 and welcome to producer hub webinar number three, Green New Theater in partnership with Groundwater Arts. We are so excited to welcome you to this webinar. It's personally my favorite topic in our producing ethically series so far. So it's really exciting to have you with us on Friday, February 5th, or whenever you're watching this. For those of you who are new to the community, I wanna tell you a little bit about producer hub. Producer hub is an online resource that supports creative and independent producers working in live performance. But we are, and that means people across the whole board of the live entertainment industry, whether you've been practicing for years and years or whether you're new to the practice or whether you're an artist who is just curious to learn more, producer hub has a resource for you. If you haven't had a chance yet, please check out our website at producerhub.org and sign up for our newsletter and you will get all sorts of exciting resources in your inbox. Our producing ethically in 2020 slash 2021 series is our first webinar series, which is specifically talking about how we move forward into creating a ethical producing practice for the future of the industry. We're super excited to provide these tools and do a deep dive into these topics. And specifically with groundwater arts who is also deeply connected to producer hub as one of our fiscally sponsored organizations. They have created a document called Green New Theater that they have been working on for a long time and have been continuously editing iteratively with community and we are really excited to do a deep dive in it with you today. But before we start, I would like to offer a land acknowledgement. So I am speaking with you from Tucker County, West Virginia, which are the traditional lands of the Massa Womack, Sopani and Delaware peoples past and present. And if you know the tribal history of the lands where you are listening in from, we invite you to drop it in the comment section of the YouTube video. I also would like to thank Groundwater Arts for their zoom land acknowledgement, which we are also using today. Zoom, which is the platform that we're using to record this webinar and many other days is headquartered in what we now call San Jose, California on the traditional lands of the Olone and Tamian peoples. We acknowledge the land Zoom resides on because the work we create together on a digital platform does not exist in an ether in an imaginary void, but is made possible because of physical land and the indigenous people who steward it. So with that, I actually would like to take this opportunity to invite Groundwater Arts to join me on screen. So holding for technical difficulties. Thank you, team. Thank you everyone for your patience. We are just figuring some things out on our side. Thank you so much. While we're waiting though, I am going to share the Green New Theater document in the chat if that's a useful thing to follow along with while we talk about this. In other news, hold on just one second and we're gonna get that sorted. All right, so it sounds like sound is back. Okay, we're all good. Thank you everyone for your patience. So Brian, am I good to start continue introducing our Groundwater team? Awesome, I'm gonna pass it. Tara, do you mind introducing yourself real quick to our viewers? Sure thing. He's J. Tara Cho Chifgros. So hello everyone. My name is Tara Moses. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I'm also a co-founder of Groundwater Arts with these lovely ladies. I am a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. I'm also Muscogee Creek and I'm calling in from the Muscogee Creek Reservation in the site of the 1921 Burning of Black Wall Street or what is colonally known as Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah, so I, ooh, I'm a director, a playwright. I am the producing artistic director of Tulsa and I am the co-artistic director in residence at Radical Soaring. Plus many other things, but today, just Groundwater, just Groundwater, thanks. Thank you, Tara. And last but definitely not least, Anna Lathrop. Would you tell us who you are? Thank you Sophie and thank you Brian for fixing those technical difficulties. Hi everyone, my name is Anna Lathrop. I'm calling in from the lands of the Lenape and IAC peoples colonally known as Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I am a co-founder of Groundwater Arts as well as a futures researcher and facilitator. And yeah, that's all about me for Renda. Awesome, well, thank you. And we're so excited to have Groundwater here with all of your many hacks intact. And so I wanna start out, for those who aren't necessarily familiar with you, can you tell me a little bit about Groundwater Arts and who you are and the work that you do? Sure, I'm happy to jump on that. So Groundwater Arts is a predominantly BIPOC fully woman-led artist collective. We shape, steward and seed a just future through creative practice, consultation and community building. And for us, a just future is really climate justice equals racial justice, equals economic justice, equals a decolonized future. Beautiful. And for, so that we can establish a little bit of vocabulary with folks, can you explain the specifics of what climate justice is and why it differs from sustainability and environmentalism? That's a whole, well, that question is a whole webinar I know. Real brief. I will attempt this really briefly and if I miss anything crucial I'm sure my other Groundwater Arts members will jump in. Climate justice is really the acknowledgement that you cannot have environmental justice without racial justice and you cannot have racial justice without environmental justice which also includes things like economic justice because ultimately all justice which has to be a core of your work sort of well springs from this division we have created between the land and people and history and specifically for Turtle Island the history of this land and the people who were either removed from it or brought to it and enslaved or who have settled it. Is there anything that my co-founders would like to add? I'll jump in just for like to zoom out a little bit too a difference in terminology around like climate change versus climate justice that sort of difference is about the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on black indigenous and communities of color which has been studied for decades. It's like fact there are disproportionate impacts on communities of color on indigenous communities on black communities. So what we're talking about with climate justice is like when we think about responses to the climate crisis justice has to be at the center. Justice is not at the center of how we respond to the climate crisis. At best the status quo of disproportionate impacts will be maintained at worst they'll be exacerbated. So all of the systems of oppression that exist in the world racism, sexism like all the things they'll either like stay the same which is bad or they'll get worse which is even more bad. So the imperative of climate justice is a must. Like it just is we must have that as our focus as we move forward in addressing the climate crisis. Yeah, the one tiny thing I'll add to that just because I know that there are a lot of colleagues and friends who really hold onto that language of sustainability and kind of like an eco is kind of the core language for this work. And I think one of our core values at Groundwater is we're really working counter to the notion that a lot of past environmentalist movements have had that holds onto this idea that humans are separate from nature. And if we're going to look at the health of our planet like we are part of that planet. So seeing this kind of myth of the wilderness which is an act of erasure when you really when you're thinking about particularly indigenous people and also black folks and communities of color you have everything is connected and you can't just the idea of the wilderness and of the planet as this thing to be saved that thinking cannot be held separately from kind of white saviorism and the kind of mythology of manifest destiny the mythology of American history as being a country of all these values when we have been a nation of slave that we've had slavery on these lands longer than we've been a nation. So just to say that there's a real when we say that climate justice is racial justice it is really coming from that place of you cannot