 We have a lot of us and I think and Ritha and maybe Rob are joining us and I know Ruth texted me in like five minutes. He was going to be five or ten minutes late because he and some folks down the Katala Reservation were doing stuff by the river and I guess he said people were like really lapid he's running a little late well activities by a river we need to colonize him right now so there's not much you can say to that like right I just made your face really big and you're just like oh really dance by yourself like you're really important I promise I'll contribute something of substance to this conversation besides my head bouncing you did so much already is this being recorded we're being streamed live on HowlRoundTV right now and then also maybe on their Twitter and possibly on their website they said it was in three different locations I also just wanted to share with everyone on behalf of Rob he is running between meetings and he hopes to join us in my office so you might see him just swoop by cool maybe we should just get started and so Rue and Rob will join us when they can yay okay awesome so welcome I guess for Maddie we should do some kind of like intro into the people who are joining us live streaming oh yes we should yeah welcome new model of an essay yeah do you want to just talk a little bit about like why we're having this conversation like words on a page we thought it was important to all gather each other like people yeah I'll say a little bit and if you want to say anything that I missed that would be awesome awesome so so Jamie Gallin from HowlRound asked me and Maddie basically three months ago about doing this series on decolonizing theater and one of the first things that we thought about was how the written word has essentially been weaponized as a tool of colonization so we were like we can't have all these pieces just be written documents is there a way that we can actually have voice-binding conversations and be in a space with each other as much as digital spaces you know can do that I'm glad that I'm worth it and Rob we're gonna be able to actually be in the same physical space with each other so that's cool Maddie do you want to say more about that yeah I think yeah already it's already it's interesting to me like the ways in which already there's a kind of automatic humanity gathered by just like even though it is digital and at least like by having the conversation like the giggling bits that can exist right in the written form of the text because everything is so highly cultivated within a very specific form of communication and very specifically within the English language it doesn't leave room for a lot of in between space and so I think a big part of why we kept thinking about format is that you know we get we get very good about fitting ourselves into the sort of single author narrative in carefully scripted English that maybe isn't actually always the best way to even communicate what it is that we're trying to talk about cool thank you yeah um great so on that note maybe we should all introduce ourselves and if we could just go around and introduce ourselves by our names and then say our pronouns and in the spirit of decolonizing rather than introducing ourselves by our institutions can we say what is the watershed region where you're currently located so we can try to honor the land where we're all individually physically located right now so I'll start my name's Annalisa Diaz my pronouns are she and her and I'm in Washington DC which is part of the Anacostia watershed and also part of the Greater Chesapeake Bay watershed hi I'm Madeline say it I am currently I'm currently in Mystic which used to be Misatuk which is a traditional Piqua territory but the watershed is now called the fames she her hers sorry go ahead whoever wants to go next just step in for we're in this digital medium and if you move and speak it will it will like call itself to you hi I'm Mary Katherine Nagel my pronouns are she her hers I'm a citizen of the Chaykin Nation living currently right now within the borders of the Creek Reservation which the state of Oklahoma has asked the United States Supreme Court to declare no longer exists so stay tuned for that and the watershed I mean the Arkansas River goes right by here so I think it's Arkansas River watershed hi I'm Don Monique Williams she her hers and I am rehearsing a play in Portland Oregon so I am at the Willamette watershed I'm Larissa Pastors I am a member of the Citronchia Lakota Nation and I'm currently living on Quinkit, Kumi'ai, Kuiya, Shumash teach land in Southern California which is part of the the college is the when I looked it up officially they call it like the Southern California watershed or something which is couldn't be more inaccurate but anyway there's the Great Pacific is probably our biggest known water here which is our connector to all the Pacific Island nations in the rest of the world hi I'll go next my name is Lisa I am currently in the song about Pakistan so I guess we're in the Indus River basin and my pronouns are he is my name is I'm right there I'm on in my pronouns are she her hers and I also feel like there might be some inaccuracy in what I looked up and what I researched with watershed but I did some digging and I'm in Ashland, Oregon and the two watersheds that were intersecting were just shoots and the clam of watersheds I'm Megan Sandberg-Zakian I also I also feel like there's more watersheds than the internet told me that the one that it told me is the one I can see which is the Charles River I'm in the middle of Boston Ashpi Wampanoag, Patucket folks and many others and she her hers. Tonight get y'all my name is DeLesson George Warren but you can call me Rue just like Kangaroo I am from Katabahini Indian Nation the people of the river which is also why I'm late as we were doing a biodiversity assessment on our river so that's my watershed is the Katabah River where my community has lived since we would say since the world began. Oh and I use heave and I'm an artist and sound designer. Cool. I'm gonna tell it back to Maddie to start the question usually I'd like say the question that we were gonna ask and we'll just have a conversation among the people that are here you're muted. Yeah let me just pull up the exact the exact question warning so that I don't reframe it again. So oh and also I realized I said where I am which is in the traditional ethnic people nation but I am I am Mohegan I have crossed the river was how is thinking about the theater field as an ecology helpful in terms of decolonizing methodologies and practices and how is the metaphor as of theater as an ecology also a pitfall for people about decolonizing so just sort of what what that that terminology can do that is useful and then also potentially problematic and if anyone wants to jump in just jump in and if you don't this is like a just because the way these little boxes work like if you just sort of like wiggle and make sound like that is the only it's the only real efficient way to take turns. We all started wiggling we got so excited. I always feel like it's funny because there's these like these like moments of like pausing for respect but you can't all make eye contact with each other it's just based on wiggling. I'm happy to start if that's all right with everyone because this was a am I coming through I got a new computer recently because I sat on my old one so this was actually a question that or thought that Annalisa and I were mulling over we recently went to the Arctic Circle to work on a piece of Annalisa's and speaking with some of the indigenous folks in Norway of Sami and so we kind of got around to this question of thinking of theater as an ecology and also thinking of projects as ecological projects and I think that maybe the most challenging work for me at least was trying to de-center activity when thinking about the theater process because it's so reliant on deadlines and dates and contracts and these sorts of like really rigid structures and so when thinking about as an ecology through an ecology standpoint I you know I think about how we might start envisioning our work in our field as a landscape of interactions and the way that that actually opens up for a lot more possibilities in terms of how people can interact in the theater world because I'm coming I'm coming kind of from the performance art side of things and the installation art side of things so sometimes I feel like maybe my work doesn't really fit into the boundaries around theater but when we when we stop thinking of it as such a static object like this is what theater is and start thinking of the way that we together I think it opens a lot more opens up a lot more possibilities in terms of where theater happens who takes part in it who witnesses it