 good afternoon everyone I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which this event is taking place the Massachusetts and the Wampanoag people and pay my respect to their elders past present and future hello welcome to Boston and Emerson College thank you for being here I'm Jamie Galoon I'm a co-founder and the interim director of howl round howl round for those who may not be as familiar is a free and open platform that for theater makers worldwide that amplifies progressive disruptive ideas about the art form and facilitates connection between diverse practitioners we're organized as a commons a commons is a social structure that invites open participation around shared values at howl round our core values are generosity and abundance community and collaboration diverse aesthetics equity inclusivity and accessibility and global citizenship while many of our tools such as the howl round journal howl round TV and the world theater map are primarily online we recognize that nothing can replace the power of in-person conversation since our founding in 2011 we have produced over 20 convenings on a wide range of topics with combined attendance of over 1,000 theater makers I'm going to give you a little bit of context for how this convening came about so as the dust settled after the 2016 US presidential election we began discussing what howl rounds response could be to the overt discord and divisiveness that had become the new normal in the country the late great Grace Lee Boggs once said a revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of mankind and we couldn't agree more so in April 2017 we announced an open call for convening proposals called the howl round challenge we asked the whole theater field to submit ideas for the most urgently needed conversations that demanded in person time with the idea that we could really purpose our resources towards incubating these ideas and seating action to not only make a better theater but a better world we got over 70 proposals and it's no surprise to you that theater in the age of climate change convening quickly rose to the top and that's where we are today it's pretty wild I can't believe it's happening so over the past eight months I and my colleagues that hold at howl round have had the privilege of working with Chantal and Roberta and Elizabeth to core to co-organize this gathering by my calculations we've met over 20 times and spent roughly 50 hours on video calls organizing this meeting so you can really imagine how thrilled we are to be in the room with you today I also want to note that yesterday in an act of convergence was it's the international mayors or international conference of mayors this weekend and yesterday here in Boston and yesterday there was a one-day mayors climate summit that happened like just down the street so it's pretty wild we also want to let you know that we've thought about sustainability and making this event we realize we're creating an impact on our environment we've done our best to purchase everything from sustainable sources and we've also offset the estimated 14.912 tons of co2 emissions caused by this gathering thanks to carbon fund org if you haven't checked them out I'd really recommend it they have this amazing event calculator where you can put in like very specific things and they will come back with you know your offset and how much you need to pay to do that I want to share a little bit more about convening documentation so at how around it's it's extremely important to us that what happens over these three days is shared with the field at large you know we were able to bring about 30 of you here in person it goes without saying that there's so many more people that we wish we could have brought and that there are literally thousands of people that we want in this conversation so we're really asking you to be delegates in this experience and to bring the learning and conversations that we have here back to your communities with you we're doing our part to make this convening virtually accessible so you'll notice the cameras you'll notice that I'm speaking into a microphone we're live streaming most of the convening on how around TV so people can tune in online in real time or they can access the video archive shortly after each event whenever we are live streaming we're gonna ask that you speak into a mic to ensure good audio quality and we thank you in advance for the patients that this may require we have planned for this we have people running mics but we recognize it's a little out of the normal practice in addition to video documentation we'll be taking notes throughout the whole gathering both in the full group sessions and also in the working groups these notes are going to be used in the creation of our official convening report which we've commissioned to have MJ Hopper sat right so please we ask that you you know remain candid and just understand that it's really important that we capture all of the ideas that are generated over this weekend and that's why we're taking notes we'll also be taking photos at various times and I want to say that this level of documentation and more importantly this whole gathering would not be possible without an amazing team of how around staff so Stokely Vijay Ramona Abigail and our summer student workers Carolina Dante Victoria and Shasha if you're part of the convening producing team can you raise your hand right now and can we give you all a round of applause in advance I also want to shout out Michael and John up in the booth who are like keeping the sound and lights running and these are also folks that you can direct questions to throughout the weekend so if you are wondering anything about Boston or anything about what's happening while you're here feel free to ask any of us and last but not least I'd like to thank the Bar Foundation and specifically the director of Arts and Creativity Sansan Wong who should be with us tomorrow without whom this event would not be possible I'd also like to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts for their support of how around so before we get going I want to propose some meeting agreements for your consideration for our time together the first is pretty simple we ask that you silence your cell phone or put it on vibrate and we understand that you know people use cell phones to take notes you may want to tweet something out into the universe at some point that's okay we do ask though that you are present with us here we ask for your attention this weekend and secondly we just ask you take care of yourself if you need to take a break take it if you need to run to the restroom they're in the lobby right there do it you know take take the time that you need to be fully present and I want to propose some less sort of practical or concrete meeting agreements this is the six stances which is adapted from Alan brisken and the collective wisdom initiative and I'm just going to read through all six to start so one deep listening or opening with all of one's critical and creative faculties to what is being expressed to suspension of certainty or an embrace of the risk of not already knowing the answer three seeking diverse perspectives or gathering and valuing perspectives from all those configuring the group for respect for others cultivating a sense of mutual commitment to the common purpose of the group five welcoming all that arises or an embrace of both the unpleasant and pleasant emotions stirred by a gathering of this kind and six trust in the transcendent or an acceptance of the collective acuity that might manifest when a group of individuals come together in common purpose so I'd like to ask first off does anyone have any agreements that they would like to add to this list if you do please raise your hand and we'll bring you a mic okay can we agree to these agreements can everyone give me a thumbs up if you agree great thank you so much so without further ado I'm gonna hand it over to Chantal Bilito the instigator for this entire event thank you and I'm so so glad you're all here today and I would like to do something in the spirit of Katie Pearl's short play appreciation with some of you know and some of you don't know she wrote this play for climate change theater action and one of the first thing first thing she asked because we all came I mean