 Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in your time zone, welcome. My name is Mwenya, Jehan stole some of my preamble so we can just cut to the chest. It's quite all right. So the conversation today is under one of the broad umbrellas for season two, which is transcendence. And the focus is really on how we might think more expansively about training students in theater and performance and what they might go into after their training, you know how to think about a range of professional practices perhaps I mean there are various terms that we can use here. And I'm very pleased to be joined by two of my favorite people for this conversation. Dhoni Kanyile who is a broadcast journalist amongst other things and process designer and a facilitator, and also Clara Vaughan who amongst other things is the head of the market theater laboratory in Johannesburg. And they will introduce themselves a bit more fully and tell us about their work. Yeah, and I guess what my interest in my quest, if you will to steal a phrase from Jehan here is in really thinking together I mean for those of you who are new to Anuha's futures the idea here is that these conversations are a way to think collectively about how to make some sense of the current incoherence we were talking about incoherence a lot just now before we let everybody into the call. And like the time feels a bit mad, you know, and it feels like a way through trying to meet the moment with with some coherence is to do it together so I really invite and encourage your input and your reflections and your half formed thoughts that's really the point of this. So I'm going to ask Dhoni and then Clara to tell us who they are and tell us particularly about their work in this context we find ourselves in. And then I'll come in with another question and then we'll, we'll, we'll open it up, but along the way if you have contributions to make please do so. So there we are so let's go and Dhoni and then Clara and see where the conversation goes. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks, when you're. And thank you as well I spoke to money a little earlier and she, I told her I've got a lot of sort of mama fatigue and I think just the general fatigue were all feeling in the world this morning so gave me permission to say you know don't feel like you need to touch on everything. In the journey because there's a lot to cover but really to just touch on on some highlights and some things that have proven to be foundational for me. And some of the interesting direction that that life has taken me and how I've used my training in theater performance. In the first place I've really found myself, work wise. And then yeah we'll see what what comes up in the rest of the conversation because I really do want to hear from, from all of you as well around how you're thinking about some of these things. Yeah, I went to UCT drama school where I studied theater and performance that's where I met Wenya. And it was, and still is an excellent program. Very very strong skills based program, where you are helped to develop you know fluency in multiple languages, you know the language of the body, the breath, the voice those are kind of very strong elements of the program. And those kind of languages proficiency in those languages has been foundational for me I've taken that understanding through into every kind of work that I've done really. And while that program was very very strong in those foundational skill sets, something that I found lacking and that was a big missing with that was, there was very little professional preparation in the program. It was a four year program but by the end of it, you know there was very little focus on anything outside of theater and at that time in South Africa, there were many, there were fewer and fewer opportunities to make theater and find theater. The program I think at UCT was developed at a time where it was catering mainly to white students, and white students the trajectory that was ahead of them was that they would graduate and likely they would be auditioned for some sort of company. And then they would find work as a part of a company and that would give them a sense of job security, you know secured earnings and the ability to create in collaboration. By the time I was a student you know around. I started in 2000, what 2001 2002 I started that program had long since fallen away. And there was no kind of clear roadmap for students as to what a possible career could look like. There are some of the likely ways that you can earn a living and support yourself doing this work, you know, I graduated never having written a funding proposal not understanding how to do budgets, not knowing how to create you know fund, look for money to create our own work, not knowing how to think about myself as an engine and a hub of my own creativity. And that requires certain abilities and skills to make that happen you need to be able to budget and create and do all of that. And so there was very little of that and I had to find my way as all of us did, as we went. And thinking about this topic I realized that you know my work life has been characterized by a series of what I feel like a combination of happy accidents of disappointments and sort of global events that forced me in a certain direction. That opened up new unexpected doors to newness and new opportunities. And that first kind of happy accident was that I came up with a concept for a documentary series that I wanted to do, looking at youth culture across Africa, came up with this with some friends and we were looking to how can we make this happen how can you raise the money. And I was pointed to a creative agency went to go pitch the idea to them, hoping they could give us a sense of where to begin shaking the money tree how do we make this happen. And found that we talked ourselves into jobs, somehow, which felt very convenient because all of a sudden I was faced with the really kind of pressing reality of like I have to pay my way. I have to pay my bills in my life and I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to do it. For years of this incredible experience behind me so much passion and