how we remember it so maybe de-centering recording as the primary way that we remember how productions happen so those were just some of my initial thoughts based on that question. Thank you. Anybody else have any one of the one of the things that I I was thinking about in terms of and what I thought was interesting that you said was you said when you said out some interaction because I think that for me personally the tricky thing is when I try and figure out how to maintain like the specificity like continuing to indigenize while thinking about things as an ecology. I really like my phrase landscape. Yeah I'd say for myself and our company Indigis Direction that I'm here representing because we're not talking about we're not interested in decolonizing we are specific purposes indigenizing space and which is a very different thing in many ways so the question so I'm kind of like I'm not sure how to answer the question this is not something we're really interested in that's what our company was created specifically to indigenize spaces and then I just I'm looking up like what ecology actually is defined as and it's so it makes me a very uncomfortable it's so much about sets of relationships and things that exist and studying and dealing with relations and interactions it's not actually about action so that to me makes it a very troubling term as a now it's a branch biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and environment it's a set of relationships existing you know and so I'm really not interested in the set of relationships that currently exist and so it's just such a non it's just it's a noun right so it's not an actual word and and not that it needs to be I don't know anyway it's just a word that concerns me that's so about naming things and quantifying things as opposed about doing things and so that's my non response to the question because I don't really respond like neither of those things is interesting to me decolonizing or ecology so what you find would you describe what indigenizing means for your for your company and your work so many things because we're working it just depends because we're a consulting company so it changes depending on every organization we're working with sometimes we're working with indigenous communities a lot of times favorite times and then we're more than it just depends on that community we've been asked to work with indigenous we've been asked we do whatever we're asked to do basically and we ask them what they need and so for instance we've worked in a particular indigenous community that did say we have all our past training in theater has been about making us ready for Western theater and when we really aren't interested in that and we just want to write our own stories for our own people can kind of help us do these we did some they wanted specifically writing workshops but done in a way that was completely pulling them away from that seeing just helping them as an outside voice look at what they were doing and saying hmm is that really how you did things is why are you doing it that's just helping to ask the questions so that that particular indigenous community could see where they had internalized the Western gays and we're trying to fulfill it in their own work and even in their own traditional stories they'd realized how many times they're doing that so that was one particular thing that we were asked to do and so that was indigenizing it by just asking them a lot of questions and helping them you know because it asked us to do this to get back to their original voices we work in a lot of white institutions and then it's a huge array of things depending on where they are and whether it's living hired for a particular project or will be hired hired to create a particular program or work generally with the institution and then we start with teeny tiny things like I mean it sounds silly but you know having a land of recognition in the lobby having elder seating in the lobby changing the way they approach ticketing the way they approach patrons and understanding family and allowing families into the theater you know making sure that baby four generations are always welcome and it's accessible like starting from the very beginning of the ground of it and then working all the way through the call the way up to seasons and artists all that so it's a wide variety of things I also had to look up the word ecology thank you for sharing all those are actually it's making me just want to raise the question of because I'm sure that this is something that people in this group have been thinking about some degree and I don't really know where the answer might fall in people but is there such a thing as what is decolonizing if not indigenizing that's a really provocative question that I don't have an answer to but I will say that the concept of indigenizing and even the word indigenous doesn't come up that often in the work that I do with Maya directors which is a great we're very inspired by indigenous direction and particularly by the by Larissa what Larissa and I initially said about why they started indigenous direction which was so that when people emailed them asking them to do work for free they could say my consulting company would be happy to give you a quote about that work so now we have a bunch of Middle Eastern directors who are doing that same thing which is awesome what's your timeline what's your budget is like written on top of it but anyway my mind is a little bit blown by that question because I don't know that I don't know that I'm not sure I can articulate the difference and yet indigenizing or being indigenous is feels like an incredibly complicated concept for me personally because of the the sort of many many layers of colonization and displacement that are involved in the history of my family and the families of the people the other people who are part of Maya directors and so I haven't even I think I have a feeling that it would actually be really powerful for me to think about that idea of indigenousness in terms of the land that that I get that I come from but right now so much of our I guess connection the way that the four of us managed to connect comes from the common experience of colonization and trying to figure out how to be together in in connecting back like aesthetically and professionally in our work as artists to a sense of Middle Eastern or Manasseh Middle Eastern North African South Asian identity because for us and I can imagine it's maybe the same for a lot of other people once you start getting into thinking about that specific land other people who are sitting around the table with me and Maya directors I think of as the colonizer I'm Armenian there's a Turkish guy sitting next to me I think the question is absolutely a fascinating one and just for myself I feel like it would be inauthentic of me to show up in a space and say I am indigenizing this space because I do not have a personal cultural lived experience as someone who is indigenous I do not have any roots or affiliations with any indigenous groups though most certainly I am descendant of many I do feel like I have some tools or some practices that can help decolonize space or I certainly show up with a mindset towards decolonizing a space that I that I understand I think if I walked in and said I want to indigenize the space I would be co-opting somebody else's lived experience and it and it would be just rhetorical and not meaningful actually though in some cases the two may in fact be one in the same but not in my case I'd like to if it's alright share a description from an article written by Eve Tuck and I'm avoiding the word definition but it's from this article decolonization is not a metaphor from 2012 by you talk and Kay Wayne Yang and they say our goal in this article is to remind readers what is unsettling about decolonization colonization brings about the repatriation of indigenous land in life it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools and so they go on to elaborate on the ways in which decolonization decolonization is not a metaphor and so this is kind of the document that I go back to a lot when trying to meditate on decolonization because over and over again they reassert the idea that indigenous sovereignty and land repatriation must always be a part of the decolonial project or projects and going back to the term ecology I definitely agree that the English word ecology is is very inert because it assumes a static set of relationships in a landscape the closest word in Kataba to ecology would be Yemen which is big family like a large inclusive idea of family which often includes other than human beings and this is a very active word right because family structures change over time and that there's this act of growing together with