I've heard several stories of how you know rushed we were trying to get here some of you miss planes and was complicated we're all here so can we give each other like us together a parlorious round of applause just for being here thank you and thank you Jamie and thank you how around for hosting us so I'm a playwright I am the artistic director of the Arctic cycle and I'm also a curator of a blog series on how round called theater in the age of climate change we we are in our fourth year and the series is published twice a year in the spring and in the fall of each year and it's a week long every time it's all archived on the website so if you haven't seen it you can Google or you can search for theater in the age of climate change on how round and you will have all of the articles there when the how round challenge was announced I reached out to Elizabeth and to Roberta and asked them if they wanted to write a proposal and do this with me because it wasn't something I could I feel like could take on on my own and of course it's always more fun to do something with friends and with more than one person's idea at the table. Elizabeth and I have moderated a panel two years ago at a short panel on artists and climate change at a mobility meeting at the Siegel Center and Roberta have known each other we've known each other for several years and the three of us also organize a convening in New York City for a New York based artist about two years ago also to talk about theater and climate change so we knew we had this interest in common and we knew we worked well together and so I'm really glad we were able to do this to organize this together. Our reason for convening this meeting was to amplify the conversation that's already happening on how round and elsewhere around theater and climate change so we felt like we wanted to the conversation to be bigger louder more spread out and so we thought okay if we convene these people together maybe we have a chance to do that. As we explain in one of the emails that was sent to you this is not going to be structured like a typical conference where we have feature speakers and panels and audience on the other side we really wanted given the urgency of the climate situation we wanted to get to action as quickly as possible so we started with the premise that we're creating a working group so all of us over the next three years three days maybe next three years over the next three days we're going to work as a collective while we're here in this in this convening. We also hope that what we can create will go out into the world and continue to grow after the three days we spend here together. The fact that you're all here in this room is not random we spent a long time thinking about who should be here and one thing that was several things were very important to us in putting the group together. We wanted a group that was geographically and culturally diverse of course it would have been very easy to you know invite all people from New York because there's such a concentration there but we wanted the whole country to be represented and we wanted to extend and invite people from other countries to to enlarge the conversation again. We wanted also to be culturally diverse to represent a multitude of networks and experiences and practices and we wanted a group that was far-reaching and in a position to make things happen for ourselves but also for others so people who can then go out after these three days and can bring some of what happens here to their own communities and continue to expand the group and the conversation. We hope that this is not a one-off although we have no concrete plans about what's going to happen after this we hope that it's just the beginning and of course what happens after will depend on what happens here so right now we're really focused on making the best of this time that we have together but and also we the the the belief driving all of this is that we really believe that artists have a role to play in addressing climate change and we want to make sure that we use all the people in tools that we have to make sure that that happens and if we're successful you know maybe we can convene again next year or at some other time like we'll take the pulse of what's needed after this and then decide how we can go forward now for a little bit of context we I'm going to show you a carbon countdown clock which is coming soon which was published here we go so this clock shows how many tons of carbon we've already spent which is the section on the left that says 74% and how many tons we can still spend which is the little section that says 25% if we want to meet the 2 degrees Celsius mark and that's assuming so okay so this scenario is it shows that three quarters of our carbon budget we've already spent so technically we have only 25% that we could still spend and that's assuming that emissions are stable which they're not they're increasing and also two degrees is the upper limit you know people scientists now are talking about how we should it would be really be really better if we stayed below 1.5 degrees if you look at the bottom you can see that we have a little bit over 18 years to make that happen so when we talk about urgency this is it like we have less than 18 years to decarbonize the economy if we want to meet the 2 degrees Celsius goal up until now we've all been doing great work but mostly in isolation everybody is doing stuff separately and there's no way to bring all of this together and we're we like in bringing in creating this convening we're thinking is there a way that we can do greater things or that we can amplify each other's work by being able to meet and talk about what we do and maybe think about new ideas we normally like in other situations this stuff would emerge organically but we feel we don't have the time so we want to push the emergence you know make that emerge a little bit faster I also want to show you you may have seen in the lobby but prior to this meeting we sent you an email asking for your definition of climate change and then we created a Stokely created a word cloud for us that brings together all of our responses and the thing I find interesting is that human seems to be what was discussed more so definitely in this group like we know that humans are an important part of it and I feel that that's a narrative that maybe we need to put forward even more because a lot of time in the general population people think nature right they think oh it's the environment but it's also a lot about people and then species and it is another big one so us and the other P the other creatures with whom we share the planet and interestingly earth is much smaller and I'm assuming that it's because I'm making an assumption here but I'm assuming that all of us here know that the earth can recover right the earth has recovered there has been five mass extensions before and somehow like we're here in a very advanced species the life has managed to evolve again and even in more sophisticated forms so what says what's a stake when we when we talk about the urgency it's about it's a lot about the human species and I want to say that I'm not personally this is going to sound weird but I'm not personally invested in whether humans make it or not but I'm invested because I think what if there's something better you know what if there's another species that replaces us that's better like why do the dinosaurs are gone like why do we think that we cannot be gone and be replaced by something better but I am very invested in minimizing suffering and in being our best selves in the face of this crisis like I'm really deeply invested in dignity like how can we face this with dignity and for me dignity means action so I want to say that I really believe in every one of you and I believe in what we can do together and I hope that this is I look forward to working with you over this weekend and I hope this is a time where we can see great things emerged together and on that note I'm going to pass it on to Roberta who's going to tell you a little bit more about how we're going to work together this weekend. Hello everyone my name is Roberta Leviteau I reached out I hope to most of you to say hello and I am the co-founder and director of this network of individual artists around the world called