 Welcome everybody back to the Martin Siegel Theatre Center at the Graduate Center CUNY in New York City and today we continue our our trip, our connection to the Caribbean to the Great Island of a good loop where we at the Sony Center where we already talked about our new collection of plays new plays from the Caribbean, which we just published in collaboration with Stephanie Vera from Paris and where we had playwrights from Martinique Guadalupe and Haiti. We did great readings, six of them in New York City they were fantastic. Sylvain Guillot did a reading of a Haitian writer and there were many, many other great presentations and because it was such an ex success and inspiring event we all decided to continue and now we're here to reconnect to our friends and we have LVM assessments and we have a huge company, Eddie, a compare from the Sony Center translator, Emily, and, and then from Indianapolis Daniela is joining us and Genevieve Montréal who are thinking to perhaps bring a work from Gilbert Le Mans to the United States or to the North America. And we just watched last night a fantastic, beautiful work. It's what's called the Histoire du Nègre the tales of black histories and the correct politically correct translation, and we're going to see now an excerpt of that and should be about three or five minutes and then once we saw that we will start our discussion with the director, this is Gilbert who is just joining us and, and here we go so if you could help us and play the video so the audience has a little bit of an idea of what's happening on the Caribbean's theater scene. And the collaboration Histoire du Nègre Direction musical Production of the company Siage Theatre d'Isle en Monde HDN in co-production with the National Archipelago of Guadeloupeko Nihar chorata SIEGLE de Piège de baïonnettes et de bûcher Where are the doors of time? Nul ne peut nous entendre. Ce n'est pas faute de crier C'est pas tout la mème poussée. Le gnit la fiede, la mème histoire dans la mème histoire. Même histoire là, même on va là. Histoire du Nègre Quand un homme vend des hommes comme des choses, comme des bêtes. C'est membleau-là qu'un pc si gauche en nous avait joué nous à nous. On peut pas respirer, on peut pas respirer. I can't breathe. Histoire de neigres. Un jour, tu ne seras plus un neigre marron solitaire, mais un peuple d'un seul élan, et qui fait face. Même histoire-là, même combat-là. J'ai la foi. La foi en quoi? La foi en la vie. Histoire de neigres. So yeah, welcome back everybody. So we saw the promotional video of that great work which I also saw last night at the Sony Center. So maybe let's start with Eddie Comper, who was with us, say a few words about your theater where this play is happening right now. I think tonight is another presentation. It rained last night. We could hear the rain outside, the insects. It was hot. It's fire of insight and smoke. One or two people fainted before and after the show. So it's a real physical event that is getting into the minds and under the skins of the people. Eddie, tell us a little bit about your theater, what you do there and what it is all about. Okay, good afternoon everybody. The Center of Cultural Sony is a theater. We are in the city of Abim. It's an equipment who have two level. One level is education. So we have a part of education, music, theater, and dance. The other part is producing, creating, and a small place of 20, 2050 people. So last night was an amazing, amazing play. So we have full, so the people were so surprised to see a new form about the Caribbean theater. A new form about a new writing about the Caribbean theater. And the people were so happy. Yes, you said that Franky was so hot inside and raining outside. But that's the Caribbean. The Caribbean in all times, the weather has changed. So the people is all time hot in hearts. So the people appreciate a lot. And tonight we have another representation. And once the people finished to see, he was so surprised and so happy to see a new form, a new way of the Caribbean theater. Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. So let's come to the producer, the company, a CRH, the BFM LVR with us was also hosting me here. You were also very much and deeply involved together with Stephanie Vera in the Caribbean playwriting project, the act, Action Caribe Theater, if I say that right. So LVR, tell us a little bit about that work. Why did you, why did your company produce it? What's the idea? You are on mute, maybe I'm not sure if we can hear you. Yeah. So first of all, I would like to point out that there has been a tremendous, tremendous work done before coming to the idea to, before coming to the decision of producing this play. And thanks to Stephanie Vera, we were able to meet the Emily Sakion, it's been quite a long time already. And then it's so Emily Sakion asked you there to invite you back to the University of Georgia for a residence where he, where he was invited to, to create a lecture around this play. And then after that, Dana invited us to, to, to do the same thing. Well, in a different perspective, because the, the Dana, she's specialized in, in history. And so we'd have a different resonance too. And so for us, it was very important to, to, well, actually to produce the play because I, I really, I strongly believe that the, the, I mean, the people, the young people here in the island need to know more about their, their history. As everyone knows, it's a colonized, it was a colonized island. So it's only now that they're starting to discover it, to learn more about their own history. And so it was, I was, I was vital. I would say that it was vital to, to produce this play. And we are very thankful to Eddie Comper to be part of this venture to this. And also we, it's sort of a, like we say in French, so now it's, that is joining us to, to really be able to cross, to build this bridge to, to Canada. So, well, I'm very, very proud to be part of this project. And also, well, I mean, there's projects and obviously it's a big challenge to also to see how, how it would be possible to, to make tours in, because I know that this is a big production. And so we're thinking about the different possibility of adapting the play. Let's talk first a bit about the production. And first of all, let's also say hello to Gilbert. Gilbert, how are you? Hello, everybody. I'm good. Start to acknowledge the world of Emily and Dana. That's where it all started. It all started in UGA in Dianna. In Dianna, police were at the opportunity to direct the public stage reading of the play. And it, for me, it was this work from Glissant, which I didn't know. And it was very, very, very, in 2017. And then after that we had, we had our first. Yeah. It's not so easy to hear you. It sounds interrupted. Maybe you could join Eddie in his office. I think this. Yeah, maybe go up to him and, and maybe you're next to each other. I think we can hear you better because it's important what you have to say. Can you go to Eddie's room at his office and maybe sit next to him or, or you both change places. Yeah. Because we, yeah, we need to hear you. So to give an idea that this is a unusual work, of course, we have Daniela from Indianapolis and Emily, who is with us from Georgia, working together. