 that video. Welcome everyone to Golden Threads, near the event, what do the women say? And we are here, Toranj Irozarian and myself. Very happy to be here with you, Toranj. This is an event that started in 1999 and it was originally called From the Inside. It's always been a multimedia event with artists from all sorts of disciplines. And it's personally one of my favorites, a Golden Thread tradition, because of its intersectionality with artists from all over and the voices it lifts. And I'm thrilled to be here with Toranj and just have a conversation with her and then later to invite other fabulous female artists that we've had over the years. And just to share with you all that as a company, over 70% of our artists have been female. And we're very proud of that. So Toranj, I am just thrilled to be here with you. And I just wanted to, I don't actually know where the origin of the idea was for you, how it came about. Well, first let's say hello to all of our audience out there across the world. It's so nice to be on the digital realm because people from around the world can be watching us. So we can be embarrassed globally. And I do want to say Happy International Women's Day. We've, I mean, we are obviously a woman founded company and from the very beginning Golden Thread has been working with, I would say mostly women artists. So I think it was natural for us to celebrate International Women's Day, which is something that I think, like in the Iranian community, it's been celebrated every year across the world in various countries. It celebrated and less so, I think maybe in the US. So we began with, from the inside, which was a collaborative performance with visual artists, dancers, theater actors. And that was in 1999. We had two performances of that in a studio in Oakland. And if we look at the image with all the different artists, it was very ritualistic. There was in the space had two levels. And down on the first level, there was like a silicon factory installation that people, the audience could walk through. And then on the second floor was this performance space. And we had, we created sort of this ritualistic space. There was dancing, there was spoken word and from there we just continued. And I think we changed the name to what do the women say. I don't remember what year, but because I think I've kind of lost the records between after 1999, the next Women's Day celebration that I have records for is 2005. And we partnered with the She company at that point, which was specifically focused on women theater artists. And for two or three years, we celebrated International Women's Day with the She company. And that was really successful. When did you begin your work with Golden Thread? Do you remember? Yes, I do. It was a reading of Noah's Sadawee play. And that was in 1998, I believe. Yeah. So even before, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I love to look at this picture because like Sarah, Zahra and Halouj is in there, your mama, your mom's there, Vida and Samine. And I love how we put the men behind the fence. We had three male act or more. We had, I think more because there are two fences and all the men are back there. That was, that was at the magic, right? Yeah. It was at the magic. It was part of a festival. The play was called 12 Women in a Cell. This is Ecstasy a Water Fable, which I think was your next production. Yeah, it was 2009, I believe it. And then there was Reorient. And this is, this is why I always say I obviously need to do more comedies because almost every picture of me looks, I look super sad. But that was the first monologue that Everyn, yeah. And from then on, I've just, just been talking a lot on stage for too long. But that's, that's actually my kitchen, right? Yeah, the majority of our rehearsal. This is from our board, which has been amazing. So I said, wait into being a board member in 2016, and then become president, which has been a challenge, but good for me. And this is one of my favorite events as well is our party at Bob and Judy's house, our long-term supporters, ex-board members, and just overall amazing people, incredible hosts. Yeah, it's our appreciation event where we appreciate our artists, volunteers, and donors. One of the things that's interesting at Golden Thread is that, you know, people, which is, you know, your case, you began as an artist. And then you kind of segued into serving as a board member. Like, what was that transition like? It's been really a growth process for me, because it's had me have to think about the organization in a different way and how I want to show up and sort of the role of artists within nonprofit organizations, and how important that role is, but also how much you learn about the nuts and bolts of a company and what it takes to sustain something and help grow it and have part of the vision and the strategy to do so has been really amazing, actually. And it's actually, I think it's really instrumental, because I think my time as a board member has grown as my child has grown. For him, it's like something he knows. Oh, you have a board meeting, you're going to do this, where you thought they had a tarant, who's going to be there, you know, and that's something that has become very instrumental for me, because it's a form of activism, actually, to stay engaged in this work and to serve this way. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's one of the, you know, one of the things that was important to me at Golden Thread is important to me. I can't use the past tense yet quite is important to me is, you know, as women who come from the Middle East, I don't know if what your experience was, but in my experience, you know, we have a really negative or sad reputation in the US, you know, like we're victims and oppressed and unable to express our voices. And that wasn't my experience in Iran. It wasn't my experience in my family. I come from a very matriarchal family, you know, many women in my family are professionals, artists, or other, you know, professions, you know, my mother was a pioneering actor in Iran. My, you know, great grandmother opened one of the first women schools in Iran at the turn of the third century. So for me to come to the US and then kind of be faced with this kind of ongoing series of assumptions about women in the Middle East being so oppressed and unable to express themselves, unable to engage with society, that was really annoying. And so from the beginning at Golden Thread, I think we wanted to challenge those stereotypes and really center women artists in our work, which wasn't difficult because there were so many talented women in the Bay Area of the Middle Eastern background who were doing incredible work. And so very quickly, we began to really build a community of women artists. So even though we're not exclusively, you know, a women's company, but like you said, you know, more than 70% of the artists that we have hired have been women in our 25 years. When I think something you said yesterday when we were talking was what's very important is that that you can see this sort of multiplicity of identities in what you do within this company, not only not only of ethnic and ethnic identity, but also in what you're capable of doing as an artist, that you have a multiplicity of skills and all of those are welcome at the company. And you, Terrence, have a very sneaky way of doing that for people because, yes, this is what you do. You say things to me like, so I think you should facilitate these conversations. And I say, you think so? I should. And there's this sort of this, you see things in people that they may not be ready to see in themselves. And, and you allow that to grow. And you do it in that way where it's like you don't actually give a lot of compliments, but you're like, no, you can do this, just go out and do this, you can go just try. And that actually is a huge space of growth for