoom. Sometimes they have to perform or to bring photograph and small text they wrote their documents on their their in a way struggles to get recognized as parents. Their struggles to get in vitro treatment their struggles to get their adoptions. And it's very very interesting because you realize that this is also something that is very less discuss also about abortion about recognition of of of different kinds of ways of being a family or not being a family. Yeah, not being a family and and now we are back in a way to that core unit of families or we you're so often that people do say oh I go back to my family and everybody assumes it's a cookie cutter shape or everybody has a family or everybody has kids or everybody is married and lots many own their live on their own or they are in a partnership but cannot see each other because they are not legally with a paper connected like in France where you really can only raise so many questions. Yeah I think it was also interesting to hear like for example now in Italy I mean the abortion is legal but it's like in the society is really is more and more like in the US now there is this like questioning this abortion laws and like asking why is the abortion still possible should we go back should we forbid abortion and this was happening also a little bit in in Italy and there was a lot of like right for demonstrations in front of the hospitals and people like trying to go back with the legislation and with this coronavirus they even said like that the hospital shouldn't be doing abortions. Now because it's not something that is really needed. So in the moment where the like health system is about to collapse then why don't we just like take advantage of this whole crisis to suspend abortions. Yeah, we just had yesterday a heartbreaking call from Hungary with Andrea Tompa the dramaturg and writer and Anna Lengel and they said that the same is happening there that during corona time politics and politicians abuse powers and now unprecedented unchecked actually in Hungary and one of the state ministers officials said you know people would follow the 10 commandments 80% of the illnesses wouldn't exist. And it's a shocking a shocking time in Poland some areas have been declared gay and lesbian free. There's violence on the streets against minorities and it's complicated any news from Argentina I know you're not so close but still you grew up there your life has been. Tell us a little bit what's going on there. The community of artists. I think they are like many people are discussing how can they continue with their own like practices where the artistic practices and I know that there is a group of independent theater makers were also living on their own like studios where they teach and they also present a place in a very small. Like really small studio sometimes they do pieces for 50 people or even less 30 people and they are trying to create a protocol on how to continue with their activities during the corona time without like infringing and like health legislations or regulations. So they are trying to invent a way to do theater which I think people still meet life in a room. They don't meet yet they don't meet yet but they are trying to create this protocol to be able to do it in the near future. So because they all had like had moved into the virtual format and they teach acting via zoom and they do their rehearsals via zoom and they do streaming of their live of their place online with these like way that they can collaborate or put money like like in a way donate money to the company. But they are trying to create a protocol to be able to perform again live in front of people and with people on stage. And this is I think very interesting. I don't know how far they are now because they are like having meetings to create this protocol and how this could be possible. But this is what they are like trying to. Protocol and sense of social distancing where they how far people see the audience system. How many people with hands between them what kind of like how do they be inside with masks without masks. Yeah how big should the space be how much space in between the people just trying to create like a kind of regulate like how do you say that. And how is the situation as far as you know in Argentina are there the memories of the shadows of a dictatorship of an authoritarian state. Are they getting longer are they also approaching or do you feel Argentine society and artists are experiencing a moment. No I think I mean I think we are very lucky that this crisis happened with the like the current president Alberto Fernandez and Christina Fernandez and not with the previous one. Because I think he's been very very cautious and he has been like he did the lockdown from the beginning in a very like conscious way I mean and even if it has been very hard because people can't go out. And like not even for sport or anything and they just can go out for shopping and only one member of the family can get out and the children are locked in since weeks and it's and if you want to visit your own parent you have to have like a permission and so it's very very strict but on the other hand I think like it was clear that the health system in Argentina wouldn't survive like a big explosion so I think they did the right thing and in fact the figures are showing that they did the right thing. But of course now there is a lot of pressure on the sides of like that there is a lot of people who can't cope with the privilege of like staying at home because they can't survive because they have no nothing to they have no money they have no. And there is a lot of people who are like now queuing for one sandwich in a in one of these food, food shares, I don't know how to call it. Food kitchens food kitchens. So, I think that the big issue is now how all these people were survived under this condition if these. Yes, if these regulations are extended over time. Yeah, no, and of course there are also extreme situations