enthusiasm but no ideas to how to use it in the real world. Really so happily took this first job, where I learned the very important lesson I think that not all creative companies are truly creative. All spaces that say they embrace creativity really allow space for people to be creative. And I think that wasn't a very important thing for me to realize early on. So I only stayed in that job for eight months and it is the only eight months in my life I've ever worked in an office sort of corporate setting, but I'm glad for the experience it showed me what I don't like which I think is important. So that really just started exploring working as a freelance actor and was really lucky to be cast in my first television production, which was a huge one in South Africa because it was based on the 1976 student uprisings. And I played a student leader in that TV production. Remember the first audience was the first episode was watched by like 8 million people so it was the strange thing where from one day to the next you went from being completely anonymous to people, knowing who you are when they're packing your shopping bags which was a very strange experience, but at the same time also being introduced to this television landscape in South Africa which is so different to the world of theater, and what drives us and feeds us in theater you know TV is its own different animal. And that was you know the disappointments one of the disappointments that I'll definitely touch on that. While the opportunity to make really great TV was wonderful, the workings of the industry were a very, very difficult revelation for me. And it turns out that the director of the first show that I was in years later turned out to be the first South African man implicated in the Me Too scandal. And while I wasn't personally sort of targeted by him on that production, it did begin a series of events where I encountered powerful men in the television industry acting as gatekeepers, and acting as the sort of deciding powers of who gets opportunities and who doesn't who works and who doesn't, based on who's willing to play the game. I was a very young you know at that time I was like 23 or something as a young woman in the industry you're so vulnerable. And I responded, you know I don't take well to feeling so constrained so I just decided really to take myself out of that entire space of the industry of the work in a lot of ways. And I went and pivoted to go and do a master's degree in broadcast journalism, because I felt like there's so many stories to tell there's so many ways to tell stories. I wanted to collect more tools that would allow me to tell different types of stories and I knew documentary mating making was something that I'd always had a deep love of. In New York got to go to Columbia which I was very fortunate for and get funding for that. And while Columbia was an excellent and a wonderful experience because also a very strong skills based program. You know you'd be sent off into the city in the morning with recording equipment and camera equipment, you got to go find a story, report the story, edit the story and present present a final thing by the end of the day and that's thrilling being in the field, working with people just like real life living experiences and interactions. Something about Columbia that I found very difficult was that I was the only African student in my program. And I had a lot of questions around how media worked because I was approaching this as an outsider right I'm coming as a theater maker approaching this new thing trying to understand it and see it in its entirety. I'm trying to understand you know how does this work because there was a major failing of journalism after 911 in the lead up to the Iraq War. How do we make sense of how this industry failed. How do we understand what created those failures, and how do we shift how we work as journalists to make sure that that doesn't happen again. To me was a normal kind of thought process to question in this way, I'd always been encouraged to question in this way in my previous program at UCT. And I found a great deal of animosity that I was kind of presented with when I started asking these questions that required that the institution be able to reflect on itself. And it was really surprising to see the inability of some incredibly talented journalists with illustrious careers, unable to reflect on what went wrong. Why did it go wrong. What can we do to begin to change it. And I think these are really important questions to be able to ask when those moments happen. I was in Columbia in 2008 and it's when Barack Obama was running his campaign. At the same time the financial crash of 2008 happened another kind of global event. So there was just this feeling of opportunity but then at the same time you know, our industry journalism and media was decimated in many, many ways and I came back to South Africa applied for every internship, every kind of entry level job I could find and there was no room to enter into the media industry at that time. And luckily, I was still a part of a performance collective that I've been at started with when I was at UCT and so was able to kind of tap into that other life that parallel life and those other languages I had and begin creating work again. And that has kind of been a theme that has continued these parallel lives these parallel ways of working that I dip in and out of I take from one and take it to the other. So, since I came back from New York have been working since then making work, working in collaboration with others, theater work, experimental film work, and that has become more and more a place of like a love language for me, and less so how I earn my living, which I'm really happy about because I've been able to retain my love, I've been able to protect the love that I have for this work, somewhat. And the basic really difficult reality is that it's incredibly difficult in South Africa to make a living with children to support a family and to support children purely, you know, off of theater work, purely off of work as a film actor so the fact that I now do design facilitation design. Thinking deeply about how do we bring people