actually address the climate crisis without having a racial justice lens, you can't do it. And then like the last thing I'll add really quickly sentence or two is that the climate crisis came to be because of colonization. It is here because of white supremacy. It is here because of gross capitalism which comes from colonization. And so in order to undo the crisis we have to center justice we have to center black and indigenous people we have to center decolonization in our works. And so sustainability, eco theater, get rid of all the straws which you'll get me started on the disability justice aspect of that anyway is not enough and nor will it ever be enough to combat the crisis. So yeah, just calling it as it is being very plain and simple the climate crisis is the director's all the colonization. So you get to center justice, that's the rules. Amazing, thank you so much for such a clear vocabulary dive with me because what I'm really taking away from this is how everything is an interlocking ecosystem and at no point is anything independent of other things and we have to be able to take a holistic view in order to actually create a just future. And the arts are a huge part of that cultural and societal and justice ecosystem which is it seems like that's what the Green New Theater document is sort of addressing. And so I'm sort of what the Green New Theater for those of you who are unfamiliar with it which I hope after this webinar you will go take a chance to read it it is free and published on the groundwater website but it is an incredible toolkit and I'm sort of curious to hear about what the core principles of that document are. And Tara, do you mind answering that for me? Yeah, not at all. So the meat of the document focuses on six main principles, right relationship to land and history, decolonized leadership practices, community accountability, sustainable resources, immediate divestment from fossil fuels, oh my gosh, every time. Publicly transparent budgeting. There it is, publicly transparent budgeting. Just for the record, I was going through these again in my head right before we went live, naturally. Anyway, and so the document was created with the input of scores of artists from across Turtle Island because we firmly believe that the work that we do and create should not exist within the four of our brains and that the collective wisdom of the community is the only thing that will move us forward. And yeah, and so on the document you can check it out on our website for more information. But those are the six principles. What else was there about the Green New Theater, y'all? Well, so I do, there's so, there is so much more. And if you are interested in doing a deep dive, Groundwater Arts has already put together a call series that is on the HowlRound website. We will share a link to that at the end so that you can do a deep dive into each of those core pillars of the Green New Theater document with them, which I definitely have and it's incredible. But I'm sort of curious to actually put the Green New Theater in a sort of larger landscape to the point of the ecosystem. And I'm wondering if, Annalisa, if you could talk to me a little bit about why you felt like this document needed to exist in the first place. I mean, do you want the whole narrative of all the things? Whatever you- How much do you actually want, Sophie? I mean, from you, I always want the full deal, but however much you feel like it's useful for folks to know. Yeah, okay, why did this document need to exist? I suppose I could start with saying that I've always had a practice that was interested in the intersection of care for the earth and racial justice. I don't think I always talked about it as like climate justice organizing or climate, like I don't know if I always gave it that language, but my practice has always been that way. And I've also for many years now had a practice that centered decolonizing. And as I was sort of like moving through the world and being in different kinds of spaces, I noticed a disconnect, a frequent disconnect between the people who were doing like decolonizing work and like racial justice work, and then the people who were doing like climate change theater or like eco theater and never the twain shall meet. And I was like, why should be the same? We should all be talking to each other. And I would say that that is one impulse of like, why do we need a Green New Theater? Was there are sort of these like separate loops of folks who are operating and like the Green New Theater document in many ways is an attempt to take the framework of a just transition. And apply that to the theater industry. And let me stop there for now, but there's a quite a lot more of the sort of like, how did the document come to be? But I think the why it came to be is about incorporating decades and decades and decades of movement building work around this concept of a just transition. Like we did not come up with that. That's, there are black, indigenous people of color, elders who have been doing this work for a long, long time. And what we were sort of seeing was that there weren't many, there were some, they were not getting a lot of attention, but there weren't many people who were like explicitly connecting just transition frameworks to the theater industry. And like, I just, I need to name and like give a shout out to Joyisha Dutta and another goal if it's possible. And like my friendship with Joyisha over the years has really helped me crystallize my understanding of the whole of the just transition framework and what it even has to do with the arts. So just to say there are people that have been doing this work and we are not, I don't wanna position us as like inventors of a thing. Right, and I will actually say that one of the things that's really stunning about the Green New Theater document is how much you're honoring the legacy of the people whose work you're sort of, you're bringing into one space and the frameworks you're bringing. And I'm sort of actually, Ronnie, I was wondering if you could actually talk about some of that legacy and how you're honoring it through Green New Theater because I think that's a huge part of the community you're building as well. Yeah, so, and I think honoring that community, we've been trying to do that in a number of ways. So to just connect it to one point, to, I don't know, as part of our case making too, honestly, that when, you know, I first started having these conversations with folks. I mean, I was initially with the Green New Theater document kind of following in many ways Anna-Lisa and Anna's initial writing and thinking and kind of like bringing it through my own lens. And I started talking to people about it and was getting really excited about it. And there was this overwhelming sense that this work hadn't been done anywhere and it was so radical. And then you, you know, it was just astounding to me how, you know, how much of this work is being done, has been done and often by black and indigenous artists, companies, leadership, and that work has been historically made invisible. So first it feels like a major active, it would be irresponsible of us to kind of say, great, here are all these values and here is all this wisdom in one place and it's just coming out of our brains because it's not true. And folks have been doing it successfully for a long time, just not predominantly white organizations that are the ones we're talking to. I mean, let me be clear, we are not just talking to predominantly white institutions, but that's where the sense of newness often comes from and that's where the, wow, this is radical. I find is often coming from. So there's that piece of it, first of all. And then, you know, as Tara alluded to earlier, it was really important for us that this is not a document that we were hoping to just send out into the world and say, look, we did a thing. We hope that it's an active tool, like an active tool for movement building and organizing and we want it to inspire and encourage change. So if that's going to happen, four of us ain't it to kind of know if it's the thing, right? So prior to us doing this whole How Around Call series, we really encouraged anyone and everyone, both through the TCG conference, through our own personal outreach, lots of other platforms to say, get in and work with us on these different principles and contribute to this document. And we are so eager and hungry to hear more and