like like the in the slums in the Villa 31 in the barrio Padre Mujica where there is no water so it's part of the city where people are living like in very precarious conditions and now they have no water since 10 days and the, and there is an explosion of cases. So there's no water at all water no water at all so you cannot ask for people to wash their hands and then like they have no water, like stay home and you have no water, no food, no, nothing. So, yeah, like in some refugee camps Syrian ones because I guess we would like to wash our hands but we do not have so we do not have water, but has there been no water before in these areas or how they came by. Well, the it is a very complicated situation in this whole like we said that you know but since 10 days this has been the case that they have no water so now. Yeah, there is a lot of pressure from like organizations to try to make visible the situation so that something can be done. Argentina has such a great theater scene and so live bonus iris we also film television and theater does make so many groups and everything but now in a time of corona. Are there programs to help artists like you are successful or represent of that fantastic a great long culture of theater and performance but do you get help from Argentine government. I know that there is some small help by the Institute of theater, but like because there are some people who already had like shows that were my bought by the by certain institutions and they could get some small money but it's really very, very small. Very, very little. Yeah. And basically what is happening is that people are like either like that the state theaters or like the independent theaters are streaming and asking for a donation. That's what happens like that's the way people try to. To get some help but it's also very hard. Some people also started to like to give their own classes online and so on but also there are people who like usually pay the classes they are also in a very fragile situation so it's hard also to keep paying a theater. Class or a dance class when you don't know how to pay the rent. So, yeah, that's of course there's micro economy is completely in danger in New York City so many artists also for theater but also musicians for the next nine 10 months everything has been canceled every gig has been canceled. Musicians and artists who you know used to work on this different projects and some playwrights even experienced the commission they had been assigned by the state of theater would say we don't give you the money we are supposed to give you because this is not going to happen. I mean even ongoing there are prominent playwrights in the US so it is it is a tough situation. What is your take on doing work online or zoom fast or to create something. Do you watch. Do you watch New York were created online in zoom time in Corona times now on zoom. What do you are you considering doing that. Sorry, it was interrupted. Yeah. Yeah, I'm back. Did you hear my question. No. Yeah, that's okay. So many people told me the artists feel now they say we have to do something great on the screen. And they do work for screen create when Richard Nelson did a work on the public I think 35,000 people looked at it within five days Oscar Eustace just told us who was on who by the way also had Corona I didn't know that for four or five days he was in a hospital I think in Brooklyn one night he had to spend in the ways and while being responsible for 270 people at his theater which had to close down and he had to make all these decisions not knowing for him if he would survive this it's just incredible but so are you thinking about creating online content. What is your are you watch your do you watch your colleagues and do you think it's a good idea. Actually, yes, I'm doing now a program of lecture performances. That will start in the middle of May, call my documents. This is a program that I'm already doing since many years, I started it in 2012 in Buenos Aires, and it's basically a program in which I invite artists from different teams to work on their own personal archives and it's called my documents because it's this idea of this like folder in the screen like folder in your computer where you have these things that you accumulate these obsessions that you don't know why you are like keep that you keep accumulating for years or this. This investigations that you never managed to translate into an artistic work, and this program will have a new version, which will be a virtual version with artists that are all over the world. So there will be a team etchers from London, making a work on his and his notebooks over 35 years, having more from Berlin, working on archives on the Lebanon on Lebanon war and post war. There will be a little bit of a soul from Mexico, working also on an archive of diaries there will be a tiny a burger from Cuba, and main G time from China. So it will be really like different artists, developing this lecture performances that will happen live and Pedro Penin from from Portugal was living in Rome. So basically, there will be sharing these archives through this share your screen when you just like open your computer to the world. But if you are opening our living rooms to the world but with this project we open our computers to the world our obsessions are like our computers became like an extension of our brains. We were opening our brains and sharing these obsessions with the audience and we have also I mean I can show something if you want just before we do this do you. So you had these lecture performance before but now to Corona you had the idea I'm going to invite artists I respect like significant artists to create. Is that a performance that is that or yes it's a lecture performance so they perform and instead of a play or written play or an interview. Yeah, they will do it by soon live so they will be like performing for a group of people so you have to in a way also send an email and you will be