together in meaningful engagements. What is it that creates the magic in a room between people that allows for impactful meaningful conversations to take place. I think the skills that I've learned to drama school definitely feed into that thinking. And I've been doing a lot of thinking around you know what do I know how to do. And what where is there a need, and how can I bring the things I know how to do to bear in speaking to a need that exists. So I'm currently a coach and training I'm doing a coaching training that's an integral approach to coaching, where I'm doing to create my own model of an embodied approach, bringing semantics together with body work breath work voice work to be able to work with people. And especially black women that's kind of my heart to work with black women because I feel like black women are the, the latent force in South Africa, you know when black women thrive in this country we can all thrive, but we are a deeply traumatized country, we are a deeply divided country, mental health issues are bound, people do not know how to have conversations across lines of difference we do not know how to hold complexity, we do not know how to have conversations difficult conversations that are rooted in love. And I think for those of us who spent time and years building these skills and these tools we need to be thinking about how can we speak to the need. There are great needs. How can we bring the things we know how to do to speak to those needs. I kind of want you to just keep going. Thank you. Thank you so much. So much there so much there. I'm really looking forward to joining dots with what Clara Clara Clara hello Clara. Over to you, and then let's see where we go. Thank you. Hello, and I'm very excited to be in this collaborative conversation and particularly excited and don't need to be in a conversation with you already what you've said has got so much resonance for me and so much. So many dot joinings already happening and I think the insights and the experience that you have, and give me as the holder of an educational art space, such a lot of clues, I guess, such a lot of questions and and thoughts for for possible directions. So let's just start just by talking a little bit about the market lab. And the market lab basically exists for the benefits and the development of emerging theater makers, mainly between the ages of 18 and 35, and mainly from poor or marginalized backgrounds. I'm concerned with a sort of approach to to theater making and to the training of theater makers that is informed by this word laboratory and all that it suggests. So the ideas of learning by doing it's a highly practical space so students spend most of their time on the floor and and less time in theoretical engagement although of course all of that practical work is theoretically informed. So the ideas of learning by doing learning through experimentation learning through failure through repetition through reflection through exchange. And the way that I see my role within that space is really about creating a particular kind of space. So on a macro level, what is the energy, what is the environment that is created, and, and how that can enable the people who participate to find a home in that environment, how it enables them to find their own sort of poetic artistic, socially engaged voice and purpose. And yeah, so this, this, this idea what I work towards is to create an environment that is both safe and challenging, and that is fertile and inspiring and I often think that a huge part of my job is simply about putting people in proximity. So bringing people together for processes and for projects, and allowing all that they have to offer to feed in an organic way to the development of each other, and to the development of the kind of the space of storytelling and and creativity. And ideally to to create a sense of shared purpose. And I think that's one of the real gifts of the, the market lab and spaces like it is that it really brings together both young and more experienced artists with a sense of really shared passion and a shared sense of direction that everyone is really passionate to be there. And, and, and very invested in what their personal journey through the space might be, and what that journey might be in relation to others. And this idea of community I think is really central to to the lab is that is that through these processes the kind of community and kind of supportive community is created. And this is really, really important because I think already in in Dhoni's introduction, you know the specter of the industry has, has raised its head, and it's something that sits really in a complicated way for me, and I think for for many of us, practicing here and probably around is how do how do training institutions relate to the industry. And what are the ways in which we navigate that relationship, because as and don't he's already mentioned and referenced the industry is not a space that offers theater makers or actors a lot of control over their own journeys. One of the tensions of the lab is that because it's intention it's mandate is to give access to students who often don't have access in other spaces who might not have access to universities for example. The idea is that this training is in some way supposed to be empowering. What's really economically empowering is that it gives students the skills and knowledge the access the, the, the, the sort of a level of privilege I guess, to be able to use these these skills and knowledge to make their lives better, and to overcome to some degree the disadvantage of their background. And, and of course this is a very challenging idea in, in the context of our actual industry is how does one creates an empowered theater maker. And, and this is a question, you know that I really am still grappling with. And the lab does offer quite a lot of professional preparation. And, and of course one of its advantages as part of the market theater foundation and being in such proximity to the market theater is that it is already in a deep relationship with the professional space, it's already a part of a professional theater space. And it gives students that kind of