 Aloha and welcome. I'd like to welcome you today with a Hawaiian chant that talks about the smell of certain fragrances that come to you and remind you of certain people. And then there you are. We welcome you with Aloha. I'd like to welcome you today with Aloha and thank you for joining us for the second episode of Return to the Source and speaking of returning to the Source I'd like to take the time to Kumu Hukulani Holt for providing us with that beautiful Oli Aloha, that chant to open the space and ground us and really set the tone for today's conversation. Kumu Hoku is someone who has devoted her life to perpetuating the teachings and ways of our kukuna, our ancestors, and I'm just so thrilled that she actually said yes to doing to being a part of this conversation today. And we'll see a little bit later on another clip from her. So, Mahalo Kumu Hoku and I suppose I should introduce myself for those of you who don't know me. Aloha, my name is Moses. I am a Honolulu-based theater artist, although I am originally from the island of Maui. I am also a Kata board member and I'm one of your co-hosts for today's show. And speaking of co-hosts I'm going to hand it over to Leslie now to introduce herself. Mahalo, Moses. Thank you so much. And yes, Mahalo to Kumu Hoku, beautiful blessing for us to start this program. I'm Leslie Ishii, artistic director of Perseverance Theater on Klinkit Oni. So grateful to Klinkit Oni where I'm here. And we also honor the Alcaquan and Taqquan peoples and also the Dinayna peoples where we also serve up in Anchorage, Alaska. I'm currently on Klinkit Oni in Juneau, Alaska. And as your new board president of the Consortium of Asian American Theater and Artist, I on behalf of the entire board welcome you to this second episode, to this space with us. We have incredible guests coming to be in conversation. And this is actually the episode called Modeling Solidarity Theater as Political Action. So with that, I hand it back to you, Moses, just for a little bit about Kata. A little bit about what we're doing right now. For those of you who don't know, 20 Kata Confest 2020 was supposed to have taken place here in Hawaii. But for reasons that we all know, it had to be postponed and now it will be happening in May 2021. And we are remaining hopeful that it will in fact take place in May, the day to our the 21st through the 30th. But of course, that depends on the current state of our world. We're in light of the pandemic. So we are hopeful that it will happen. But either way, we've decided to do this virtual series. So each month we'll be having an episode leading up to May, so that when just to keep the conversation going and keep the interest and momentum going, so that when we're able to convene together, whenever that that is, we'll be ready to have an amazing contest and really blow it out of the park. And this is the second episode, Modeling Solidarity. Great. Thank you, Moses. And just a little bit about our agenda this afternoon. As Moses mentioned, we'll be sharing more about Confest with you. We have a little bit about what's up and coming. You see the slide there, why Hawaii, our partners, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities will be partnering with them, amplifying the works produced in and by local Hawaii theater artists, developing, exploiting the network of POC theater artists. So Hawaii to Alaska where I am, to the continent and throughout. So we're excited about sharing more about that with you. And the guests and the partners that have been with us, those are our special, our esteemed guests today, Jonathan McCrory, Armando Ruepe, and Maki'ile Isihara. We look forward to introducing them to you, having a great conversation. And as Moses mentioned a little bit more from our Kumu Hoku, and I'm also excited to share with you that we'll be seeing some work, some short works from Maki'ile. So with that, actually, shall we get started? Tom, back to you so you can introduce that first piece. Yeah, I had the pleasure of introducing our first guest, Kuu Holoha, my dear friend and colleague and creative collaborator, Maki'ile Isihara. And we're going to bring her on in just a moment. But before we do, we'd like to share a piece from A-Doc's mini documentary series that features Maki'ile and some of the work that she has created. And right after that, we're going to bring her on. So enjoy the video. My name is Maki'ile Isihara. I'm a company actor at the Honolulu Theater for Youth. Yes, hello. Yes. Go to daddy. Did you hear me? The children are unpacking the whole thing and knowing that they can't see their friends. They're worried about this new virus. Give me 10 minutes. But I'm bored. And I think that's the beautiful thing about art. What is our truth? How do we look at that and appreciate it and apply it to our lives? Let's play. Yay! Early media in COVID, when things were being associated with people of Asian descent, there was an uptick of hostility. And I'm like, this isn't the reality that I want. I grew up very Japanese. And then at the same time, I grew very Hawaiian. I'm PoiDog. I'm mixed up. That's fine. PoiDog. Yeah, that's me. My kind of PoiDog and your kind of PoiDog are made to be equal. Equal does not mean a simple game of same-as-same. A PoiDog kind of equal means I'm a person, you're a person who deserves love and respect every day, the same kind of way. I really hope that we can all gain an appreciation and a curiosity for others and expand it to connections and expand that to working together to make change that we want to see happen. So let's take care of one another. From Hawaii to the mainland. From Australia to Japan. From Egypt to Afghanistan. We're all in this together. We're PoiDogs, hand in hand. Beautiful. Aloha, my friend. Thank you so much for joining us. Aloha, my kakou. Oh, and your Ike. You wanted to take a moment to just talk about you and what you do. Aloha, my kakou. My name is Makiile Ishihara. I am from Kaneohe on the island of Oahu. For myself, born and raised, I was always around music and the arts. So that is very much something I carry on to my own Ohana. And I have my own crazy, fun, modern Ohana. We are a blended family of four. And so that journey has been quite a beautiful one and incorporating these aspects of solidarity, how we come together as our individual unit and carry on forward to our community, our kaya'ulu, and reach out and work from there and radiate outwards to everyone. Mahalo. Mahalo. When Leslie and I were just talking about who to bring to this conversation with modeling solidarity. You were the first person that came to mind. I know you very well because you're a friend and I work closely with you. And I just observe how you model solidarity within your community