part of this virtual space as a as an audience it won't be a streaming but like as like you will be in this soon. There will be a conference with them and then there will be streaming afterwards but first of all there will be this encounter this is virtual encounter between the artist and this and the audience. And yeah and this will be done like Friday and Saturday since the middle of May until the end of June, and this is a. It starts on the 15th of May. No, no, every week Friday and Saturday, every week, middle of May till the end of June and this is a couple that should be between was on Tom, Frankfurt, Kampenagel, Hamburg, Munich, and cousin a buzzin. So it's like several theaters came together to make these projects. So it was my idea but I convinced. It didn't the time now you did it influence did that did it change something or do you have the idea anyway before. Now I've been doing this program, as I said since 2012 and I did like almost every year year I did an addition. I did many additions in Buenos Aires I did some additions in Milan I did one in February in Lisbon. So, in fact, for me this this program is something that I do since a since many years and for me it's a way to connect with other artists and to think together about how to work with our own obsessions our materials that usually we don't work with. It's about failures also it's also it's not a tech is the contrary of a tech talk is about failure is about obsession is about the things we do when we don't know what to do. And so, in a way this is something that I'm that I've been interested in for a long time and now the differences that we are doing this virtual version that allows me to invite people from different parts of the world, which I could never do. It was life in a theater or you probably was live in a theater but it already like the elements that that for me were also like that that there was the presence of the artists and their computer because mainly like when people talk about their own archives they have them in their computer so it was basically that was always like a table and computer and an artist and the screen behind and sometimes the artist would dance or do crazy things or bring a lot of objects or whatever but the minimum format was the artist and the computer so I thought this is like has a lot of potential to be done in the virtual virtual world so you adapted it now for the current time so it's in a way performing knowledge performing what you know about what your research is a great project at the great center to our students I'm here for June and Corey Tamla developed that for two years we do this we invite students from all the 30 PhD programs to perform their research that project and the failures, what's working what's not working and so this is a fantastic idea you have here an adaptation of an existing idea in a new form. Yeah, so maybe if you if you have I haven't seen that if you have a little show us. In fact, this is is not totally done yet but it's like I would share my screen so I will do okay so we are we the first to see that here. Yes, I think not totally not totally. Okay, it's a draft draft of a one minute of the lecture performance of Pedro Penin. Okay, that he's like working on it and this will be the first lecture performance is called doing it. And I won't tell more I just show like suddenly Pedro Penin will appear in my computer as if inside of my computer for a long time. Yeah, maybe tell us a little bit about it while we watch it. Pedro Penin is a writer and on a theater director from Portugal from Lisbon and he's now living in Rome and he did this lecture performance in February when we did actually when we did the live lecture of lecture performances live in Lisbon in Teatro de Barrio Alto he was there. So basically now we adapted this existing lecture performance other artists are really inventing complete new things. I will share my screen moment. Okay. And yeah, let's see if you see what I see. You see black. Yes. There is nothing that he fears more than talking about it. Because talking about it as it turns out is is hard for him. It has always been a sort of secret and and it might also be a kind of an issue. And because there are only three people in the world who know about it. Well, I mean, now there is more. Yeah, so now even even more than the three people will know about it. So it's kind of a sharing of a secret knowledge or private knowledge or something stored in our hard drives. In this case, I will just like give a bit of more information and his lecture performance is on his obsession with islands. So basically, it's like somebody that is talking about how he travels to isolated islands like in like and he get lost on these like virtual travels. I did this before Corona, but I thought it was so like for this moment when we get lost in the Internet in the sea of Internet when we travel like with Google Maps because we cannot travel anymore. Like to have this lecture reflecting on what it means why there is this desire of getting lost or being isolated because he's also talking about the desire of being isolated. He's like, obliged to be isolated, but he speaks about this desire of going far and away. He talks about missanthropy about solitude about. Yeah, many things, but it's it's really interesting but it's basically traveling to unknown islands and also collecting like crazy stories about islands that we never heard about before. It's great. I think the great Idua Lisong who actually taught at the Graduate Center also had this idea of the archipelagos where he said, is there all islands and he used it as a metaphor for the world of phonology islands. The individual islands and they have their own systems but all together their formal landscape and we have to see the world not as one big island like the US North America often does. It's one gigantic big I know there are islands with many islands and together they form something and perhaps Corona is now connecting again this idea