one another so when a new child is in the family the relationships are also new to that child right because it's a new being and so there's always this process of kind of growing together in an ecology and sometimes growing apart to that's a that's also a big part of ecology and so yeah that's kind of where I'm coming from with the term thank you all for those are very very very provocative answers I also think the the piece of it that whenever I like sort of whenever I linger on ecology I sort of like default actually to to ecosystem to being like okay like what is the way that this term is actually a way of talking about like the way that like I've been in settings where like something is termed deep ecology which like within indigenous cultures is just like the way we relate to all beings it doesn't it need that term but that that's the closest thing that like that circle has to being able to describe that and so I think I think one of the things that's really that's been really interesting about the depths and specificity of all of your answers so far is like how many layers there are to even just unpacking the fact that we are all having this conversation in English so there's so many kinds of work to be done the other thing I was gonna say I just I'm taking my time to do a lot of googling here my big problem here is that like I guess if you were actually talking so the first definition of the word decolonize is a verb to withdraw from it withdraw from a colony leaving it independent like I'm 100% down with that but that's not what we're talking about we're talking about some watered down completely like bullshit undefined a bold version of decolonize so if we're to actually talk about decolonizing just for the record two thumbs up but that's not what we're talking about at all I don't even know what we're talking about when they say decolonize in theater I really don't have a clue because we don't need that and I'll just point out that decolonization well based on that specific definition that we just heard decolonization is a long process beyond getting rid of the colonizer especially in South Asia and just because we're talking about language I think I talked about this in the piece as well that we wrote the way language especially English because we were colonized by the British for so long the way English is embedded in how we relate to other segments of society people who don't speak English people who speak native languages or people who might even speak a school of languages which is most people in South Asia who relating to that there's a whole process of once the colonizer has left there is a whole lot of work to be done in terms of figuring out what your national or community identity is there is a collective one answering that question of is there something that we can all of them to do or is that something that we have to work towards I see that in South Asia especially in Pakistan a lot where people we as a country still haven't figured out what our collective political psychology is for instance because a lot of our political systems have just been inherited by what the British left us so just defining colonizing the colonization as just getting rid of the colonizer I think is is a little limited because the work is of the colonization essentially begins once the colonization is because you have to go into unpacking in our eight centuries of learned self-patriot and systems that have kept us in a certain place to get people out of that mindset I think is a larger purpose of the conversation yeah I just wanted to I wanted to firm and follow up with that and I'm really grateful for the way in which you're unpacking definitions and terminology because I do feel like it's it's blowing my mind in the best possible way in terms of what is the colonization actually mean and how are we referring to it in in the theater practice and when I you know I've had unfortunately a pretty limited experience with India but when I was able to work there and live there it was it was really challenging to you know hear from artists their encounters around exactly what he was saying in terms of you know either directly through the effects of colonization the censorship order the elimination of you know of art forms and of cultural elements that were really the landscape of the country and what it means now to be in a country where the most popularly produced playwright is Shakespeare and kind of reconciling with the fact that even with you know efforts from artists to really examine what is you know what is colonialism and is what it what it's reclaiming and what is our our identity as an arts you know as an artist or an arts organization the the landscape the way in which the culture has shifted and the way in which the culture you know will continue to unpack the effects of colonialism so yeah I mean I think I what I'm really curious about is what is decolonizing in in the sense of what we're speaking to you know what does it mean in terms of what are decolonizing efforts and practices knowing that what you said in terms of that definition that's that's very different than what's what's actually happening I think it may also be important to to make a distinction between like classically colonized countries like South Asia where the colonizer theoretically didn't use and settler communities which the United States is a settler colonized country right so like the question I think in settler communities is did the colonizer actually leave and I think the the answer for us here in on federal island is no so it's actually a quite different conversation between the South Asian context and then the context here in the United States totally course I mean from my standpoint friends are complicated by the African slave trade because when we when we talk about things like repatriation or the colonizer removing themselves you know that that leaves me and the people I'm descended from even further displaced you know I I can't tell you from where in West Africa I am descended I can't tell you what what language that was and what culture or tribal affiliations so so so when I think about like decolonization as a theater practice I certainly am thinking of many of the things that Larissa named in terms of the consulting work where it's like how do you work with the community to kind of unpack that ingrained Western practices of this is how we must write a play this is how a rehearsal room must be led and this is who must be in charge and this is this is how many weeks you get so so when I'm talking about decolonizing I will admit that it's not linked to really any dictionary definition because for me it's all an exploration at trying to actually get back to something that I don't entirely know what it is right it's all about trying to learn that as part of the process and trying to have an awareness of other cultural forms other cultural traditions doing that research and integrating that into my into my practice and of course it you know Amritha named it you know Shakespeare has become like this global beacon so it's also like okay I'm doing this work and then I'm trying to understand what's happening in in theaters in West Africa and it's oh well there they want to do Western plays so so the impact of colonialism is long and deep and and for some of us who were who are here by means of involuntary transport the order is very tall to to actually name what what decolonization would look like because I have no I have no land you know follow up on that thank you for sharing that Don and I don't want to equate our experiences because they are very different and unique in their own ways but it what you were saying about you know I don't know what that would actually look like resonated for me I work for my tribes language revitalization program and our free sovereignty program so it's been a lot of time teaching language and working on the language has been a lot of time planting plants and teaching people how to care for them and harvest from them and in both of those cases we are operating from a situation where we actually have lost a huge amount of that sort of cultural material we do still obviously have things left over but you know every single day I'm faced with these linguistic questions of like well how would we say how would get out of this thing and part of that part of that tension is that of course all languages change right and we don't know exactly how they how the top of the pastor said it so we can only ever do what we can do in the present moment right and that goes back to actually how the top of language is structured in that there is no past or present tense everything is all I mean there's no past or future tense there's always the present tense and so you know I think that for the first year that I was doing