organic proximity that is so valuable to really understanding and seeing how the industry works and it's, I think, unlike some university spaces which, which create almost a rarefied quite ideal idealized environment. Students do get a little bit more of a realistic sense of how the industry actually actually operates to some degree. And listening to Andoni made me think about the fact that, although our professional preparation I think is quite strong and quite comprehensive in many ways, it is very much located within the assumption that theater makers are going to find their space and they work within a very particular industry. And I think that's something that we perhaps need to start thinking more extensively about especially in perhaps the potential for spaces like the lab to leverage the training in a way that can bring about certain changes within the industry itself, rather than only thinking about how does the training respond to the industry as it is. And how could the training actually affect the culture of the industry itself. The lab's training is also got a huge emphasis on live performance. The assumption, even though we recognize that many graduates will go on to find careers for example in TV or film. There's a sort of assumption I think that that live performance is a really good foundation for everything. If you train people in live performance that the adaptation to other formats, to digital formats, for example, is relatively simple. There's a really strong tradition of live performance and some of the ideas that also go really strongly along with live performance so it has an emphasis on collective creativity on the idea of collaborative theater making. A lot of the work that the lab makes is ensemble based. And this is one of the real strengths and the reputation of the lab. We're really looking at ways to integrate the whole person into the process, that it's not, it's not an idea of the person as a blank slate who needs to learn skills. So much as a person going through a process of investigation and gaining skills in which they might better express this sort of integrated self. I'm particularly fascinated within the space of the lab I think my particular passion, my particular passion at the moment. In 2013, so I've gone through a series of passions, as I say, is around the undoing of perfection. Starting with myself, the ultimate perfectionist. But, but really, you know the way that our school system is set up and so much of our society is set up is so much geared towards a particular, you know, ideas around getting it right and getting good marks and being better and and getting approval. And these things also counter to I think what is needed now in our current unrehearsed space, which is more to do with a sort of fearlessness and a joyful making of mistakes and, and a kind of embrace of imperfection. And I think that's something that's, I feel really curious about at the moment is also creating an environment in which truly this, this idea of embracing mistake embracing imperfection really, really exists. And I think I should end there. Pause there. So much. Oh, this is this feels so rich already and there's so much on the table already. And I'm going to ask one more question that maybe each of you can respond to briefly and then, you know, everyone else in the room please jump in. So, Clara, I'm glad that you brought up, you know, the kind of one of the distinctions to be made between a space like yours, the lab and maybe, you know, the drama school of Mumbai as well. In relation to a university, a university drama department of theater performance dance department, let's say, and my feeling, having kind of dipped in and out of the lab and, you know, also space like you see tears that the more labs market lab like training spaces have are much more agile that you know not connected to these big structural bureaucratic systems of their universities and as a result, can do some kind of thinking on their feet in a way that is is is, you know, can be more responsive to the kinds of changes that we have around us and, you know, can can meet them maybe a bit more quicker and, you know, lead the way in some in some capacity. And so for both of you, I'm interested in. And, you know, it can be really a briefish response if you like so we can open it up but in what some of the particular opportunities and particular challenges have presented themselves to you in your work in the last year or so. Yeah. And let's don't need perhaps you can go and then Clara. Man I was hoping Clara was going to go first. Again. It's fine. In terms of opportunities you know it's it's interesting because as difficult and disorientating as this covert 19 pandemic has been, I cannot deny that they have been enormous openings of newness for me to step into a new way of being a new way of working and a new way of understanding what is possible for me, work wise. So you know end of 2019. I just had my second child, and I was really you know looking forward to 2020 because for the first time ever really I had a year booked up in advance I knew what work was going to be there it had already been organized it was in place it felt like really strong and empowering baby but not going to miss a beat going straight back into work and felt really excited and then of course, you know within a week all of it disappeared it all fell away. And then there's this space to ask you know what now what what happens now. And the first thing you know the universe is works in incredible ways like that you know you ask a question and you'll get an answer somehow it's just you know are you listening. The first thing that came up was an opportunity to play with the director who directed the first film I was and he put out a call on Facebook saying, I want to make something that can help us make sense of this crazy time. Who wants to make an experimental movie will shoot it on our cell phones and there was an immediate response of yes. And that's also been part of the key thing in all of these opportunities that when something comes up I've had the ability to recognize it when it comes and say yes you know. So we created and had this incredible experience of