Theater Without Borders. I can tell you more about it at some other point but basically I'll just say we're like a book club at the local library. We operate very much in harmony with some of the values that Jamie mentioned generosity, conversation and so when Chantal reached out it was an honor to lend energy and time in support of this important topic. I've been a practicing artist myself for about 30 years but now I basically do producing and facilitating of projects. I'm really quite a latecomer to the climate change awareness so I stand in awe and respect of many of you here who have been dedicating your lives and your life's work to do this incredible work that you're doing. We're going to frame these days for you as facilitators. We have as Jamie said spent innumerable hours coming up with a framework and we're doing it with our intentions with as many good thoughts as we could possibly put together to think about what might be a good framework for our work together but we recognize that you also arrive with very very powerful intentions. Intentions that you've been expressing in your work and in your lives for a long time so we want to respect those intentions and we ask you to please feel free to speak up to us and tell us over the days if your intentions are being included in the intentions that we have designed for you. So we hope that this framework of days will highlight your work and your ideas and that we can build some kind of a community together. You are here because you've accepted an invitation to be part of a group of activists who are acting beyond their own artistic practice. There are many many artists who we wish were sitting in the circle with us. We also recognize that you are a group of activists with coming from a diverse geography, coming from diverse visions of the philosophies, the architecture, the infrastructure that will assist the artists that you are and all the artists that we know to do their work better and more effectively. We hope that this weekend will be a place of peer learning for you that you'll learn from your colleagues that will learn from you. That it will be a mechanism to build long-term relationships amongst all of you, long term. To look at what lies beyond what's wrong and to imagine what's possible. We had so many conversations about dreaming the thing we haven't dreamed yet to have the impact that we long to have on the timetable that Chantel has laid out for us. We hope that it's a space where you feel welcome and comfortable to generate ideas together. We believe that this is a rare opportunity for us all to work in collaboration. You come from far, far many places over long times. We know that you're already creating great events and activities in your own context. And so what we're inviting you to do is to imagine ideas that you could not do on your own. We're going to ask you again and again what could you not do by yourself? What can you only do with the help of those who are in the room with you or possibly people who we know in our various networks? There are many challenges now and ahead, but we hope that you'll join us in using a yes and principle and that we'll use our conversations to build upon and catalyze way beyond all of the amazing efforts that are already happening in this room. So thank you very much. And I would like to turn the mic over to Elizabeth. I was going to say good morning. Good afternoon. Buenas tardes y boa tarde a todos. Forever grateful for the human and material resources that have brought us together today. And I wanted just to make a couple comments and welcome you. This group is composed of many people who still don't know one another and that was very exciting for us when we thought about who to invite and who to bring into this gathering because again it's easy to call your best friends and have a good get together and a good conversation with them. But for us expanding and amplifying the work that we do has to do with creating with growing new networks, new tendrils in that network. So that's one of the exciting things about this three days together. And we see this gathering as a grouping of a grouping of delegates and representatives that will go on back into your communities and spread this work and then come back to the working group hopefully in the future and inform what your communities need. And that way we're in constant dialogue about how to move our work forward collectively. And when we begin planning this gathering and understanding the task of assembling this group, we wanted to, you know, all of the diversities that we needed to consider when creating this invitation. We also realized that as the organizing group, Shantel, Roberta and I, that we were three white women and that and in thinking about these diversities that that was also creating a certain kind of framing for how we how we set the agenda and how we prioritized the structure of our time together. And so we deliberately decided not to bring in an outside facilitator and that we decided at the end it would be best to call on the wisdom in the room and to do the facilitating share that that chore, not chore but share that charge. And so that's how we moved forward. And I think I know I speak for myself and I think I speak for Roberta and Shantel when I say that the work of undoing racism is paramount to the work of climate and environmental justice. And that if it feels like we need to have more conversations about that that we can make space for that in this room. And we're departing from a premise of urgency, not panic, but urgency as Shantel pointed out with the clock. And we think that moving forward with constructive purpose is the best way to use the time that we have this weekend. So we're going to be playing with the tension between the theoretical and the the practical. So we consider on and have great philosophical conversations. I'm certain of that. But how do we think strategically? And that's what we want to kind of focus on for most of our time together while having some great conversations anyways. So I was gonna say they they those that sit in opposition to this paradigm shift that we were all desiring. Those people that are in positions of power and that have more money who don't want these conversations to be wide and public. They're they have more money and they're sitting in more positions of power than we are right now. And we can know that look at that squarely and decide that we're going to not be satisfied with the status quo, and that we want to move our work forward in spite of that in spite of those very, very difficult odds that we're facing right now. And we need to stand for this work in a strategic way that brings our collective resources, craft and true power to bear in our work on all kinds of scales. So that is a call and part of this invitation this weekend. We know you're already doing this and we believe we can further this by effectively using our collective energies. So over the course of the days together, we're going to have guided conversations, we're going to have down and dirty working groups and some brainstorming sessions and it's been designed to be generative and to lead towards actionable ideas that have impacts and then emerge from diverse and plural visions. So this is again, kind of circling back to this idea of what's practical, what can we plan together? How can we use our collective energies to move our work forward through the arts? And it's also really participatory. Obviously, everybody, everyone is sitting in a different place on the extrovert introvert scale and but we want it to be generative and have the work emerge from your idea. So that requires everybody's participation. And we really hope this is a way to till fertile soil for more collaborations. I've heard a lot of people inside conversations say, I'm so glad this is happening because I feel really lonely or I felt like I felt like I was all alone. I felt like I was just speaking into an echo chamber for so many years of this work. And so this is an opportunity for us to create new community to find our tribe to be together doing that work. And we don't want to pressure any one of you to make commitments that you don't want to make, right? But we are pretty sure that you're here because you want to take action. So we hope that by the end of this weekend, there'll be