this job I was really frozen by the lack the things that we lacked the things that were missing like how how does one harvest the Cotolpa tree how does one say this certain kind of sentiment in the language and now I've just kind of flipped over to well it doesn't you know we don't know a lot of things but we are in this present moment and we have to be working towards something in the future and I think that comes back to this question about decalization and digitization and all these large terms I think in general I want to resist any sort of overarching philosophy towards towards this work because I think it I think it always rely it's always dependent on the individuals involved in it and to be clear when I say individuals I'm not speaking about humans I'm speaking about all beings both animate and not animate and so every single solution or resolution or ecology or family that is created through this work is gonna look really different depending on the context depending on the present moment in the past moment and what comes in the future but yeah I really jive what you're saying about how do we move forward if we don't know what it is I had a really interesting conversation when I was doing the interviews for that the piece by the way awesome week of good stuff you guys that was really exciting it is really exciting um when I was talking to Michael Gar says that cornerstone I think at some point in the conversation he he was he was saying if you're doing this work if you care if you care about actually being responsive to what's around you which to some extent I guess is how I think of ecology and that that there's no like there's no stability there's no or there can be no organizational stability because the actual definition of like ecology and responsiveness is that everything is always changing so actually like all institutional structures basically are threatened by a more responsive way of thinking and he feels every day that he's that he is it's his it's his mission to think that way and also he feels like he's putting his staff in kind of an impossible position because he's asking them to be invested in and work really hard for a structure that he's always questioning and saying like at any minute we could decide this doesn't serve us and we have to dismantle it which means you don't have a job and I said something to him like like well I guess in the midst of and we know we're about the world to you and you know shit and that he he's I said something like guess you just have to find some kind of peace or you know some way of making pieces you move through this and he's he was like no he's like he's like I think if you're gonna like be with any of this you actually never feel any peace hmm you just feel in it and it's hard I don't that relates to this but what you know Rue what you were just saying and Don what you were saying in response to Larissa about like yeah I'm all for the thing where the definition of decolonization where the colonizer leaves but that's not I mean well I don't know I don't think that's what we have or what we're talking about here and so there's a part of me that thinks slash fears that Michael is right and that the whole thing is just if you're actually gonna be in a space of really seeing all of this for what it is and working towards the things that I that we believe in it's gonna be really painful constantly and destabilizing and I think that was something that kept coming up for me as I was reading all of the pieces this week is sort of sense of like I think that what Megan was just said about the idea of ecology as this eternally changing I mean that is an important how we approach theater or any kind of art in general because sensitivities will always shift from one place to another and art in a way needs to find a way to reconcile between these changing modes and in a number of ways it becomes about moving people from one way of thinking or one ecology for that matter to another and when we were talking we started with a question of what it falls of thinking about theater and ecology. What I fear at times is that there is a set structure while we're talking about change there can be certain hierarchies that are put in place and what that tends to do is make our work harder in terms of economizing but that it will suppress certain voices regardless of how much we try so in that sense it is absolutely a painful dissatisfying process because no matter who is in in the center the whole idea the whole process of centering one perspective means that at some point we're going to have to have to have the conversation of the centering process to keep going perpetually for us to get to a point of equilibrium. Does that make sense? Absolutely I just keep thinking you know when Larissa talked about the one of the groups she's consulting with where it's so true all of my training has been in a Western theater mode following this model I'm a director right and so the director certainly is supposed to sit at the top and have this vision and we use words like my cast and my show and my designers and none of that language is moving this conversation forward none of that is useful how can we de-center the director right and yet that's vocationally the thing that I do and it's the thing that I'm expected to do when I'm hired at places so it is absolutely uncomfortable and destabilizing and I met with a lot of challenges when I try and show up and say you know this process I'm in right now on the first day somebody said something about the way Don runs a room and I said I don't run a room that's not what I do I don't even like that language so just even little just little things like that and how and how theater the language we even use like we are gonna have to be in a place of constant constant evolution to break all of that down and and the army right now feels small it it still feels like that it is about how do I get to the to the top and then the idea that well if I'm at the top then I can do the work but like how can how can we are be no top can we not need anybody at the top for the work to happen and maybe I shouldn't be using the term decolonize maybe I should just be saying I'm really trying to disrupt systems of white supremacy maybe that's the term I should be using in my mind I'm trying to do all of that and I'd say that is decolonization I'm just gonna jump in with I think I mean I think also John part of that is is right if we're dealing with again English language decolonize as the opposite of colonize like that is a very English language binary that we've been handed like those are the only two then it's like steps towards one system or step towards another one actually the thing that we're dealing with is so much more complicated than that I was also just gonna uplift real quick just into what Megan was saying that I can't speak to any of the other communities Christos been working with but for five years now I've been working with them with indigenous communities and indigenizing their process very specifically indigenizing the cornerstone process on two different places I'm doing with them and Michael Bear says has been a part of that and I know a lot of the difficulty he's speaking of definitely for the company here at cornerstone was around the place that I'm doing which are as much as possible fully indigenized spaces and so I can say the good news is though in what Michael said was at least in our case it was a like 98% successful process for the indigenous community so when she talks about being difficult it's like yes it was difficult for the Western established cornerstone theater companies are extremely white centric way of working it was really hard on them even if they're not white people that's the structure they're working in it was awesome for the native people like it's amazing five years and it's been amazing and it continues to be so just want to uplift that yes it was hard on them but it's been great for the people on whose land they're understanding following up I love that that's great following up on that it there was a there's a great podcast that I love listening to called media indigena mostly because I can listen to listen to my favorite scholar Kim tall bear speak up there every other week and they were just speaking about this negotiation process in the Canada context right now regarding payments to folks who went through the boarding school system in Canada and basically the state was like oh here's some money and people were saying that's nowhere near enough to for us to be able to rebuild our education systems with it or to make the damage less excruciating and what she said was I think what the Canadian state will find I think this applies to all sorts of similar structures is it's going to be very costly and uncomfortable to go through