and also within your Ohana, being a mother and just beautiful. Welcome, Makiile to this space. Thank you for being with us. Mahalo. Great. So with that, shall we continue to move? Yes, I want to set up just a little context as we introduce our next two guests. This is the Consortium of Asian American Theater, our conference festival in 2016 that took place at Oregon Shakespeare. And here you'll see a photo where we had a flash mob and we just took over the street saying we're here. Our communities of color, our BIPOC communities are here. And then the festival was themed seismic shifts. So that was Kata's commitment to begin to include the MENA community, to begin to include our larger diaspora, Pan-Asian, Hawaiian, Native Hawaiian, Indigenous, and Muna communities. And to make sure that we were actually making a change that we wanted to make to go forward into the future. And so that photo was impactful because there was a historic photo that showed the KKK marching down their street in a parade in the 30s. So for us to do our flash mob was a sign of change and it supported Oregon Shakespeare Festival, now the Takigarit running Oregon Shakespeare Festival to support their racial equity initiative. And that was also the site and the time, the conference, when we held our first Sink Tank, Tim Dang and I received a national grant to start to look into and study what does it mean for sustainability for our communities, our BIPOC communities. And then if we can move to the next slide, we brought that energy forward into Chicago's Confest two years later, 2018. And next we committed further to change. And that was revolutionary acts, our Sixth National Asian American Theater Conference. And I can share with you, Black Theater Commons was actually represented with Shade Linkup from National Black Theater. And in the first Sink Tank, and moving on to this Confest, we began to then bring the other networks with us. We had Indigenous, we had Latinx with us, but now our networks were starting to form. And we held this Confest, making sure we had revolutionary acts going on, which meant really committing to bringing art and activism together. We held the aloha poke session to train ourselves as activists. And then you'll see in that upper corner there on the left, that's when we were protesting together in solidarity with our networks, with our diaspora brought together at that Confest. So we truly went out on the streets and we protested on behalf of the Native Hawaiian community. And their delegation came from Hawaii. And within the Confest itself, we were able to actually center Native Hawaiians. You'll see on the other side of the photo, Tammy Haileopua Baker, professor at University of Hawai'i, Manoa gave the keynote. It's one of the few times I think I've ever seen a Native Hawaiian, let alone a Native Indigenous actually opened a major conference and festival. It was really spectacular. And the opening ceremonies by the Potawatomi, Peoria and the Miami nations, welcoming the local Native Hawaiian community, who then in turn called in the Native Hawaiian delegation from Hawaii. It was a beautiful and moving ceremony to open up the Confest. So with that, again, we had a second think tank there where we brought the networks together. And that has started us coming together as a national BIPOC workgroup coalition commons. And so that's a little bit of context for our guests on with us today. So with that now, I would love to start to introduce our next guest, who is, oh my gosh, this, his name is Jonathan McCrory, a two time OB award winning artist. He's the Crane's New York business 2020 notable LGBTQ leader. As a Harlem based artist, he served as the artistic director of National Black Theater since 2012 under the leadership of CEO Shadeh Lithkat, as I mentioned. And you're also a founding member of the producing organization Harlem nine, the movement theater company. And you have served with national organizations, again, the advisory committee for how wrong, how wrong theater commons, but also, as I mentioned, the black theater commons. And then you are one of the first alumni of art equity. Jonathan, it is such a pleasure to have you here. I feel you are family, friend, brother, cousin. I just have been beginning. I felt the synergy and the solidarity. So it's a pleasure to have you with us. Welcome. Well, thank you for having me. A deep, deep pleasure. Yes. Would you like to say a few words about your work and the network or being in solidarity? I mean, what I will say is that it's all stemming from, actually, I started to really start to realize and COVID's really done this of really looking at how is our work generating space for the passing of the torch. Not for this moment right now, but making sure there's a future. And that future is creating access and creating possibilities for individuals that we might not know, but individuals that deserve a fighting chance, a more, a more equitable chance to dream bigger than what we were able to do, dream more holistically than we were able to do. So I will say that the bulk of my work and the bulk of the work in which I invest in, from the Black Theater Commons to National Black Theater to X, Y and Z, is trying to really create a web for a future that we haven't imagined yet, but we can envision and begin to build. That's beautiful. Thank you, especially because we know our Black Park community is widely known now. We've been disproportionately hit. So yes, absolutely necessary to dream forward and support our future generations. Thank you and our current generations. Awesome. Oh my goodness. Mahalo, welcome to our space. And with that, I know we'll be in deeper conversation in a few moments, but with that, I'll pass the baton to you, Moses, to introduce our next esteemed guest. Hey, yes. Welcome, welcome, Jonathan, to our show here. And I'm going to introduce our final, our third and final guest that is Armando Huife. Armando is currently the producer of the National Latinx Theater Commons, but has also held many other titles. Armando was the managing director of Yale Cabaret, the assistant managing director of Yale Repertory Theater, the developmental associate at the Latino Theater Company in Los Angeles and the founder of Latinx Theater Alliance in Los Angeles. Armando Aloha and welcome to return to the source. Hi. Thank you for having me. We'd love for you just to share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do, the amazing work that you've done over the years. Yeah, thank you. I will share that I'm calling in from the ancestral and unceded lands of the Tongva people now known as Boyle Heights. I'm the child of Mexican immigrants and having been born and raised here in Los Angeles, I was so lucky and I'm so