of the archipelagos and hearing all around the world on those islands from him will remind us speaking of solitude or loneliness. Are you experiencing that. No, I'm missing loneliness. No, because like this like living with a, I mean I'm with my partner and my son, like 24 hours a day. And sometimes I miss these like solitude now I have it because they are like somehow gone, but I miss the subject in terms of like, like being able to also have time for my own to write and to think. But of course I'm also missing people so much, I mean missing the contact, the touch, the, like, yeah the feeling, even if when you walk outside you see that there is people and this is already comforting because sometimes you feel like so alone. Like might forget that there is others outside but when you go outside and you see them is already comforting this is something that is very special like we are like, I realize that like now, for example in Berlin, you can start to go to the shops or to the post office which I like suddenly rediscover the post office. We are sending postcards to the friends of framework that he doesn't see. So like every week we send two or three postcards to other kids and we receive postcards from other kids that lives in the same city but we cannot see them so we send each other postcards and in the queue of the post office. There is a homeless person that puts music. So he like creates a kind of atmosphere in the queue of the post office and then the people like are like waiting with one meter 50 distance and with the he puts some like pop music and people start to chat with each other in the queue. And then suddenly I realized like we never speak with strangers in the streets and now we are so like, like so much like missing like social contact and people that we start to speak with people in the queue and to like be more aware of like the people, the actual people that we see every day in a big city and being more like, acknowledging that they are there and saying hello or having small talks with people. I think that's also already very impressive. Yeah, so in a way you are alone but not really alone you're with your family but not with all the family, all your friends outside so these are strange times so if you say you miss the loneliness you have as an artist what do you do. How do you, how do you find that in normal days? How is the solitude? How do you create that? Yeah, I mean the solitude of writing and this because this is the only activity I really need like solitude to write and to think about ideas and this needs like a lot of like silence around. So you go to a library or what do you do? No, usually I do it at home or I have like sometimes I have studios or like a small office or a small room somewhere else but mainly like the house is not like full all the time so I have the outlet at home. Yeah and I also miss the rehearsal room very much like the experience of this every day like meeting the people and used to be surrounded by 20 people when I'm rehearsing like the performers, the technicians, the other artists so this like small community that you see every day and you also have this concentration of like being together. This is also something that I actually miss a lot. And so do you write at all now in Berlin in Kreuzberg where you are? Do you find moments in the day? How does your day look like if you can walk us through the day of Lola Arias in Berlin? It's very, it's changing very much in the different weeks. Now I do a lot of like everybody are doing a lot of like Zoom calls with people just to organize things and keep things going also to do this program of like to perform as I'm talking with artists. I mean yesterday I was talking with these artists in China, she's coming from Hubei province, really like the epicenter where everything started and she like is telling me about her artistic research on the memory of the farm line in China and like all like things that I wasn't so aware of and that was also quite interesting like how I'm now like much more connected with people, other artists through this Zoom meetings that I'm always having. Then there is a time when I write, if I managed to have this moment of concentration and writing and I'm writing now a book called like portraits of known and that would be the title known and unknown people like personas conocidas So I try and I'm doing this like I have this crazy idea of like, like making a portrait of every people, every person I met, which is completely impossible of course it's like, you know, trying to make the cut like the, you know, the credits of the film of your life and put like all all the names at the end of this film is all also almost like writing your own epitaph. Because it's like, like, like, like, like, like trying to gather like all the people you met in your life is also going through your life. And this is like what I'm doing now I'm trying to make this book, which is a project for one publishing house called Ripio in Buenos Aires and And then I'm sometimes also writing a diary of a morning. Do you call it like this? Yeah. Yeah, my mother died some months ago. I'm so sorry to hear that. Thank you. I'm writing about this. And this is also like very, very special experience to write about lost loss and And, yeah, and what happens after that. And I'm reading this beautiful book by all of us called the diary of the morning. I think it's somewhere here. Yeah. Yeah. He wrote this beautiful book when his mother died. And it's full of like amazing, like it's really like small notes on on this process. He says it's not a process that's also interesting. He says, everybody tells me that that the morning, how do you say morning? It's a process, but I feel it's we are I'm always in the same. Yeah, in the same state. It's not it's not a process. It's like, I'm going back and forth and I don't feel that I'm getting linear of my mother but more that I'm getting like deeper into a feeling that I never had before. And I think, yeah, probably