any sort of decolonial processes and I think that that's I mean this goes right back to privilege right like it seems like this is an anguishing sort of process for them to go through to not have not to center their ways of doing it but like you're saying the flip side is that it's a nurturing sort of process for the community that we're actually trying to refocus on and I really liked what ESA was saying earlier and then also Don about this and Megan about this about constantly changing process and I think that it might be useful to distinguish that from chaos that there is this constant shifting and changing I'm going to keep using metaphors from my land because that's where I am but today on the river even when we were stopping to look at the spider lilies for example though the boat is still shifting and moving and so I decide even if we're in the same place right similarly in my gardens the eastern red butt is the first tree that blooms and so I harvest flowers from it during March but then the rest of the year my relationship to it changes but it comes back and so I think maybe distinguishing the language of change from the idea of chaos might be useful because there's a way in which things can constantly be shifting and we're adjusting and so in a sense changing while there's still being this larger sense of stability through through this close-knit network of lives and there's a quote from so my group where we were talking about texts and work to communication and so we did a podcast for our contribution this week and so I just wanted to share something that one of my collaborators Mia Susan Amir said she's from Vancouver she's working in Vancouver and she focuses on crypt theater and crypt studies and so she I'm a paraphrase here but she said what how how can we pause the process so that we can focus on the relationships of the folks that are actually in the room like how do we not let process be so important that the realities of our relationships must fall under the process and so she was speaking specifically about what about people who are in the room who say I am not well today how is that reality how does that reality of relationship change the way that we make theater in that day or that week or that month or the entire process so that we don't say well I'm sorry you're feeling bad but we have to do X Y and Z today and so how how might we approach those that hierarchy there's something else out there which is I just saw a great article yesterday about architecture and I cannot remember the person who's studying it or I think they're in a Pueblo community in the Southwest but they're studying their traditional architecture and trying to understand how we might re-indigenize architecture on this process of thinking and I think that they use the terminology re-indigenize specifically but I can't remember and it made me think about the way that we even anyone approaches architecture but I think since we're talking about theater theater specifically and in the US at least it's always focused on this kind of conservation model where this up where the presupposition is that the healthiest ecosystems are the ecosystems without humans involved in them which is of course the very white services way of looking at it because my community has lived on these lands for millennia and lived on a way lived in a way that we didn't just prevent damage but we actually promoted the rich interweaving of life right we promoted the diversity voted the well-being of our relatives and so just on like a very practical level as theaters commission new buildings as theaters look for new buildings how can we shift the model from oh well is this you know lead certified is it energy efficient to a model of well how can we build a structure that actually promotes the well-being of the ecosystem around us both socially in terms of humans but also between species and for the environment the ecology the landscape as a whole I think what you just said is is not just in terms of I guess not just in terms of the landscape and well okay so you know it's in that this is an articulate so I'm sorry for a second but I was thinking about what you said about about change and about structures about sort of the idea that certain structures are more stable and something I've been thinking about a lot lately is actually how the institutions of the American theater structurally and financially actually aren't very stable because they have this tendency to just only grow in one direction and not necessarily to always check in with their community about what their community needs but to operate in some ways very similarly to other capitalist models that are constantly building bigger theaters but aren't necessarily making sure that a bigger theater is actually serving the people and therefore ultimately going to be sustainable and so I think that there's something really beautiful about the fluidity you described and applying these traditional models to theater to also acknowledge not only is like change an organic thing but like the world we live in isn't magically in certain structures more stable even if we we have taught ourselves that it is I think change is such an interesting thing to interrogate in this conversation and I say this with full support of the word the definition of practice you know but how so much of you know change that I often find myself in dealing with is actually a process of dismantling where it's where the change itself is actually reaching back to something that was inherently and you know an original practice or a compassionate practice or something rooted in what we're speaking to and it feels like change because that has been that has been dominated but there's something about to me that the interesting conversation around like what you said really so beautiful of you know through Mia's words of the responsiveness responsiveness of change the process and then also how I feel change interacts with you know with a compassionate form of how do we actually get back to something that never really was lost but feels like it's been dominated or taken over so it may feel like change for those who have not encountered that practice and know it within their traditional origin but it's actually something that's rooted in you know our ancestry yeah I mean I think you that it feels like you know now we're at that place in the conversation of like well in whose interests is it to convince us that a certain kind of change is undesirable and in whose interests is us is it to have us imagine that a certain kind of structure is the only stable one and you know the questions in that in that the conversation around the Brooklyn Museum about like whose interests are actually controlling this institution I mean I don't know how if we're talking about the quote-unquote ecology problematic as that is of the American quote-unquote American quotes around everything of the theater ecology that some of us are presently sitting in you know Don you were talking about how you move in institutions as an artist and I everything you're saying is resonate very very deeply with me in terms of the conversations that I have to have as a director as well but I guess that the thing that keeps like provoking me is is the is the question of how you like how do you ethically collaborate in a system that doesn't have your best interests at heart you know if the if the things that are controlling the system if the system has a sort of vested interest or the the institutions that we're working in or with have a vested interest in maintaining structures and ideas that are like directly intended to not connect back to the places that we come from or aren't interested in incorporating our truths in some kind of way what does that mean and how do we work I mean aside from working to indigenize and to and to decolonize which but I guess my bigger question is like can you even what does that mean to do that in in in these places that are so invested in the opposite this is the thing that I spin my whole career trying to reconcile right because it's like I hate the game but I'm playing the game and and I sometimes get a lot of personal sadness because I want to not need the system or operate within the system so I've convinced myself that I'm subverting from the inside I don't know if it's true but it's the thing that I that I have kind of made central to my mission is that for whatever little opportunity I have to promote a different practice encourage a different way of of thinking in so much as I have the space to do so that's what I'm trying to do but I honestly don't don't know the answer in some days it's like I got to just get out like some days it really feels like I got to stop doing this and then other days it's like but but I I'm so passionate about stories