grateful to be a part of this Latinx theater making community here in Los Angeles and the greater LA theater making community and you know just kind of keep taking it one step at a time and yeah. Mahalo and welcome, welcome. Okay, so moving along as promised, we are going to feature another video that Antimo Akumo Hokulani Holt has made for us and this video just to give you an idea of why I asked her to do this. Part of what we wanted to do with this conversation is show solidarity intergenerationally and there was a movement that has that took place here in Hawaii that is still happening and it happened on one of our sacred mountains, Mauna Kea and that movement as you'll you'll hear in from Kumo Hoku and her words that are coming up was led by our kukuna our our elders and we followed their lead and something truly amazing happened when when we allowed that to happen so I'm going to head and bring on Kumo Hoku for her to share some of her mauna. Aloha, my name is Hoku Lani Holt and I am from Maui, Hawaii. It is my pleasure to share some thoughts about how intergenerational connectivity can bring solidarity in trying times. As a culture we foster the idea of the collective benefit rather than the individual need. This we before me is evident in many aspects of Hawaiian culture. Because of this foundational outlook the community is clear that we all must work together toward the common good. In Hawaiian culture we have a strong belief in the wisdom of age not only that but we are clear that our kukuna or elders have a primary desire for the entire community when the individual the family the community and even the nation needs it. So this practice of the common good and respect for our kukuna teaches us that good Hawaiian leadership has knowledge experience and a desire for the common good of the community. Thus kukuna wisdom is often sought inside and outside of the family during times of need. Our culture demands that when our kukuna lead us we each must do our part. The makua or parent generation put their best minds and action towards the solution and the younger generation will add their strength and vitality to fulfill that solution. And all of this in the firm knowledge that it is for the benefit of the community as a whole the interrelated appreciation and recognition that each person's contribution is valued. This solidarity and thought understanding and action is what made the recent protective measures for Mauna Kea so remarkable. Our kapu aloha or code of behavior that is centered on aloha was given by the kukuna. It tells us that we must show compassion mercy and affection for all even in the hardest of times. During the nonviolent direct action responses to the building of the TMT telescope on Mauna Kea this kapu aloha led by our kukuna and exhibited by all those that participated was a prime example of the power of aloha. It was not a sign of weakness but a demonstration of strength and resolve. People from around the world came and offered support because they saw and knew this was right. We in turn would do the same thing for them if kapu aloha is present. Hawaiian culture tells us that all members of the community are needed and valued and all thought and action for the collective well-being of the community is our primary goal. This is kukuna wisdom in action. Mahalo and aloha. Beautiful gratitude in which we honor kumu hoku. Yes, thank you. As we get started into our conversation and we come into our space here I just want to share that if we have technical difficulties we just breathe and we know we can come through it and if any one of us freezes you might go off and come back so we know they'll be back with us and then also we just want to thank of course our viewers for tuning in once again and to have this important conversation and witness it with us. So with that oh my goodness the wisdom of kumu hoku. I feel like each of you as I get to know you Makii Lee and Moses I've started to know you in different spaces and Armando and Jonathan I know you in different spaces so I feel this beautiful synergy that of a working group already and some of you we have been working for on behalf of our larger BIPOC communities knowing that we it's becoming I think a widespread fact that we're under resourced in the BIPOC feeders and practitioners communities throughout the emergent theater so our sustainability we've been working towards that for some time now and getting stronger and how we work together in concert around that which is what most call solidarity so with that I just want to open up our conversation to thinking of our viewers too who what does solidarity mean to you it's in different things I don't want to assume it's the same thing to each one of us or to our communities um I know we had a conversation just so our viewers know we had a conversation of course a meeting to get prepared for this and we jumped right in and we were deep in but I'll just back us out a little bit just to say what about solidarity it might have different meaning for different communities I'll try please great um so when I when I think about solidarity um I think about the capacity of cultural like cultural compassion um how do we create the space for cultural compassion compassion that extends past and cultural empathy actually something that extends past your knowledge of self something that actually allows for the heart to be in the center of your decision-making um and action and we think about compassion compassion um sometimes uh uh um softens the modality of judgment um of something that's foreign from yourself so when I think about solidarity and I think about the space of building systemics of solidarity that's healthy and when I think about like what's happening in our communities and then what's happening in the nation at large I think about the missing heart chakra that is part that that is not necessarily put into the palpable space of actually addressing and giving birth and life to um the decision-making of how we could actually be building forward so when I think of solidarity I think about where's the cultural empathy where's the compassionate um capacity that we are centering um decision-making and the ability to create the olive branch uh we're not demonizing the other we're welcoming the other to actually um be potentially the um evolution that we've been waiting for um because that's what it could actually mean to step into the potential shoes of someone else's um desire or need could awaken your evolution um and I think sometimes I think about evolution as a positive thing but I've been really sitting with this notion and I would be quiet because I felt like I've talked too much already but I'm sitting with the sitting with the capacity of like I've