I think the death of our mothers or the parents is one of the most existential experiences we've had. Tell us about your mother. Tell us a bit about her. She was a literature teacher, basically, and, and she was someone very, very interested in art, and she was like a person that taught me piano and took me to dance lessons and theater lessons and she was always like encouraging like artistic ideas is in all ways, and she was herself. I think a great writer but she never really wrote a book, but more like essays because she was a literature professor at the university also, and she wrote like more like essays or, but she also wrote some texts only for herself that that we that she read only like family occasions or strange situations, and they were so beautiful I always thought she should have been a writer probably she wouldn't have had three kids, three children. She would have had more time for for writing her own literature. And yeah, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's important we plan to have an event with Adrian Kennedy a great African American pioneering playwright from the 60s and 70s fantastic work which she did one of her beautiful works is people who led to my place. She had little paragraphs like almost like dictionary entries of thoughts memories of a child but also people she met actors or movie stars or travel she made and she connects these kind of little islands as one we as early as a little the archipelago student a big bigger picture is a beautiful way of creating a memory. And I think that these corona time is a time for you that is formative for you is that changing something or is it an interruption and then life will go back or do you feel something is happening. I was thinking about this book of now me claim these change everything. I had it like now hearing about the climate change. And I think yeah this should change everything but in the in a positive way. What should change like everything like, like, I mean we should, I mean, from climate change like we realize like suddenly like lanes are not flying anymore and there are like animals, taking over the cities and, and somehow the air is clear and there is like the nature is taking like back. No, it's like, when we when we the humans like step back a little bit the nature. Somehow rose and animals are back and I don't know I had a feeling that this is also needed that we step back with many things with. With pollution with like the idea of like this paper productivity and the amount of, of like this idea that we have that economies have to always grow. It's, I think this is all like a bit in question now I think that the problem is how to interpret these signs and there are people also saying like now that there is this big economical crisis we should like, like, be more straight and more. And we do we should forget about climate change because people are starving and that's justification is also very weird, because we should create new works for renewable renewable energy we should invent new ways of of taking care of the earth and of each other we should like reinforce. Health education, like state intervention. I think this is like something that becomes became very clear. And what's happening in the US is also. I think it's very brutal because it shows like how how hard it is when like one, when a country is driven by this idea, neoliberal idea that the market does it all and then you have like a whole health system collapsing and then how many people had been fired. 30 million people filed without work. And like, it's really is a total disaster. And I think it's very. Yeah, I think it should be a moment of change. Yes. But the, but yeah, you have to see how to get rid of this, this maniac that is running the boat. Will you also change something in your life. Yeah, I mean I don't know I think I'm changing something a little bit something every day in terms of like the way I relate to two things, even like to my own. I never, I never I never pay attention to things in the house I'm always like into my thoughts and running from one thing to the other and now I'm taking care of the plants and of the dishes. And today the washing machine got broken and for the first time in my life, I repair the machine with a YouTube tutorial. So, so suddenly I feel like, okay, I can be self sufficient and which is also a bit absurd, but, but somehow these like small feelings of how important are these everyday connections like, there are none things like very, like, everyday things. But also I'm more and more thinking because I'm I'm also like working on an on a project with elderly people for next year. And I was thinking a lot about like the situation of aging, and how it became so now so relevant to discuss how do we want to age and how do we want to like take care of the people who are aging and how do we make ourselves responsible for them. How do we share our time with people who is going to take care of us and of our beloved ones. In the end of our lives, I think this is something like that we all have to think about so much that we are like this like euphoria of youth and beauty and whatever. And we are always like denying that this will come to us and that this is already there that there is a lot of people that are out of the public discussion out of the public space out of the political agenda out of the. I think we can talk about what what your sex life will be like when you have 80 I don't know where there are things to discover and, and I think that's also something that I'm now interested in thinking and researching. And I'm starting now it's very difficult moment to start like interviewing and talking to people. I'm starting with people who are, I mean that I can interview online or like so soon and so on but I want to do this project live so it's a challenge also. Yeah, and I was reading a novel that was written by the eye casares in 69, almost 50 years ago, which was called the diary of the war of the pig. And it was