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to go through the through France, but through American partners. And, but at the core also of the piece is the work of the great Caribbean writer, philosopher, poet, which is presented in their way of a collage. So it's not a written play by a player. It is this great idea of the 20th century, which we learned from Rauschenberg wall and others, that new idea of a collage of material that already existed. So Emily, maybe tell us a little bit, since you do the research, you also have a publication coming out. Why is that important that play that material? Why did you say to, to, please do this. Yes. My collaborator Andrew Daly, who's at the University of Memphis, he and I translated this play together into English. And I asked you there to come to the University of Georgia to stage a reading, because this is a timely play, or it's an adventure. Glissant called it a theatrical adventure. It's a timely theatrical adventure. Although it's from 1971, it continues to resonate today. If I could talk a little bit about the context in which it's created, because I think that context is key to understanding. Yeah, what was his idea? Yeah, what was. Yeah, so. So Edward Glissant created a cultural center and a private school that was called the Institute of Martinique and studies. And he created the school in 1967, because Caribbean's at that time were being taught the French curriculum. Our ancestors, the blonde blue-eyed gulls. And he wanted to not only educate his pupils, and he had diverse pupils in this school, but to share those messages throughout Martinique. And so theater became a means to take the teachings and the dialogues, because there were also plenty of intellectuals coming and having dialogues out throughout Martinique. And so he created this play from source texts. And for them, the sources were both historical texts. And post-colonial literature. Authors like M.E.C. there, Keteb Yasin, who's Algerian, and James Foreman in the U.S. So it was a diasporic set of authors, and Glissant said he wanted to extend it to all threatened communities, all people threatened by colonialism. Put the texts together. Glissant wrote the transition pieces. He directed them in the rehearsals. And they divided it into three parts. First, slavery. Second, the struggle for liberation, which moves from Martinique to the Congo, to the United States, the Black Freedom Struggle in the United States. And then three, the contemporary moment in Martinique, which was 1971, they talked about brainwashing the Martinican public through consumerism. So it was an interactive play, and they performed it for about a thousand working class spectators throughout Martinique. And the, let's see, the last thing that I want to say about that is that I've been working with Gilbert also as a dramaturg. So Gilbert and I talked about what it would mean to be faithful to Glissant's practice. We've done several adaptations. And so what Gilbert has created is an update. Let's hear from Gilbert. Tell a little bit. So it was Glissant, the director of this is great. He directed it himself in a university setting. Where was that? What theater did it happen? Where did it happen? It was performed outside in places like cafeterias, a grass common. He really wanted to get the public. He wanted to get folks who would not normally go to the theater to see the show. And they traveled throughout Martinique. They gave little pamphlets out. They asked people to come and people would set up lawn chairs and sit on the ground and watch the performance. Incredible. As things what so many people talk now about, about a theater, we should be engaging in in the time after Corona, after COVID to reach communities, go outside of the theaters, collage texts to have a politically engaged theater, but open, especially reaching out to the people who are most affected by this, something he did in 1972. Daniela, we come to you a little bit later. How come to Gilbert? Gilbert is a director of theater and is one of the great directors of the Caribbean. Before we come to the play, tell us a little bit how did you get to theater? What was your, your, your, your shaman, your root? How did you get where you are right now? Actually, I didn't intend, intended from the start to be an actor. But I remember when I was in school, I used to love poetry and to read, to read up texts. And then every, every time I was in a, in a theater play within the school, they told me, oh, you're doing good. You should do theater and so forth. Then I started actually, I started by music. I love, I still love singing. And I thought maybe I would be a singer. And then the theater caught up with me. And I started my education as, as an actor in Denmark. Don't ask, don't ask me why and how, but I started my education as an actor in Copenhagen, Denmark. And that's where it all started. The thing I can tell you that I always loved languages. I speak several languages, English, French, Spanish, Creole, Danish. And that's, that's how it all started. And I, the fact that I speak several languages allowed me to get easy contact to the, my Caribbean neighbors. Because as you know, in the Caribbean, the main languages are French, English, Creole, and Spanish. And after my education as an actor in Denmark, I came back to Walupe and I started, I couldn't do, I didn't have choice because, you know, nothing was organized at the time. I'm talking about the, the 80s. And when I started there, people just, you know, were looking at me at me in amazement. When I