making this movie which exists in the world now there's an actual movie you can watch that we shot in our homes on our cell phones. Trying to make sense of this experience so started off the year in creation in making in collaboration. And I realized very soon after that had the opportunity to work together on an incredible product project where we created a workshop for a tech company. And this is a tech company that has a very large platform, and there are a number of people who experienced high levels of harassment and abuse and violent threats on the platform. So they wanted to think around how to get information from these vulnerable users about the context in which this harassment happens, how it happens, how it affects them, how the safety tools that are in place at the moment on the platform how the extent to which they work or don't work for them, and how to begin to dream or thinking to how they could be better for them. So they knew they wanted to have this conversation and that's what they wanted to get out of it they had no idea how to do it. So tech companies are very good at certain things and incredibly bad at others as much as their tools to connect people within the organizations we found they often do not know how to relate to employers let alone users as human beings. And the human element is often lost in, you know, a lot of what happens in the world of tech. Because thank God they realized that limitation and then reached out to us saying you know we know we need some kind of creative out of the box approach of how to have this difficult conversation, how to do it in a way that's not extractive that is respectful that creates a safe space for people who have experienced high levels of trauma as a result of their presence on this. So understanding that there was an element of sacred space that needed to be created. It needed to happen virtually, they needed to be able to do it in a way that wasn't extractive that was deeply co creative, but didn't have an essence of how. When when and I began we had no idea either but through this process of working over eight months found ways and a lot of what we brought in elements of ritual. How we start a session how we end a session understanding what is it that creates safety, what is it that is an invitation to people to participate, rather than and you know, thinking very deeply about the architecture of creating an engagement like that, especially virtually, because the virtual realm is so challenging for so many reasons you there has to be a deep level of thinking about that invisible architecture. So that experience really opened up and opened up a door in my mind that said, there is something that we found in this really wonderful joyful experience of creating this workshop that tells us that what we have and what we know how to do. How to be with people how to hold space, how to creating a space where people can bring themselves fully. We know how to do this because of our experience in making work in our foundational training, you know, and this is another unexpected space that we're finding that it can be an expression, you know, from this worked with another conference project for the UN which was also incredibly challenging because it's a very formal traditional rules based environment. Things work in a certain way people relate to one another in a certain way, but they know they needed an engagement that would bring people on board, and you need, you know, you need certain things to encourage that participation so I had to give myself permission to come to that space and bring ideas that were not normal in that setting that I didn't know how people would respond to saying let us begin every workshop session with a meditation. How do you do that with high level dignitaries at the UN it's it's a difficult proposition to make because you feel like people are going to look at you like you're crazy. But then at the same time we are humans, having a human experience in an incredibly difficult time. We're all coming to these sessions whether you're an ambassador, or you know, somebody working in a country office. Family members are sick you're working from home your homeschooling, you know online schooling kids we're all holding so much. And at the same time I'm being expected to think deeply about certain things. How do we create space for that kind of thinking to happen if we don't allow ourselves that chance so I really had to give myself permission to bring myself fully. And all of my creative tools to an environment that felt very alien to that way of thinking, and the response was so positive and so encouraging, which is yet another signpost that says there are opportunities here. The things that are second nature for us. And those things speak deeply to the experience of being human. The things of how do we create meaning how do we tell the kind of stories that help us make sense of ourselves of our world of our community of our histories. How do we create sacred space what is sacred space for how do we bring people into an engagement all of these things are things we know how to do, or we know how to figure them out. But they can find expression in unexpected places so that's a huge opportunity that I think has presented itself. And you know the challenges are basically trying to do. I mean the learning curve has been incredibly steep. And I've experienced an expansion of myself, emotionally, mentally spiritually my understanding of myself and my work. Huge expansion at a time where I have the least what feels like the Reese's resources to hold all of what is happening, because I have young children my youngest is 16 months old. I have young children, I'm working from home my husband is also a creative he's a director. So there's just so much so it feels like sometimes there isn't enough of me enough energy enough anything to hold all of this newness. But yeah, those are just a little bit of the challenges and the opportunities of the moment. Amazing. Thank you there's some lovely reflections in the chat as well, which I urge you all to read and Clara, your response. What a delicious unpacking of some of the underlying processes and skills around it to make