some ideas, projects, possibilities that will emerge and that folks will step into the role of leadership. And again, I'm just so grateful that you're all here. And we're going to have time for introductions a little later. But first, we're going to do a movement activity. And I'm going to lead us in that movement activity. And we've strategically placed some of these movement sessions in between our talking sessions. So if you will join me, I'm going to invite everybody to stand up. You can place every what's what's your stuff on the floor under your chair. And I'm going to ask you I'm going to demonstrate and ask everybody to turn around and look at your chair. And then if you need to use your chair as a support, you can. But I'm going to ask you to bend over and look through your legs into the inner part of the circle. And it's going to look like this. So you can go ahead and let your arms hang down. Again, if this feels stressful or uncomfortable in the back of your legs, you can use the chair to support some of your upper body weight. So it's not so tough. Let your head hang down. Let your arms loose. You can they'll do a little micro bend in your leg if you need that. And the blood is flowing from your heart to your head. And this position of inversion is a great way to kind of toss things on their head. It's a metaphoric practice for you to be looking at things from a really different perspective, and to maybe see the impossible as possible. And if you're, you know, in the yoga way, or if you're a couple at Easter, this is also a strategic position. So you can see your adversary. And they don't know you're looking at them. So the inversion also allows your heart to be above your head. And so we can stop leading with our heads all the time and let our heart energy be the protagonist. If you're ready to come up, just kind of roll up gently. And we're a lot of people, and I was hoping that we could do an exercise against the wall, but we'll save that for later. So if anybody feels during the weekend, like you need to do a handstand or do, you know, do an inversion, you can just do it right on that wall. Thank you, Elizabeth. So we are going to do some introductions. And we are going to do them pretty specifically. And they are going to look something like this. We are going to ask everybody to say your name and your pronouns, where you're from, where you traveled from today or yesterday to get here. Talk about your primary affiliation. I recognize that people have like many, many things that they do. Please choose like one or two things to say in like a sentence. And then three words that describe your work. You could be personal, could be professional. So I'm going to model it and we're going to pass the mic around the circle. And when it's your turn, I just ask that you stand up and address the room. So good afternoon. I'm Jamie Galoon. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I am from Minnesota. I traveled from Jamaica Plain to get here today. I work for HowlRound. And three words that describe me are dreamer, producer, connector. Hello, my name is Chantal Bilodeau. I use she, her, hers. I am originally from Montreal in Canada. Traveled from New York yesterday. I am the artistic director of the Arctic Cycle. And three words are playwright, Arctic climate. Hello again. I'm Elizabeth Dowd. And I was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. And I traveled here from Brazil via Miami. And my primary affiliation is with Clime Maccazzi in Miami, Florida. And I'm also a practicing artist. And I three words would be open-hearted. My work warrior, flexible. I'm Marta Kern. She, hers. See, I don't do this other thing. Let's see. I'm originally from born in Ohio, then Connecticut, in New York. And I came from Boulder, Colorado. Just where I've lived for a long time, primary affiliation is eco arts connections. And three words, which is really hard. Scout, visionary slash delusional, and supportive. Hi, good afternoon, everybody. My name is MJ Halberstadt. My pronouns are he, him, his. I escaped Long Island when I was 18. And I live in Boston. I'm two miles west of here. So I took the sea line nice and quick. My primary affiliation, I am a playwright. And I'm an affiliated faculty member here at Emerson. And the three words I would use include Antarctic, gay, and irreverent. Hi, I'm Stokely. I use the pronouns they and them. I'm from both Boston and Philadelphia. I claim both his home. Today I traveled from Jamaica Plain in Boston, take the orange line. I am the HowlRound Fellow. So that's my primary affiliation. And three words that describe my work are collectivity, connectivity, and queer. Thank you. My name is Georgina Escobar. I go, she, her, her's thing. I'm from Sierra Juarez, Chihuahua is where I'm from. I grew up in Zacatecas, but I've been border and here for a very long time via New York here presently. Oh, that's the next one. I came here from New York. I'm a playwright, mostly, but also a visual artist or visual creator painter. And three words, I mean, animal whisperer, that's kind of on right, for sure. And creator and maker, I don't know, I think so. Good afternoon. My name is Joy Shah. I go by, she, her, her's was born in Mobile, Alabama, grew up in New York. And I live and blessed to call New Orleans home. But I came here today from New York with another golf is possible collaborative and story shift at working films. And I'm going to say three words is community accountable storyteller. My name is April Merlot. I usually her pronouns. I'm from North Carolina, Colorado, New Mexico and itinerant parents. I traveled here from Northampton, Massachusetts. My primary affiliation is Hampshire College, where I teach stuff. I don't know, I'm a historian. Three words that describe me in my work. Educator, connector, analyzer. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Cicada, a juice on doctor. And I, I come from Brazil. And I just arrived yesterday from Sao Paulo, direct to Chicago and then here. And my primary affiliation with the University of San João Del Rey, and their laboratory of eco poetics is a group. It's a performing group that I am leading. And three words that describe me. Difficult, but I am, I, I'm a researcher, I'm a performer. And I just work in Brazil, the maximum that I can about the social justice. Catherine Botrell, I'm from, she has, she has, yes. And then I come from London for this exciting participation for this convening. And I work with Julie's Bicycle, which is an organization that works pan arts, across all the arts, especially theater. And I would describe three words cheerful, determined and scientist. Hello, my name is Kyoko Yoshida. She hers. Originality from Kyoto, Japan, based in San Francisco, where I traveled from. Primary affiliation is US Japan cultural trade network, which I founded, founding director. Three words would be producer slash enabler. And then collaborator and challenger. Hello, my name is Xavier Cortada. And I traveled from Miami where my husband and I live. And that's also where I'm from, although I was born in Albany to two Cuban refugees. My primary affiliation is an eco artist that has a studio at a beautiful botanical garden in Miami. And my three words are participatory eco art. Hi, everybody. My name is Robert Duffley. I use he him pronouns. I grew up in Tennessee and Georgia. And I live here in Boston, just a couple stops away on the green line. And my primary affiliation is with the American Repertory Theater, which is the professional theater in residence at Harvard, but I'm also in faculty here at Emerson. And in my work as a dramaturg, I strive to be a catalyzer of civic spaces. Hi, everybody. My name's Alyssa Schmidt. I use she her hers. I grew up in northern California. I traveled this morning from a forested area in central mass on the commuter rail. My primary affiliation is Boston Conservatory at Berkeley. I'm a professor there. And created an eco performance class that's going very well. And I'm also a connectivity associate at Central Square Theater for their Catalyst Collaborative Projects, which bring together science and theater. Three words. Inquiry, eco dramaturg. I wrote the other one down. Sustenance. Ina Hematza, Health Education Director. My name is Elaina Eagle-Shield. My pronouns are she, her, mom. I come from Standing Rock, which is the North Dakota, my reservation borders North and South Dakota. But I come from North Dakota side. I am the Health Education Director, but I'm also a fellow Native American Community Academy fellow and just other groups that I'm a part of. And three words that describe me. I said in my language, leader, I love to laugh and enjoy the work that I do. And love. Hello, my name is Teddy Roger. I prefer she, her, hers, please. I'm originally from a small village in Pennsylvania called Unionville. But I came here today from Washington DC, where I work with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, which is housed in Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. And I would describe myself in my work, empathy, optimism, and support. Hi, everyone. My name is Anna Lisa Diaz. My pronouns are she, her, and hers. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, which is the traditional lands of the Seneca Nation. And I claim also India, Goa India as my roots through my dad. And I traveled here today from Washington DC, which is Biscataway Nation territory. And my primary affiliation is with the Welders. It's a playwrights collective in Washington DC. I'm a producing playwright. And then the three words that describe me and my work, I think might be justice, hope, and possibility. It's not true. That is not my name. This is my, in my language, this means, how are you all? My name is Maaza Wurku. I'm from Ethiopia. You can pronounce me as she and or hers. I'm from Ethiopia. I traveled from Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia and the seat of African Union. My primary affiliation is an independent writer and director. Three words. I'm a challenger, creative and sensitive. Hi, I'm Ramona Estrauski. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I'm originally from Connecticut, and I traveled here today from Dorchester, just down the red line. And the associate producer here at Howell round. And I am a practical emotional dramaturg. I'm Rob Davies. He, although with my fascination with Downton Abbey, I always thought I would make a good earl. So your lordship works as well. I'm traveled here from Utah yesterday, Utah State University, although I'm originally from the Black Hills of South Dakota. I'm in the physics department at Utah State University, but it's a co appointment also with the Cain College of the Arts there, where I'm doing science and critical science communication. Three words, I think mountains, knowledge, holistic. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is David House. I use the pronouns he, him, his. I am from Tennessee originally, which I didn't know Robert. And I traveled from Milton, Massachusetts, which is about 10 minutes down the road. My primary affiliations are with both Arts Emerson and Howell round here in Boston. And three words that describe my work intentional, unapologetic, and joyful. Hi, I'm Abbey Sheikh. I'm from India, various places. I grew up in a different place. And now I live somewhere else. I'm here from Bangalore. Yeah, I traveled from Bangalore. My primary work is that of a playwright and a theater director. And three words that would describe, I think, our storyteller, collaborator, and I'm the father of a two and a half year old beautiful girl. So father, primarily, I'm a father. Yeah. Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Yuna Chowdhury. She, her, hers. I'm from the Himalayas. I traveled here from the island of Manhattan. My primary affiliation is New York University, Department of English, Drama, and Environmental Studies. My three words are radical, interspecies, thinker. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Schwartz. She, her, hers. I'm from Los Angeles. I traveled from Los Angeles. My primary affiliation is the University of California at Los Angeles. And also the Marshallese Educational Initiative in Arkansas. And let's see. Three words that describe me in my work. Musician, provocation and critical optimism. Hello, I'm David Dower. He, him, his. Born in Rhode Island, lived many years in California and traveled this morning from just down the road in Ashmont, which is a neighborhood in Dorchester. Primary affiliation, co-founder of HowlRound and artistic director of ArtsEmerson. Three words that describe me in my work would be theater, community and transformation. Hi, I'm Vijay Mathew. My pronouns are he, his, him. And I grew up in Texas. And I traveled, I live here. My affiliation is with HowlRound, a co-founder of HowlRound. And three words are idealistic, adapter and vegan. Hi, my name is Abigail Vega. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I am from San Antonio, Texas. And I came here today from Jamaica Plain, although I don't live there. But it is a nice Airbnb. I, my primary affiliation is with the Latinx Theater Commons, which is a program of HowlRound here. And three words that describe my work, these are not three words, but connections enabler. I like that. Solutions and a digital organizer. Hi, everyone. My name is Lanny Fu. I am originally from Changchun, China. I grew up mostly in Virginia. And now I am based in New York City, which is where I came from this morning, very early this morning. I, oh, my primary affiliation is that I am the co-director of Superhero Clubhouse, which is an organization based in New York City that is a collective of artists and scientists working at the intersection of theater and climate. And three words that describe you and your work. Theater, equity, hope. Peterson Toscano, he, him, his. I traveled from my home in Central Rural Pennsylvania, but I'm originally from New York. I am an independent queer, Quaker theatrical performance activist. And the three words are sex, God, comedy. I wish those are my words. My name is Allison Carey. She her hers. I'm from Connecticut. I traveled from Ashland, Oregon to get here. My primary affiliations are with as I'm the co-founder and resident former resident playwright of Cornerstone Theater Company. And I am currently the director of American Revolutions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The three words that popped into my head when we were first asked the question were animal, vegetable and mineral. But I decided not to dodge the question. And so my three words are caretaking, community and equity. Hi, my name is Lydia Fort and she her hers. I'm from New York City and I came here from Atlanta, Georgia. My primary affiliation is with Emory University. And my three words if I could steal one is interspecies, world creator and non-western. Hi, everybody. Thank you for your patience. My name is Julia Levine and I use she her her pronouns. I am from St. Louis, Missouri. I now live in New York City. My primary affiliation is as artistic producer of the Arctic Cycle. And my three words are persistent, sponge and food. Hi, I'm Roberta Levito. She her hers. I'm from Los Angeles, California. But the last time I left home was April 27. And since then, I've been through New York, Addis Ababa, Marrakesh, New York, here to Boston. And so I'm sympathetic to the jet lag. Primary affiliation is with theater without borders, but also the Sundance Institute Theater programs, international initiatives. Three words that describe my work. You and me in my work would be connector, cedar, and global citizen. We're not quite done. Hi, everyone. I got caught on the camera. My name is Dante Flores. I use he him his pronouns. I'm from Dallas, Texas. I came here from my apartment in East Boston. That's where I live. Primary affiliation is I'm a student here at Emerson College, and I'm a student worker here at Howl Round. I'm a staff assistant. Three words that describe me and my work. Literature, paranoid, developing. Hello, everyone. My name is Sheinez. I go by Shasha. I'm from France. I come travel from Dorchester today. I'm doing an internship all around. And the three words describe me will be passionate, love, and bread. Hi, I'm Carolina. I'm from Venezuela. I'm a student worker with Howl Round and Emerson College film student. And my three words would be compassion, collaboration, and optimism. Thank you, everyone. Can we give ourselves a round of applause? Okay, great. So I would like to ask everyone to spend the next minute, turn to the person to your left, and, you know, reintroduce yourself and take a minute to find one thing you have in common, like come to the next person. Wait, oh no, this doesn't work. Does it? Shit. Okay. Um, figure out the pairs. Yeah, can we do that? Thank you. Okay. A minute, starting now. Find one thing you have in common. 