 everybody. Welcome to Green New Theatre 2020 part six. Y'all, we got to stop this. This will be our last call of our Green New Theatre series, but we have a wrap up with the Producer Hub on February 5th at 630 EST as part of the Producing Ethically in 2020 Now One series. We'll drop a link to that into the chat and Tara will be on that. Before we get started, we just wanted to acknowledge that, you know, coup and that this week has been in a word stressful. So thank you for joining us today tonight. This session is being co-facilitated by Groundwater Arts in partnership with Howl Round. We're hosting this call on Zoom. There are a couple of people here with us. We're also live streaming on Howl Round and on Facebook Live. So hello to all of you who are joining us. If you joined on the first Green New Theatre calls throughout the summer and fall, welcome back. And thanks for joining us again. You'll notice that a lot of the language may sound familiar, especially in the beginning. And thank you for your patience as we create radical access points for new people to join us. So let's get into it. This session will last approximately 90 minutes. And we recognize digital fatigue is real. So you can feel free to leave and come back, stand up, turn your camera off, turn it on, do whatever you need to in order to take care of yourself at any point. And as a heads up, so we will be in the Zoom call, and we have ASL and captioning support. We hope that folks will participate in our discussion later, because so much of what we hope to do with the Green New Theatre is based on relationship building and decentralized processes. So we encourage you to participate to whatever extent you can. We're going to take a moment now to introduce ourselves as facilitators. And while we do that, please go ahead to introduce yourself in the chat box, using your name, pronouns and any land acknowledgement you'd like to give. For those of you who are watching on HowlRound, send us an email to introduce yourself. And for those of you on Facebook, please comment. Visibilizing our access needs is a method of accountability. And I want to take a moment to highlight, amplify and shout out unsettling dramaturgy, which is a colloquium of mad crypt disabled and indigenous dramaturgs from across Turtle Island for modeling what you all will witness us do momentarily. The link to the unsettling Facebook page should be in the chat any moment now, and in the comments as soon as Tara puts them there. So I'll go first. Hello, my name is Anna Lathrop. My pronouns are she, her hers. I live on the unseated lands of the Lenape, Lenape nation, more specifically the Canarsie and Nayak peoples in what is colonally known as Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, between Upper New York Bay and Nayak Bay. As a visual description, I'm a white woman with blonde hair, wearing an orange and gray dress. I'm sitting in front of a gradated black background going from blue to white with text on the right hand side that says groundwater arts and text on the lower left hand side that has our contact information. I might have to stretch because of a knee neck injury, but otherwise my access needs are being met. I am a futures and social services designer and co founder of Groundwater Arts. I will now pass it on to Tara. Yeah, my name is Tara Moses. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I'm a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. I'm calling in from the Muscogee Creek Reservation in the site of the 1921 Burning of Black Wall Street. These lands are colonally known as Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I am one mile away from the Arkansas River. My access needs are that I may need extra time to respond as my attention is split in multiple areas, as I am monitoring the Facebook and email and all the things. Great. Other than that, my access needs are met. My visual description is that I have brown skin, very long, very dark, blue black hair that's pulled into a ponytail. And I am wearing gold hoop earrings and a black see through shirt. It is see through, I promise you may not be able to tell, but it is. And I'm sitting in front of the exact same background that Anna just described. The contact information is Grandwater Arts on Facebook and also also on Instagram GrandwaterArts at gmail.com and hashtag Green New Theater. I updated my institutional affiliations and I can't announce that yet. So what I can announce is that I'm the producing artistic director of Teletulsa, co founder of Grandwater Arts, a director and a playwright, and I will pass it to Annalisa. Well done, Tara. Well done. Hi, everybody. My name is Annalisa Diaz. I use she, her pronouns and I'm calling from the traditional lands of Piscataway Nation, colonially known as Baltimore, Maryland, by the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. These lands have also been cared for by the Susquehannock, Lenape, Lumbee and many indigenous nations who are still here today. As a visual description, I'm a brown skin woman with long black hair. I'm wearing bright pink lipstick. And I'm sitting in front of the same background that Anna and Tara already mentioned. At this moment, my access needs are met. I'm the director of artistic partnerships and innovation at Baltimore Center Stage, co founder of Grandwater Arts and also an independent theater maker. And I will pass it over to Ronnie. Hello, everyone. Thanks so much. My name is Ronnie Kanoy. My pronouns are she, hers. I'm Laguna Pueblo and Cherokee and live on the traditional lands of the Piscataway, the monkey and Anacostian people. Also known in this area is also known as Washington DC, which is near the Potomac and Anacostia River, rivers. I'm a light-skinned woman with long brown hair wearing a light blue shirt with gold dangling earrings. I'm sitting in front of the same background. We're all matching tonight. And at this moment, my access needs are met. I'm a producer at Octopus Theatricals, co founder of Groundwater Arts, an advisor for the New England Foundation of the Arts National Theater Project, a co founder of the producer hub, and a composer as well. Finally, for everyone who was not with us on this Zoom account, but tuning in on HowlRound or on Facebook Live, you can participate by commenting on Groundwater Arts Facebook in the live event or you can email us at GroundwaterArts at gmail.com. That is all one word and our email is also on our virtual backgrounds as well. Tara is going to be monitoring those channels tonight, dropping all links we discussed here in the Facebook comments section and vocalizing what you all are sharing either on Facebook or through email. So if you're unable to get on Facebook and want the links shared, please email us and we'll send them to you. So Zoom, the platform that we are using today, and many days is headquartered in what is now called San Jose, California, on the traditional lands of the Elone and Tammion peoples. We acknowledge the lands that Zoom resides on because the work that we create together on a digital platform does not exist in an ether or an imaginary void, but it's made possible because of the physical land and the indigenous people who steward it. And I'll pass a day in Elisa to talk about Groundwater Arts and who we are. Thank you. Groundwater Arts shapes, stewards and seeds a just future through creative practice, consultation and community building. For us, climate justice is defined as racial justice, economic justice and a decolonized future. That is all one word and our email is also on our virtual background. Oh, hold on. Excuse me. As Annalisa figures