been really sitting with a caterpillar a caterpillar goes into cocoon um fully going through a process of being transformed by inside of that the essence of who they are stays true the essence of who they are stays true while they're inside of cocoon totally being broken shifted morphine into something else and we would be remiss if when they came out of that cocoon they they left out as a caterpillar there'll be something that's remissed inside of that so when I think about COVID-19 and I think about the way that we're been asked to like shroud ourselves when I think about this moment of solidarity that's needed that is almost like a covering I asked myself how are you allowing for the possibility of transformation to stretch the bones and the muscles that you knew as the caterpillar so that you could become the butterfly. Beautiful wow thank you Jonathan. What a great start Mahalo. Anybody else want to add in? Yeah I think that um Leslie you and I have been sharing a lot of space in in terms of like Kata and LTC and this coalition that we're trying to to build in and hold space for and and solidarity is among those words that keep coming up networks coalition solidarity and um I'm thinking yes Jonathan everything that you said like put in action and the decision making is an active process and it must be informed by by that empathy and um and I think of in my work with the LTC to the the diversity with among Latinx cultures our intersections with the Black community with the Asian community and Indigenous communities and how we're really trying to like build ourselves as a coalition as a movement too and um and all of that it the solidarity is just like so much more dynamic than whatever noun that it is um that it that's its state of being is in dynamicism and so I keep reminding myself that every action I take must be in solidarity with and um yeah just like finding that space within yourself and uh opening up that space in conversation whenever I can. Yeah just to uh tag on to what everyone has said absolutely 10 000 times yes and um thinking about this this compassion and this grace afforded to each other as if we were all part of this collective family and I know in Hawaii we say ohana and the tagline is ohana means family family means no one gets left behind but for us it's something even bigger than that and there's a sense of responsibility there's that accountability because when you're on at least for us here in Hawaii we're on an island we all we've got and it should be the same even the continents that's a bigger one but you're all you've got and this connection and this pilina is so important and from my own personal journey with this blended family anyone coming from a blended family can tell you there's a lot of growing pains with that and from my hanai daughter she's latinx and she's portican and portuguese and filipina and so when here comes this you know Hawaiian coming into her life telling her hey let's go to these um protest or let's go to these sit-in functions for communication and she's like well I don't have anything to you know where's my place in it because I'm not Hawaiian and I hanai her and hanai is just is so much more than adoption or caring for or being a steward of it's really taking this person in and she is now a part of me and a part of the line of which we come from and so saying and looking at our community in that realm where and how jonathan had so beautifully said the olive branch and it's really building that out to where we're calling in people and not demonizing not having to say well you you know you are scolding it's really calling in in love because as as a as that figurative step-parent right step-mom I gotta really find a way to adjust and navigate and grow together with this new person and and grow that relationship and that's the kind of method we want to do in our community when it comes to solidarity when it comes to these issues where we want to be as a collective instead of just oh well I have we have our as this community we have these grievances and we have these grievances what are the connecting fibers and the interconnected tissues that will really link us together and how do I support you how do I support my 14 year old hanai girl as you know a 30 year old and so how do I support my community as an individual and then as a part of the whole so it's a very convoluted explanation but i'm hoping that it really resonates with all of us who have that family fiber and not just it's so easy to get wrapped up in and fed up with oh i'm tired of being patient i'm tired of being this i'm tired of seeing all of this injustice and despairing like huge gaps where we just get this that little end of the stick and how do we reach out and make those branches for each other i would really love to see that coming up in conversation and coming up in systemic progress for all of us jonathan i see you have a thought well what's that was so powerful and so beautiful what's being expressed is that this idea of calling in this idea of bringing in because that's intimacy right intimacy is is a space that makes us like get soft in our heart chakra or space in our like at the end of the day if you're not solid if you're not in solid connection with your own heart how can you ever extend the capacity of being in relationship with someone else's heart and i think solidarity is allowing for us to grow from a heart space so like the idea of calling yourself in is also having a conversation to the places that like you might be contributing to the mess and are you willing to have a conversation with the spaces that you might actually be contributing to the mess like i've had to sit with myself and say hey yo jonathan how have you been contributing to doing anti-blackness work if i'm not willing to have that conversation how can i ever create solidarity with even my own community and then also create solidarity with myself because i don't know how to do it myself how can i ever extend that definition to anyone else if i don't begin to love the spaces of my own existence how can i ever have a conversation i think because because that intimate space that you shared so beautifully with your with your daughter is a space of intimacy that then you get to replicate on a larger on a larger scale but because it's because of that soul cocoon work that glim and that inner work that inner playful work if you're not able to have that inner playful work how can you ever have the conversation of creating massive change it's the granular work and i think sometimes you get lost in in trying to create the solutions of comfort and that's the solutions that actually are systemic and need to be done yeah i'm also i'm reminded of at the beginning at the outset of the