more examples of folks using this work. So then we can actually go back in it at the document and say, if you're curious about this, you really should see these folks doing it. And really then the call series was about shining a light on those partners, digging deep into the principles so that we're kind of demystifying what we mean by right relationship to land and history. And the community organizing and the honoring of others, especially honoring of those whose shoulders we're standing on has been critical. Like it is one of the principles of the document right relationship. And so, and that's something we'll talk about later, but it's really important to us that we are practicing everything we're preaching. Yeah, I also wanna add, sorry, if I may, that I think there's been a lot, especially 2020, right, rough year, but there's been a lot of sort of understanding of like what's not working. And then sometimes you get these visions of the future that feel very utopian and it's like, okay, but how do we get there? Like what does that look like? How do we get there? And I think Green New Theater is a bridge to how do we get there? And how we get there is also by honoring the legacies of the people who have been doing this work the whole time. And so really what we wanted to build with Green New Theater was it's not just a plug and play, pickup, oh, I'm gonna do this part of it. I'm gonna do this part of it. Like it's really sort of a whole, I'm gonna use the word holistic, even though it's used a million times for a million different reasons, but it's a really holistic view of how an arts organization or an individual can start to move towards that future that might seem utopian and might seem unreachable, but really it's not. Yeah, I think what I find really astounding about the document is that it is both a high level values led document, but also a practical toolkit for how to build a just practice or to incorporate justice and center it through relationship, through community, that at no point is a single entity or leader handing down how it works and how you move forward, that it is actually a document for, by and about community and a collective wisdom to use Tara's phrase. And actually it seems like what you're talking about is a really specific model of leadership for what it takes to move forward in terms of justice. And I know from our prep call that there is definitely elements of emergent strategy, but I'm curious if Ronnie or Annalisa, sorry, we talked about this too, is for Annalisa, if you could talk a little bit about what this decolonized leadership looks like in practice and why it's so important for their whole movement. Yes, I definitely can talk about this, but I wanna ask anyone to jump in because my brain is doing weird things, so I can't remember what actually I was supposed to say in this section. I'm just gonna say what I think and then please support me team. So decolonized leadership, when I think about what that means, I think about not just one singular leader who is like charismatic and has quite a lot of prestige and all the power about decision-making, but I think about like, oh, this was the joke I made before. It's a little bit corporate speak, but like leaderful organizations. And if you actually can achieve that where the organization, everybody has a certain amount of autonomy for decision-making and everybody knows what kinds of decisions need everybody to weigh in and what kinds of decisions you can just make on your own, that sort of like power, that creates power sharing in a way that the traditional sort of top-down hierarchy does not. It requires leaderful organizations or like power sharing or however you wanna sort of talk about decolonized leadership. It requires quite a lot of communication. It requires flexibility and time. Of its structure, it resists the structures that support white supremacy. So it like requires a different relationship of an orientation to time and a different relationship of an orientation to communication and being really clear about boundaries and expectations. And I'm gonna stop there, but so that's my sort of intro to what I think decolonized leadership is, but I'd love to hear from anyone else. A lot in something that I think is really vital. And so talking about these like shared power, it is not a system where, in the theater as an example, we go to the top of the pyramid and we go to the artistic director and the executive director and the board of directors and then they decide that they're going to share their power out of the kindness of their hearts. That's not what that is. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is the acknowledgement that the power is within the community, it's within the people and it is within the relations you claim to serve. And so thinking of it that way, which is what it is. You cannot put power on to one specific person, one specific group when the same people where that power comes from include the indigenous peoples whose lands you're on includes the black folks who built the buildings, like they sitting on, it includes the communities of color, it includes disabled communities. It literally includes the land, the earth, the water itself, capital C community as I like to say. And so that's what the power comes from is community power, capital C community power. And so whenever we talk to folks about like decolonized leadership, there tends to be sometimes be a disconnect between the okay, I with the power, I'm gonna share some, I'm gonna keep some. No, we're completely reframing about what power is because power is not a commodity. Power is something that existed long before white supremacy came along, long before colonization came along because that power always existed within the community itself. And so I like to think of it as a returning to the indigenous life ways of these lands. And again, capital I indigenous, indigenous people from across the world, indigenous. And not reliant on strict hierarchical structures where the bottom tiers feed to those at the top. Anyway, so in the theater, that is a radical way to think for some people. Anyway, but just to assure that this true definition of power, not power that's been colonized as we now know it has long, long existed before Mr. Christopher Columbus has long, long existed before Rome even, it's this community led power has existed for as long as the sun's been in the sky. So it ain't new, we promise. But just to be very clear about where power comes from. And can I jump in to put a sort of like underscore a thing that Tara sort of glossed over, which I loved when you said this thing, Tara, where she included the land and the water in like our definition of community and where power lies. If you're like, wait, what does that even mean? Like how would you do that? What does it mean to think of land and water as a leader? It's like, right, this is where decolonized leadership sort of holds hands with right relationship to land and history. If we're in a right relationship with the land, if we're in a right relationship with the water, if we think of land and water as part of our community, we can take cues from the water when it is like, I am sick, we need to do something differently. When the water is telling us, pollution is bad, it is making the water sick, right? When these pipelines are destroying sacred water, right? Like if we take our cue from the water, we consider the water of a relation, a part of the community, then I'm gonna like, my sentence just went out of my mouth. This is my brain tonight, everybody, thank you. But do you sort of take my meaning? Like if you reorient to land and water as beings, that can communicate with us, that's how you sort of get to the mindset of thinking of them as also leaders. Yeah, and I mean, the only thing that I'll add to that, which is, so I feel like there one response that I've heard to this kind of framing is, well, that's wonderful and beautiful, but that's a very different way of being than I'm at in my urban theater company. So this must not like apply to me. And actually not the case. There's so much in everything we just shared that even if it feels like I don't even know where to begin, there's so much in the values of it that when embraced, create so much more joy, good things, generative buy-in, it just is a gift that keeps on giving. So for instance, just even moving from thinking about a framework of being the authority to being unauthority, to