about a world in which the young people started to hunt the elderly people because of nobody knows because of what because they smell because they are greedy because they are ugly because we don't like them, because we are afraid of becoming one of them. We are to hunt them and to beat them and to get them like we don't want to see them anymore. And this number written like 50 years ago, it made me think so much about this process that we are living now, where like elderly people are also marginalized from public life and also even like with the excuse of taking care of them. And also isolating them even more. So I think it's very, it's very, it's a very urgent question to think about. Yeah, how to handle the crisis also like taking care of their of what they need besides like being healthy or like. You know, the dignity, even yesterday in our talk with Hungary, which is still in my mind, I think Orban, the lead orthocrat, or that 60% of all patients and hospitals need to leave, no matter what condition even terminally ill people. And Corona beds free for the statistic, even though they weren't really stopped yet. And nine out of 10 and nurses that people died in their homes on the streets. And a complete disregard disrespect and this was all what we experiencing here in Corona time that we are confronted in a way with death that's always there we had a RST Tarnaga who said 400,000 people die of malaria and every day we don't even have the money for the diesel vaccinations. This has been going on for very, very long time the system is not working it's not right. And things will have to change and should change in your artistic practice. Do you think it will also have serious consequences, or your wonderful work your the future land work about immigration and all this, the seat of war the film you did. I've already developed new forms and which we all admire but do you feel there's an additional layer now over something we say I will never do this again I will now focus more on that or do you feel it's reinforcing your existing work. I think it's, I don't know what, like how the form of my work will change because I'm like I think we are always like discovering new ways of working and new formats and new collaborations but I think what reinforces the idea that for me it's more like who do we share our time with in terms of with whom do we collaborate and for which purpose for me it's more reinforcing that these projects were like you create a community around the project like we did future land which was a project with unaccompanied minors and the children or young people who came from Syria Afghanistan Iraq and to Germany and they were like without like any net by trying to build up their lives alone with the help of social workers and so on. It's an amazing group of young people and kids to develop this piece and this was so important for all of us for them and for me and and I think that more and more I think about that this is. Yeah, what I'm more interested in, I'm interested in like sharing these times and creating these communities of people that we can like do something artistic together that can help us to go through this, go through this can be many different things. So focus in a way a bit on also on community and the people what the work and is about. I know you got cut short on the on the launch of your book, which Richard got from performance. We search produced and you did my colleague, Jean Graham Jones. And we talked about it or you had some reflections and maybe show us the book and you had some reflections you know on the future theater and so let's have so we at least see how it looks like. Okay, this is from a scene from one of your play. It's very, very big. Beautiful and lots of color. Greatly designed but maybe read us something out of it so we know what's the idea of the book and the big picture is it a retrospective. Yeah, I mean it's a bit of all the work I did until now. Like, I'm already like. Yeah, on the end of my career. It's basically it's like there are essays and short texts from other artists and professors and academics and there is also texts of mine there are some scripts scripts of different place. There is photographs there is interviews. A lot of different materials is really an amazing work like that Jean Graham Jones did for a very long time because she had been editing this book for I don't know maybe four years. I was always saying like, which team is not ready we have to do this and that and it was like Lola you will never let it go. And it came out just in March and then we have to go there and we can incredible incredible online in the workplace of performance research books. So it's available to download great great great research anyway performance research by Richard what he puts out his magazines and the books is fantastic but yeah so maybe read us something from it and yes you told me to look for something and I just found out something five minutes. Which is at the end of one. Prologue that I wrote to the publication of the trilogy. And is the text that talks about like this, like how I started theater. And then it goes to how I imagine the theater in the, in the future, and it says something like sometimes I wonder about the future form of theater. But what kind of play I will make before I die. Will it be with actors or robots. Will it be in a theater or in a computer or in an airplane. Will it be like a telepathic experience or a drug given to expectators just before they go to sleep. These are the questions we all have now and maybe we even listen, listen more careful. So you are in Berlin at the Kreuzberg what street is it or can we see out of your window Meredith Mung wants to collect. It's a beautiful. It's not possible. It is possible. Yes, yes, I go I go to the window. So let's see what Lola Arias sees like out of. I see a lot of trees that's so beautiful. These are my trees. I really discovered trees. I didn't know the name of any tree before and now I'm starting