ltc and our founding convening uh in our opening ceremonies you read the uh in la cash this like this um now what i think idea of uh you are my other me and uh when i when i love you i love myself and when i harm you i harm myself and that yes well that's interesting because that's to me speaks to um to all of your points we i think get fragmented because of the internalized oppression that you know that comes in from the historical trauma we carry we know that from dna research now that the dna messaging is absolutely attached to the actual dna so we carry that historical trauma we carry the wisdom too but how do we get back in solidarity with ourselves and our healing to your point jonathan how do we bring ourselves back to wholeness so that we can love ourselves reflect that back to others and harm less right um and harm and heal help each other heal um this to your point too i've had a lot of my own deep contemplation about how were let's say i'm fourth generation japanese american i am the descendant of great grandparents grandparents parents who were incarcerated during world war two and as i go back and find better language i think more accurate but different than the euphemisms of the government saying internment you know that was mass incarceration in concentration camps was called what it was but even our immigration the way we were lied to and then brought here as migrant workers and farm labor that's actually social control the way we were hired and worked in the fields and then we figured out how to put land in our children's names we were incarcerated to get us off the land we weren't that actually that much of a threat uh you know for the war so the land was stolen again so if we get real about that and start to name things and and like like see how japanese americans were used as tools for white supremacy then i can start to unravel uh like you were saying jonathan about being the anti black as i can start to unravel my own internalized impression and how i'm anti indigenous you know i start to and then i can no longer speak about the incarceration the concentration camps what so there's no uh then then i abolish all of the what we used to call like oppression olympics because now when i speak about mass incarceration without going back to first contact and colonization i can't and genocidal warfare i cannot speak about without people who were forcibly removed kidnapped and enslaved social control with all the norms we have now around enslavement and now the mass incarceration of black and brown peoples today so one of my i think some of this has finally come to question is you we all like you said evolves because my mentor yuri kochiyama always told me be a bridge builder but she also implored me you will never be an effective activist unless you actually learn the liberation movements of other peoples other oppressed peoples so then you'll have an idea of what the black community is fighting for what the latinx community is fighting for what the indigenous native community is fighting for and that went a long way to be developing and still developing i'm not perfect how to be empathetic compassionate and have that reflection that can be connection all those connections to how that was a progression in history i think is helping me figure out something about how i can be in solidarity sorry that was a long it was important it was important to acknowledge like you said the oppression olympics because we can go on a huge tandem conversation of who had it worse and i think it's important to see and jonathan i love your your all of your metaphors just being in a cocoon and healing oneself and really looking at internally at the growth and it's ugly sometimes and it is there are stages when you're coming together in solidarity for movements a lot of times it is so easy to get caught up in seeing that you are a victim of a system that is built to keep you in your place or it is meant to keep you down and benefit one particular group more favorably and so it's hard to move past the anger without acknowledging it and i and i think even too for armando saying you know really caring for one another and not hurting the other and hurting ourselves we need to be extremely kind to ourselves in this growth and extremely because it's so especially for bipoc people we were just joking about this but um thinking about other people or like being the you know wanting to sit in the back of the car not wanting to be first in line not wanting to you know we're always thinking community first before the individual and at least for even for the law for kanakamori it's our community is always there in conversation like oh it's going to benefit our our whole ohana first you know for the for our little units and thinking in that realm of how we can really move through those stages and be really compassionate to us and then passionate to those who also might be going through their own stages because it's so easy for us to say hey you can't say that to somebody because that's wrong or you're being problematic or you're being this and that and how are we contributing at the same time how can i help you in your journey whether it's just sitting with you and allowing you to move through the grief that you might be experiencing when you come to the realization of all the things that have happened and the traumas that have happened to your line who you are in your community and even to the traumas around you we're extremely extremely empathetic people and so when we see our our brothers and sisters and cousins hurting through black lives matter movements you better believe i'm having an emotional response and i'm sure that's being echoed across the world and it's not to say that we all want to be emotional we all want to be angry or anything it's we feel it and so now how can we be better allies and be better supports for one another through this growth and i really want to say that way also taking the time to to search those feelings and the emotional responses that you have when this happens so Jonathan i want to also thank you for the for the cocoon thing you are coming up with some gold i'm so glad that you're on this call and i knew there was a reason why i wore this shirt because coming into a butterfly i'm feeling like a butterfly and let me explain a little bit about my cocoon phases and butterfly phases i am i am native Hawaiian and i am black and i have i've had the the um the the the privilege i guess that it was a blessing to have lived through and be living through two very powerful movements that are shaping me in different ways and allowing me to become a butterfly but movements were very different now the first one of course and to hoku talked about the kapa aloha movement