artists because we, we need, we need a variety of skill sets to stay in this field. You know, once you reach a certain point in your life, you are, you're an entrepreneur, you're your own marketing person, you have to have agility, and I think is what I'm trying to say. And when you have a leader who says, it's like parenting, it's actually parenting, it's like, okay, now the time you tie your shoe, you know, and leave the house with your, you know, it's, it's a way of, of lifting voices on many levels. So you're not, you're not just pigeonholing yourself. And that's very important to me. It's an important thing to continue to uphold, because I have the exact same experience with you. And I grew up in Egypt, I'm born in Libya, grew up in Egypt. I was just having this conversation with my parents the other day where, you know, in Egypt, there isn't inequality of pay scale, for example, that you have in the US. And I don't think people know that there's not, you're not going to be offered a different salary than somebody else because you're a woman. And I think of every, every female friend and person I know in Egypt is doing their own thing. I don't know anyone sitting at home not doing any, I mean, it's my image of what a woman is capable of is very vast, right. And so when I moved to the US to go to an all women's college, I was shocked by the questions I was asked, consistently asked, you know, I mean, so many of us has had this experience where all of a sudden you become the representative sole voice for, you know, fill in the blank all Middle Eastern women, but are women oppressed there? Do you have, are you able to fill in the blank? You know, it's, it was not my experience. I was actually, I was told, oh, you must be glad to be out of that oppression or oppressive environment. I'm like, no, you know, or you must be so nice to like find freedom here. And that's, you know, that's the narrative that is perpetuated in the media also when you look at movies and plays. That's what gets produced more. So that's again, you know, Golden Threads role is to challenge those narratives and develop our own, our own work, our own voices. And, you know, like I come from a mixed family Christian Muslim, I started out as a microbiologist. I worked in a corporation while I was running Golden Thread. So in terms of skill sets and the range of abilities that people have, you know, again, pigeonholing artists into this sort of characterization. Oh, they don't, they don't know math. They don't know, you know, they can't handle reality or whatever. Like it's, it's really reductive. And so from the beginning again, Golden Thread, you know, with our umbrella definition of the Middle East and our insistence on welcoming everyone in their wholeness, you know, and encouraging them to expand that wholeness, you know, and giving them, giving them tasks that, you know, forcing them to volunteer to do things that we need them to do, but, but also helping them gain confidence in their own abilities and, you know, in their own, in their own skills. Yeah, that's absolutely imperative for the growth of a community as well. Right. So Tarant have a question for you. You have, um, you know, this year is so instrumental because the company's 25th year. And when you, when you think of the next 25 years for the company and what you would love to leave as a legacy, can you speak to that a little bit with what, what is your, what's your hope and dream for, for Golden Thread as a company? Um, I mean, I think, I guess my, my hope is, um, more of what we've been talking about, which is, you know, a really thriving artistic community that claim our own stories. Um, an artistic community that doesn't compromise that experiments that, um, impacts the artistic field, you know, with our unique perspectives and our unique aesthetics. Um, and organizationally, I would want to see Golden Thread really fulfill its potential for being, um, for, you know, reaching the global audience for impacting, um, the field organizationally, you know, with our ideas about, um, artists being at the center of how an organization is run, um, and respecting, um, that flexibility, you know, for an artist to develop their career, grow their career while they're also doing other things, uh, non-artistic work, um, at Golden Thread. Um, and, you know, we have this vision of, uh, centering the margins, right? Not constantly defining ourselves through, uh, a white mainstream, right? We accomplish this with co-productions, with other, uh, other theater companies and other organizations like African American Shakespeare, Asian American theater, because our, because we want to center our stories. We want, uh, we want to again challenge this idea of, uh, the white narrative being, being the mainstream narrative and also challenge ourselves to, um, come up with new definitions that are our definitions and not what we've, uh, received from the white, um, you know, dominant, uh, narrative. So I, I, I, my hope for Golden Thread is to really, um, expand and, um, and deepen and, and continue to challenge and work with other, uh, networks of, of theaters of color and, and really center our narratives so that, you know, American theater reflects who we are and who, uh, who the U.S. is today, which is very different from the way the U.S. looked in the 1950s when regional theater movement happened. Yeah, it's an exciting time for that. So this year's, um, theme, like, each year, Women's Day has this theme of, has a theme, and this year is the Choose to Challenge. And I was thinking on that, you know, what, what is it, what is it that I would choose to challenge you? I mean, what would you say to that question? What's your, what would you challenge? I don't, I mean, we're challenging everything in many ways, right? We're challenging the role of women definition of artists, um, what is expected of us women artists. Um, we're challenging dominant narratives of the Middle East. Um, and we're challenging ourselves to be better, to be more rigorous and to, um, to be more creative, to, to, um, I don't know, develop new ways of doing things that we haven't thought about, especially with work, you know, working in the digital realm. I think for me that's been challenging. I've had to learn a lot. Um, so it's a continuous learning process. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this year, this time last year, I remember I was in Portland taking, I was about to open a show and, and you had to make the choice. You made the preemptive choice to, to cancel the Women's Day event. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was, I mean, partly because artists were calling and asking, is it going to happen, should we come? And then audiences were calling and canceling their tickets. So I think people were uncomfortable and, and we saw that and, and we respected that. So we had to cancel the event. But one of the things I wanted to say specifically about International Women's Day that we celebrate, you know, our event, what do the women say is the one event at Golden Thread that's multidisciplinary. So we feature not only theater artists, but musicians, dancers, singers, visual artists, film. And, and, and that's been really satisfying to see, to like gather in one evening and really showcase that talent and, and then when, you know, at the end of the event, we always have a conversation with all the participating artists. And I love those conversations, right? Yeah. Women find so much in common or they ask each other, creative questions. And, and some, sometimes, you know, new collaborations and partnerships are developed from that. Yeah. That's what I love most about it, which is a perfect segue into this next portion because we'll transition now to, to talking to the artists. But before we bring everyone in, we have a little clip from Yesmine Diaz, who is a visual artist whose work I really adore and a message from