thinking about positional power instead of being a prestige, like something that's bestowed on you as like, oh, now because I'm in this position of power, I have all these things. It's more, you are holding responsibility. You are holding accountability. You are more accountable. Just in flipping that the script in those ways is really such a way to open it up. I think it is what y'all are talking about is so important partially because you're talking about leadership as stewardship in that way. And when we talk in our prep call, one of the first things that y'all said to me was that each of you in your individual practices as artists, as leaders have values about care of land and care of place and care of community, that those things are so central to the work that you do both with groundwater and in your own individual practices, but that the spaces we inhabit, especially when we're working in Zoom and everything feels really digital, but the physical places that we are are just as important to the way that we practice in our daily lives and practice. And actually, one of the things that is really astounding about the Green New Theater document is the way in which you talk about the physical space and how to use that space, specifically around how do you become a sanctuary space and create safety for folks? And I actually am curious, Ronnie, if you could talk a little bit about the importance of theaters as physical spaces and not just as cultural institutions. Yeah, I mean, there's no ground for that. I know, sorry. I mean, it's when I think a common, a way in which in 2021, I think mainstream society would have us believe that space and buildings are owned and they are owned by government entities, they're owned by private property. And there is no, I mean, if you go to Canada, there's a very different relationship to land and history in terms of, like there's, they're at a different point on their journey in terms of reckoning with colonization. And having a physical space means that you have a certain responsibility to the land, you have a responsibility to community, you have space and there's a question of how are you going to offer that space? Because if you are accepting that the world as it stands now is not just, keeping your space limited to your own agenda is part of reinforcing current forms of injustice. So unless you're working counter to that, you're operating within the kind of the status quo. So one of the ways in which we've talked about kind of breaking that open isn't thinking about how to offer space responsibly, like giving over, I mean, frankly, giving land back to indigenous folks is always a great option. And it's also about sanctuary space. It's also about handing over the keys to, and asking those in the community, what do you need? Because we have this resource. It's about being a community resource more than it is anything else and putting that decision making outside of those in the institution. How do you, I mean, and I'm curious others want to jump in on that, but that's where my head goes first is that sense of responsibility and relationship to land and understanding that buildings and lands, you can't separate one from the other. I just wanted to sort of flag something that we've been, a word we've been using a lot that I think gets thrown around a lot that is sort of becoming, has become a catch on that is the word community. And we, when we say your community, it's really who are you accountable to? And if you're an artistic director or a producer and I ask who you're accountable to, who can fire you and your answer to me is the board or my donors, that's your community. It's not your audience. It's not the people who live around you. And if you want the people who live across the street, you don't know what you do to be part of your community, then you need to be accountable to them and you need to be in relationship with them. And what Ronnie's saying about buildings and spaces, it's not just about messaging or awareness building. It's also about follow through. It's about turning to the people who are across the street from you and asking you, what do you need? Not thinking I have a solution for you, I'm gonna open my doors for a community potluck and the people who are gonna show up are gonna be the people who come to my shows, meanwhile the people across the street are the ones who are in need of food. It's about turning to the people, like who is around, who's actually around you? Who are you talking to when you produce a show? Who's in your audience? And it's not like some abstract idea. It's like, no, who are the actual individuals? Who is physically taking up space in your seats? Who is coming to your, in the year of 2020, your Zoom productions? Like who's actually in this conversation? I think that something, what we talked about community accountability in Green New Theater and something that I think theater needs to have a real reckoning with is who are we actually making this with? And who are we actually in community with here? Because I think the answer is probably not who you want it to be. And also who should we be accountable to? Who should be in this community? I mean, if you have a theater that is in a predominantly black neighborhood and your audiences are 90% wealthy, white over 40, you got a problem, y'all. Like your community is also within the physical space that you're building and that your art occupies. Your community also includes all of those you share resources with. So if your theater is pulling in a lot of power in these predominantly low income neighborhoods, you're making grandma down the street not be able to use her oven at night, right? And so thinking about who else are you accountable to? Like you're accountable to the footprint that you have in regards to resources and access as well in your community. And whatever, you just keep going down that way. I think if we had a little mini worksheet, people will eventually get to, well, then am I in community with everyone in everything? Yes. It seems like community is about who are you in dialogue with at every step of the way? Not only who am I sharing space with, but also who am I constantly adjusting to, accountable to in two year earlier point about leadership about the sort of the top of the triangle. It's also about how are we constantly adjusting and talking to each other and serving each other's needs that it's not a one directional relationship. When you talk about relationship with community, it's not just, here is a ticket, see my show, congratulations, it's community. It's also a really big part of that leadership model that you're talking about and practicing in community in relationship to the land. And the people is also about listening and being willing to take the time to do that listening. So, oh, there are three different directions I wanna go right now. Because to talk about dialogue and community and the people, because I think we've talked so much about institutions, about people with brick and mortar spaces, but I actually am sort of curious, if I'm not an institution, if I'm an independent individual artist, how does this world apply to me? How does this manifest? How does this, how can I do this work as an individual, a creative independent producer? Or as a writer? Oh, there's so many ways. So, I mean, I would also love to engage groundwater colleagues too to give feedback because we're all independent artists as well, as well as fraternize with the institutions on occasion or regularly, it just depends anyway. So, one thing that I really like to tell individual artists is that the power, again, all the stuff about power, but the power resides in the artist, not within the institution. The institution is nothing without individuals. So, I like to tell playwrights because playwrights tend to have the most power at the end of the day, although spoiler, they don't want us to know that, but we do, y'all don't forget, we do. Anyway, is you can put into your contract, inclusion writers, you can put into your contract that they cannot have any fossil fuel sponsorships to fuel your production, or else they ain't getting the rights, and this is another thing I like to say. If a theater, like an institution says no to these things that you're advocating for as an individual artist, number one, do you want to work with them anyway? That's a question. I mean, but also like number two, the institution needs us, especially those of us