out what's going on, I will just jump in for the next little bit, if that's okay. Yeah, okay. So this call in particular is the last in the series of six Green New Theater calls that have been spanning roughly nine months. For those of you that have joined us for more than one call, as you already know, they're intentionally spaced out. So everyone has the ability to opt in and opt out as their personal bandwidth permits. And because deep change requires the capaciousness of time and care. So we hope that over the course of these calls, we as a field will feel more equipped to move toward justice both at an individual and institutional levels as we look to rebuild. I'm going to turn it back over to Annalisa, who looks like it's all good. I haven't exactly figured out what happened, but I have roughly 37 tabs open at the same time. So I think that there was something in there. But we seem to be good now. The Green New Theater document itself, for those of you who have not yet seen it, it was created in collaboration with a wide array of perspectives that center black indigenous people of color and disabled people, as those are the folks who are on the front lines of climate change, and have been leading climate justice movements for decades. The document itself models community accountability. And you can read all of the names of the wonderful people who volunteered their time and expertise to the document. Each call of this series has modeled a different principle of the Green New Theater. And the document consists of six principles. They are community accountability, decolonized leadership practices, publicly transparent budgeting, right relationship to land and history, sustainable resources and immediate divestment from fossil fuels. Our call today will be centered on the principle of immediate divestment from fossil fuels. And we will post a full link to the document in the chat now in case you haven't seen it, you can take a look. And it's already there. So to kick us off, we'd like to offer this passage from Robin Wall Kimmers, a braiding sweetgrass as a grounding for our conversations night. So I am going to read a section from Honorable Harvest. You can also follow along on the PowerPoint. The Honorable Harvest does not ask us to photosynthesize. It does not say don't take, but offers inspiration and a model for what we should take. It's not so much a list of do nots. But as a list of dues, do eat food that is honorably harvest and celebrate every mouthful. Do use technologies that minimize harm. Do take what is given. This philosophy guides not only our taking of food, but also any taking of the gifts of Mother Earth, air, water in the literal body of the earth, the rocks and soil and fossil fuels. Taking coal buried deep in the earth for which we must inflict irreparable damage violates every precept of the code. By no stretch of the imagination is coal given to us. We have to wound the land and water to gouge it from Mother Earth. What if a coal company planning mountain top removal in the ancient folds of the Appalachians were compelled by law to take only that which is given? Don't you long to hand them the laminated card and announce that the rules have changed? It doesn't mean that we can't consume the energy we need. But it does mean that we honorably take only what is given. The wind blows every day. Every day the sun shines. Every day the waves roll against the shore and the earth is warm below us. We can understand these renewable sources of energy as given to us since they are the sources that have powered life on the planet for as long as there's been a planet. We need not to destroy the earth to make use of them. Solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy, the so-called clean energy, harvest when they are wisely used seem to me to be consistent with the ancient rules of the honorable harvest. And the code might ask of any harvest, including energy, that our purpose be worthy of the harvest. Oren's deer made moccasins and fed three families. What will we use our energy for? Thank you so much, Tara. So we're going to move into a little bit more of a free forms conversation for about 25 minutes and then open the floor up if folks have questions and to talk a little bit more. And we're going to try to speak at a speed that our captioners and interpreters can catch up with. But if we are speaking too quickly, please let us know. And before we get started, we have an awesome two-minute video from Go Fossil Free that lays a great groundwork for just transition and what we're going to be talking about today. Here's how we avert a worsening climate crisis and build a renewable and fair society together and fast. It's not about changing light bulbs or expecting your elected officials to lead. It's about you taking action right now where you have the most power, your very own community. We the people have to take down the fossil fuel industry if we want to replace it with renewable energy for all. The fossil fuel industry has spent decades creating and denying a climate crisis that is already affecting millions around the world. So how do we take down the most powerful industry in the history of the world? It's quite simple actually by building enough local people power. Fossil fuel companies only have the power that we are willing to give them. They are supported by our public institutions giving them social acceptability through sponsorships and partnerships, our very own investments allowing them to expand into new fossil fuel projects that are completely unnecessary, our politicians allowing them to operate and pollute within our very own communities. But look what happens if enough people are pushing against those very pillars of support. What if communities all over the world stand up for themselves and say no more fossil fuel projects not here, not anywhere. If we pass local bans and organize ourselves to resist fossil fuel projects in our very communities. Not up anymore for dirty energy. If our universities, museums, pension funds die best from fossil fuels and refuse their tainted sponsorships. Now imagine how much more quickly those pillars of support will fall if we are accelerating a just and fair transition to 100 percent renewable energy for all. If we're actively promoting the kind of community controlled and just alternatives you want to see. Awesome. So thank you for sharing the video. I drop the link to the full video and go fossil freeze amazing website in the chat and on the Facebook. So feel free to check it out there and watch the whole thing. It goes into case studies. It's very dope. Anyway and so what is really awesome about that video is it gives an example of like a just transition and what that can look like and Annalisa. I'm going to throw it over to you as our like resident queen just transition. Just kidding we all love it anyway. Oh you want to mean like what even is a just transition in a just transition. Yeah yeah yeah in a nutshell you're very good at nutshells. Okay I'm going to try a nutshell it's but but like disclaimer nutshelling a just transition is a little hard because it's a framework that's been developed for over 30 years by many many people. So there's a lot of nuance that I'm going to ignore for right now but Tara can you do you have a link to the movement generation just transition zine or can someone throw that in the chat. Yes that's what I was doing right now. Awesome and that's so great. So if you want the like one of the best examples that I've seen or the best explanations that I've seen check out that link. But the nutshell version is that so we need to move