said, when I said, my profession, profession was an actor. In Walupe there are two things they say. For musicians, they say it's music is a, is a job for lazy people, lazy. And theater, you know, they, they cannot fancy how you can make a living out of theater. Then I started singing in the hotels and, in the touristic resorts. And little by little I came back to theater in, in the end of the 80s and in the beginning of the 90s. And what happened is I literally fell in love with my own culture and I get in contact with whatever activity was done around theater. We didn't have professional groups at, at this period of time. So I spent a lot of time in Martinica, our neighbor, Martinica, and at the time Cezaire was still living. So we, we, I had the opportunity and the honor to play in front of Cezaire. And that's, that's how I, I little by little, I was very, very often in the, in the big event called the festival, the Fort de France. And little by little, you know, the theater was in Guadeloupe was organizing a little better. We had the, the birth of the La Seine National. The first director was Pernita Lafleur. And it was fantastic what she did for, you know, for spreading the theater and whatever, you know, and that's how it all started. And to be more precise, it was a very good thing that I started being invited in Avignon theater and have a real web of, you know, of friends who are into theater, some of the manager of big theater like Alain Timar, like Serge Barbouchia, Greg Germain. And that's how for me to all started. Fantastic. Great. Daniela, before we come to you, Eddie mentioned it, you know, that this was an exciting evening. Even for that place that hosts so many seminars, groups, drummers, you know, that they got everybody together in the round. The doors were open. So tell me, how did you get the idea for it? Why do you think this was an important play? How do you connect it to Emily and Daniela? So how, how was, what was the burst? What was the idea for the Histoire du Nacre or the tales of black history? For me, it's very important to start with acknowledging the, you know, in the work of Emily, Dana and Andrew. For me, it's really, it's worth, you know, acknowledging them and thanking them for that because they did a tremendous work starting with the translation. And that's how it came to me. I didn't know a new Glissant as a thinker, a poet, a philosopher, but I did know much about him as a playwriter. And thanks to the invitation of the first UGH in the person of Emily and then in Diana Police, in the person of Dana, that's where I was invited to direct public reading of the display in the English translation. It was for me the opportunity to get in contact with the students in UGH, it was a great experience for me. It was the opportunity for me to share my culture and to see how other people are interested in sharing and hearing more about our culture. And then from that, the opportunity started to arise. The first was the partnership we had with La Saint-Nationale where we did our first creation of the French version. You asked me how and why, you know, it started with my great, great, great interest of my own culture and when I came back to Guadeloupe after my great period away from the island, I was completely fascinated by the beauty, the importance and the greatness of what they call Groca. I started to know about Leos. I started to know how to write Creole, which is a very recent thing that it was, you know, made thanks to people linguists like Hector Poulet, Sylvain Telchid, and I started to meet those people and to study with those people. It allowed me to read a lot of books in Creole, mostly poems and fairy tales and so forth. And I was, every time there was an opportunity for me to learn more and to know more about my culture, I did. And the second thing that happened, it was, of course, when Elvia and me decided to create Siash, which is our company, and Siash allowed us to have a very important tool to visit the Caribbean area and to answer to their call and to participate in their projects. One of the most important meetings was with the lamented Regno Hernandez Espinosa, who unfortunately is no longer with us, but he was a three-man, this fantastic theater man. He was a brother for me. He was a teacher. He was an amazing person and he really gave me so much strength and so much, he taught me so much and he shared completely his theater with me and it was some amazing times, you know. It was before meeting really Dana and Emily, but this man was very important for me and we started thanks to Siash to make exchanges, Cubans actors, important theater men came to Guadalupe and the other way around. We spent time in Cuba with Elvia and other artists and we created things. We co-writed with Regno, which was a huge honor. That's how we started to go from island to island in the Caribbean. We had some very intense activity, being and traveling with our work, with our profession, traveling from island to island, like with Trinidad, like we've been to Cuba, Haiti and so forth. Amazing, yeah. It's not so easy actually to travel between the islands as one might think and Creole also for our viewers, it was not allowed actually to be taught in the schools in Guadalupe and other islands for a long time by the French administration. So it's a rediscovery not only for you as a person, as an artist, but also I think for the islands. Daniel or Dana as your friends here say, tell us a bit why is that a project important to you and tell us a bit about Glissant. Why do we have to listen to what he collaged? Okay, so my name is Daniela Koster and I'm at Indiana University in Indianapolis and yes, I go by Dana. And I this play became important to me really just by chance. I was organizing a conference for French historians here and in at my university and I, our university has a tradition or dedication to a community outreach community engagement. And so I wanted to organize an event as part of my conference that engaged the local community. And I was talking to people about this and it was just completely serendipitous that someone had was at a panel where they heard Emily and Andrew present on this project. And as soon as I heard about their project, I said, I want to bring them to Indianapolis. So I tracked them down. And we, we staged a reading as part of an, it was an academic conference here on the university campus, but