and we will always need stories we will always tell stories so how how can I create the space find the space be with other people in the space and and and tell true stories so I try and just focus on that work but man some days it's like f-ing hard because it's like oh I am in collusion with the enemy that is what it feels like some days I am actually doing the enemies work so I'm constantly checking myself and my practice and I don't I don't have an answer yeah I think it's I have and feel that struggle and I think it's such a great question Megan in terms of you know I've worked between so many different institutions and systems and companies and modalities of operating in the field and and even within that I still feel really limited and you know still feel also really challenged and conflicted with you know my purpose and role in the theater and what happens when I am at you know a major institution like Jordan Shakespeare Festival and I found that the similarity for me that's just kind of traveled and and I say this not knowing if it if it it doesn't really resolve that question for me but I found myself gravitating towards people and company members and then figuring out how do we work within you know these different settings or models and so ultimately with a place like OSF I really gravitated towards the company and then was like oh how do we deal with the institution but it's something that yeah I think that there's deep I feel the deep introspection and analysis of you know what is my role in the field and what am I doing personally and how's it serving my artistry and how's it serving my culture and you know and and really having this constant identity crisis around what is you know what is what's the ethics and the the the belief system and practice and what are the ways in which that inherently relates to you know my my sense of you know survival in the field and I don't mean just even literal survival in terms of you know food on the table and a roof over my head as important as that is or you know having a place to to actually be able to you know support myself and my family but in terms of just you know artistic survival and creative survival like what does it mean to be fulfilled was it what does it mean to be inspired by change and I think within that you know I I do feel some passion desires don't spoke to to you know be in spaces where I can act you know with a certain level of just you know truth to myself and and hope that that carries meaning in some way but it's it's true that I feel like I I'm in a particular moment of really analyzing that and also really analyzing the field that I've been a part of and thinking you know both in this country and in other countries what does it mean to actually be an artist what does it mean to actually practice in in a way that supports one's one's belief system as an artist knowing that we live under particular conditions and structural biases and barriers and systems of oppression that have made being an artist freely and openly very challenging so I think your question just evokes a lot of questions in the best possible way I've also say it's also obviously it's you know really different from playwrights like Mary Catherine and myself and that you know I'm just you know we're in a different position as far as being the creators of the work so I'm just creating the work I want to create and people do it or they don't unfortunately they want to do it so yay but I do say I mean I would say even in that I mean I really hell is some of you know she's got my lecture I really pushed young artists in the field and primarily playwrights because of this because of the structure of Western theater that America follows we have a tremendous amount of privilege and so my very first play because I didn't know I didn't go to school for playwriting so I didn't know what playwrights was doing I came from film and TV which was just a wasteland of horror you know as far as the kind of community work I wanted to do so theater has been amazing compared to I mean it's incredible so so you know relative to that my career in theater has been amazing as far as then what do you do the kind of work I want to do that I wasn't allowed to do in film and TV even as a creator of my own shows and TV so that's a difference but I've also so shout out to theater yay better than film and TV but I would say that you know I always have my first place is I didn't know what a playwright was so what they did when I got commission I had some my first play to now I challenge every theater I work with to do this is just my personal practice and just using it as an example of like we're playwrights to use the power I challenge every theater I work with that they I cannot be the only indigenous art in that season and I cannot be the only indigenous artist being paid in that season or the indigenous person being paid because sometimes it's a consultant or whatever I just did that because that just is what we do as community members you always you know bring others with you it's just automatic and it's something I continue to do and it's been really beautiful to see theater for me every theater is embrace that challenge these two challenges and it has gone a hundred percent into them and it's created these incredible key partnerships and uplifted new artists and you know all these incredible things poppy Wilson was just from 1491's was just reminding me that we commissioned him in my very first play to do a big big big mistake a live paint he was a graffiti artist then and we commissioned him to a huge live paint in the lobby during the play not a good idea when you know the air is being sucked into the theater just FYI nearly died so there you go there's that but but as a beautiful piece and so you know a lot and it's anyway I just would say it's interesting for me to listen to you all talking about it especially as directors and and more in less in not in the playwright role because I don't know about Mary Katherine how you feel about it but for me it's been pretty awesome and I've made my choice to work in this to me I just I made my choice I want to work in this field I'm a I'm writing you know I know I'm writing to white people and those are the people I need and we need white folks there's a lot of them so for me it's a positive yeah I totally agree and I think it's been a very good conversation and these are tough tough issues and I don't know I've been kind of silenced I don't have any real like judgments or strong thoughts on the answer to the question I just I know why I do what I do but you know everyone has to come at it kind of from their own perspective and I don't you know I don't think any of us are wrong or right but it yeah I mean it's tough like you're I mean if you're a native artist telling a story on this soil today you are telling a story that has been purposely silenced and the legal framework that the you know United States is created and the Supreme Court is created wouldn't be possible wouldn't exist if we haven't been silenced and of course you have to have at the same time you can't you can't just silence you have to also dehumanize and so that's why we have redface and Washington football team named after a term that was literally a legal mechanism to graduate genocide so you know storytelling is powerful and I think it's it really is a powerful tool for change and I that's why I think some conversations are so hard to have because there is so much power inevitably and who gets to share stories and why and how and and so here we are people who are culturally conscious and trying to do the right thing by our communities and you know what words we use can be such a complex conversation but I think we all approach it with such care and love and that's actually kind of the beautiful thing right is that we don't want to do harm with our work and so we're being so intentional with it but then at the same time despite our intentionality and in fact they were all incredibly intentional you know even within our own communities we can sometimes use language that harms or perpetuate a certain colonial framework of doing things not even realizing it so a lot of times I just try to stay open to learning with the recognition that you know we all have so much to learn so I know that's sort of like a wishy washy response but it's basically like I agree with everything that's been said and just appreciate the space you'll even be able to have this conversation because I think the fact that there is a pretty mainstream I mean I know we're not totally mainstream here but this is not the oblivion this conversation is you know my head bopping at the beginning of the tape it probably made it onto Twitter so someone saw that you know this conversation is taking place is pretty amazing I think