Yesmine. And she, she attended the Women's Day 2019. Yeah. Hello, my name is Yesmine Nasod Diaz and I'm an artist based in Los Angeles. And even though I'm in Los Angeles and not in the Bay Area, I very much value just knowing that Golden Thread exists and is this community and platform that has enabled people, creatives to come up with and develop and nurture stories and to be able to share them with their, with the community. That is not a small thing. And I'm so grateful to have been a part of that celebration of International Women's Day several years ago. That event took place at a very pivotal moment in my life and went on to lead to many other opportunities. It was really, really meaningful night, really incredible evening. And I'm so grateful to have been introduced to the other artists who shared the stage with me. It was such a moving night. I'm sure they all have been. And what I hope for Golden Thread's future for the next 25 years is to continue and to thrive and expand. As we continue to change, evolve, and expand our worlds, so will our stories. And therefore we will need opportunities and spaces to tell them, to create them, to share them. You know, we as people become more nuanced and so will the stories that we tell. So thank you so much for all that you do, all that you've done for our communities. And I hope you live a very long and expansive life. Bye. I was so lovely to have her. Yasmin is of Yemeni descent. And I had been looking for a Yemeni artist for some time. So I was really pleased when I came across her website and learned about her work. And her work is amazing. So Yasmin Diaz, yeah. Yeah, I encourage everyone to check out her website and to look at her bio and what she chooses to challenge, which is very bold. Yeah, that was, I remember that evening so well, because her introduction was so moving and funny. The collab, you know, just, and there was such celebration, there was this air that night of celebration, because of, again, the nuance that she provided. So now I'd love to welcome all our other five artists to enter our room and to join us and yay, yay, yay. This is my favorite part and the screen starts to populate like magic. We are all met. Thank you for being here with us today and taking the time. And it's just such a joy. I wish we were in a real room, but here we are. This is magic in and of itself. And so what we'll do is we'll simply first ask each one of you to just introduce yourselves, your name, how you identify yourself as an artist, and where you are in the world. So if we could begin with Sara, please. Hi everyone, Sara Rosavi. I'm based in the Bay Area, live in Oakland now, and with Golden Thread for many, many years and under many different hats. First came in as an educator to support back then the seed idea of an education program, but really how I got to know Golden Thread was as an actor and then was welcomed as a director. And then, like you Nora, was welcomed as a board member and served in that board capacity for about six years, part of which was as board president and all of it has been super fruitful and a great opportunity. Thank you. And Lana, if you could unmute myself first. Hi, I'm Lana Nasir, performing artist, writer, and most recently focused on voice acting and narration. An eco-feminist beekeeper is how I spend the rest of my life. And I am currently in the Netherlands, in the south of the Netherlands in Limburg, and I come from Jordan. And Golden Thread was the first entity that I came into contact with when I moved to the Bay Area from New York. And I don't know if this comes an hour later of our participation with the International Women's Day. We'll talk about it more in a little bit. We'll come back to it. Thank you. Thank you, Lana. And then if we could move on to Naima, please. Such an honor to be with everybody. So I'm Naima. I'm a musician and composer and an actress with Golden Thread and a performer in different ways. And I started working with Golden Thread, I believe in 2013 or 14. And oh, and I remember before that, I was like seeing Golden Thread as this untouchable like, no, they wouldn't want me. And then I became a part of the family. And so it's such an honor to be a part of another what would the women say, especially the 25th anniversary. Very, very, very powerful. Thank you, Naima. Sofia. Ha ha. My screen froze for a second right when you said Sofia. Hi. I'm Sofia Ahmed. I'm in Oakland, California in the Bay Area. And I've worked with Golden Thread as an actor starting in 2003. It boggles my mind that is 18 years ago. And I've not formally taught, but I'm a teaching artist as well. So I've like been in meetings talking about forming the education program at Golden Thread as well. And just like a huge fan of the company and everyone who's affiliated with it. And last but certainly not least, Sedef. Hi. I'm Sedef Eger. I was born in Istanbul. And now I'm in Paris for three decades now. I live in Paris, France. And I right now in French. I started as an actress, as a child actress in Istanbul with these kitsch Turkish movies. And then I wrote scripts, plays, novels in French, because now I'm in French. And last year I had this incredible chance to see one of my plays I wrote in French staged in Golden Thread by Golden Thread by translated by Evren, thanks to Torange, Irine and all the wonderful team. It was a wonderful human and artistic experience. And I'm so grateful to be here tonight with you. Thank you so much. So now we'll segue into each one of we'll have a little bit more time to talk to each person. And mostly what I'm positioning and wondering is what how your relationship with Golden Thread helped your career and the impact it's had on it. So we'll have a chance with each person to talk and have a little exchange. So Sada will come back to you. How has impacted my career? So like many folks here and watching, I came to the Bay Area thinking I was going to do one thing. I was doing a program with a professor at UC Berkeley. I needed to make ends meet so I was teaching theater to children. That picture is of me doing the monologue. Yusuf El-Gindy's the monologist suffers her monologue, which is probably one of the ones that came best known for and think about a lot. And here as a director this picture. But with Golden Thread I found an in into the multiplicities of myself. I'm a queer woman and Iranian. I was born in Iran, but raised in Southern California. And I really kept those identities very, very separate for a very long time. I also kept my Farsi speaking and English speaking very separate. I didn't think those two worlds could come together and ideas that I could express in English could not be expressed in Farsi. Particularly about gender and sexuality and desire and all of that. And to come across Golden Thread and see a world where the multiplicities of Middle Eastern identities can live together and you don't have to identify as any one thing was mind blowing. And to then be honored to, and I remember like Naima, you know, Golden Thread. I was doing every other theater company, but Golden Thread. I was just like, I can't audition for them. I don't speak Farsi well enough. I don't know. Golden Thread was very intimidating at that time. And I don't know if you remember this time. Thread went through a phase where she shaved all of her head. And so I would see her at these events this presence. And man, she came up to me one time. She was like, why have you never auditioned for us? Well, I don't know. And then I ended up doing a show with my very dear friends, Everyn and Darvagh. Darvagh who's also based in the Bay Area, but is specifically focused on Farsi language, Persian language pieces had done a show in English. So it was the first time that I felt like I could act and identify, you know, be part of that identity. And Toran saw that piece and again was like, you need to come and audition for Golden Thread. And so I did. And