we also, but we, I brought together. SEA with a local company called the Asante Art Institute, which has a, it's a local, locally run theater group, mostly for children, trying to teach life skills through the arts. That's their mission. And we were, I was able to work with them to get some of their adult alumni from their program to work with Gilbert who came here for a week. They still talk about it. It's the most exhausting week of their lives. But they, they work together, they workshop for a week. And then we did the stage reading. And in front of a public, that was the university community, the Indianapolis community, and then scholars of French history from all over the, we had people from seven different countries. And I think what that experience says about this play is it talks about the importability of it and how it, it, it can become meaningful in any place, like in ways that you wouldn't, wouldn't expect. And I think it's interesting that the play was originally designed to be produced in different spaces. And I think that's something that anyone who's interested in this play should experiment with. But for instance, my university, like many Midwestern urban universities was built on a neighborhood that had been redlined, and then a traditional African-American neighborhood that had been redlined and then bulldozer to create an interstate in this urban campus. And so the story of colonization really is part of our story as an institution and to have this play. And it's still a source of contention in the city. There, there's healing that still needs to be done between the university and the city and our African-American community here. And bringing this play was a way to occupy the space and have this conversation. And because the play is interactive, people could write their story into the play. They could participate. They could talk. And it really became this very moving and powerful experience. I mean, I mean, whenever I go to the conferences now, everybody talks about this. Tell us a bit about Glissant also. I'm going to defer to Emily for Glissant. About his world of thinking. And I think the Caribbean is an important region of the world. And we do not pay enough attention to it also in its entirety because it does include Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, of course, Guadalupe, Martinique, Haiti. And in that new time we live in, we live in a region of environmentalism where we leave the holocene as the biologists and environmentalists say behind and we move into the Anthropocene where we have to face big questions how to live in the world. This region perhaps has something to offer. And I think it does, you know, to, to, to mankind as a way of living and to, to organize thoughts. And Glissant was a great thinker from here. So why is he important? So Glissant, not only did he think deeply about the Caribbean and become sort of worldwide associated with understanding Caribbean cultures, Caribbean languages, Caribbean poetics. But he also just as you're saying, Frank, he's the one who most influential he said what's going on in the Caribbean is applicable to the whole world. And so I would say probably his best known work Caribbean discourse was created and that helps us to understand the Caribbean culture. And so he's the one who most influential he said what's going on in the Caribbean is applicable to the whole world. And so I would say probably his best known work Caribbean discourse was created and that helps us to understand the Caribbean and Caribbean cultures and really Caribbean worldviews, epistemologies, Caribbean thinking. That was created. While he was doing all of this work with the Martin Neacon, the Institute for Martin Neacon studies. And so this play, you know, which was an experiment in taking the lessons from his school to the public school. And so an example of the Caribbean discourse in action in practice. But then later Gleason went on to write some more and very influential he wrote poetics of relation. And that is probably what you're referring to in poetics of relation he talks about relating to others and cultures and conflict through relation through relationships. And through in talks about opacity understanding that I can when I meet someone from another culture, I cannot fully understand them. I cannot understand them with any kind of truth that they would not have generated on their own. And so this idea of relation is, you know, the heart of the Caribbean and he says relation was born on the womb abyss of the slave ship. And so the trauma of slavery of being uprooted from African cultures and being put together with other enslaved people and later with white people and some indigenous people as well in the Caribbean. That was a womb. It was a creative impulse. And it was also this abyss, both a trauma and the abyss and for Gleason, the abyss really of knowledge, the people uprooted from their families and their ways of knowing the world in Africa. They're in an abyss, but that abyss gives rise to something new. And that understanding of knowledge and culture through relation is the understanding that has really been applied to the world. Yeah. And his idea of the archipelagos, that you know, islands, individual islands, but they are in relation to each other, together they form a landscape, America in a way, North America, South America. They are islands also, they're big islands. People forget about it here, but they are relations and they are part of something bigger. And that is the connection of the world. The Creole language for him was a beautiful idea of a language that absorbed, that mixed, that changed. And he said, you know, this is actually what we should be doing and not to be afraid of or forbid to teach. It's actually at the core of mankind. And this is how art and human relations and human existence has been done. The Caribbean is a living example. And why the production also is interesting. It's an experiment and I'm sure there's still work to do on that. There is a tradition here of the rose, which I think is a stunning law cultural tradition. And in a way, so contemporary. It's a socially engaged art, community involvement, professional artists with people, you know, who come and hear the dream of the Tate London, what's like to do in the Berlin Festival. But it is something that happens here regularly. And maybe tell us a little bit about the