for the American for the state of the American theater today Catherine I like what you said about that we're not that we're not intending to do harm and that we're sort of constantly evaluating that which I appreciate everyone's generous response to my little despairing temper tantrum how hard it all is and I appreciate Larissa you saying like here's a concrete strategy that I've used and I think one of the concrete strategies that we've used the most in my directors and that I try to use in my directing practice to relate Mary Catherine to that thing they said about checking in on what you're doing constantly so we we've we've the four of us are are kind of new at this we've been doing it for about a year and one of the things we've started doing is like doing like like a deep process debrief of every time we're in public together like being like so how was that for you you know how did you think I said how was it when I said that did you feel like I was you know did you feel talked over did you feel interrupted did you feel it is crazy how much you learned from doing that getting a sense of like these are the people that I'm working that I'm working with and these are the people that I'm trying to like you know storm the castle with so we got to make sure that we're because you know unconsciously all that harm you can do to other people constantly if you're not like thinking about it and talking about it and dealing with it is pretty significant and and I think especially in this situation I mean here we all are on this call together trying to do this work together but the the forces of history and you know particularly the those of colonialism and white supremacy are are always trying to divide us and give us less of a voice you know against each other and that's particularly true for those of us who are you know who who's historically who've been pitted against each other in really particular ways which is true of the four of us and Maya directors when we sit around a table you know we can come up with all kinds of historical cultural religious reasons that we should all hate each other and so to actually it's it feels kind of so I guess that's what I'm offering is my like maybe this is this is part of what you know helps me sleep at night is knowing that I can I have a I have a strategy for like talking about my own my complicity in in some of this stuff even in my smallest interactions and also feel empowered to speak up and say like hey you said you said my idea without giving me credit for it or whatever whatever it is you you know she said she she didn't feel well and then you just talked over her for the rest of the meeting and never offered her a chance to you know some room to come back in or whatever it was right that that I found so helpful and I've learned so much from that way of working and it also takes a lot of time I feel like Annalisa is smiling at me because I owe her a deep breath from our time in the Arctic Circle um yeah I really love what everyone's saying and I think that you know I I have definitely felt that sort of like oh is this doing anything or is this doing something good um and how do I know and and I think reflecting back on what Mary Catherine and Marissa were saying you know it's you just kind of have to make a decision and go for it um but I might offer some a way of kind of approaching the language around this um and of course you can take it or leave it or critique it or whatever but maybe part of it is instead of thinking of focusing so much on do no harm um shifting the language to how can we actively promote growth or how can we actively promote maybe revitalization um once again I'm going to keep using plant metaphors because I love them um but you know it's not it's not so much how do I just not do harm to my corn for example but it's like how can I promote their well-being and growth in a way that doesn't that also permits the well-being and growth of other things and so I also think that this language of do no harm relies on kind of I think it sometimes relies on a static idea of the way things are like oh these things are in this way and I don't want to hurt them but if we're rejecting idea of stasis and what Madeline pointed out which is that even even things that we think of as static aren't in fact static but they're just constantly changing in a way that benefits the certain group of people so if we reject the idea of stasis how can we focus on growth towards um goals that are um more just a life-giving uh those thoughts I have um I just want to jump in and say something that Megan said that resonated with me because um and it sort of directly relates to some of the questions you just asked for um because there is there is something to be said about um being conscious and present and um listening to different perspectives in uh in the ecosystem if we're going with that metaphor so um something you said earlier about um about uh change in chaos the difference between the two uh and the one thing that keeps coming back to me um is about seasons there's only going to be a certain time for a certain community or a certain way of thinking or just a way for people to be able to change with each other um and that relates to some what Megan said earlier uh because it's the only way to wave through those waters is to listen which is something that I um in my playwriting work or even in my performance work is something that I try to listen to and learn from other people um how they practice or how they do a certain thing um that either might not be a part of my practice or something I may not have uh known with some uh one to keep going back to um this anecdote from when I uh when I was when I was a child I go up in Nepal um I uh went to an after-school which was because the complete emphasis of what the kind of upbringing that I had in the first six years of my life because that was revolution um but ending up in a school with Buddhist monks um talking a very different perspective on life in general and I see that happening in my work as well where I'm constantly questioning what everybody's already pointed out is this work is it work um is it doing something significant and um I think the key to that of always is going to be the question of are you listening are you asking the questions that need to be asked um are you asking the little guy um uh instead of you know seeking validation from the structure and the system itself um I don't know if that makes sense but that's something that kept coming back to me as I think that point I'm interested in this idea of listening and I'm trying to like pull a bunch of friends together um so forgive me again I'm I'm a little bit going to be articulate in articulate but that's all right um Ru I think you said something earlier quoting Mia maybe about this idea of relationship um and Maddie and I were talking earlier today about communication of sort of as the opposite not that we need to stay with the binary but of like communication as the opposite of colonization to rather than like decolonize versus colonize how can we actually be in relationship with each other as a sort of antidote to colonization like I think Megan said something about how colonization is a structure that seeks to divide us and pin us against each other so um Maddie I I want to throw this back to you to talk a little bit more about your ideas about communication um because I feel like I've heard a bunch of people different people say similar things about how just the fact of this space being open for this communication amongst people who are in different levels of relationship and different kinds of relationship yeah um this metaphor has come up a lot uh lately where it was just we were talking about um in a few different settings the idea that uh even with the series um sometimes uh we wouldn't all be on exactly the same page and you know these are to be like I don't want to colonize them and I'd be like that person doesn't know like what's going on at all like we have to tell them what's going on like at least a little bit so they feel like we're communicating with them and so figuring out what that boundary was between um between like the amount of information you need um sort of like a little bit of structure uh that enables you to actually connect deeper versus uh you know feeling like you're imposing things on people and so I wouldn't say that uh communication and colonization are are opposites in any way but I do think that we think about uh ways of connecting a lot when it comes to them and for me I think the number one thing for whatever reason that I think of probably I think a lot because um because my people's language is much more focused around everything being connected um as opposed to separated uh connection is the thing that I always come