 So that's what that piece was, I guess that particular piece, it became also a piece about what is life exactly, and that chunk that you saw with the Halal Park thinking, I guess comes from two different places, a place of how close we are getting to creating our artificial intelligence. And also just don't wondering, there's different ways of experiencing life, it's interesting your piece and your attention on meditation which has come to me very late in my own personal life and professional aesthetic life. And just thinking about that machine signaling as one way that I know I've felt about life sometimes, which is that there's a little tiny pilot inside, piloting your big lumbering body and also thinking about us living in this age of technology where people who are locked in can use their eyes to communicate, if you've seen the value of a butterfly, I guess that's the strongest visual representation. So you're actually right about scale, we were thinking all about scale, time scale and the possibility of perceiving of scales, of extinctions, of the human species. So first I just want to introduce John Sully, John is the composer and primary musician that's behind the performance that we're doing, and he's the one in which I'll be performing the rest of the evening. So I just want to make sure everybody knew who John was first. And then in terms of the scale of the work I would say that what we're really trying to do is create a situation that allows for the spectator to have the space and time that's necessary to have something that approaches the type of experience that we're interested in trying to create for ourselves and making the work. It comes out of a desire of what experience we want to have as artists, and then how do we best provide the circumstances that might allow an audience to have a similar experience on their own terms. And so the six hours is about providing that sort of openness that you can come to it as you need to, you know what I mean, as you have the time and you can stay with it as long as you want or as short as you want, you know. I mean I find that I sat down a few times today in the lobby and listened to what John was playing and it takes me a few minutes probably before I can even hear the performance. It's moving really slowly and subtle and I kind of have to sort of ratchet back my own sort of clock to even hear it at all. So that's what the scale is about. Do you want to say anything else about that? Maybe add to it that also at the show is six hours if the person, people coming to attend it even before they leave their house it's affecting the scale because they have so much time to choose when they want to arrive at those shows at the starting time and in time when you plan it in your day and when you're going to go with us and come to the show at the time and then so even before you leave, before you choose when you're going there the way you're making the choices before you arrive at the show and then of course once you're there when to leave it could be completely different from your original idea so even the scale of before you leave the environment and the show itself how you're coming to it and how you end up leaving it is just as important as being in the show at that moment. I'd like to go back to what Dan was saying about the life of a dog being a life of or creating because I feel like everyone on here like I found down truly like everybody makes some serious incredible work that I've loved for a very long time and I wonder like how do you keep it hot what surprises you when you're making these new pieces of vastly different scales when you're scaling it down to the size when you're really expanding it the full six hours when the halal card is on stage when it's not just a solo show what keeps it alive and surprising each time? Well, being the most hard-offest lover and then having a company for so many years all our desires put into the company so that's one way to do it you don't have sex with the most women in the show you have other levels and that probably brings a little stirs up all the problems and everything else but I think it depends on what you want to do it depends on your journey my journey was to find out what I meant to be a woman in the world because I was tired of everybody telling me what I meant so I had to figure out what's a lesbian and now I have to figure out everything else I'm trying to keep up with it it's exhausting being an artist and feeling like you're responsible for what's around you which I feel like I am so I think the intellectual stuff is exhausting me I'm glad that I didn't even know I'm a doctor I am a doctor I've been a doctor since July I just want you to know I don't think that's the ending but I would like to think that our physical bodies keep us going not our brains and I think me of course is so interested in timing and in collaborating with other people and having young people to inspire us and new ideas because I'm so fucked up being a 73 year old queer I can't even imagine I like to be with people who are you know free, they're freer, huh? no, I'm just like now I'm talking of the word the learn to learn because when you're born in the 40s it's like I was the only thing you knew is like suicide in mental hospitals so it's nice to be around people who have new words and new ways of living and new ways of having relationships so I guess what keeps us alive our company some may differ with my opinion but I think we're pretty excited today might not have been the high point of head pressure is that we're always trying to learn everything and not just get stuck or think we're teaching the audience I feel like the audience is teaching us I think it's maybe the same it's the intention behind the work it's clear at each time we've been doing work for like a decade together so we knew every time we finished a show there was something wrong and that's what keeps us going something's not right with this one and then we try to get it right in the next one and each time it seems to be getting more focused on what the intention is how can we put our attention in the show and then somehow have that expressed through the show it makes sense I think desire is good Desire? Desire, what do you desire to do in the show? What is the desire to do in the show? I don't know Dan, do you understand? It's okay if you don't I don't know I really relate to so much of what Peggy said you know we try to bring in a wild part to each and every show every other show so I think one of our mottoes is to do the next hardest thing the next thing that seems hard but I guess at this moment I guess I'm just thinking about this word virtuous is just trying not to be too virtuous not doing things because you should oh that's the that would be a good thing for me to do now and instead to listen to the idiosyncratic maybe that word desires the desires that you're like I don't even know why by doing this I'll bring in what that desire is instead of doing it with the right things Thank you Let's open it up to questions in the audience Is there anything out there? Anybody out there? Yes This is specifically for the for you guys over here Oh, I have a microphone, amazing