that took place on the mount which was a beautiful beautiful time when our people stood together in kapa aloha which is um just no matter what you will have aloha it will be peaceful there was no violence there's nothing we've come together in love and that is something that needed to happen and it was so beautiful and then what happened the black lives movement happened or that had been happening but it really started to to um take off when when um after george george floyd passed away died and and the the feeling first of all that was a time for me to go through cocooning twice and it's a very vulnerable time when we're in these cocoons like you said jonathan and the sensitivity to recognize when you're going through your cocoon and when someone else needs to go through cocoon so that you can be sensitive to them while they're in that vulnerable time because what ended up happening to a small degree there was a certain amount of um i guess judgment that be you know when the kapa aloha movement happened it was beautiful and peaceful and then when the black lives movement happened there was violence that ensued and that was judged and i just caught in the middle when i'm supposed to be going through my cocooning phase i had to put a response to people and let them know you know what was going on and how your cocoon phase happened stage allow this to happen to me so that we aren't going to become a butterfly and recognizing that because there were two very different things and you we need to we need to recognize that and allow people's space to like you said be vulnerable and it's also it's also a question around like only i mean i think i think the complexity of the of allowing for people to show up in their dynamism right um i think i think that that is also creating space for solidarity um we live in a country and in a society that's constructed off a binary and everything is queer no matter what no matter how we might think of it everything is queer that nature is a queering concept in its natural form but yet we try to rule it as man to say x y and z and when even being human is more complex than the way that the constructs of society um kind of relegate us to be in and so like a question that i that i've been sitting with listening to this beautiful conversation was that what is the space what is the space of creating solidarity and is this that allows for someone might be considered the oppressor the space to have solidarity to find their tranquility their peace their healing um what is the capacity for that that's just what something that just came in my mind because it's one thing to talk to the converted and create space for the converted to be more deeply converted because it's again as leslie as she as you said so beautifully we are all works in progress and the progress and i and i and and we're all there yet there are people who are have more dissonance to the spaces in which we are hoping society to lean into and how do we create space for them what is the solidarity path look like for them um how do we not deem that as a waste of time also how does it not suck up our time these are multiple things that it's like sitting with as i listen to this beautiful conversation unravel yeah if i can have my chance at picking up your your cocooning metaphor i love it so giving um we're really we're inviting people to search themselves right i i believe uh when you were saying that i believe that the space is within each of us and um i'll share just really briefly like my family has a complicated immigration story my grandfather was deported when i was in college uh my last name is native indigenous to michoacan that's buddha it means honey collector um but i don't have a lot of the culture from the the tribe because of how uh the caste system in latin america works and sort of like the priorities of my great-grandparents and grandparents and just down the line um how we ended up in this country how i'm speaking this language this fluently and have been able to occupy the spaces that i have and that's my journey and i share that for whatever learnings that it might bring up in other people but it it isn't like i'll say i'll speak for myself like i'm not asking for like pity or like people to feel sorry for me like what i need people to do is like find their own story because we're all subject to racism we're all we're all dehumanized by the white supremacy culture that we're navigating and that's my journey and i need people to find theirs that's yeah beautiful uh you're all reminding me i learned this probably two well maybe three or four years ago now that as i look at demographic changes and how we make space for each other uh and and finding our stories and then your your piece uh maki ile reminds me of this um it was about three years ago so i think we have about four years it was predicted that with demographic changes humans in the us 35 and under will be majority mixed race and already in the asian pan asian community all i can speak specifically to japanese community we are more than 50 mix race we happen for some time we might be up to like 70 75 mixed race with our generation since i'm i'm yonsei going forward go say i'm on uh into the younger generation so so as we make space for others each other and we're more mixed that idea of calling in that the complexity that's needed not the binary like you're saying the complexity is already happening yeah compassion empathy for not making our our our friends our cousins our family choose who they should be one way or the other but they're whole and they're beautifully complex and they can own all parts themselves that that enters into for me to solidarity and jonathan you mentioned in our last call too the vulnerability yeah and you've mentioned it today a little bit that vulnerable place what about the creating a vulnerable place i mean that the oh no i see someone else leaning in i can be quiet oh no one else is leaning in okay well really quickly about vulnerability um is that is that uh vulnerability is a muscle the society has not known as a dominant force for creation um society has known muscle as the dominant force for its creation and as one of my beautiful residents uh for a more director residency program dominique writer said is that we have built empires not homes and that by building not by building empires we have dominated conquered and we have ruled and we have not created homes meaning that we have actually allowed as shade litka him and bt says always is where your best to exhale can be you haven't learned what to exhale where an exhale can feel like and so because we haven't learned what to exhale is and because we build empires not homes we are rapidly taking and chipping away at our humanity