15 seconds. Okay, time's up. Has everyone found something in common? Yeah. Okay, does anyone want to share what you found in common? Raise your hand. We are both Aquarius. We've both eaten alligator. And we both have one full blood brother. Anyone else want to share with the group? Is that it? So we're both producers. I had no idea. I mean, you're a producer. Yes. In theater. And what we both do is we produce, she uses talent, and I use people in community who are bringing talent, right? So I work with the regular community to produce events, and she does it in on theater. And was the other thing we had? We were confused at the beginning. And we both had no idea what we were supposed to do. And we live in coastal communities, that too, right? So we're all going to drown. Thank you for sharing. Okay, so one more. We talked about the ways that both of us are inspired and motivated by questions. And we tend to lead, how would you say it? I would say that MJ uses questions kind of as a central methodology, so to speak, for writing his plays where he's exploring a question, he has lots of different characters kind of duking out different opinions about that particular question. And what I like to do when we bring together artists and scientists and other folks is ask them each to come up with a question that they're interested in exploring. And when we come from the artist side, we'll ask that question, then we'll find scientists who are studying that particular question, or we'll do it from the scientist side and ask what artists might be interested in exploring this difficulty or challenge. This will blow your mind. It sort of blew my mind. Jessica did her PhD at NYU, where I teach, and her advisor happened to be the son of the man who was my advisor when I did my PhD at Columbia. My advisor was Michael Beckerman, Bernard Beckerman, her advisor was Michael Beckerman, and we found this out in one minute of talking to each other. Wow, that's wild. Okay, we're going to do one more round of this, but I'd ask you to get up from your seat and find someone who you maybe did not get to meet in the mingling portion before we got started and do the same thing. You have, I'll give you one and a half minutes since you have to find someone. 15 seconds standing. It's fine if we stay standing. Anyone want to share what you found? Can someone share what they found? Not anyone want to. How about Anna Lisa and I realized we both went to Boston University and we were both English majors and theater minors, and we were we overlapped for two years without knowing each other. It was hilarious. So we just realized that we both share a kind of intense relationship with Zelda Fitchhander. And Zelda was the founder of Arena Stage and a deep mentor of mine, but she was also the chair of the Graduate Acting Department when she was chairing undergraduate drama at NYU. Anyone else? One more. Doesn't have to be profound. Alice and I share a mutual love of cucumbers. I offered to bring her my next crop. Okay, great. Thank you all. We're actually going to stay on our feet. So we're going to continue to get to know a little bit more about who is in this room, and we're going to do some group mapping. Okay, the first quest, the first mapping we're going to do has to do with where you come from. So we're going to imagine that this room is a map of the world. And we're going to imagine that North America is here, South America here, Africa here, Europe there, Asia over here, please map where you're from. Define it how you want to define it. Okay, so it looks like we have a density and what looks to be North America over here. Anyone want to share where they landed and why? There was a level of interpretation in this question. Yes? So I think I'm like this, like straddling it, you know, so that's right. Okay, anyone else want to share? Where I was from, right? And then we said, Well, what interpret that way? So originally, I mean, my mitochondrial DNA was right here just south of where you're from, right around these parts. And about 60,000 years ago, I think that DNA walked this way. And then it crossed the Bering straits over there. And then it landed over here. But I'm originally from here, like, right here, like Africa. Thank you. Yes. All right. So I was I was making a joke. I was like, Well, what if you're a sovereign nation inside of a nation? And what if we encompass all North Dakota and across the medicine line into Canada? And then I start like him start thinking, where our people believe we come from is the Star Nation. And so we come from the stars. And then we reemerged from Wind Cave. So I'm from Black Hills area. Thank you. Okay, next question. And for this one, I'm going to say, think about where you traveled from today. Okay, to get here or yesterday. Assess your location in the biosphere. Imagine that we're like on a line, like a line here. And imagine this side of the room is a super heavily urbanized. And this side of the room is extremely rural. And the midpoint would be, you know, interzone or a little bit of both. Put yourself on the spectrum. New York might be in a different room. Okay, Ken. Joyisha, where what what from New York? Okay, so we have New York over here. Can people popcorn out a few of the other places over here that you're representing? Okay, DC. So Utah, but the surprises people Utah is the most urban state in the country. Almost all of our population lives in a very narrow strip. That's that's very dense. And most of the state is basically empty. I recently moved to Boston's North End neighborhood. And I'm standing kind of outside the line, because it's very urban area. But I recently learned through a really cool book called gaining ground that less than 200 years ago, the street I live on was part of a pond, a tidal pond that got so polluted that the city filled it in and turned it into housing. Let's continue down this line. Other folks want to share? I spend time in a really urban area, which is Miami Miami Beach. And I also spend time in a very rural area in an island in northeastern Brazil. And but I'm right I'm sitting right on the edge of the ocean. So I feel like I'm looking out into the expanse of the water and then just sitting on the very edge of the continent. Thank you. Continuing down the line. So I come from the stunning rock reservation, which is in the middle of nowhere and nobody knew we existed until the water's life movement. So really rule. And I come from Saint-Jean Del Rey. It's in Brazil. It's in the middle of nowhere. And that's why I'm here. It's only 75,000 people living where I live. Okay, now we're going to imagine the room is a quadrant. So imagine there's like, I know I remember I can't remember which axis is X or Y, which shows you how long it's been since I took math. Okay, so imagine it's a quadrant and this quadrant is artist. This quadrant is educator. This quadrant is scientist. And this quadrant is cultural organizer. Place yourself how you identify using these four quadrants. I noticed there are some people straddling. Anyone want who wants to speak about where they landed and why? I notice we have a lot of artists in the room. Yes. So I'm kind of in the middle just because I'm in the middle of doing all this stuff. I'm not a scientist per se, but half of my life or quarter of it anyway, scientists and I'm an organizer and I was a dancer of all I dance around a little bit. And then I can't remember the other one, but educator, definitely. So there you have it. Thank you. Yep, over here. I landed over here. I feel like I'm an educator and I'm trying to learn a lot about science. I love the Liz Lerman quote I am fueled by my ignorance. Actually, it was a physicist who said that and she was in conversation with him. And I stood here because I'm hopeful that my students become, you know, the advocates and the artists and then I can look upon what they're doing. I'm a human geographer. So I've always been fascinated with the interaction of people and the natural world. And in the last 10 years, I've also seen myself as very much an action researcher and came from an energy background, but has been