from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy full stop like that is a that's a given. So currently the whole global system is set up as an extractive economy which basically means that industries are taking resources like coal and fossil fuels and you know people and like you know turning people into capital as well but right now I'm focusing on fossil fuels. So we are extracting resources from the earth and turning those into wealth and we need to not do that and change our entire global economy into a regenerative economy. So if that's the sort of like we must do that the question is how do we how do we go from one to the other how do we transition from extractive to regenerative and then inside of that transition there's a lot that we a lot of choices we could make as a global community and the the just piece of it is how do we make those decisions in a way that is driving justice and not reinscribing all of the injustices that currently exist. So there's a real opportunity inside of this transition from extractive to regenerative actually to bring our global systems into alignment and like spoiler alert most of the most of the ways to do that are like getting behind indigenous people and centering indigenous sovereignty and black liberation because these are and centering the people who have been on the front lines of climate change for 500 years which again are black and indigenous folks so that's sort of the nutshell version of it but there's a lot more to dig into in that movement generation just transition zine. Did I do it? Yes you did. Well I guess I'm curious and maybe either one of you can do it or I can do it we'll see but the the notion of going fossil free in the arts you know I think that there's a number of folks and probably if you're listening to us talk then you're you're probably a little further ahead of the curve in terms of maybe feeling like we should be divesting from fossil fuels so you know there's a case to be made that you know of why we need to move from an extractive to regenerative economy and that we need to go fossil free but then there's the whole you know the whole issue of how and I think that you know the what Annalisa shared and what the you know the video we just watched shared was like a little bit of how to do that but in the arts specifically I mean something that I'll just say that I noticed is this sense of I'll just say the thing like a kind of infantilizing of like well we're just here in the arts what can we do and we can do a lot and we can do a lot more than writing climate justice plays which while like not to diminish that that has a place there's so much we can do in terms of our advocacy and in terms of modeling not just what happens on the stage but everywhere else. Turtle Island slash the United States is really behind where a lot of other countries are in their arts institutions are in terms of divesting from fossil fuels. Major museums are starting this and I mean maybe you know feel free team to jump in but this might be a nice time to chat social licensed to operate. Why yes indeed the social license to operate one of my favorite things to talk about but before I do because I already talked a lot does anybody else want to take a shot at this? Let's since I have the slide up let's just explain what social license operate is. Yeah so what's written on the slide is the idea that a business or industry that is causing harm to everyone including employees and everything including the planet are allowed to operate because society has given them an implicit pass. This happens when industries position themselves as contributing to social good through reputation laundering like investing in arts institutions and other charities. This gives them an outward appearance of doing good when in fact they are directly responsible for harm. So yeah and what I'll add to that is just to go back to the two minute video that we just shared the there was a visual in it that was the sort of fossil fuel companies as the like sitting on top of several pillars and the some of the pillars were universities, museums, pension funds, banks, and so the the sort of like museums and arts institutions pillar is is one of the pillars that is upholding the fossil fuel industry and so the the sort of like question before us is can we knock that pillar down or can we start to chip away at it such that that would contribute to dismantling the ability of the the entire fossil fuel industry to operate and just to put a finer point on it what we're talking about is things like taking corporate spot both there's two things here if there's taking corporate sponsorships from things like BP, Chevron, or other fossil fuel companies so sponsoring companies when we take sponsorships from them and put them all over our institutions the public good that arts institutions provide is then associated with BP or associated with Chevron and it's like oh maybe those companies aren't that bad because they're funding you know the Tate Museum in London or they're funding whomever they're funding so sponsorships is one thing to divest from and then for the arts institutions that are big enough to have downwinds like real question where are those funds invested and a lot of the times they are invested in the fossil fuel industry so we are many times endowments are literally making money from fossil fuels like we are also invested in profits so if we start to be really critical about pulling money and more socially responsible funds then that too can crack away at that pillar that's upholding iron yeah and also folks can be thinking okay cool i understand from like an organizational perspective like what we can do like community pooled capital capital you know divesting naturally like from with our endowments as well as just like not asking money from these corporations and you know like actual fossil fuel companies that's a big thing where i'm from here in oklahoma specifically here in Tulsa the quote-unquote oil capital of the world you can't throw like there is i can't even think of besides my own organization that doesn't accept any sort of fossil fuel money and so with that there is a lot of this like scarcity mindset and so step one obviously is that's not true the scarcity mindset was put into place so mainly to keep BIPOC people from you know getting the money and stuff anyway but there's all the strategies but what can you do on the individual level is a huge question especially for individual artists and a really quick antidote that i'll share for the job i was supposed to i accidentally almost announced that i wasn't supposed to at the beginning when i was interviewing for that senior leadership position um at a 30 year old 30 plus year old organization um i said in my final interview that if you want me which spoiler they did then we are going to seriously evaluate where we get our money from if we are getting money from the Doris Duke Foundation as an example who made their money through oil and gas as well as genocide and displacement of the indigenous people of Hawaii then we are not going to get it from there anymore we're not going to do it um just straight up told the board that in my last interview now here's the thing could they have said no we're not gonna do this we're not gonna hire this person absolutely and if they did that then i don't want to work there anyway um so really leading forward with your values in these interview processes especially when these big institutions want you as an individual artist and spoiler y'all i got hired and spoiler meet with the finance committee next week we won't have