idea, also the philosophical idea of what is the rose, the dance, the circle. If I understand right from my view last night, something where you based your play on and said, you know, this is a form in theater that we should pay attention to tell us a little bit about this unique thing that I think is so important. You're muted. Maybe your sound is off. Yes, as you were saying before, historically, it started in the period of slavery. And it was a kind of secret event because, of course, any kind of gathering was forbidden for the slaves. And they managed to meet each other. You have to remember that most of the time, they were chosen for different countries of the African continent. And they couldn't, in order that they couldn't communicate so easily and so, you know, to prevent any kind of rebellion. So they invented this way of, you know, getting together and sharing whatever they had to share through music, through songs, and through the culture that they brought from the continent. So let me describe it. You tell me if I've seen wrong. In the early times, there was a secret meeting place. People said, let's meet at 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock in the night. There's a circle of people in the part of the circle. The drummers are singers. Audiences are in front of the drummers. The drummers, the circle inside is empty. And drumming starts up with an introduction. And then people, the audience, members, women of all ages, and also men, come and dance towards the drummers. The back is to the audience. And they move the drummers, do a music, a drumming session for the person in front of them. And then through some kind of a code, an invisible understanding, people then, a new one comes up. All the person leaves. The drummers stop. And it goes on not only till midnight or one o'clock or through o'clock. It goes through four or five o'clock. So it's kind of a living, shared, dance experience, but not no spoken words. And I think the songs or the music, they are known to the people. The leo was is the place of communication. And the circle is very important. I think it's partly heritage or from African. That's where the, that's in inside the circle, the circle that the grill was, who was a living library. He was delivering knowledge. And he knew all about who came from where. And, you know, the grill was a very important character in the African society. And the African slaves, you know, carried with them the secrets and the knowledge and the rituals. And their body, you know, where a living library, body and minds, of course, where a living library, because any kind of practicing their own religion or their own beliefs was completely forbidden. So, as you said, in silence, what is very particular and special over our area in Guadeloupe? I think it's the one of the only, or maybe the only where the dancer enters alone in the circle. And he faces the drums. There are three drums. The one in the middle is the solo drummer. And his job is to start a dialogue, a communication conversation with the dancer. And the two other, the two other drums, one on the left of the solo and the other one on the right, they are just maintaining the groove, the tempo, the rhythm. And the whole conversation is between the solo drum player and the dancer. And it's very important because you don't get into the circle if you didn't go through a kind of knowledge of the secret and the rules. And you know how and when to get inside. And you have a certain amount of time to tell your story. And it's a very special moment, which is a code. And it's a musical phrase. And you know that you can enter and then start to tell your story and the other one get out of the circle. And not the professional dancers. They're just people from the town, from the village. And it became, you know, a rural. It was mostly the people from the plantation, sugar cane plantation. It was a rural activity. And it was fantastic that in spite of the operation and it was completely forbidden to practice it, but it survived until now. And this is one of the miracles, you know, that. And for me, it's for me, it's one of the place of resistance where the resistance of the language, which were too under oppression and oppression and with a lot of, you know, because we are in a context of a culture dominating and now the, you know, and in spite of that, for me, the miracles that the language survived and this knowledge survived too. And I called some people prefer to call it a ceremony because for me, it's a place where you get the knowledge. And for me, it was a huge library for me to get in touch with the knowledge. And this part of our reality is deeply rooted in this event. There are other circles, but for me, the three main circles are Leos. The other one is the circle of the wake, you know, when somebody dies and you spend the night celebrating and not crying necessarily. And it is one of the, it is a second circle. And the third is the circle of the storyteller, like the griot I was mentioning before. And for me, it's the place of resistance. And it is amazing, it's a life tradition. It's not something you look at history books and you see a plaque and white print of something. No, it's alive. It happens at least once a month, if I understand right, where I was between 500 or 1000 people were there. I don't know how many people really came. So it is something that is alive. But now tell us a little bit about your adaptation. There is the text from Gleason that was somewhere in, I don't know, in some archive in a box. And I guess Emily found it. And maybe tell us also how that worked. And then, you know, they ask you to connect to it. So how did you put these two together? What is the idea for the staging? What was your work with the actors, the musicians, and you invented some of the guardians? So tell us a little bit. When I'm talking about miracles, it's not exaggerating because, you know, I had spent this very long time of my life knowing a little more, you know, about my, the history, the culture, the language of Guadalupe. And I was really prepared when the thing came to me. I do, in my adaptation, I wouldn't say, well, I really am in a form of respecting the original thought of, in the style of Gleason, because Gleason, he didn't say exactly, you know, he didn't mention Lear Wars. He didn't mention because Lear Wars is typical to Guadalupe. But for me, it has a kind