I think my first story was with a reorient. In fact, it was mainly reorient that I participated in year after year. And did a wonderful piece with you, Nora, where we played two sisters in a really cool surreal piece, magical, magical piece. So anyway, it's been, but what was amazing about Golden Thread was that I could, and I expect we'll hear this from everybody in some way, explore different parts of my myself. Because my day job is actually now very different. I'm in finance. I'm in microlending specifically to entrepreneurs. I play very much, you know, a different role. But I look to the way Golden Thread has worked across boundaries, across communities. And what I've learned about being able to articulate what you mean to say. And that translates across professions, across work. And I'm just grateful that I get to have an avenue, not only to see amazing art, but to periodically participate in it as well. And to hear the word artists and my name still connected is just a pleasure and a treat that I'm so grateful for, that Golden Thread continues to offer. You know, you've hit so many different marks for the company. You know, you're still such a, you're a person we lean on still in so many ways. It's like we've grown up together. That's what's really moving too. There's that kind of familial aspect to this company, which it's not shy to do. You know, I'm turning on this Zoom and seeing all the white hair sprinkled where there was more dark hair. Always great hair. True. That is known for those of you may not know this for her amazing hair. Which is like crazy to, in this company, to have that claim for real. It's like everybody has a music video. Looking at the photos of my great hair. That was actually I think one reorient read we were around the table and it was one of the times where, because with the reorient tonight started a process where the group would meet in July ahead of the October, November shows. Because so much of reorient is about working new pieces. It's all about, you know, allowing the artists at every level to think very collaboratively. So they come together for this gathering, the summit in no, and she's done this on purpose July 4th weekend. Middle Easterners come together in San Francisco. And there are so many barbecues. I'm like, no, no, cannot. I have to go to Golden Thread. But we came together and it was one of those times where we were sitting around reading a table and an artist who hadn't worked with Golden Thread before. I think she just looked around and she said, I'm just so excited that I found people similar hair and she had very, very curly, full hair. And to everyone or someone had mentioned to me and I agree, so many Middle Eastern kids don't grow into their features until much later in life. Your nose is always too big, your eyes are so much, your lips are so much, your hair. And so it was just lovely to have a community where you find familiarity but also can position yourself as the individual that you are. Oh, so moving. Thank you, Sara. Lana, we'll move to you. I heard about your piece at Women's Day and I still wish I had seen it, but I would love to hear about your relationship with the company. We only have one picture because we need more, but yeah, so please, your time. Wow, that's good to see this picture. Okay, well, as I said, I met Taranj and before even moving to San Francisco Bay Area or rather Oakland that I heard about Golden Thread, I was living in New York. And as an actress in New York coming to the Bay Area, I came to study master's and consciousness studies. So, and I thought I'll go and thread Middle East, met Taranj right away. I'm not sure what year that was, if it was 2004, 2003. And my participation was with what do the women say several times. And one of it was with a kind of a interpretive dance performance that I called Rope, if I believe correctly, and then came another one that I called is IS. This is before IS became something this had nothing to do with IS, but more with is being I, I am, she is, I is. And last but not least was Arab woman talking, in which I, which was the beginning for me with Arab woman talking like talking, so bringing in my actual words to stage. I would say that before my performances with Golden Thread with Women's Day, I was always an actress. But my participation with Golden Thread represents also my stepping into myself as a performing artist, as a maker also. And so it provided me a space to present my own work, an experimental work, whether it was dance or monologue. And it was a safe and encouraging environment. Of course, Women's Day itself was, was wonderful to celebrate. So, and then an unexpected development from that was that after I left the Bay Area and went back to Jordan, I started with, with a network of artists, women artists that I organized there, an International Women's Day festival, went on for the four years that I was there and grew from a budget of like 5,000 euros to 50,000 euros right away. And from being very local to being very international and quite successful in a short time, which unfortunately didn't, it didn't stay when I left Jordan and didn't continue unfortunately, but it was, well, four is four or five is a complete circle. So that's also okay, things come and go. So that kind of sums up my experience except, oh yeah, and I tried to volunteer also with Golden Threads, but and they wanted someone to do data entry. And I'm like the worst person with, with details. So thankfully, I lasted for like, I don't know, a couple of hours. Otherwise, they would have lost all of their mailing list, all of it. Because you're putting six, seven, eight, I would put six, eight, seven little details, not big for phone numbers. So that, but Lana, you were a great bartender. You bartended our, our spring art auction, I think one year or two years. And, and you were one of our most popular bartenders, I must say. Excellent. At least I'm good at something. Yeah. And I think what's really great is like what you both talked about at the beginning is that kind of breaking this stereotype of what a Middle Eastern woman is. And kind of this repressed doesn't talk. And I mean, look at all of you. And it's just so not true. And I think that's what I love about Golden Thread is not just for the women, even though women seem to be really at the forefront, but breaking these stereotypes. And I think that's just so important. And that's, that's what I hope to continue seeing in the future of the company. Thank you, Lana. It's very moving. And I want to see, I wish we had footage of your piece. I would have loved to see that. I lost all my footage with an external hard drive that decided to go on to retirement earlier than planned. So I'll have to, you can imagine, it was amazing. I'll tell you this. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it. I know it. Thank you so much. Naima will move on to you. I am, yeah, so lovely to be here with you and to admire your work. So yeah. So good to be here with you all. I was just thinking of the fifth string. This was like the, it makes me emotional because I think that I had forgotten prior to me working with Golden Thread. I've kind of compartmentalized this part of me that was also a theater person, an actress as a young person. Like I loved musical theater. And somehow, you know, as an Arab American, and we're all speaking to these ways that we get put in boxes and we just get assumptions thrown at us. And then so trying to find my way as a musician and as a singer, you know, all these, the pressure to choose genre and all this just ridiculous stuff that does not allow for us to be the dynamic beings that we are. However we want to be it just like anybody else. And so I remember Fada came to a few of my performances and she was like, you know, you have to audition for Golden Thread. You have to audition for Golden Thread. And then that was the moment where I was like, no, you know, Golden Thread is this, you know, theater company out there. Like I've been away from theater for so long. But I was able to get an audition and immediately I mean, I won't ever forget the audition I had with Majd and Toranji were there and we were like, I don't know, you gave me a script and I had to just like improvise and there was singing and there was acting and I was so nervous because I hadn't seen myself as an actor for so long. So anyway, I received the role and it was like the most incredible motley crew of a cast. We had way too much fun like on stage off stage and you had to get you just putting putting line a lot, but it was like, oh my gosh, like this is my Middle Eastern family. Like I can be up, I can be down, I can be all the things I can be the musician who like just wants to sing blues in English. I could be the musician who sings in my terrible Arabic accent because my Arabic sucks and I'm trying to work on it. But like, you know, and there was space for that and and Toranji, I'll remember when I was throwing around ideas of, you know, writing my own writing my own script and I haven't done that yet, but you were just so supportive and you were like, you know, come come to my house. I'm going to work with you. Like you really laid out so much opportunities for me to grow into myself, not just as an actress or a musician. I'm going to cry like as all of it, you know what I mean? And and being an Arab woman in the US, it's like, you don't even know, they don't even know how dynamic we are. Like my family is so like loud and boisterous and and and I learned in, even though no one was a professional artist, like I learned improvisation from them. I learned expression, I learned acting from them without realizing it was that and so through Golden Thread, I feel like I was so supported to be like, I just pulled out those seeds. Like what is it? Khalil Gibran says, knowledge is not what is given but like water is the seeds within us. Like I feel like that's what Golden Thread does. I feel like Golden Thread like waters that is what is in us and and really nurtures it and gives it that space and container to to thrive and be a fertile flower in the orchard. Sorry I had to. So yeah, I could say I could go on and on. Thank you Naima. That's so I mean, I remember your performance at our 20th year anniversary and just sort of the the the full energy you had there and what you brought to the house was really warm. We forget as artists that we forget that we can be really you feel really confident in one zone and they get more shy than others. Absolutely. Oh, story of my life, shy and bold somehow at the same time. I don't understand but both all of it. We all we all struggle with that I think. Most artists feel yeah. To be to be seen in that way is really what helps you lift that right? Yes, absolutely. Thank you for your forthrightness and vulnerability. Oh, no, thank you. So lovely. Thank you. So lovely. Yeah. Oh, Sophia. I move to you my dear friends. Hi. Yeah, I was thinking about this question like how has Golden Thread been a part of my career and I mean it charts my Golden Thread kind of is like the cradle for my entire career really in the Bay Area, which is my entire acting career. So that was this round. But I moved back to the Bay Area. I was born and raised in San Francisco and I moved back to the Bay Area in 2001 and did dangerous highway and did like a couple of community theater shows. That was the show that we like we we ran into sheltering in place. The last group of people I was with was that group of people celebrating our early closure and we all hugged each other and we're breathing on each other and we're like we're not going to be able to do this for a month or two and then in a year. But yeah, so I like did some community theater and then I did some children's theater and I realized I'm pretty positive love missile was the first show that I got paid to do like a primetime show not for kids and I was like this is a big deal like I'm an actor. I'm getting paid to be an actor on stage not for fourth graders who are being forced to watch the show about like don't bully which I mean I love children's theater but it was like a primetime show and love missile is iconic like in my household with my friends. I have a friend who says that was good but it was no love missile. It still says that because it was like it was a trip. It was puppetry like shadow puppets and puppetry. It was a musical. There was dancing. It was amazing and that was the first show that I got to do with Vida and not knowing her history because I'm half Pakistani so like I did not know about Iranian cinema at that point but she like I just remember adoring her but not knowing like someone mentioned oh yeah she was like a huge actress in Iran. I was like what she was just so like lovely and you know personable and sweet and she played my mom in that show and it was awesome um and then like I've done a few women's women's day events what do the women say and I think that the only time I've ever played somebody Pakistani was in a what do the women say reading and I can't remember the name of the play but it was lovely it was a three woman remains with remains yeah oh that's what it was yes yes yes yes yeah and I loved that piece it was just beautiful um at Petrara stage um and then just like I mean this is my career this my life like it just so happens that the last show I did before I had a child was most dangerous highway in the world and then the first show I did again after a two-year hiatus was reorient and I remember like you know thinking about whether I could kind of arrange my life with this child also to do it and and Taranj was just like we you know we will work with your schedule like it was so supportive of being a parent um being able to hold both sides of of who I was now who I am now um so that was it was amazing to do reorient because I was like oh this is scary like auditioning again after a few years was really nerve-wracking but it was coming into a room felt with like my family and it felt like coming back home and I'm like oh no like I can do this in this space because these are people who are just wonderful and lovely and supportive um and then the last show that I did before Shelter in Place it's like just it's kind of a career trajectory but also just a life trajectory um and also doing a reading with golden thread led to a show at the magic with you Nora and with Atosa and with Bridget which is kind of like the most wonderful and with Betty Shamia the writer and Jessica Hight like the most amazing septet that or sextet um of of women just powerhouse and also where I met Everett because he was like a marketing director of the magic at that time so just it's led to everything so thank you oh yes clear impact it's it's so moving to here Sofia and it's a great segue because yes the last show right before everything shut down was Sadef's beautiful play which I will see one day hopefully Sadef I'm so happy you're here with us from Paris and your relationship with us is the most recent but but yes just to hear your the impact of working on that piece yeah I think you're muted sorry sorry a technical yeah I know it's like our life story sorry no thank you okay so you hear me huh yeah perfect okay uh it was an incredible experience for me I will tell you why the first time I came of these images are so moving um I was very surprised of this community you know because in France I always worked always uh of course with my origins Turkish origins but I was kind of erasing it I mean it was on my work it was on my writing but it was you know in France it's very different I mean how you work with your origins and this is another um integration politics and uh and there to see all these uh Middle Eastern women and as Torange was saying if there is this image of victim women and I was seeing all these proud women of proud or