a fun time in that conversation um and so like there is a lot of individual power that we do hold especially when these predominantly white institutions see us for who we are especially for my organization is not a predominantly white institution but this is an example anyway see us for who we are with all these quote-unquote like qualifiers what we bring to the table how we help diversify their organization we have a lot of power there um so just a quick antidote like tell them what's what in the interview and if they hire you then they got to do it that's the rules i want to go back yeah i want to go back to something you mentioned in the very beginning terror where you talked about community cold capital because i think that you know it's a it's a scary time for theaters right now we can acknowledge that there's a that's true uh especially you know institutions people been unemployed for over a year now for some and you know there's a big question of like well if i don't take money from them where do i get the money to do the things and um you know there are so many so many alternative economic models that are already out there a lot of most of which the ones that are anti-racist and the ones that are regenerative are happening in BIPOC communities are happening in mutual aid communities are happening sort of on these fringes of you know what you like these economic models and one of which you know i'm wondering um ronnie if you would like to speak to a very concrete example that is happening right now here my pleasure um so in addition to wearing my hat as a co-founder of groundwater arts i'm also one of the founding members of the industry standard group and i'm happy to drop a little link in the chat for that um that particular page has a lot of breakdown about the group so this was a really an effort in the commercial sector of all places in the arts field looking at okay there's we know that there aren't very many BIPOC producers in the commercial space they're just not there's a handful and there's a huge barrier to entry because typically you need to be able to invest at a very high level and you need to be able you need to be kind of given a particular stamp of approval that you make so much money and that you understand that whatever money you're giving you might not get back so the threshold is you might need to have like your net worth be like a million dollars before you can really invest in broadway and as we know you know systemic inequities are such that that's a pretty high bar to have to jump and moreover in the arts field at large there's a real hunger to really support BIPOC artists and arts workers at every level so the founding members of TISG in particular Rob Lackey, Adam Hinman, yeah in particular those two folks put really looked at community fund models kind of what Anna was talking about in creating the industry standard so in short the industry standard group is a it's like a commercial fund so basically any anybody can give to the fund philanthropically and only BIPOC people can invest and what it means to invest it starts at the low level of $1,500 which you put into the fund for x amount of time and you get a percentage a small percentage you're not looking at like you know Hamilton money getting back but it's a pretty sure bet that you're going to get x amount of percentage back from the money that you put in and with all of that income what it means is that the the TISG fund that has a the goal is to really get a million dollars in investments you know and then that can really be put towards investing in BIPOC artists who wouldn't have you know let's say like white heteronormative Broadway producers or theater owners wanting to support their endeavor and then all of a sudden BIPOC folk have a seat at the table in a different way and that's you know the power of that was not in um how can I say this of course like work of changing hearts and minds goes on but what I love about what TISG is doing is it's basically saying great we're going to learn from amazing folks in the field from community funds elsewhere and we're going to build an infrastructure that that gives us a seat at the it gives a seat at the table and it also creates an entirely new platform for producers for folks to learn about the commercial industry it can be for projects that are looking for investment they can come to the industry standard fund so it's it's really by using this model so many different positive possibilities have kind of exploded out of it um and it's you know and it's something that has a proven track record it's something that is um uh that you know eight people none of whom this is their full-time job were able to put together during the pandemic so you know it's something that when you look around at alternatives they're there they're just not as obvious and that's by design you know like the system is not broken the system is working exactly that part ronnie wait that part though yeah the thing about it's by design and they're not it's not obvious by design yep yeah there's I mean it's you say that the industry standard it's having a new seat at the table but I think it's actually much better it's entirely different table that's like doing cooler things in a different room and I love that because I think you know in my own observation theaters especially theater institutions predominantly white institutions like to say that they're at the forefront of innovation and that the arts are where culture happens and that is at the the forefront of everything but actually theaters are very stuck they're very stuck in old models we create art in very stuck ways and there are and have always been people who have been marginalized and pushed out of the center intentionally who are doing much more interesting things that are sustainable that are regenerative that are funded without the need to take money from fossil fuels and are are doing it so much better like why are we not learning from those people instead of I mean speaking as someone who is white why are predominantly white institutions not learning from people like that and supporting people who are doing more interesting work and finding new ways to find funding why why is there this assumption that a major predominantly white institution has things figured out because white supremacy well yes um can I just name a thing too that I'm hearing which uh I love and which is also in the movement generation just transition guide I'm like really pimping this movement transition movement generation guide um the what I'm hearing you all talk about is that while we divest from the bad we must also invest in the good which is a strategy for a just transition not only do we have to knock the pillar that the pillars down that are holding up the fossil fuel industries once we've broken all of that down we need to invest in you know the regenerative models that we actually want in the world and what I hear Ronnie talking about is um you know people who are actually building that infrastructure for investment in ways of working that are regenerative and that do center BIPOC communities and artists so I just want to name that it's what I think what groundwater is interested in is not just divestment and divestment and like take all the money away it's like cool but once we take the money away like what are we where are we putting it you know the a two pronged approach I can stop sharing this slide I just wanted to share we have we have a slide for this everyone of course feel very very uh excited about this I mean and you know I'll also just say going back to something Tara said about