to learn very slowly the names of some trees. I realized that there are some castanium in this tree and also there are cherry blossoms that came from Japan when they were reunification of Germany. And there are others which I still have to learn. I still have a lot of time to learn names since how many weeks are you looking at it for five weeks. Yeah, more like at least six weeks or no, even more seven weeks. I think seven weeks. Incredible. It's like the famous paintings of almost every painter of the view out of their studio, the atelier, which is found in the view out into the world from the inner refuge and your own view. So this is well, this small but we look a bit more careful. Is there something, I mean, we have also many students and young artists for our listeners. Is there something where you feel this is an advice? This is something that has been useful for you? What should we all pay attention to? What is of significance to keep in mind right now? What is significant to keep in mind? I think it's a moment, it's a nice moment to go a bit back inside of us. I mean, besides being outside, of course, being aware of the social situation is also important. But I think it's also an exercise that you can do while you look more inside of you in terms of, I think it's a good moment for, I mean, this situation that everybody's posting photos of the past in Facebook or like recalling situations and so on. I think it's a very interesting thing because we are always so much into the future, like into the what's coming next, that to be a bit like inside and to recall, to rethink, to go back. I think it's so interesting to do that and to take time for that. I think it could make us wiser, but we have to work. Yeah, do you listen to music now? Do you reconnect to something? There is something very good that they are doing this live streaming, united with stream in Berlin, like because the clubs are closed, they do an evening program. And you have wonderful DJs playing alone for you and you put it in your living room and you can dance with United with Stream. This is something that I do. Oh, great. So it's the website is www.unitedwithstream.com. I think so too. I can check it. Okay, good. So I think you will find it. You'll find it, united with stream from Berlin, so people can dance to the tunes of Berlin. Yes, united with stream, point Berlin. Point Berlin. Okay, so I will certainly check that out. Maybe also for your project, if can people apply to listen to the performance lectures or what's the website? Everything is online in the web page of Muzonchum, which is the main producer of the lecture performance. Yeah, so Muzonchum is a theater in Frankfurt and they are doing also a wonderful like program of other virtual performances. So I think it's very... Something to look at. Muzonchum and perhaps if not... Yes, and also in my web page there will be... In your web page, LolaArias.com, you can find it. Lola really, really thank you for taking the time to speak to us. We all admire your work. We see up to you. You are a leading voice globally and it's fantastic that you connected with the great Corki Theater. Thanks, Frank. It was really nice and interesting also to hear you and to connect with so many thoughts. Yeah, thank you. That you're also bringing from other artists and also comparing like situations, reflections of others from all over the world. So what you do is important and we will watch out for Futureland and for your lecture performance and all of it. And I want to thank you for taking the time for our listeners. Lidik will go on them after we heard from Hungary yesterday and today from Argentina and Berlin. We will have Mikaela Dragun and Mikaela Mikalov from Romania will give us an update from what is happening. And there we hear again from India. So Laika Alana will give us an update. Carol Martin helped to connect it to her. And then we have a Stacey Klein from the Double Edge Theater who works out of a farm in Upstate New York together with Stefanie Molso from the New York City's Bindle Staff Family Circus. And we hear from a community set of significance, but often a little bit at the outside of our thinking. I'm a great, great supporter and think also of the circus world. I think it's a form that perhaps as a popular theater form should be looked at it. I think it's very well-invented in them at the moment, but also a worker, you know, on the world besides developing work in peace and silence and and then sharing it or having a space for a sense of significance. And how are they doing, we need to know I would like to hear so thank you all for listening today I know how much is out there how much you all have to do it means a lot to us that you listen to us and I'm sure also for Lola as everybody else. And we are not alone in this we are all connected and I think through our sharing we understand a little bit better. And perhaps so can cope and better with this situation. We also at the Seedle Center appearance in complications or next generation fellow may address who got a call from the State Department and will have to fly back. I think at 230 to Lebanon and a military plane and we are completely surprised by this. And we do not understand why is a full bright scholar Jackie who helps a lot of technology has a death and her family couldn't join us so these are unprecedented and complicated times and it's more important than ever that you listen to each other and find to the great howl round team, Travis and see to make this happen and having us every day it's a lot of work for them also to to hear us on and to the Seedle team of Andy and Son Young and Jackie and may so thank you all for listening and I hope Lola we didn't take too much time away from your writing and solitude and all the best and do come back to the Seedle anytime and and I hope to meet in New York or in Berlin for a beer or a class of wine. All my best and thank you all for listening and please turn in tomorrow stay safe and stay tuned.