working with the arts now for 10 11 years to really help take kind of some of those methods and ideas and to place them and to support people in understanding the environmental impacts. So I would say I'm definitely kind of job for about people and places and process. Yes. So I'm a physicist who does science education through the arts. So I think I've got my coordinates about as close as I could get. And I would say where my weakness really is is in the in the my I don't know if weakness is the right word, but I just don't do much. And I don't I think I don't do it because I don't do it very well. It's not my natural habitat is cultural and organizing. So I I felt like being right in the intersection because I really my practice as an artist is a fine, literally by all four points. I mean, they're indisputable. I mean, they're one thing, right? It's all it's all I do. But all I am as an artist, except I'm outside of this thing because the art world doesn't even see it that way because the role of an artist is to do those four things. And a lot of the art world things are supposed to be in this quadrant. And I think all of us who are artists in this room need to understand that you don't need to call yourself a scientist or an educator or a cultural, you know, a convener. You're an artist. That's what artists do. So that's I think the essence. I hope of this entire workshop. This is what an artist is anyone else? Okay, next question. Okay, we're going to imagine again, a line a spectrum running kind of through the middle of the room. And on this side is personally affected by climate change. And on the other end is not personally affected by climate change. Place yourself where you feel you are. Okay, can we hear from can we hear from Una on the on that end of the spectrum? Well, I hadn't intended to be the most extreme, but I wanted to just, you know, convey how important and encompassing subject this is in my life and how important it is to me emotionally, subjectively, I began to work on theater and ecology. 28 years ago, I wrote the first article on theater and ecology, in a special issue of the Yale Theater Journal, devoted to theater and ecology, when you know, nobody had started talking about that. And, you know, so I've been one of these lonely people for a while, until I started meeting people like Chantal and Roberta. And it's just meant so much to me to, you know, to be here in this room. But it's an all encompassing subject for me. Thank you. I'm just here speaking for the forests of the Pacific Northwest. When I was placing myself, I was thinking about I just moved to Northampton from Miami last year. And part of my motivation for moving was feeling the like the literal like there's the water, the sea level rise felt like it was actually impacting the decisions I was making about my life and whether I wanted to buy a house and whether what kinds of choices I was making in a really practical way. So I didn't go all the way over there because I left Miami. And I don't feel the same urgency where I am in Northampton. Right behind you. I could actually without if there were more room, I would probably have moved further right. But and it's because I have a three year old granddaughter. And the 18 year clock was really I wasn't sure where to put myself. I live in Southern California, which is a desert, except now it's incredibly humid from April to October. And so we're becoming tropical in the sense of hot humid weather instead of dry desert weather. We've had the Pacific blob. So I feel impacted. But I also just traveled through Ethiopia and Morocco, where people reminded me that 80% of the population are farmers. And those countries, now that you can tell us more, but those countries are both starting to really feel the impact of the drying out and concern about that. So I have a more immediate sense that maybe I'm not very impacted at all. I just have to turn on, you know, fan. Thank you. You mentioned that you have a granddaughter. And that's what prompted you to be over here. I do not have children. And that is a very conscious decision that I made and continue to make because I have the privilege to make it. And it's because of climate. I just want to say one thing, and I probably start crying, but hopefully not. 40 or so years ago when I first came to Colorado, I remember, and I was a hippie girl, I hitched up this mountain road to where I was living. And I got a ride from a scientist, Boulder, Colorado is supposedly has the highest density of climate scientists in the world, because of all the federal labs and centers there. And I was starting to hear about climate change 40 years ago. And I said, So what is the deal here? Because you guys study this and what what do you really know? And the guy said, Well, I don't really know, we don't know that much for sure. But what we think we can say is that of all the things that might happen, there will be increased frequency and intensity of storms. This was 40 years ago. And so that if you are questioning whether of storms, 40, yeah, increased frequency and intensity of storms. And that's one of the things that we're seeing for sure now. And where I live in Boulder, you know, our thing is is fires, because of drought. But it also is floods. And it also is pestilence, as someone pointed out to me, because we have the Rocky Mountain pine beetle. And because they're dying, they're able because it's so warm, they're able to regenerate multiple generations in a single time period, a single season as opposed to dying off in one. So a lot of what we don't know about climate change is we're not noticing because we're in urban areas and we don't see, we don't know what's happening at the front lines of folks who have subsistence living on the land and the sea and their houses are falling into the ocean. So I I'm sorry to be so emotional about this, but it's a deep concern. And I think that for the folks who aren't as aware of climate change happening is they just don't know quite yet how to listen and look. So if we can just do one thing here, and to give to give people a sense of agency that there can be a shift, and we have the power to do it, that would be great. Thanks. Thanks for sharing. I just I think it is affecting urban areas just to be clear, it's both and right. I live in New Orleans, and we are certainly affected by climate change as is, you know, Puerto Rico right now, right? And so I just I just want us to not create dichotomies and saying like, yeah, okay. Thank you. Someone over here, Elizabeth. I I'm sitting sitting in the middle because this is the most important thing for me in my work. I was what I think about all day every day. And I also realize that I am in a place of privilege in that the worst most immediate effects I can probably buy my way out of, and or have the access to strategies to migrate if I need to. So it feels like I may not be affected immediately in the most feeling those impacts. Anyone else? Okay, final question. Again, we're on the same line spectrum. And on this side is that you're like when you think about this, considering the moment we're in discouraged. The other end is hopeful. Plant yourself discouraged over here, hopeful over here. Okay, who wants to share? You know, of course, for all the scientists who work in this field, this is the question you get all the time, which is, Can we do something about this? Is it too late? Is it whatever? And the best answer that I've modeled myself after and that really speaks to me came from, oh God, who am I trying to think of? Kentucky farmer poet. Wendell Berry, thank you. Three words, got it. Who basically answers the question is he doesn't feel like he has a right to ask that question. And for me, this feels the most important is it's not answerable. Can we fix this? Can we not fix it? We don't know. And so the next best thing is to identify a step that you think is meaningful and take it. And that's as much as that's kind of our responsibility. And that speaks to me. So not discouraged, not quote, hopeful, just taking the next step. Thank you for that. Georgina, I'm kind of over here, not because I discredit reality, but I'm I have to function in a place of creative atonement. And for that, I have to access up the state of abundance, so that that's sort of what propels the imagination and what is possible. But