um her putting her um her values forward in the rooms and places of power that she's privy to I mean I was reminded by someone like in a at the under the radar conference symposium that someone had written well the tricky thing about all of this is that there are so many folks for whom the only job they can get in town is working you know for the fossil fuel company and like what how can we expect them to etc etc and I mean that's the thing that's one of the reasons why it's important for Tara to do what she did for me to do you know the same thing but those of us who have choice who have the agency that we do because you can't make someone choose between working for a fossil fuel company and feeding their children you can't so those of us who are in a position um what privilege we have we have to use it and it's powerful I would also say to that too that the the choice of the false choice of work at a job that is harmful to you and your family and don't feed your children is a false choice right and and like part of the just transition again is if we dismantle the fossil fuel industry yeah there are a bunch of people like people work in those industries and families are sustained by those industries so then the question is where do they go what jobs can we create that are regenerative what is the what are the arts institutions like can can we be a part of that um like I have questions about um uh for example in the DC Baltimore sort of theater ecology we often are like at a gap for our backstage tech crew and and scenic crew and kinds of skilled workers that I'm a little bit like hello if we are shutting down fossil fuel industries guess where there's a bunch of skilled workers not that all of them are going to want to come and work backstage but you take my meaning that like thinking about it in a different way like what are the different ways that the arts institutions could contribute to a just transition and it's um there there are many different ways that we could um and so with that it's really related um md dropped a question on facebook and it was asking if we could explain more about the scarcity mindset and you know what Ronnie and Annalisa just brought up is exactly that so the scarcity mindset is the belief a belief that was taught that there will never be enough and so that results in fear stress anxiety resource hoarding um in the case of where I am in Oklahoma that results in well we don't really like fossil fuels but these are the folks who are supporting us so where else are we going to get it um on the other hand in what the just transition is about and also like what reality is about is the mindset of abundance and what that means is is that there is more than enough for everyone and that comes out of a very deep like sense of personal worth insecurity community accountability and it's grounded deep within our communities within the people as well as with the land itself and the and the last thing that I'll say about this about like where where does this come from you know I joke all the time the roots of all evil comes from Europe I promise it's a joke I promise it's a joke no need to I do not mean to offend the entire continent um but with that what I do mean is is that scarcity mindset was brought to the Americas from European colonizers because previously as I like to say going back to our indigenous roots capital I indigenous not just indigenous roots of these lands but indigenous people your roots from across the world is the scarcity mindset never existed it was always a mindset of abundance that your community and that the earth itself will take care of you if you take care of it um and what also what I love about changing our mindset to an abundance mindset is is that that is when we can start to think about things like the industry standard that's when we can start to think about um pooling community capital like that's when we can start to think about um like smaller grassroots organizations and investments um is is that we can really open up our mindset outside of what we've been taught there only is and only for a certain amount of people um and really truly see the entire forest of abundance that's waiting for reciprocal relationship um a relationship that is also based on actual relations we're trying to that at another time anyway um and the last thing I'll say about there is um as we're like grappling with those doubts we can point to scores and scores of organizations not just the united states but across the globe which have returned back to their own indigenous roots and this mindset of abundance and are thriving there are theaters here in the united states who have chosen to resist the like scarcity mindsets as well as these like white supremac standards of who gets what when and why um and they're thriving they're doing just fine y'all so I promise we are not inventing any wheels there lots of them exist um so I hope that answers your question there and I just dropped into the chat and Tara I dropped it on Facebook already um in response to MD this question about the scarcity and abundance um there's a a podcast which is also a an article in Emergence Magazine that is by Robin Wall Kimmerer who also wrote Breeding Sweetgrass which Tara just read or an excerpt from earlier um this it's a podcast on the service berry and economies of abundance um and I won't go into it because Tara basically covered everything some like most of the main points that Robin Wall Kimmerer makes in this podcast but it just empty if you're interested in it it's just really lovely and hopeful and wonderful so please take a look and also highlight from Facebook um Claudia Alec has been sharing dropping all kinds of wisdom um so just to vocalize that number one when you're inside anti-racist economic ecologies you don't have to support racist choices because of financial precarity what yes yes true our strength is investing in these new models Claudia adds the economic structures of the American theater are designed to keep most inside them in deficit exactly how you want to control people making poor we don't we don't do that all right Claudia continues on supremacy culture works on a mythology that it is the only option if we must invest in the help we we must invest in the healthy alternatives and supremacy culture keeps folks in the conditions of a word I can't pronounce to create false competition um Claudia is very very smart check out calling up justice wonderful youtube channel too um it's the word thank you thank you yes so just highlighting that up from the facebook job I just want to also open it up for those of us you know those who have joined us in zoom and anyone who also has questions we're going into 8 30 so you know please jump in if you have questions or if you have something you want to add an example from your life I mean these are all brilliant people so I believe in all of you one thing that while we're sort of waiting for people to have questions to to share um one thing I wanted to mention was Tara just sort of shared a story earlier about her own personal individual advocacy um with relationship to a specific like a job offer um and I I'm like how do I share this story I have a similar story that had a the opposite outcome which is that I had a and I think it's I just want to I want to name that it's important to share all like to share our struggles and so that we don't feel like we're doing it alone but I had as a playwright I had a play at a theater and it was a play about um war and like legacies of colonial violence shocking um on brand um but it was it dealt with the sort of the Guantanamo