for what purpose and so this moment of solidarity quickens and and racks at and shifts at the foundation of our security and says that what you thought was strong is actually the weakest point inside of your existence and that exists is fabricated off of centuries and years of a lot and then what do you do with that how do you sit with that knowingness and then when you realize the depth in time of that blood memory as you're talking about Leslie that lives inside of the fabrication of your being then you also start to realize that you are students to the revolution right that you are not going to be able to necessarily generate the revolution in your lifetime yet you can build the bridgeways and pathways for a revolution to know itself in this life that's so true that just maybe think about with everything that you're saying Jonathan it made me think about my own journeys as a young adult where I thought at 30 by now I'd have a huge house and a horse and not that that means anything but you know you have this thing where this propagated idea that you have to be independent you have to have all your ducks in a row you have to have paid off your school debt have four degrees have a whole family make six years a year pay it all by yourself and then you can get somebody in to help you with that and if anything through my life having this new blended modern ohana it's it's very much you need to look at your life it's not about being all alone you know although that's what society is striving us to do is just be alone be okay with being alone be okay with being independent and doing things by yourself or else you're weak or else you're not fit to exist in society today and I think that's completely backwards because our BIPOC and our indigenous societies were all about coming together and what projects and not just projects but the work of bringing people together for things for each other and and the connections and the relying on each other was not demonized at all it was very it made sense we specialized in things if I didn't know how to carve a canoe I'm not gonna carve a canoe I'm gonna go to the canoe carver but I have special skills and attributes that I could I could give them in return and reciprocate this reciprocity is something and we're each adding our own take because it's it's hard in in movements like these coming together and solidarity like monarchy everyone said you have to go to the monarchy you have to do this way you have to go this way and that way of standing in solidarity was not for everyone not every like for myself at working for my family I couldn't just up and leave to the to the Mauna when everyone else went and I wanted to my whole being wanted to go but I had to be here for my Ohana I did get to go at a later point but knowing that so beautifully Armando said finding your story and finding your journey is important in being able to stand with others you got to know who you are not as just the individual by themselves you got to know who you are and where your line is so that you can stand with others amongst you as well oh my goodness this is also beautiful I also want to make sure I'm keeping time here because I know some of our guests will need to go right on the hour and then most of you and I will continue with our last announcements and things so Moses do you think it's that time and I'm just going to pledge this will not be the last time that we all have a conversation I love our conversation oh my goodness yeah it is that time let's say thank you I was getting so caught up in this incredible conversation we gotta wrap things up so um I'm just gonna just put it out there if if the three of our guests would would like to say a few final thoughts or words whatever that may be we would love for you to just take take a moment and just say one final thing and um yeah or not oh no I can go really quickly I think we all do I think we're just really polite with each other and so therefore with with with politeness creates a kind of can create silence so I will say I will say that um a last thing where that I will say is that um love it's it's actually the title of a show I'm creating NYU but the way when I solidarity um love is the message joy is the revival um that that through love we find the messages that we need to actually create potential solidarity but in the revival of who we are what we're reviving is a dead potential system that could actually center joy and that through joy at the elixir we can find some new possibilities so I just want to leave that as a lasting word lasting word I'd like to share is cool paa just keep it going steady and even though when it gets really hard and you get those headbutt moments where it feels like I don't know how I'm even gonna take another step forward just cool paa almost keep going and know that even if you can't see there are many of those around you that have been there before and those who will come after you who will carry you through through all of that so a kupa oh man how how to follow I should have gone first no um I'll just like I don't know like what's been helping me through this time and I might help others is like make sure you're spending time with your heart people and um take care of yourself you know we're all we're all lifting this up together so take the time that you need when you need it gosh wow and moses do you have a thought um you know my my thought is just uh just continue to have these conversations I know that I am excited to um get to know Armando and Jonathan better I know monkey ladies he's my friend I know a lot of time but but on this call right now is is is just an amazing bunch of people and I look forward to becoming a part of your lives and you will become a part of my life whether you want it or not because I think we have more things to talk about to this mahali oh my goodness well I'll say some thank yous and then if we can invite our our viewers to breathe with us as we breathe breathe in we'll we'll breathe again together and then Moses you and I will do some announcements uh as they go off into their uh next thing uh so oh my goodness mahalo arigatou gozaimasu guna shish as the clean kit people say to Chinangeli as the denying people say grateful to be here in on their land um just thank you from the bottom of my heart it means the world that you joined us today and shared your wisdom and your lived experience uh these esteemed guests everybody you can go to this uh return to the source you see it on the screen there and down on the program and you can see their incredible and what they bring to the world and you got to hear a bit today about what they continue to bring to our communities and um I just can't say enough for each of you uh lots of love please