back to is the word and connection to me isn't isn't so different from communication it is how how is everything um in sync with everything else and listening to everything else um so that's this my starting my scoring starting place um on on the idea but if any of you have thoughts about about that um feel free to jump in I think it also comes back down to consent because I think that um that is that is a central question to uh you know my my life as an individual but also my life as a citizen of Kitabat United Nation um it really does come down to a lot of this about consent like that is arguably what we are what we want when we talk about sovereignty itself I mean self-determination is problematic but sovereignty you know is the right to say no that's how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People um there are more than six articles that's how that's usually summarized is the right to say no and so I think that there's a way in which communication has often been done that's not consensual you know where it's like this is the format this is how we're doing it um show up or don't be a part of it um versus a process of offering and listening and responding uh which you know should we talk can we talk too about the specific topic oh well I prefer to do this you know there's a way that it can be a lot more consensual and in that we can create healthier um relationships and connections that's great yeah I like all the c words level of consensual consent versus colonization crappy colonization I also worry oh no maybe I should maybe I will say it actually I also worry like too about the um I guess maybe it's only just coming from me to the first like time in this conversation because we're able to sort of we use the word so much in this conversation that we're able to laugh about it um but this sort of um I guess I guess levels of colonization and and how um it actually in some way sometimes makes makes light of a thing that isn't um I don't know how to explain it but it's like if communication and colonization are the same thing they're not actually like it's a piece of a thing right but it's not um uh there are things I don't know how to explain it but there's just something about that that's sitting with me a bit funny not about what you said but about um like these great things like not great isn't good like great isn't sort of like huge and immense and catastrophic things that happen to many of our peoples right um like we can we can make a a comic about it to help people hey understand the system and that it's still happening but it doesn't mean that um that word still won't hold a lot of weight to some people uh when you're comparing it to something simple in a in a contemporary context okay can I do this and I'm totally interrupted I just want to say hi to everyone I'm down keep on going keep on I should have clarified with my comment before we got Rob and then lost him and I was gone again um uh not not just happened but are happening and I think that that's sort of just the thing that I don't know I just want to like call attention to to like the presence of what that still is in a way that isn't just something as simple as theater structures a lot of the time yes and I but I you know I think that also connects back to something I said towards the beginning which is that I think that lose something when you come too dedicated to the terminology um in both directions I think you're absolutely right that sometimes we get too metaphorical with terms and often lose specific historical and ongoing realities that colonization enacts upon communities but on the other side of it I think that when we become too dedicated to any any of these terms we often leave folks out and this argument I think is often used for like why we need to like change the way we speak to bring in more white folks but I think for me moving back to my reservation after having gone on this going to get my bachelor's degree and then living in DC for a while coming back people don't use the terminology of decolonization or colonization they're even used the terminology of indigenous in my community it's just not the way that people communicate but that isn't to say that they aren't talking about these things and so and I don't feel the need to say oh what you're speaking about is decolonization because they already know what they're speaking about and they're finding words to speak about it in a way that is useful and relevant to their context and so I think in general I have a resistance to becoming too dedicated to any terminology because of the way that it would force me to keep out some of my relations very close to time so we're going to solve colonization in the next one can we solve it is that what you're asking yeah we just need a solution we got a minute we just 60 seconds solution yeah oh right because we like to have deadlines and goals and exactly does anyone have a question that's sitting oh no that's great what maybe we end with questions rather than declarative sentences I'm interested in how this conversation can continue where it's continuing and how we can work together to nurture its ongoing presence question mark maybe Catherine is just looking at her screen Bob and she's ready to run away trying to bait Maddie oh you want me to have a question I have a lot of questions oh wow well no honestly my question right now which is a is a tricky one and um it's always countered very Catherine telling me to move to to her traditional lands but I like to move to Oklahoma that's right yeah yeah yeah no but it's like here when I'm in when I'm in Connecticut sitting on the river there's this thing about the American theater that's um it's interesting which is that it like tries to prevent you from going home and I'm just trying to I'm I'm I'm constantly curious about um how I how I keep making space to to do the work here as opposed to always being somewhere else which I love lots of communities and dropping into communities but I feel like in many ways that that's not um the point of the work that I do yeah yeah but I'll still see you in Arkansas next week Marie Catherine thanks thanks for coming out here no that's a really good point though um I think I I try to do a balance um of work within my home community and um but I think that um it's such a blessing to be able to take the stories we're working on to communities that may not be familiar with them there's sort of a different question of what does it mean to bring the story back home to home and what does it mean to bring it to people who have likely been taught this story doesn't exist there's a whole different set of challenges for both and a whole two different sets of I think healing and progress and decolonization that can take place uh when those stories are shared in those two different communities multiple different communities yeah I really liked that and I uh we talked about in our um contribution but how can I really I'm also really curious about how the story changes depending on who we're speaking to because I see that modeled in our storytellers like they're not telling me the same story that they're telling to my mother or that they would tell to my little cousin right or that they would tell to a visitor to the reservation and so um you know I think audience is something that we should consider because I think there is some there's like a fetish towards fidelity you know getting the words exactly right every single time um and in that we lose um maybe the localness of it or the flexibility of it because the big piece I've been working on for the last two years is the indigenous core of discovery where I go into museum spaces um the first one was the Smithsonian's presidential portrait gallery um and tell this tell people the stories that I see when I look at for example the life size portrait of Andrew Jackson sitting in um the most visited museum one of the most visited museums in DC but I'm not going to take that that performance to my tribe's museum um because they know these stories already and too that's not who I'm trying to critique so I think that they're um I think it's definitely something worth thinking about more maybe we're gonna end on those state those question statements thank you a lot of gratitude yeah let's end on gratitude thank you so much this has been really wonderful and I hope that the conversation does continue in many spaces and places and hopefully in person sooner rather than later thank you both for putting this together and allowing us to hold digital space with one another yes totally oh my god and a big thanks to howl around yeah totally and also I mean big thanks and affirmation for just this week and what an incredible experience it's been just as to read learn connect build thank you everyone involved thank you