who are operating in the margins and have these marginalized identities that institutions are trying to collect like Pokemon cards, like we have the power here and they need us. Anyway, and so I think like the power of contracting and negotiation is something that's not taught deliberately. And then a really quick anecdote I'll give around that, I wanna hear about other folks's individual strategies is recently up for a new position for myself here. I asked them where they get their funding from and I said, cool, that's great and all. If you want to hire me, which I knew they did, we're not going to take money from oil and gas and we're not going to take money from foundations who have made their wealth and the genocide in the murder of indigenous people. Like that's kind of counterintuitive what we're doing here. So finance committee, we gonna meet, we gonna figure something out. Anyway, and that was that. It was non-negotiable. They said yes and I said, great, cool. Finance committee, we meet next week. See you there. Anyway, and so I think just like remembering that power in negotiation when you're in relationship. What about y'all, Anna and Lisa, Ronnie? Yeah, I mean, I was gonna speak because this is the producer hub to the independent producer side of things in that at least with my octopus hat on, there are so many artists that we work with. There are so many presenters that we work with. And it is so possible and doable. And I mean, it's something that we are in the process of doing and I've been in a number of conversations with APAP and others around the building of these. But the writers that Tara was mentioning are also something that's really important as individual producers to think about what is part of the agreement I'm having with presenters? What is part of the agreement I'm having with artists in terms of that social contract? I mean, for a long time, I feel like a lot of contracts now have sexual harassment classes. And I feel like the world is expanding to include more of what we're seeing in terms of intersectionality writers and to Tara's point, inclusion writers. And every time that a presenter or an artist reads that and has to make a decision about what to do, that's one more step that the conversation has moved forward. I think that we spend a lot of time earlier in the conversation talking about relationships and really being courageous around accountability. And I think that we can see in the strength of our relationships with each other in the arts field, how much currency we really have whenever we bond together around shared values. I mean, when we all collectively take a stand, it can be incredibly powerful. I'm really heartened by a lot of the mobilizing that's happening in response to Emily Johnson's letter in medium, there's efforts that are happening both amongst presenters to develop systems of accountability. There's solidarity happening among artists to come together and make a statement with teeth, with action. And that is so needed. And that's, I mean, there's researchers left and right who can tell you this a lot better than I can sitting here that social license, social pressure is so incredibly powerful. And instead of letting it be harmful to our society, we can instead use it for positive good. Chirani's point about social pressure, the thing my impulse always as an individual artist when I'm like, ah, I run into a problem, my impulse is always organized. I'm like, go get more people. I'm like, I myself maybe cannot have a huge impact in this one instance, but if I like go get my friends, if we go like found groundwater, then like there starts to be power. If we like, you know, create spaces that don't yet exist to address problems, that's where I think individual artists can, you know, create the world that we want to live in and like build power outside of institutional spaces. And that's like, that goes for when we're addressing issues within the field. And also I tend to put myself in relationship to with like non-arts organizers. And I will like show up as an artist to community organizing meetings and like offer artistic skills, right? To planning direct actions or, you know, a strategy in community organizing is like dramatize the conflict and create a dilemma for a person with power to respond to that makes them look bad either way, right? Do you, am I being too, am I not being specific enough? I can give an example. I love an example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so an example of what I mean by creating a decision dilemma is years ago, I met some folks from an organization called Liberate Tate and that was a group of artists, activists, organizers who were addressing fossil fuel sponsorships of the Tate Museum over in London. And in case you didn't know, it used to be that BP was one of the lead sponsors of the Tate Museum and the BP logo was like slapped all over the place. And so this group called Liberate Tate did a whole bunch of direct actions where they, and they were artistic. They did things like dropping oil, not oil, it was black paint, but black paint on some of the statues in the Tate Museum that were around the base of the statues that were taken from colonized countries and like put in the Tate to sort of dramatize the issue of oil money sponsoring colonial violence and sort of like putting on display colonial violence. And I learned from this group that one of their many preparations for doing this direct action was that they got in with the museum janitorial staff because they were the people that were gonna become responsible for cleaning up the mess. So they in advance built relationships with the black and brown staff who were gonna be responsible for cleaning up that mess and got buy-in before they just went and did it. And the press about that moment created a decision dilemma for the leadership of the Tate Museum about how do they respond to this? If they don't, if they like, if they come down on the side of telling the organizers to go away, they look bad, if they don't do anything, if they like say, okay, I'm gonna, we're gonna drop our sponsorship, then they look bad to be like, do you know what I mean? Like it creates a moment of tension that the leadership must respond to. So that's what I sort of mean by artists can get involved in using our skills to dramatize the conflict. Amazing. That is so useful to think about how we as artists can create power and opportunities for community building, relationship building and dialogue and movement. Before I go the next direction because I'm so excited to ask this question, I wanna let folks who are watching know that now's a great time if you've got questions about some of the things we've been talking about, things you wanna ask the groundwater team, please drop them in the comment section of the video and we will start to answer them very shortly. Super excited to hear what you're curious about. But I am curious about, a lot of what y'all just talked about had to do with resources and funding. And I'm sort of curious if we can talk about about how we use resources, about how we choose what resources, funding foundations we work with as we pursue a climate justice. And Anna, I think I'd like to ask you that question, honestly. Can you talk to me a little bit about the money? I would love to talk to you about the money. So the first thing that I think we all need to make sure that we're all on the same page with is that there is no money that is non-political. All money is political. It is energy and how we choose to direct that energy where we get it from and what we put it to are a set of political and ethical choices that we make. So with that, knowing that, you know, one of the principles, there are two principles of the Green New Theater document that really talk about money very explicitly. I'm not, money is like, I get it. If we want to run institutions and we want people to be able to pay the rent, like currently we live in a colonized capital, capitalistic society, we need, people need to get paid. Publicly transparent budgeting is really about being accountable to where you put your money. Where does the money go out, right? Who gets paid what? Why is the artistic director, for example, of a theater that I worked at in New York, the artistic director gets paid about $112,000 and I got paid $10 a day. There's a bit of a discrepancy there. I don't know. Why is there that discrepancy? You know, what are you saying when you're