there's not ignoring of the despair. I think that's just that's the emotional aspect. And this is the creative aspect. David, then Abhishek, I was glad you used that word despair, because it's what I why I put myself here, Tanya Kuri, who's an artist from Syria and Lebanon. She talks about her piece, Native Gardens as a hopeful piece, even though it's 10 graves. And I asked her how that was that this was a hopeful piece. And she said that despair was betrayal. And as long as she had any ounce of agency left, that despair was not something she was going to give into. So I stand over here because it's a betrayal otherwise. Thank you, Abhishek. I just want to say that I come from a family where I think which is thrice displaced. When my father left, what was then what was then India, then it became East Pakistan, and then it became Bangladesh. It was of course the colonial rule, but it was also really to do with climate change. It had a lot to do with how much rice was growing where. So there was a lot of reason, I think, to be discouraged. But in one of the places where I work, the islands go down in this is the Sundarbans in the east of India. The islands go down in at a certain point of time and then they come back. And in the last so many years, 30 percent of the islands have not come back because of the sea level rising. And someone told me two years ago that, you know, I have a feeling, this is a villager who lives there, that the tigers in the area are not going away because they sense that something's going to happen. And strangely, last year, there is a new island that has come up in the middle of the ocean, which has nothing to do with the islands that have been there all these years. I don't know if anybody knows where that island comes from, but there is just this new island. And it's not something that went in and came out. It's something to do with deposits of other places. And I think that that man who lives in that village and who's, I don't know, 100 and something years old, he's right, probably. So I'm hopeful that there are other things going on, which might help because I don't know how useful we are, but it seems like the ocean is smart. Yeah. Thank you for that. Chantal. And then, oh, Robert. I have been around people recently who have terminal illnesses, and you know, they know what the end is, and yet they are very happy and optimistic. And it's really about making the best of what you have now and making that meaningful, as opposed to focusing on the end. And I use that as a metaphor for the climate, I think. It's like we have, we know we have this time, and this time we can make good. Thank you. Robert. I'm standing in the middle here thinking about Aristotle. And like personally, I'm a little discouraged politically and maybe culturally, and I'm working to metabolize that discouragement into action. But I draw a lot of hope in this moment from my location in the theater community, because I think for other fields, the idea of crisis can be something distant or arriving that's unwanted or unfamiliar. But back to Aristotle, like crisis is and has been for a long time at the center of our methods and inquiry as theater people. And we have a lot of history that we carry forward of people mobilizing entire communities around narratives of crisis in order to create community and make change happen. So that's where I am. And anyone we haven't heard from much. I'm in a third space, a place that's called determined because I don't like the binary. I'm resisting this binary of hope and despair, just like I don't like the binary of denial and acceptance. For me, at least in my life, it's the hope and despair can go back and forth. But what I'm trying to cultivate is courage, is what I feel like I need more than looking for hope, because there may be times I don't see that. And I can't have that be my beacon. Thank you. Third space. I saw Annalisa and I saw Julia. Oh, now I have a microphone. I guess I'll maybe kind of going off what you were saying. I didn't actually mean to put myself like at the end, but I think people like kept moving that way. And then I was like, well, I'll just stay. And it occurs to me actually that from here, and I'm thinking relationally in this room, like I can see all the people who maybe have more hope in this moment than I necessarily do, which actually is very inspiring to like from this place of where I am in my personal life right now, look at all of the people that are that way. And also, I just was sort of thinking about I learned recently of a goddess named Akhilandashvari, who is also called the always broken goddess. And I was thinking about how in places or in moments of despair or discouragement or whatever those are, which aren't which aren't where we live all the time, unless you're the always broken goddess. They actually can be very powerful because it's when we're broken or when we feel broken that we have the power to put ourselves back together and to to choose what like to choose what are the possibilities of putting ourselves back together. So in my not wanting to be at that end, this is where I ended up. Annalisa. Oh, oh, sorry. Akhilandashvari. Julia, then you know, I'm echoing this third space because I I thought about the middle because I'm like two sides of the coin at any point. And now with this calling of the question, I feel like resistant to choosing either one. And I just I don't know. I have so many questions that we're going to explore today. And I just want to echo these third spaces, gray areas. Thank you. Anyone else who we haven't heard much from? Who? Haven't really had my thoughts together, but I'm in the middle to because I get pulled towards the hope when I hear from artists expressing the issue and the message or message embedded in their expression, totally hopeful. But then when I think about the global power who has the money and the power and also not just like the you know, transnational corporations and the whole money as a bottom line or the ultimate goal. But also when we look at like, you know, ourselves, you know, we tend to go towards what's most convenient, what's most comfortable, you know, I think that the people in this room are very resistant to that and aware of that. But I also know quite a lot of people who aren't in any part of the country or the world. So, you know, that's why I'm in between the hopeful and despair. Thank you. And Lonnie. To close us out. I just wanted to share really quickly. I've been reading the I don't know if anyone's read the Ursula K. Le Guin Earthsea series. It's like a series of fantasy novels. So beautiful. My first time and I was thinking about how she talks about this balance and how the, you know, the dark in the light in her world don't exist without each other and how she says she writes every word is said in silence. Every candle lit cast a shadow. And so when I think about the inspiring things that I've heard people say today, I've heard, I think about how these things hope and despair kind of need each other to exist. That's a perfect synthesis. Thank you for that. OK, so we please bear with me for like three more minutes. We have the amazing Blair here who's taking some photos and we're going to take this opportunity to do a group photo before we go on a break. So the quicker we are, the quicker you can get to a break. Blair, where would you like us to set up? Just in front of the chairs right here. OK, great. So if everyone can get together and find a window, we'll also take one tomorrow because unfortunately there's a few people who are late or had travel delays. Oh, I see. OK, we're changing tactics here. Can people sit in the chairs and then everyone go actually behind the chairs too? So we have some built in levels. David Dower is a director, ladies and gentlemen. You can tell it. OK, but we need some people. We need people to sit in the in these chairs. Folks on the edges who are maybe out of frame come and sit on these chairs. Yeah, you probably don't want to be the only one. Great. OK. Yeah, Shantel and Abigail move in. Yes. Yes. And in here. Everyone, everyone, Stokely to. Chasha Dante. Carolina. I'll take I'll take the seat. My dress won't allow a down in front pose, unfortunately. Thank you, Blair. OK, thank you, everyone, so much. We are on a break and we will be back promptly at two fifty five. Thank you.