not I mean but the origins were very important for so many so many of these people who were there who were working together so and I think in the first time when I came to work on the text because you were they were asking me questions about the text everyone was translating and was changing some words so we were really working on commas and very specific questions about my text and I think this work and to hear my my text in English and all these atmosphere opened a door in my mind and I was very happy I came back to Paris and we were writing to each other I knew that they were rehearsing what was we're going we're continuing and when I came the second time uh I knew that I was looking for something there this time and it leaked me completely to another work uh on which I was working for four years it was a novel in French my first novel in French and I was looking I was searching for my childhood because uh I was uh working on this Turkish cinema with all these movies this is the cover of the book you know with all these posters and uh I forgot all these movies and little by little like an archaeological excavation it came and I was working on a woman who was whose mother was a great actress in Turkey in the 70s and I learned just that Torange had it was her life I was writing and um when I came back I uh I had another rehearsal but of course because of the COVID uh my play was the show was closed in San Francisco I was very sad of course but I said okay I can't do anything and in San Francisco it's closed in the Francis cause I will I will try to write this book finally instead of putting it in the trash and uh everything was uh uh coming in this um how do you say confinement time in this quarantine time and I found something incredible because there is a bridge in Istanbul the Bosphorus Bridge is kind of a replica of a golden gate and all the thing all my story came and uh look my I found my last chapter after I came back look my epilogue is Golden Gate Bridge so this is the end of the book and my last character in the in the uh book is the professor Torange here and everything was uh in place and after four years of work instead of putting on trash my book I uh finished it but I was still not sure about this and I sent it to the publishing house which was my first choice and four days later I had a contract saying it was a great novel and uh it just came out in uh January 13 and every day I'm thank I thank Golden Thread for this book because it's a very personal book it's a very very um everybody was uh I is asking me if it is uh every really my life or it's a novel you know yeah it's my uh most personal work uh and it's thanks to Golden Thread and all I worked I lived there was it clear yes so that's not only clear I mean it's what you speak of is so I think um I think most of us we can all look and relate to that the sort of segments of ourselves that we bury a little bit to carry on and move forward and we don't know what will what will bring it up and and and so this that that that that the opening happened for you because of this connection seems to me like a through line for all of us and I'm very moved by that story and I will buy the book my friend has gotten very bad over the years but I will I will work on it so that's a moving story I didn't I knew that you published the book but I didn't realize that that was the end of and of course with yeah it's completely linked to to this experience completely because I was really suffering uh about writing this book for four years but uh this experience in Golden Thread put all the all the things together you know sometimes um you work on a yeah some some of the projects are difficult and this one was a very difficult one yeah yeah yeah so thank you so much for these amazing stories we're um so lucky to share the space with you all and to have such an array it feels like there's like really well orchestrated measure this timeline with everyone from origin to now and this evolution of us um so now we're just you know here to answer questions and to continue the conversation and open it up to audience members okay I have one here let me start so the question is what are your hopes for Golden Thread and its future cute maybe for the yeah let's just say for the future of the company um I will take a person who raises their hands first or you can think about it and then just unmute yourself so there you go okay I can go first I think like Sophia um I've also become a parent through the many years here with Golden Thread uh have now a three-year-old daughter Amelia uh Amy and I hope that she finds a home in the future of Golden Thread uh you know I remember a board member a while back when Fairy Tale uh the Fairy Tale players were just starting out she was so adamant about making sure her daughter found a place because even in the Bay Area she said it's hard uh and they had they were a mixed family to find a place where she could see herself uh and so I hope not only our kids Sophia, mine and many folks who've had kids you too Nora bearing your time with Golden Thread uh but just in general that we continue to create a space for those who don't see themselves elsewhere to find themselves here and so Golden Thread to continue to do that. I'm gonna use a like farming analogy or you know I don't know why I keep going there but I just see like if you think like 25 years like that wow like that establishes roots and that establishes groundwork um and and so much more obviously in fruits and everything and a harvest but um I think what I what I would dream for Golden Thread is just continued continued abundance and prosperity and the support right and like just from all directions like an ease and a channel and a like rivers of just financial support uh all kind PR support so that because what Golden Thread is in and of itself is already so supportive right and and of of artists so just the matter of like having it having the doors open in a way where it's just um so full of resources and human resources monetary like all the things so that it's just continues to just support and uplift artists that we don't that I don't even know about yet you know what I mean so um it's an overall dream but that I'm gonna piggyback on what Naima said because there's there's this um for anyone who's not in theater there's this huge movement that's been going on it's called we see you what we see you white American theater and it's like since the pandemic and theaters being shut down there's a huge discussion happening about making theater traditionally white led theaters more diverse and and and and then you know like concurrently just like yes making established theaters more diverse but also lifting up all of these theaters that have been diverse and Golden Thread is what we want to lift up as American theater like it is so diverse it is so um gender inclusive and and equal very women led so like yes having it be funded and supported at these levels where it is not at risk um of you know not being viable that it is like has kind of a a carriage and an endowment like huge theaters because it is everything that we want modern 21st century to be you're here I keep doing this this is my son school if you agree with something you knock so if you see me doing this that's what this is so it's instead of everybody clapping we just knock someone on or somebody so that's what I'm doing um I'm going to move on to this next question because I find it moving and important and it's what is your message to young BIPOC women identifying artists trying to make it in the theater field in the US anybody want to take that big question that's a good one can I can I just say my message would be kick ass kick ass and I I think can I just add a little bit which is also use all your nuance you know don't don't don't be afraid and find and find your safe spaces and people to work with that allow you to be like yeah you do that you