Bay prison complex um and the theater that was producing the play was accepting funding from war profiteers like literal people who were weapons manufacturers um and so I tried to have a conversation with the the sort of head producer is at the theater and it did not go well um in fact I was uh sort of told I would be blacklisted for even bringing up the conversation um and uh was advised by folks there not to talk to anybody about it and and like I would be sort of thought of as hard to work with and all of this kind of stuff um but I share that to say like I did it because as a playwright I was like hmm I have the opportunity here to just have a dialogue with the theater and even if in that particular instance I didn't have success um in getting them to change their funding um for my project I have to imagine that that conversation was having ripple effects beyond my my um sort of being there for that one singular production um so I don't count it as a a failure um but in it like you know just because I didn't get uh achieve my goal in that conversation um and one of the things that that sort of goes along with individual advocacy part part of the the strategy around divestment is visualizing the wins because when we do have wins um that actually visualizing that puts pressure on peer institutions to get on board so like Tara having a win and naming that out loud um puts pressure on other peer institutions to be like oh wait Tara got this institution to agree then like maybe this other theater should also divest from fossil fuels or maybe they should consider eliminating their sponsorships from the Doris Duke foundation um so celebrating the wins that we do have when we have them even if they're infrequent um the more we can celebrate them the more frequent they'll become yeah and I'll just add to that that you know for folks who are thinking about ha I wonder where I can hear about other wins or more of this um more of these conversations um there's a great article that I'm gonna drop um in the chat here if Tara you don't mind also sharing it um on Facebook it's a few years old but what I love about it is it really in very clear um in very clear language explains the systematic divestment of fossil fuels that's happening with art museums specifically in the UK um and and what museums in the US are really dragging their feet and it it kind of arms me with the sense of you know other folks have proven that it can be done you know it's a um it is doable you know it is not the impossible so I you know I really um I think in any climate spaces that we're in as much as we can kind of say okay what is your success story you know where have you been having these conversations I mean I also think Annalisa that if another artist comes in and says it makes the same ask and then a third artist comes in and makes that ask that also matters you know it's important that we keep talking about this and with that not just talking about oh isn't this a problem and isn't that so hard and maybe I should build um anyway I don't mean to be um I'm like pivoting a second I don't there's a sense I think in the arts field that our ability to make change is limited to um building in um uh into our budget the oh my god what is the word I'm looking for about buying carbon oh thank you oh words um and that's not it there's so much more that we can do that's so far from it that's so far from it I can't even like it's so far from it and I think that we're seeing a moment right now I've been divesting from lots of things right like divesting from uh violence in like hierarchical relationships in the workplace trying to attempting to divest from racism attempting to divest like we're seeing a movement and there's sort of an acknowledgement of that what I'm trying to say is there is no money that is not political and where you choose to get your money from is in a is a reflection of your values so when you take money from war profiteers when you take money from let's say the Sackler family when you take money from Exxon and Chevron you're participating in those systems in a very tangible way and you can say and you can put in your program you can take money from Chevron and put a play up about climate change but what has materially occurred here is that you are allowing Chevron to continue to exist while putting up a play that says no no no that's bad there's a hypocrisy there that I think is untenable in our institutions and in our own art our own creative practices that we just like we can't y'all we can't we got to stop it I was going to take this moment for anyone who is with us in the zoom room right now which we see you anyway if you would like to turn on your cameras and engage in the conversation feel free if you would rather drop things in the chat feel free um I mean you know we can talk all day long however um something else that we're really talking about today like is looking towards all of the knowledge and wisdom and experience within the community um and so as we said earlier we never position ourselves as experts on anything other than our own lives and even then it's questionable about that um anyway so if there's anything that anyone wants to share any questions any experiences any moments of success any moments of failure now is your time y'all again to highlight claudia um on facebook it's recuperation they said when I was going to say tara while we're waiting for um more uh sharing and questions I'm wondering if you can talk about how divesting is anti-racist oh I would love nothing more all right well as we know right now the theater is at a pivotal time and has been in a pivotal time for a hot damn minute um so precursor it's been a pivotal time for decades but especially in the last I don't know year um with movements such as the we see movement with all these theaters finally deciding they should be anti-racist for once in their lives you know actually being able to have these conversations kind of anyway it's a time and so I'm a huge fan this is a lot about me anyway um seeing what cards I have on the table and figuring out what I can for lack of better words uh weaponized for good in those cards in the table so as an example whenever I was in you know back to that example earlier in this final interview round I already knew that they wanted me real bad and so that is the card I had on the table that I was then able to weaponize for good to say you want me we ain't gonna have doors it's me or Doris you choose and then we went from there um and so with that another thing that we have on the table right now is how much pressure predominantly white institutions especially are under to do anti-racism work so another card we got in our deck is that divesting from fossil fuels is anti-racist now first and foremost I'll try to be as brief as possible um we like we don't need to go into but we know what the fossil fuel industry has done to vulnerable communities along the coast um along the gulf in predominantly black and indigenous and people of color communities um we don't know we don't even go into it anyway um but some other examples about how divesting from fossil fuels and really breaking down that pillar um further as an ant like further as anti-racism I'll give you two really quick examples the first one um is last july uh the supreme court case the maghurt case uh was one and so that recognized the muscogee reserve as an example re-established indian country re-established these reservations and nations which is a huge tribal sovereignty win um especially for the tribes here in eastern oklahoma including to my own anyway um as a result of that