talking about decolonizing your power and then you're paying the person at the top? I haven't done the math, I don't know, 1,000 times more than you're paying the people at the bottom. So publicly transparent budgeting is really about, and this is a term that I learned from Ronnie that I love, values-led budgeting and really sort of literally putting your money where your mouth is. Another way, so that's money going out, right? Now money coming in, we talk about immediate divestment from fossil fuel interests and sponsorships because currently the arts culture is giving these companies a social license to operate. What do I mean when I say that? It means that companies that are doing things that are bad and destroying the earth don't wanna look bad because, you know, then people will take action against them. So they give money to theaters, they give money to arts galleries. You saw this recently with the Sackler family, giving money to, let's say the Whitney, so they will have a wing with their name on it and people will look at that and be like, wow, the Sackler family, that's so incredible. That's so wonderful that they would do this. And then they are given a social license to continue to do what they do. So BP at the Tate, by having their name all over everything, BP is seen as a supporter of arts and the culture, which is seen as a social net good. So they must be doing something right when instead it's just reputation laundering. So when you choose to take money from fossil fuels and sponsors, even if you don't put their name on it, like we saw with the MIT Media Lab and Jeffrey Epstein, even if it's anonymous, you're still aiding and abetting that behavior and you're still ultimately part of the problem. It doesn't matter if you're doing climate plays about saving the polar bears. If you're taking money from the people who are not just killing all the polar bears, but killing also the indigenous people who live on those lands, killing the frontline communities. I mean, it's all very connected. And so we've talked a lot about being in relationship with and right relationship, right relationship to land and history. I agree, we also need to be in right relationship with our money. Hmm. I think also just something to add on top of there. Just a reminder to folks is that the revolution will not be funded. Yeah, just a reminder, because everything that we're speaking about is in direct opposition to the institutions of the people in this country who've had the most for the longest. Also folks who are listening at home, that is a wonderful thing to Google for more resources. So the revolution will not be funded. There's plenty of like printed materials, articles, books, wonderful minds. Go look. I'm also on the YouTube comments. I'll put it in the comments for you all after this. Anyway, but also something to think about too is like pooled community capital. There are like countless, countless studies and examples that show that community members who are truly invested in what you're doing, even though they may donate super small amounts of $5, $2, $0.50, et cetera, it's been proven that campaigns and processes like get overfunded because they have community buy-in. And so whenever we move our mindsets from a mindset of like the scarcity mindset, meaning that there is not enough for everyone and there never be enough into a mindset of abundance, which is the community has always had enough and will continue to have enough and truly embodying that and how we fundraise and how we think about funding, what we're trying to do, then again, we're moving towards a more decolonized future. We're moving into in a way that's in alignment with our values and we are de-centering these pillars of colonization, capitalism and like literal genocide murder of lots and lots of people. And then Annalisa just wants to add very quickly about wealth distribution, who's she? Wealth redistribution, who is she? So I'm gonna zoom us out from this conversation that we've been having, but stay on the topic of the money. And we've already sort of said over the course of this conversation that the global economy that we live inside of that's driven by the fossil fuel industry. It's out of whack on a scale that is actually incomprehensible. The accumulation of wealth into the hands of like three people is it's unconscionable and it will actually kill the planet. It is doing that already. And so in order for a just transition of the global economy from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy, in order for that to take place, wealth redistribution is necessary at a scale that is, it's like actually hard to imagine. And if the framework of a just transition is new to you and you're just hearing that for the first time, one of my favorite graphic representations of what even is that, what does it mean? If you Google movement generations, just transition zine, there's a really lovely visual representation in that of how to go from extractive to a regenerative economy. And part of that transition from one to the other is it is necessary that we redistribute wealth. And what does that mean for the theater? Imagine a world where instead of relying on these donors and foundations where wealth has been accumulated and accumulated and accumulated and we are then making programming decisions, even if we don't like to admit it that are deeply influenced by these foundations and these donors, imagine a world where the foundations, corpuses get spent down and the wealth gets given back, like the land gets given back. Imagine a world where the basis of the world, the wealth was actually given back to the people. That would mean for the theater that normal everyday folks would have, it would necessitate that normal everyday folks would have more money that they could then choose to direct toward art that they actually care about. And then that leads us back to the conversation that we had earlier about the people who are right next door. I'm like, why do they not care about your theater? Do you know why are they not coming? And so the sort of like if you zoom back, theaters exist inside of the regional economy, the national economy, the global economy and you can't separate it out. Like all of these things are interlocking with each other. Preach. This is incredible. And actually we have a couple of questions from our audience about some of the specifics about how we sort of put our values into practice. And from Adam, his question is, he would love some examples of the verbiage to include in show contracts for climate justice, especially like not working with fossil fuel companies and specifically regarding enforcement. Like how do you put that in a contract? Who, I can take it. Yeah, I mean, funny you should say this because we at Groundwater were actually working on some very specific verbiage to put in show contracts. But some, one of the things that, there are a lot of different ways to parse divestment, right? That mean that you can take action now. So it could be that a contract could say something along the lines of that no, that there will not be any fossil fuel sponsorships of this specific production, that's one. You could say while I am under contract with this organization, there will be no new fossil fuel sponsorships, donations, et cetera, that's another way. You, it could say something like there will no longer be you could go even farther and kind of call in banks that I mean, and this is a bit tough because I think a lot of theaters in this country have major bank CEOs on their board of directors, those banks get billions and billions of dollars to fossil fuel industries. So there is really what to put in the show contract and this is something we're working on at Groundwater and we'll of course share openly once we have various language but it really is about what is the conversation you want to tee up and what, and make it a conversation, right? So if it's about wanting to enter into a dialogue to have reflection about where the funding for the show is coming from, you could just as easily say you want to have a certain level of budget transparency, so that that could be the first step. So it's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all but it can be and like GoFossilFree has great examples of this language as well. And in terms of enforcement, my background, I spent some time in consensus building and facilitation, I find that when you're talking about enforcement it's