of a breadth, you know, the theater man, the famous theater, the theater theorization. Yeah, in the same way, Bertrand Brecht, yes. Bertrand Brecht, who, I wouldn't say invented, but, you know, started what he called this temptation of four-framed doom. And this four-framed doom, we do it, you know, in the circle of the storyteller, because Gleason was saying, you know, it's, for me, it's typical four-framed doom thing, you know, when he's talking to the audience and say, okay, you hear listening to me, but are you really hearing what I'm saying? Do you get the message? Don't, you know, don't be impressed by my, my talent or my, what about the message, you know, and I see maybe inside in the circle, some of you can just take my place since you have something to say, just, you know, come. It happened, you know, that, that's this, this four-framed doom thing, you know, that, that we have. And I, he didn't call it, you know, storytelling and the same, but he was that, you know, he was, Gleason was, has written in the, in the stage comments, you know, what he wished, you know, how he saw that. That's why exactly it was in complete harmony with what I wanted to do. I've discovered of interactivity between the, it's hard for me to pronounce the name public because we don't have public. We have people in the, in whatever the circle, will it be the circle of storytelling or the circle of lay wars or even the second of the way the way for the dead. Anybody can get, get in and do his things, you know, but you have to respect a few rules. And I think it was exactly this interactivity that interested me most, most. And as I told you, I told you, I told you before, it's a way of telling with our own orality, our own knowledge to tell stories and to do the transmission. And I respected that a lot in the, in the original idea and thought of Gleason. I remember when I had a conversation because I got, I got to get, I had to get permission from the city of Gleason to take in my, in my own hands this, this display. And when I started to talk about her to what I wanted to do, she was a kind of reluctant and say, well, be careful, don't touch too many, you know, things. Then I did something very strategical. I told her, I told her, do you know what is the wake in the tradition of the wake for the dead in our, in our area, in the Caribbean. She said, of course I know because she's, she was the Gleason's wife. And mostly she told me that at the moment of the death of, of Gleason, they did a huge wake, you know, they, I heard about it. And she was, she was so glad and happy and impressed by that. Then when I told you that more or less, my intention was to, to put the, what, what, what you cannot call a theater play, but to put it in the, in this frame of, and she said, okay. And I said, do you remember that in the, you know, we, we don't, we don't have only written words. We can improvise. We can start to, to tell a storytelling. We can start to play. She said, yeah, yeah, yes, okay. And that's how strategically I get her permission to, to, to take, you know, the boldness to do what, you know, what I intended to do. And I did it with a great joy. Joy, yeah, next to, you know, a male. We also hear texts from Malcolm X or Angela Davis. Porto is shown. It's a collage. And Gleason, who we feel close to at the university, and my university, he was a professor. I never got to meet him. He was already in retirement. But we heard, you know, about the drumming that went on all night. As an honor, you know, as far as I know, he was on the list of the Nobel Prize, which he might have gotten. But for the audience who come into a very big room, it's that, as Eddie Comper said before, is the Sony Center is around building almost a circle like circus building like the very first theaters, which were in the round, the globe, the theater in Germany, the autoneum was kind of like this in the round. Audience members sit in a circle on chairs and benches behind them are screens. There are only two lines, very few people actually can see it behind the audience members are screens, the size of large, huge barn doors that transparent things can be projected on them or you see kind of archetypical figures behind painted in white bodies, black bodies and in costumes that are dreamlike but also traditional costumes, mask like a pre-presentation. Then three actors mostly come in through the doors and tell the stories to each other and to the audience of these texts. And then we see a group of children at the end comes in and ask questions and plays. You have a dancer going in in between. So it is really an experimentation with the form and I think it's an ongoing work in progress. Still, there could be adjustments made and but it's a beautiful experience. I really think that go old idea of the theater as ritual as ceremony like Richard Shackner wrote and talked to much about a turner and the big addition now after the time of corner that we have to get back into circles into very simple things and it is not so great in New York City to say the Michael Jackson Broadway show is up and now we have our theater back what what does it mean really it doesn't mean anything to us for that new time we live in and I think this idea of what you are experimenting here for your place is a great example of something it's live and it doesn't need the outside world that exists for itself but of course there are connections. Maybe we ask Genevieve if she's still listening with us and hasn't fallen asleep at my talking. Montreal you are an actor, also working as a producer you want to bring it to Canada. What's the idea behind that why do you why is that important in a place where I've experienced the coldest days of my life in the winter you know to bring this Caribbean you know Gleason was very fond of Quebec, our national poet Gaston Miron was a great great friend of Edouard Gleason and as Dana and Emily says Gleason is all about relation a lot about relation and about the long long and in Quebec he had a long conversation with these Govins I don't know if you know the work of these Govins, which was a she worked a lot with the on the all the text of Gleason and when I met Gilbert a few years ago, we decided to work on a project a theater project and Gleason was very present in that project. Unfortunately, the COVID made the project fail so we didn't make it true but now this project HDN for me is like