be safe and also just know I'm going to be I'll be I'll be back with you you know I'll be typing I'll be calling you I'll be zooming you we got more work to do together so yes yes so with that can we all invite our viewers to but take a breath together for yourself first so you're replenishing yourself yes and as mentioned that exhale is critical to your healing to your grounding and another breath in for all those who viewed and for this group that this is gathering today yes and the exhale completely and three is always a wonderful number so and one more breath for the communities that we serve each in our networks but also individually in our in our lives our families our cousins our communities and exhale completely thank you so much to our guests for being with us and we thank Max Emiliano and Ariel backstage that we'll have them now go off very elegantly thank you and then uh Moses you and I get to offer more thanks and gratitude and some announcements yeah hold for being a part of this discussion as well even though she wasn't actually here on the call for video this was was certainly helpful to ground us as we get to this conversation now we have to mahalo our our funders and partners and I'm going to start with the Ford Foundation mahalo to them loris duke charitable foundation national endowment of the arts haul round theater commons new england foundation for the arts yes and it's my honor and pleasure to also thank the queen lily ukolani trust the t-shirt theater tita productions theater communications group and university of hawaii manoa and just a quick shout out uh for the university of hawaii manoa they're undergoing some real struggles they're looking at being cut their programs being cut so please please go to our uh consortium of asian american theaters and artist facebook page where you can learn more and you will find ways to help university of hawaii manoa thank you yes we'd also like to remind you if you are not a kata board member now's your time to do so become a i'm not a board member but a member of kata excuse me um now's your time to do that we have um we encourage that if you are not an active member and you were a member please become a member of kata and be a part of this beautiful family yes and most of us i think i understand that they can even just scan that that image right there right now look at that you scan away beautiful and uh i'm also um excited to share with you that you know during these difficult times i'm excited that so many have already donated or supported kata and um so if you're inclined please do uh donate your your contribution helps us sustain so that we can uh support our pan asian mina native indigenous and um our pacific islander communities and artists so thank you that helps us to continue our work with the confess and our other programming once again that support our artists so thank you for those who are giving but also uh if you don't mind sharing out to others who might be able to donate we would deeply appreciate that and don't forget that this is a monthly series so every month we will have an episode and coming up next month october 12th uh we have the next installment which is titled artists on the front line creativity and change during covet 19 moderated by kata board member and confess steering committee co-chair leilani chan so tune in for that that is october 12th and also we just want to send another special hollow out to haul round for being an amazing partner in this series beautiful and once again our kata confess 2021 is postponed till may uh as you see the dates there 21 through 30th but also know we are invested in monitoring this pandemic situation to make sure our communities any of you who might want to register or participate we're looking out for your safety your health so we will monitor monitor the situation and we'll stay tuned because we'll have communications but that's our intention is to be able to come back together in may 2021 so in the meantime of course please wear your masks please socially distance uh to help keep each other safe and i want to also give a shout out to a special project that these national bipoc networks of color have come together as i mentioned in coalition and we have designed a bipoc survey some of you may know about it already but we want to make sure you know we're continuing to keep that available for folks to fill out practitioners those who work inside theaters of color those who also work inside of predominantly white organizations we want to have you be able to designate that on a survey and share with us your experience because we want to monitor how covet is impacting you all uh so please i believe we're going to have a slide about that um so you'll see that there are some links um so you can fill out the survey please do spread the word on that that data will help us and your anecdotal you know um sharing on that survey will help us to create sustainability for our communities in solidarity in coalition with these bipoc networks of color and so thank you for joining us from for me it's meaningful but i want to pass the baton for you moses to have the last word well just like that we are at the end of our program but don't leave yet because we have something really special we are going to end with another piece that was created by maki ilayishihara we just saw as one of our panelists she created a piece called pono um we we created it together but really she took the lead and just made the same thing something beautiful it features another um artist friend of ours local my cut your lips goom that you will see in this video and it's entitled pono and pono for those of you who don't know speaks of a balance that we all strive to achieve in our daily lives as we interact with our environment around us and as we stand in solidarity so we're going to play um maki ilay's piece called enjoy the video pono is a dance pono is maluhia pono is ikaika pono is a song pono is green pono is warm pono is it something i can see like a man who high up in the sky or a mano in the d how do i find pono is it something i can be strong and tall like a kumuulu or is it something i should choose pono is local my kai pono is how only pono is kind pono is justice pono is pono is my picot my now and my kino it's listening to what my makua say taking the time to go and play remember my kupuna before me pono's being a kiai it's lending a helping hand ma la ma i know with my friends it's knowing when to say i'm sorry is necessary you holo moa i never know things if my future path is right or wrong if the way ahead is short or long it's getting up right after falling pono is a space for all paying it forward pono is manavana kaka eha pono is aloha holo moa kupa pono is a movement