the epa decided that they could now dump waste from oil and gas on native lands because these are now different nations that don't have to follow you know federal guidelines um and so they are purposefully poisoning the land and the water of native people who just got some of their sovereignty not all of it literally a smidgen of it finally recognized um because they're racist and they hate natives because we're on their lane we're on their land so they think anyway um and this also dates back to like the beginning like the turn into the 20th century um with the osage nation and like y'all google the osage murders not that damn book written by that white man don't do that look at charles redborn's book he is better and more accurate anyway um but literally murdering native people when they realized that there was oil on their lands um and also right now as we speak the seminal nation of oklahoma is in um the is in the lawsuit um that is issuing um these invoices to oil and gas industries and taxes uh for being on our lands and not paying up and the governor who's terrible and uh the attorney general who's also terrible are both um got their panties and a twist because if the seminal nation wins which fun fact we will because drubble's on our day and the girt is on our side um then this sets up a very scary precedent for oil and gas that they can no longer just mind what they want really nearly without huge fine up or financial repercussions towards the indigenous communities that make it completely unsustainable for oil and gas to make money like hello so we're talking about divestment being anti-racist there's all of these examples of how that upholds that um anti-racist ideologies but also furthermore like what can you do oh i don't know donate the seminal nation legal fund you know get the word out share share about those things petition your like non-native representatives um to support this lawsuit in case because like yo it's my land can't take what's on it without my permission um and if something like the court case the seminal nation succeeds and then all of the court cases that will come afterward what that means is that oil and gas is going to fall they're going to be weak anyway i'm sorry now i'm just going off i'm just very excited about it um but those are just some really brief hopefully brief examples about how divestments anti-racist does anything have anything to add um i yeah so i'm wondering again at least if you want to quickly define sacrifice zones and then uh claire has dropped a question in the chat that we can talk about yeah i um when you were talking terra about the the sort of communities along the coasts who have been abandoned um and how they are predominantly black and indigenous and um other communities of color there's a term out in the world that you can google which is sacrifice zones um and it's used in many different contexts um but the the sort of general idea is that there are geographic zones that are thought of as sacrificial because you know in order to make profit climate is the climate is changing um and so sea levels are rising and so geographies predominantly along the coast um are sort of sacrificed to the rising seas we also see sacrifice zones um in uh what are predominantly black and brown communities where there are um industrial treatment plants in cities all across the country and across the world um i know there are there are places i think i think it's in uh i want to say new orleans that there's a whole neighborhood that's basically called cancer alley and i think that there's also a or maybe that might be houston um but no you're right yeah and in in baltimore there's a giant trash incinerator and it's no surprise that the community the neighborhoods where people are living right around that incinerator are all predominantly black and therefore the the um smoke that the noxious gases that are coming out of that incinerator are concentrated in black communities so that is having health impact negative health impacts um and driving up inequity um inequities in in health disparities as well um claire had asked i'd love to hear more examples of other economic models the company i'm a part of uses the free theater movement to build funds from community donations of any amount rather than charge for tickets and uh ronnie has dropped a link of 10 models of community investment funds i just also want to add that there are several there there's lots right and it all depends on what you want to do in order and how your community operates and how enmeshed you are within that community um but some just some examples off the top of my head and this is actually part of my research which might become part of crowd waters research um there's there's things like bartering there's things like credit clearing there's things like time banking all of these sort of are economic models that don't require money like fiat state backed cash there's also lots of different options um that you know sort of uh don't necessarily require things like co-ops right things like uh community learning exchange which uh was developed in germany things like community development financial institutions you know there's a lot of different sort of options i'm actually going to drop a link in the chat this is a piece that's still in progress but it's a series of cards um you know i'm i'm in grad school for design so therefore i have to make cards otherwise i'm not a real designer uh and it's a series of cards that outline a whole bunch of different kind of economic models so i'm just going to go ahead and drop that link in the chat um and terry if you want to drop that on facebook as well that's totally fine um but they're just sort of different examples of what all kinds of uh economic models are out there um and then shireen also asked a question uh i'm wondering about what happens to the doris duke foundation money what could a just transition look like for them or a restorative or transformative justice process what could they do to address their harm better with the funds they have um i'm going to turn it to annie centera right after i say there's nothing keeping them from reparations and just keeping the money back and i'll turn it over i mean that's how i was going to say i gave you money back i mean the doris duke foundation especially has caused so much harm like harm that cannot be undone to the indigenous people of hawaii give them money back hey lisa yes i mean you know i echo that um and a resource for thinking about how to actually do that and convince funders um to do things like that is decolonizing wealth um by edgar villanueva and like one of the sort of strategies is actually to to move funders to uh that have histories of accumulating their wealth from extractive industries which is you know most foundations but is to actually just have them spend down their their corpus um and so there there's like a federal law i think it's through the irs or whatever it is that's governing funders i assume it's the irs that says that foundations must spend i think it's they're mandated to spend four to five percent of their corpus every year so that so the that is like what sets their budget but there's nothing that says they can't spend more than that um so the sort of restorative transformative way to think about what to do with wealth that has been accumulated because of genocide um is to just spend it down and give it back and and um there are many people who have been thinking about exactly this and and so Tara and Anna just sort of said it glibly but i i want to i just want to say that like yes um and it's it