try that you're allowed to do that you're allowed to do that yeah now you know I feel like that now everyone wants to say something good I love it go go see it goes for you um I want to say you are worthy and you have something to say I think that being at a like I love Shakespeare but I went to like a very classical based actors training and it was kind of like so many men so few like sorry so many women so few men for tiny amount of female parts and like you start to doubt yourself and your worth because you feel like you're replaceable you feel like you know you can't rock the boat you can't stand up for what is right and and for you to be safe and you to be supported and know that you are worthy and that you have value to offer and don't let people make you feel like you are replaceable because you're not name ago for yeah oh name and let's set up please yeah no I'll be quick um just be all of it be all everything that you are let your identity spill over the boundaries stupid boundaries that people write for you like erase it stomp on it be impossible do it like just be and I know that takes some uh that takes a lot of community support and inner work but you got this you don't have to ascribe to their identifications you get to create your own you get to create your own talking to my inner child right now set us please yeah I think um writers are dangerous for the populisms and among dangerous women the most dangerous ones are the ones who tell stories they're even more dangerous than active politicians because when they are telling stories with their experience female experience they shake the point of view they change the stories told by men and they put the camera in the other way writing is the ultimate freedom because if you write with your imagination you can go to all the forbidden spaces all the dangerous places you can be a man you can be a prostitute you can be an enemy and that's why in the beginning of the first wave of feminism these brilliant doctors anatomists were saying they were proving that women who write had smaller uterus they had fragile brain uh and uh they would go hysterical anemic but women wrote anyway and they decided to tell stories and not only in the west uh everywhere women transgressed the rules and um making the stories circulates making them going across the borders uh is very important it's a political act because if we have narratives from uh far territories it makes people uh less misogyny less homophobic less uh I don't know less stupid so uh yeah the women has to write with their experience and uh really we have to make these stories circulate from countries to countries I think this is the most important experience we can uh say to younger generations younger women and I think uh little girls we have to give them confidence because if they had 10th of the confidence of the young boys there would be equal uh women female and man writers so we are really working with uh in with an association we found here which is women francophone writers we are um hundreds uh or I don't know 80 90 uh women writer from five five continents and uh we are all francophone and uh we really want to try that to give to to encourage the young generation women to write I love it that's gonna get a serious knock like this yay Lana you had something to say yeah just real quick that uh I think for for um if you don't find roles that you can play then create these roles that's uh that's it yes yeah yeah I would also uh you know for any young artist I would encourage you to find someone you trust and and keep them somebody who knows you somebody who can see your work or read your work and give you feedback it's one of the toughest things um in in theater for me has been not having uh critics you know professional critics who understand our work or see it for what it's trying to do or analyze it uh aesthetically you know they often just focus on the social necessity or the benefits social benefits of the work and not really take the artistic offering seriously um and I think for an artist to grow you really need to have somebody you trust that you can say hey you know what do you think about this how how do you respond to you know what I'm trying to do here uh so I think it's important to have one or two like have a little community that you can trust if not golden thread then you know another somebody else yeah and also I think sorry one last thing the translation is very important also to make the stories from one language to other from one country to the other it's very important to to create communities with translators and institutions which are I mean from Arabic to English to from French to English and all I mean it's very important I think to make a network of translator uh and uh writers together huge um another question is what are you working on now artistically or or whatever or maybe artistically to this whoever wants to take that yeah I could go uh so uh for me a lot of it since moving to the Netherlands I've been writing so I just uh I just published my first book and it's a fable in Dutch which uh yeah I never thought that my first book would actually be in Dutch I mean I published before plays and that kind of thing but a book yeah so that that was my first and I'm continuing with that so right now I'm also starting with I'm continuing to write I'm struggling to decide if I'm gonna make this next book in Dutch or in English because there's always kind of one uh yeah there's always pros and cons you can say and uh and now yeah for me now it's also work and I guess with the corona time and all this stuff is moving into the the audio booth so moving from performing on stage to performing in the audio booth which you can't really see it's it's in the corner there it's a bit dark with the working on narration getting how to reach the world with my voice instead of also with my body so that's kind of the biggest thing and also um which my new focus because for me it's always been that way that women, emancipation, gender equality these have been always very important and to me now it's also moved in the environment and so nature so now it's really with with thinking of bringing back the balance between the feminine the masculine in both humans but also in our relationship to nature so that finds its way in my in my writings as well so a lot of things coming from animals and mythology and all that play going back to Mother Earth so that's the latest oh it's so exciting Lana I would like to live for like five minutes in your brain yes come can I come in I'd love that that's amazing amazing you said like 20 things I was like wow that's wow so welcome to share what you're working on um I have an album siffer that I released last year but because of the pandemic I'm just continuing to release it I have yet to perform it live so you can find it on all the things all the platforms and my website but please listen to it and share it with someone if you like it yes yes yes tell us the name of the album once more name uh siffer si phr siffer yeah thank you thank you um so I I would say like nothing for about 10 months I you know have a three and a half year old and so you're doing a lot of things a lot of things you're doing a lot of things let's just be clear a lot of dancing and singing and speaking and crafts um but I I got to do a podcast with word for word of books and roses a story by Helen Oyayemi which is available it's a beautiful story it's a really really lovely story um and then um I got to contribute to Brava's international or Brava can'ta Brava um and got to read a Naomi she have nigh play for that and Nora did my uh Arabic pronunciation and translation is what I really needed because I I had audio of Naomi reading her poem but I was like I don't really know what what this means so in order to do that um and then yeah I get working on getting Zane into uh a daycare so that I can more work but I just