So this is a large question because it's essentially what is theater but how do you sorry how do you think about your piece as a performance versus a concert since it is such a music-centric piece? Yeah I think so this is a question we bump up against a lot and there's a lot of different ways that I think that I answer that question for myself one way I think that I answer that question for myself is that I'm trained in theater so that's where I receive my education it's the work that I follow for numerous years now it's the community that I've immersed myself in since I moved here in 1999 and I'm very much a theater artist I find that knowing that about myself allows me to recognize that even in something like this or even in something that's even less like theater than this is I don't know what that would be maybe the piece that we did just recently we did this in a piece, nevermind but there's stuff that's even less like theater than this is and even in those circumstances I think that the truth of it is that I'm making choices the way that a theater artist would make choices I'm thinking about the expectation of the viewer duration spatial elements I'm thinking the way that a theater artist thinks versus the way that a musician or a visual artist might think now I think that a lot of times I'm making work that could easily be described as visual art or work like this or we could describe it as a concert but if it were just a musician making it and I'll sell it of course as a musician but he's from various different worlds including theater if it were just a musician making it as a concert they wouldn't be asking themselves the questions that we're asking they wouldn't be thinking about the choices that we're making so for this there's a lighting design there's a set design there's even a costume design although it's meant to kind of not look like a costume design the only thing that's really missing from it that would hang anybody up from thinking that oh well it's just theater is that there's no text now in the year 2017 if we're sitting here as a bunch of people in the field asking ourselves well if there's no text is it theater I think it's really sad because those questions were asked and answered at least a few decades ago if not before so it's only from the most sort of conservative standpoint that we could even say that this isn't theater or that we should even automatically think it's theater you've got so many examples of things that fall into that category otherwise so those are the two things that we're making choices the way people think and also that there is a set, there is lights, there is a costume design there is all the elements of theater in it but there's just no text any other questions we have time for two more all the way in the back if you could just wait for the mic for the live stream thank you so this question is specifically for the pig iron piece I really love the multisporting nature of your company's work and as someone who's I'm trying to constantly push formal elements different formal elements into conversation with one another and I guess my question is how do you navigate that in terms of the projections context and dialogue and stage picture and then also the sound and how do you figure out what's guiding what in what moment any thoughts you might have about how to deal with that as a director I think I'm always just trying to get everything in the room at environments is the truth what I'm always pushing for and then the projects keep getting bigger and we outpace our resource is what I say is we start without a script and usually it's an ensemble of actors who are making the script with the writer in the room and so those things are about being in tandem and then similarly in my favorite processes we've got a mock-up of the set right there and the actors are pushing against it so typically it's the performer creators who are trained to improvise and push against all of the they're completely clued in to the formal things that we're playing with and are clued into the idea of constraints and restraints and doing as much as you can by pushing against those this is in two of the five movements we had no performers no live performers no live performers in view no live performers in view and I guess I heard of stuff like that like Joseph's phoboda or scene I think there's a guy holding to let's check magic so that was pretty new for me it's dangerous to say this next to the temporary distortion guys but I'm not that into video there's no video in this work at all I noticed but I just but in a way I guess I feel like it was easier for me to work with video without actors in front of it I guess I feel like there's two different kinds of time that scrambled my brain when I've got video and actors in front of each other unless it's in the mode that Peggy was playing with which is like I see the video I see you seeing the video I mean for this we really so for this work again we were all in the space together we actually were doing we were writing the words turning them into into projections the composer was a big part of the writing of the words and I'm glad we did that because everything felt really different on the screen almost like a different voice I would think oh well this writing I think if I saw the script I would say this is bad writing as a script and then as we were playing with the way it was displayed it affected the rightness of it that's my that's my model dancer thank you any last questions it's time for one more yes please I don't know I was only anything else yes Jeremy a question about the temporary distortion piece how much improvisation is going on as you perform the six hours and how much of it is composed it's pretty much all improvised I have a base of drone that I create with the tuning of the instruments so they're all tuned specifically so once I get the drone going I have access to all my little do-deads there I can do any frequency from it so I just follow it and hopefully catch on to it and feel something today is the first time I'm really doing it without my guys around and having other people come so it was really interesting when somebody would sit down and see if I was connecting with them but I pretty much know how everything works and I have maybe some riffs and ideas that I know that make me feel something so I start with that but all of it's improvised everything's tuned very specific there's two other guitars in the full piece they're all tuned differently but there's a relationship to them so there's a lot of technical things that do specific things that I can choose from but how and when they happen I'm just following the feeling a lot of it is like if I can't sit there anymore I need something to give me the energy and something in the sound allows me to stay the thing that makes me be able to just stay there and I know I don't have it right if something makes me want to get up and move so I search for that that's usually what I'm searching for something that makes me go ok I can stay here and I notice it seems to be the same with people as in well, Peggy, Dan, John, Kenneth audience thank you all so much we feel the house traveled