it's important I mean it's really important to for people to see that in Montreal. When he started his PhD in Montreal, Gilbert was very amazed by the fact or not amazed disappointed by the fact that there was not a lot of African or Caribbean theater or even in the public when we would go to the theater, he was like, where are they they're not there they're not coming to the theater so we have to bring them also and as in the philosophy of Gleason I mean to to to get in relation, you have to be really grounded with your own your own tradition as I tradition. So I think for me the to bring this HDN to Montreal, maybe in a festival or even in a like TNM is very open because I know Lorraine Petal which is the director of the TNM which is a big theater in Montreal and she was very very interested by the project so I think there's a place for HDN now because it was not that obvious a few years ago but now we're really in a movement that has decolonized history as they say in French, how do you say that in English, decolonize history. Yeah, so we're into that now so I think it's a great time to bring that show. Yeah, and the same goes in a way for New York also I think Gilbert would be disappointed as in our festival or play reading festival we found that it was actually the first in the history of theater that Caribbean nation French speaking were together in a festival it never happened in France it's also interesting that we don't have a French representative with us in this discussion you know it's Georgia Indianapolis and Montreal it speaks a lot I think we had great help for our festival actually from the French cultural services in New York once we got it started and Nicole and Lauren and it had a real impact what we did and one of the reasons to do this and why I feel also passionate about it be learned that the largest immigrant community in New York City is not Asian American just Latino American or African American is actually Caribbean, of course through that also African American but it's from the Caribbean nations Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic and of course Martinica, Guadalupe and anywhere so and where are they where are those stories being told, where can they be seen where can the kids, you know see this and hear those stories of the ancestors these figures Gilbert put behind the screens and it is really of a great, great importance to support that we listen to it and find ways and also to get into training to have a next generation of people participate Gilbert. If I counted right or remember I 36 people are involved in this is a crazy production. Yeah, tell us a little bit about the group you work with you mentioned earlier, but the kids also how did you work with the actors. I mean it's very important to acknowledge to another you know, salutation and acknowledgement to Benedict Marino, who is the cinematographer, and I spent one year, I repeat one year working with a cinematographer Benedict Marino at us, you know talking and exchanging ideas and trying to fancy how we would, you know, materialize can, you know, give shape to this dream and this is this project and idea we had, and we spend one year discussing and working until she you know those. Those squares, you know, with the kind of. See through things, you know, according to to how the lights, you know. It depends on how you light it, you know, you see or you don't see the character behind. So that's from this year of working hard started, you know, giving it started giving birth to what you what you saw because little by little we gathered the rest of the team. Roger Olivier who did the light, the tremendous, tremendous creation of light. The thing is that you know, it's, it's a kind of nomadic thing you know that we, we are, we made out you know because it's. It's destiny is to travel, you know, and we have to adapt the right now you work with the carnival group right was the group who. So, yes, as I was starting to say, we, the team begin to gather as talk about Benedict Marino Roger. And then, for me, it was obvious that I had to tell this story with the permission and the blessing of the ancestors. And of course, for me it was obvious that I had to, to, to get together and have a partnership with people who had the same way of thinking. And those people was the. Movement movement is not only a carnival entity, not only a carnival group, but they do a very important work on the culture only was and in this thing we had in common. So for me it was obvious that we had to work together. They knew me, I know, I knew their work, they know my work. We respected each other work. We, they work, they, they, they, they. I introduced to them see as introduced to them a genio, not as a spin as I was talking about about him before. And from that, you know, the depth of those things you so started to, to, to grow up. And it is a very important part of, of the unity and of the, they are a very important part of the team. They are, I think it would be difficult for me to fancy to imagine this thing with that. Maybe we could ask Eddie if he's still there with us. What did, what did this play mean for his center for the people for, for everybody who normally comes you run distance I don't know 10 years I think I don't know. You're a producer of music, you're a musician. But what did it mean for all the people who come and who participate, what, what does such a performance mean. Yes, the people think that's amazing, amazing performance but my point of view, because I was musician before. And she built about different project because that's a second project we do together. For me, it's very important to have a new way of signature about I was calorie and spirit calorie and thinking calorie and writing calorie and play. So, this production is heavy productions, because how many people on it, but for me it was important to show this for the people for the government people, for the political people to because the message is very important on it. You know, Greece, there was a, some people who got a message, a strong message about colonization about how we was in the Calvary and how we're supposed to be in the future. How, how ways we can take. And so this project for me for us in the cultural center so nice, make sense, make, make a new, a new way about creating about playing about many things in mixture culture. I was rude sculpture, but in a contemporary