is easier than you might think or i guess it's not easier than you might think but like there are people in the foundation world who are having these conversations and the more that we can do to push those conversations to the forefront um in whatever relationships that we have with funders whatever position we have throughout the field um the better because that's another way to knock out those pillars that are holding up the fossil fuel industry yeah i think there's a false belief that companies and foundations need to live forever um but they don't and there's no reason why these foundations shouldn't just literally give all the money back and then close forever it's fine i think i'm also a huge proponent of wealth redistribution within your own institution if you have the ability and i fully recognize that not all of us do but if you have the ability to change the salaries within your organization so that we artistic directors aren't making 500 600 700 more than the lowest paid person in the organization do it it just occurred to me this is a little bit of a different subject um but i wanted to bring it up in case it in case it um uh provokes something for any of y'all which is what we've been talking about thus far is mostly about um pushing institutions to divest their money or to not take sponsorships and i'm thinking about the folks who might be listening who are like but i don't work at an institution i'm an independent artist or like i work in a small collective and like we already made commitments not to take fossil fuels it's that it's not with our values so like how can we contribute um another thing that we do as theater artists is tell stories and shape narratives um and we could put our narrative making skills to use in in um building movements so when i and when i say that i mean like there are all of these organizations like 350.org and the people's climate movement and and and and all of these different orgs that are out there pushing for a just transition um and they have a lot of folks that are graphic designers they have a lot of folks that are musicians there are not a lot of theater people that are like actively um working on uh visualizing and and movement building toward a just transition and we could put our theatrical skills to use um in movement building not just in the arts but in uh dramatizing the struggle um like there are when we're sort of protesting and doing direct actions there are theatrical ways of doing protest and theatrical ways of doing direct action that we could get involved in that your theater collective could participate in that your theater collective could plan like go to your local just transition org or go to your local um BIPOC run um justice movement organization and like get involved with them and be like i'm a theater person and i have XYZ skills that i could bring to the next direct action that you plan. I mean and also furthermore too um theaters like we private we pride ourselves on our partnerships um there exist worlds where um whenever we have like talk backs after productions whenever we have our marketing lists that we send out emails to you about our upcoming productions or whatever now we can also share resources events happening in the community inviting folks to come in to speak to people during our talk backs um during our pre shows to our staffs i mean to our audiences especially i mean they are a cap of audience they're in they're there um but i mean to also think really um largely about our like partnerships and our programming and what we do with our partners um i mean something as simple as just folks coming in to give a 20 minute presentation can ignite a couple folks in the audience who are then going to go to their networks um and share all of that information who then go to their networks and share all that information and so i mean is this a just transition like small as all is that from there all right we say it all the time i never remember where it comes from that's a dream worry brown that's emergent strategy it's there it is you're not wrong though yeah it's all wrapped up yeah yeah so i mean every small action um does does something good um so there is no small there is no small you know what they say there are no small rules only small actors or whatever you want to say anyway every little every little piece um really does contribute to the movement and by every little piece we don't mean every little water bottle we mean although yes don't use plastic but um just to reiterate that so much of this is that systems change uh we have a lot of agency a lot more agency than we think um and it's not all tied to well i have a crappy uh representative who's never going to change so then what do i do i mean there's so many ways to push this forward and so many um efforts many of them by park just transition efforts that you know i feel like annalisa outlined a really great way to to show up and say i have these skills what can i do also one last thing on the offer that i just thought about um is like let's look to georgia right now and all of the voter suppression that was happening in the state of georgia and frankly happening in all of these red states i mean get me started al-glahoma anyway um that is a wonderful movement and model to look to for guidance for how your theater can do the same around organizing against fossil fuels around moving towards a dress transition around moving towards a green new theater um is also like broadening our horizons to not just look within like a theater uh the theater world or the arts world but all of these movements who have done what folks thought were the impossible they made it happen y'all i mean take any talk look at our senate things changing anyway um and so bringing that up that there are leaders like stacey abrams and all the folks who are on the ground in georgia um who like also love the arts who'd be really great people to talk to to learn from uh and so many so many resources especially since we're just coming off of an election that we can look towards yeah so i think that's a wrap up for tonight thank you to all of you for taking the time and making space to be with us and with each other today a huge thank you to our friends at howl round for their support during this chapter and all of green new theater 2020 a huge thanks to our asl interpreters and our captioners for today it takes an entire village to make this series happen and we're very very grateful uh we also just wanted to mention we'd love uh feedback from any of y'all our goal with these calls is to create a low stress generative space for relationship building and connection across the field about what a green new theater could look like so if you have a moment to email us at groundwaterarts at gmail.com with any feedback on the format of the session you know what worked for you what didn't what you think we could do better uh or what you'd love to sort of experience in the future let us know um and then the last thing i'll say is please join us february 5th at 6 30 eastern new york time for our green new theater wrap-up session with the producer hub really looking forward to it this whole call series has been a labor of love and so we're excited to celebrate it um and just thank you to all of you if you'd like to stay in touch you can email us at groundwaterarts at gmail.com or follow us on instagram or facebook and so now tara with the music more like tara's gonna stall for a second because i closed that tab because i forgot we were gonna go there again so here's my stalling isn't it great and we're waving and saying thank you thanks everybody