I I like I was amazed by people who were prolific during the quarantine but I just like kind of my brain my artistic brain shut down for for a long time I was just kind of like um in survival mode so it's three and a half is a yeah but three and a half is a very important zone of childhood which I remember very well with my wonderful son but there's a lot of growth happening in those brains and bodies yeah bandwidth bandwidth becomes slightly diminished anyone else sharing is that if you've published the novel now what are you working on now ah it was so uh you know I was sorry that's uh after January I couldn't write in line sometimes they ask me for a very easy article and even that I can't write it was too dense too intense and now uh well I sing hi yeah I take my singing lessons again I sing very bad but anyway I want to be a singer now I want to have a new life no I don't know I have a project but it's very difficult for me because all the theater projects are canceled so I I have to write another book I have an idea my publisher accepted this but uh I am afraid for the moment I want to be I want to sing that and it's very interesting because my singing uh coach said to me when you see because we were working on Turkish repertoire and she told me oh all these Turkish notes you are singing it so sadly please work on something else and now we're working on standards of American standards just just standards so it's very swinging and it's very joyful I'm singing very badly and I'm so happy to sing all these things so I was so happy to hear that because you know it's people have rendered that they don't believe they're allowed to sing you know if they're you know if they're if they're not performing they don't have performance reasons that's not what singing used to be my voice teacher used to say this she's like everybody used to sing it was something we all did like going to the bathroom eating and we've sequestered it to like people who and it's an incredibly important aspect of our of our joy actually right you know the same I mean I was just I was a singer growing up actually more than an actor and I miss singing a lot but I know how I feel when I do it and I'm sure it touches the zone in the brain which makes you happy to sing I'm sure of this it does it does it does and it's you know and yeah if you have periods of sadness it's harder to sing yeah birds don't sing when they feel I don't know if you've heard this is I mean now during the pandemic birds are so incredibly vocal it's absolutely amazing my son's doing this whole bird watching portion for school right now and it's just I'm hearing things I never heard before my awareness is so much more peak um anyone else want to share anything they're working on or excited about ideas Torange are you writing it all Torange I'm directing the Trojan women at UC Berkeley's theater department and we're producing it as an audio play so I wish my musical skills were stronger but I'm working with the cast to sort of develops like especially especially the chorus to develop some kind of sound vocabulary that they can I don't know hum or sing throughout the play so that's been kind of interesting trying to find that how are you playing with that I mean is it something you're just coming up with as a group or um well the the chorus has like the students that are in the chorus four out of five have singing experience so they're contributing a lot and they're proposing a lot of ideas so it's a matter of just trying them and choosing what works it's exciting it's exciting I love that play I love that play oh my gosh what a joy okay we only have a few minutes but I'm thinking of something myself this whole concept of this year's theme being choose to challenge if you had to vocalize well actually I'm going to make you vocalize now what do you choose to challenge in relationship to women's day what do you choose to challenge and I will go in the same order we start does make sense so I'm going to say I choose to challenge dominant dominant narratives as an artist especially narratives around female the female experience continue I continue to choose to challenge that that's what I'm going to say that's my pledge for 2021 um and Sarah I'm going to make you go first yeah uh you know the the pandemic and through its multiple stages and now for us at least at work tomorrow's our one-year anniversary of shelter in place um I think a lot of people are reflecting about this time last year uh initially yeah it gave me so much pause because I'm such a social person so full of the calendar is always so full and uh that pause allowed me to hear birds but it also suddenly scared me and I found myself going to yoga more than I ever had before and trying to sit with some of the stillness so that it breaks some of the patterns uh from before I hope I can do that I have found that the more I'm practicing the more I realize how unnerving it is and how the noise and the excitement and the people that I miss very very much was also limiting some reflection so whether it's at this time in life or this quarantine I challenge my own belief about who I am uh and I'm looking to see what this what after quarantine unveils whether I fall right back to old patterns or have this opportunity to break something thank you Sarah thank you Lana yeah it's uh it's a little bit similar in that I choose to challenge um the beliefs or misconceptions or realities that I have come to believe and that hinder me and stop me from showing my light and living fully because I I do think that we are our biggest enemies um and I've just just kind of you know be be and and and and and and as crazy and as wild and as nuts that and just challenge challenge that yeah I love it knock knocking really hard Naima I love all of these um and I guess um I will also challenge um I think the the fact the challenge the notion that my worth is based on what I produce and the way in which I produce it and how I present myself that is seemed as valid to the dominant so I'm gonna challenge that by actually sitting with my being in the stillness I really resonate what you said Sarah and from that place of unknowing what unrestrained art could come from that but not challenge that art has to come from this production um place in this hetero capital you know patriarchy racist system period Sophia oh um this is a super interesting and a kind of scary question to me but I think I'm gonna choose to challenge the limitations that I put on myself and my expectations of myself as a 44 year old woman who's like five three parent biracial like I I I want to not feel limited by each of those things that I can sometimes be like oh well uh like that's a good thing to work on integration integration I was thinking maybe fear I like the title of a fast pin there's movie which is fear it's the soul and uh I think that uh sometimes yeah these all these fear a little bit like all of you you know I am my worst enemy and I'm limiting myself and maybe I'm plenty of fears and fear it's the soul so I want to challenge the fear I think in a general sense of course fear of the totalitarianism fear of the populisms and also my fear of myself yes the micro macro yes oh you people okay challenge because with that fear definitely and the fear of the other challenge the fear of the other who is different and who makes different choices right now especially in a world that's making us really like with or against everything and challenge the separation that that that is between us as human beings challenge that also thank you thank you thank you all so much for your for not only your time but your um um yeah you're just your layered forthright open-hearted nature thank you so much it's very enriching and a really wonderful experience for me personally so thank you I want to say happy happy international women's day to everyone who's been with us or who'll have the chance yes thank you so much