play in a contemporary point of view. So it was for us, and one opportunity but we ought to be in the projects. That's why we are co-production about this project. No, I thought it was amazing moment but I saw this center which has different levels very open very much of air around it was a sculpture that was inhabited like every room. Something was happening people eating talking a school class came to see the afternoon performance a little three or four year old kid help to bring the props and try to some dance and pretended to be an actor I could see that very old people can was a mixture of families. I think it really was an event of the community people their faces very proud of it, but also some kind of yeah that's us you know they were not. As you would say bracelet I don't want people look with gluey eyes and say oh this is such great theater that he said he won't don't look so stupid he said you know no they were the audience when they just looked at it yeah this is us this is where we come from. It makes us to be here in the moment and it gives makes us comfortable with the future and I would like to remember everyone that this is a highly intellectual text, a collage, you know, what you might say this is for undergrad or grad students but you did it for the community in the circle with yes a dance group that also does carnival and mask so it's a quite an unique production and LBR what do you what do you what do you think is the future. Excuse me Frank before before you give you we have to have to excuse me and to because I have to leave the meeting the play starting with the children you know with the schools and I would like to have a look you know so I am. I regret to you know to leave the meeting and I will have opportunity to meet you again Dana and and Emily and and okay so I get to I get to go and see what happened. I don't know Eddie can you take the laptop and have a look down from your office the bottom into the theater is that possible. I think it's possible we can we can try to to go in the place because that's that we were talking about that at two o'clock we have a student who who come to see the play. And yesterday was the same we have one for the public but one one play for the student. And go down this is your bear and let's have a look and then we. Yes, of course, let us go. Let us go. So I would like to say then thank you to Emily and Elvia Daniella and and everybody and involved and and let's see if we can see. Yeah, do we see the cover. Yeah, you know so also you know, in two facts Eddie is also as you bear is writing his PhD inspired also by the work and Emily is putting together the material in a publication fear if you have the cover. We can look at it for a moment. The preliminary cover shared by the press. It's a forthcoming critical edition that I co authored with Andrew daily who I co translated with and related to it everyone saying about how timely and important the work is we wanted to equip English speaking teachers artists and scholars to stage the play it needs to be staged so there are lots of notes there staging notes there's an introduction. And it talks about the history that I mentioned. And the, what you said Frank about it being a work in progress. It's really important I think for the soul of this play, Gleason published it in a coma, but he published it just kind of as well here's what we did, because it is a theatrical play that needs to be renewed, and we wrote our addition with that goal in mind of future renewals and so we hope that other artists and teachers listening to this will want to pick it up and do their own performance. Fantastic or if they do and they can also go back and hear you guys talking about it. I think we lost Eddie compare here is Eddie can you see if you go back to the full screen. You can see. Yeah, this is the theater. These are the screens. They are preparing. Yeah. And these are the building walls that are open. This is the stage brush. And if you could go outside Eddie show us the courtyard of this roundabout theater. And maybe he's not hearing us. Anyway, this is the, this is the, the space and in 20 minutes. I don't know 100 school kids will come together. And, and we'll, we'll see the show. So thank you everybody for participating I think this was a great talk we learned a lot. And, and we are fantastic that you put so much live energy in this to produce it. And you are working on it to get it around the world right. Again, you have to. The luck with the collaboration of Eddie compare. Yes, I'm not new, but I just working in the place to see the place the place this is that open beautiful cultural center. The architecture is beautifully open wind goes through the office. There should also be a theater setting in its own with all the, and audience could be inside and then these are the, the streets thank you Eddie but let's go to LV is the last word, maybe one or two sentences about future projects. Thank you. Eddie compare with the capital. So the next step would be to that. So this play will be presented in the, in the festival, and I think it would be the opening of the festival. So it would be on October, and then we are planning to go also to Martinique to the festival to to the theater festival of Martinique and next year next year to Avignon and hopefully hopefully also to Canada. Yeah, fantastic. So thank you all again thank you for how around thank you so great if you were with us and I think this really gave us a little insight into an important place on planet Earth, a place we do not know about because, you know, we hope as Brecht said the history is written by the victory powers. I think now it is really a time, you know, to look at the other side is we had heard enough of the Versailles palaces which are built on the blood of the people in the Caribbean who lived were slaves and this is where the richness came from and I think we should go to these places and stop going to the big palaces and adore the golden walls and CO2 so come to a good a loop in October and see the play at Eddie and the place Sunnis and many, many others. Thank you so much, and I hope to see you all the soon next Monday we resumed Segal talk with about a player for Ukrainian playwright in who's working in Boston and in New York. So, follow us I hope you will stay with us and thanks to our audience to take time to listen in and goodbye and thank you everyone. Thank you.