great if there's a way to find a third party partner that you could say in a contract like if there is a concern that there has been a breach then ex-outside party will be referred to to look at various, you can kind of take someone to be in a position of trust outside of that process to do that work. And just to say there are a lot of folks who are interested in having these conversations these conversations are happening you don't have to feel like you have to do it alone and it's something we're happy to be in conversation about and over to you Annalisa. Well, hilariously that last sentence was the thing that I was just gonna say, so you did it, but to underscore it it's the thing of one individual contract might not be the thing that changes an institution in that one moment, but as Ronnie said, the dialogue when you start that dialogue that is actually like the next time it happens the next time an artist walks into that institution and they're like, what about fossil fuels? And then even if the institution doesn't budge the second time the third time, you know, the fourth, if we actually are building a movement here where artists across the field are like, well, okay XYZ company, I don't wanna work with you unless there's no fossil fuels then like the institutions will start to have to respond. So again, my impulse always to organize and build movement then that is the thing where we actually are gonna start putting pressure on institutions to respond to us. And we've seen that in various ways over the last year with all of the different sort of pockets of organizing happening across the theater industry when we band together, that's when institutions start to become afraid of us and start to respond. Right. Which is amazing to think about how we as artists can again, collectively organize our power to sort of lead with our values which actually goes in line with our next question from our audience, which is how do you still encourage institutions to work towards climate justice when they cannot 100% comply or are even resistant to what you include in contracts? So I know we sort of talked about this but I'm curious if anyone has anything they'd like to add as ways to encourage institutions beyond just contracts. Yeah, I mean, one thing I'll say just as a value that's important to me is that I find that one of the biggest obstacles to this work is fear of being a hypocrite. So if I don't have all my T's crossed and all my I's dotted, it's gonna be so hard for me or my institution to move forward and to be vocal about this and to try to work it out if I have any, you know, skeletons in the closet. And I mean, and the thing is everyone has skeletons in their closet. Like that's why the potential for change is so great, right? So I think it's, you know, there is a it is totally possible to be strong with the ask. So I guess I'm kind of like switching off the roles here and whether like I'm talking from institutional or, you know, an artist framework, but it's all about taking the step that you can that is the next step. So, you know, if an institution is like, ah, we can't, you know, totally divest, that's we have this, this, this, this and this in the works. It's like, okay, well, can you say no new? Like no new commitments. You know, can you say that you're moving towards divestment in X, Y or Z way? Um, yeah. And I mean, and I would also offer that a big thing that we've seen is that climate justice is still not seen through that lens, right? It's seen as, well, there's this climate crisis and we should talk about it. And there isn't this sense that the transformation that's going, that organizations are going through talking about becoming explicitly anti-racist, you know, how can all of those organizations that are doing anti-racism work actually understand the climate justice is a, you know, a linked lens. And, you know, even having the conversation of making those connective tissue points and opening that up is such a moving the ball forward. Cause I can't tell you how many times we're, you know, it's like, well, what does colonization have to do with the climate? And it's like everything. But it, you know, it feels a little bit like the matrix that once you see it, you can't unsee it. But it's, yeah. I mean, it goes back to emergent strategy, which everyone should read always, that like small is all. However you move the ball forward is moving the ball forward. Having the conversation is moving the ball forward. Yeah. And I think we'll also add for folks out there who perhaps have power within the institution, you know, as a fellow leader of two institutions, let me talk to y'all, yes. Like absolutely take the steps that you can now. It is much better to get the work started and make mistakes than it is to live in fear and try to do things perfectly because the four of us make mistakes all the time. People who've been doing this work their entire lives also still make mistakes. Anyway, and so if you like, for those within the institution, if you live in these positions of fear, you're never going to move forward. And also furthermore, I just wanted to reiterate that this is not a sprint, nor is it a marathon. It is a lifelong 24-7, 365, sometimes 366 days a year until you're no longer here. It is an everyday action. It's an everyday movement towards education, towards changing, towards growth. And also like y'all don't get no gold stars, we ain't getting no gold stars, no pads on the back, we're doing something. Like there are no benchmarks, there are no, like you get a balloon, you did a good job. No, like it is a complete shift of how we exist. And so I think whenever institutions, my fellow folks who work within the institutions can come to terms with that, it becomes a lot easier to take that first step and then the second, then the third, then the fourth. And so I just find it's also really helpful for reframing, you know, but man, fear. Fear is a powerful thing. Absolutely. And to talk about how accountability plays into that is if we hold ourselves accountable is part of that process, is part of the steps that we take to move forward, is to hold ourselves accountable for past actions, present actions, and how we move forward into the future. And you were just talking about that first step, that second step, the question we have from our audience is sort of what is a good first step so that artists can take after this webinar? Like what is step one, or at least a couple of step ones? It sounds like there are a lot of different places to start. I love this part. I mean, I'm always like, there's always a thing you can do. So, you know, the nerd in me, because you know, I'm a producer, is what are the ways in which you can be transparent that you are not? Have you thought about who your community is and how you can be more accountable to them? Do you know Indigenous people? I mean, and I really mean that. I mean, like having a living relationship with Indigenous people so that it is not a statistic, it is not, land acknowledgement is not a, well, that seems like a good thing to do, so I shall check that box. But really understanding that the history and the present are not two separate things. And history is not just, it's done, and now we live in this magical evolved post-racial America. It's not, I mean, I think we've learned over the course of the last four years how the wounds of, you know, the last multiple hundreds of years are still very present anyway, but that's not going to specific actions anyway. So knowing and building real non-transactional relationships with Indigenous people for no other reason than really building authentic relationships, not having a reason to ask, not having a thing to, you know, a program to want to slot them into, just building community. And, you know, taking steps for yourself about towards divestment, right? If you're an individual artist, thinking about what is gonna be part of your contracts, how you wanna talk to your agent if you have one. If you're part of an artist collective, you know, can that artist collective divest and make a very public statement about that? How can you actually be part of a campaign that's about, you know, divesting? Every one of the, you know, spoiler, every one of the Green New Theater principles has in it a place to start. And, you know, I'll speak for myself, like, this is not work and a framework I had even three years ago, you know? And it has been, the finding the places where my values and the values of this work have overlapped has been really joyful. And that's the thing. I mean, I feel like with a lot of this, we've been having like a lot of this stuff is hard. It's about doing, you know, work. But it also, like the reason we're doing this is because of all of the, is because of all the joy that results when in those moments where you really see it in action and it's really awesome. And Ann, I'm gonna punch it over to you. Yeah, yeah, I just, as a white person, as a person who is descended from a settler legacy in the United States, I think there's plenty of fear. But one thing I will say is that I think as a white person, you have, we have more work to do and that work is, you know, there's a lot of sort of discussion about the emotional labor that BIPOC folks have been asked to do for free for the benefit of white folks who are, you know, just trying to learn and learning is great. Emotional labor is not. So I would really, this is gonna sound maybe simplistic. If you're confused about something, Google it first. There's lots of people online. There's lots of people on Twitter who are freely giving of their knowledge. Look at them first before you turn to someone and ask them to share their lived experience, especially if you're asking them to possibly share their trauma. Another thing I will say is that there's a lot of self-reflection that needs to be happening with white folks and look at, try and look for moments where you're centering yourself, centering your feelings and then try very, very, very hard to not do that. And it's uncomfortable. It's contrary to probably a lot of the way that you have been raised, especially if you are, you know, the recipient of multiple privileges from your ability to your sexual orientation to all kinds of things, your socioeconomic class. But it's really important. I think there's lots of work that we as white people have to do. And we cannot ask someone else to shoulder that burden for us. We cannot, or why shouldn't we use the word burden? We can't ask someone else to do that work for us. And we can't compound trauma by throwing our feelings everywhere. So reflexivity, reflexivity is key. I think like something else I wanna add in there is also about proactivity. So something that I have noticed as these conversations have continued and have grown is that I get a lot of well-meaning people, and I should be specific, well-meaning white people, into my DMs, into my emails, asking me to explain things to them that I've already done in countless panels, in countless groundwater arts calls, in countless articles I've written that countless books other people have written. And so whenever you're thinking about what is that first step? Again, just to reiterate, none of this is building the wheel. The wheel dumpin' built, we got trains, we got wheelbarrows, whatever you want, we got it already. Anyway, and so I think a wonderful first step is leaning into the wisdom of your community and of your community that you may not know is of your community. Even right now, in this time that we've been together with Producer Hub, we've mentioned multiple resources. I've dropped two links into the chat, the movement Generation Z, and I dropped it in there as well as the Revolutionary Lobby Funded. Go Falsal Free, I'm gonna drop in there. Read those, read it. That was a wonderful first step. Whenever people, not just us, but all kinds of people share these resources, say, hey, you should look up Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw, whenever we're talking about intersectionality. Like, hey, you should look up Adrienne Marie Brown. Like, do it. And so much of that has just been handed over. And so I think being very proactive in your first step, especially when you don't need to work that hard. It's first steps, second steps, 25 steps have already been outlined for years and years and years, and it's available for free on the internet. Very few have paywalls, but I'm sure you can afford it if you get questions. Anyway, it's just something I wanna reiterate. And my two cents for like, what's the next step that you could take? I go back to my always impulse to organize. And just to suggest, like, whatever location you're in, there is inevitably environmental threats to the location that you're in. Whether it's fracking that is like on the table for happening, whether it's pipelines, whether it's incinerators like here in Baltimore that are spewing chemicals into the predominantly black neighborhoods, whatever, like there are different environmental threats and hazards that do exist in your neighborhood. And there's probably already community organizing taking place to address those threats and those hazards. So if you start to Google things like your location and environmental racism or your location and climate justice or your location and fracking or your location and whatever the sort of things are, that'll help you find the people that are already organizing. So show up to those meetings and listen first. When I go to community organizing meetings that I don't have relationship with yet, I'll show up and make a point of like introducing myself and trying to listen before I offer anything, only listen. And at the second meeting that I'll show up at, that's when I might offer something that I can do, but I'm really just going to listen first. So organize. I think one last offering I will make is that if the great first step is to go to the Groundwater website and read the Green New Theater document, which I can't believe that none of you said, it is an incredible resource and also honors the legacies that it is pulling from so that it is a great first step. And if you are looking for a ways to deep dive, there are links, it's all very clear, as well as the Groundwater Green New Theater call series on HowlRound. It's just a great way to sort of deep dive with this incredible panel and organization that I feel like I've gotten a masterclass this evening. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I wanna also ask folks, if you can, to just subscribe, cause they have some, I can tell you they have some exciting things coming down the pipeline. I know that Green New Theater is phase one and there is a phase two coming soon. So if you are interested in this work, which you should be because it affects you, I highly recommend staying in touch. And is there any other way folks that people can stay up to date with what's going on with Groundwater? I would really recommend for those of you on social media to follow our Instagram and Facebook, that's where a lot of our information goes out. We will be announcing on Monday, we have a series of workshops coming up about Decolonizing Theater Basics and we will be running a Decolonizing Theater Intermediate. I don't know, we don't have a name for it. It's the step two that will be running after that. So if you're interested in that sort of like, what's a longer deep dive, just follow our Facebook, follow our Instagrams, I don't know, send us an email. We can drop our email into the YouTube comments. Like we just, please, please keep in touch. Yes, we have a newsletter. So I'm putting our email in the comments right now. Yeah, and the last thing that I'll just offer is that we, well, we do a lot clearly as we've kind of been sharing. We do also work with individuals and organizations on building their climate justice practice in various ways. So if you're interested in collaborating, drop us a line. We, you know, Greenew Theater is a real, we want it to be, we want to be in partnership, we want it to serve the field. I mean, also a lot of things that we're talking about are like sometimes really tricky to dive into. And so we're really open to working with folks in a lot of different ways because we so want to move things forward with you. Excellent, and I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us and do really taking the time to break it down with us. I think I want to say thank you on behalf of Producer Hub and thank you personally. Always fun to hang out with the Groundwater Ladies and with everyone who took their Friday night to hang out with us. Thank you for listening at home. If you haven't already, please check out producerhub.org, subscribe, stay up to date, not only on what we're doing but what on Groundwater is doing because they are one of our sponsored organizations. And other than that, I just want to say thank you and good night to everyone.