it. It was really. Yeah, it was really delicious. I am excited by the possibilities that it presents. In terms of challenges, I think one challenge I'd like to talk about. I suppose it's about how there's two times that I like to talk about the one about how and other about what. And obviously, the how of theater making training theater making processes has been profoundly challenged in this time in the last year with so much being online so much being digital. But actually one of the challenges for this for me that has been quite profound is about some of the assumptions that I had about ideal pedagogy. And what really was going to create a fertile environment for students. I have all of these ideas which sound very reasonable to me which are that ideally students should be in an immersive environment, they should be working intensively in spaces with each other highly practically very embodied very physical. They should be doing doing doing. And this is going to be the best possible experience for young theater maker. This was impossible last year. The amount of time that students spent in the space compared to previous years was, you know, not even comparable. And yet, there was some benefits and some consequences to that that were for me entirely unexpected and entirely positive. And I felt that for so many students. I mean, security, a real response to the challenge a real clarity of intention that emerged. I mean, never before had a student had to be so clear that this was something that they wanted to do, because doing it in your lounge surrounded by your family, giving you notes while you are practicing your monologue. You know, all of these horrible challenges. It's not nearly as much fun to do in this way. Really asked students the question of whether they wanted to do it, whether the benefit for them was enough, and whether their passion was going to was going to take them through this remarkably different difficult phase. We struck at the end of the day by at the end of last year when our students graduated at how ready they were to graduate. How calm. What a sense of perspective they had. And also I must say how few of them intended to go only into theater or regarded themselves only as theater makers, compared to previous years. I don't think that the digital online learning. In terms of quality, and in terms of fundamentally what the lab is about replaced what we would have done in another year, but it did expose some other opportunities and some other practices and the kind of the, the positive or the constructive possibilities of these immense challenges that were posed for the development of young people that that all of us, you know, grow under pressure and grow and a challenge. And although I know this on some level it was not what I expected and so this, this pedagogical challenges one that I'm still sort of sitting with. And the second part is sitting with the what is what we teach and why, because right now we're teaching mainly in person our students are coming every day, our actual capacity to teach as we would usually teach right now is not that affected. We have safety protocols in place, but we're not doing online teaching at the moment. The industry itself, the thing that we are preparing our students to go into is decimated. And so surely we cannot continue to teach the same things that we've been teaching in the context that that that so much has has radically changed. And so this question of control for me has come up quite strongly. The question of all the realization what has been revealed by COVID and by our current scenario, because it's not that COVID has created a new industry or a new scenario, it's just revealed the brokenness of what was already there and accelerated. I'll need to really respond to that and I need to acknowledge that reality. And so this question, this question of how, how do we, how do we prepare young people to take on their future with a sense of control, and that it's not going to be about good luck. And it's not going to be about meeting the right people. And it's not going to be about the right place at the right time all of these languages and I do think one of the opportunities for us or one of the imperatives for us in a way is to examine the implicit assumptions that we make about theater and performance training and make them explicit and then potentially challenge them. So for example, I think most people who go to acting school or get to making school. There's a sort of implicit view that if you then go and do something else in some ways you've turned your back on your artistry, or you've turned your back on your creativity. If you're not a pure actor pure theater maker, you know that that it's a sort of pity that you went and worked for Google instead. And I think we need to sort of start just thinking about what are the underlying values that that we teach and how to, how to challenge that and in so doing, how to rethink the relevance of theater. And not in a way that rejects the relevance of theater or the sort of old chestnut of is there to still relevant do people still come to the theater. Not in that way but in, in a way of really expanding the possibilities that the other has for relevance and for integration. In this world and so much of what Indoni was saying this sort of essentially what it means to be human what it means to be a human in community. How to be with people. And that the opportunity is to find. I think a better language. And Indoni I feel like you just did it so well done. You find a better language for the skills and the knowledge is and the practices that we have, and the ways in which those are sort of fundamental to being human and to being in society, and to being in community, and they've been not just for a very specific medium and a very specific industry. Other than saying I'm a theater maker and expecting the rest of the world to assume a bunch of implicit practices and skills that you have to be able to put that into words. And to also be able and you mentioned it in Donnie as well to really be able to to own what that is. So to be able to be in a virtual room of you and dignitaries and go. This is how you are going to participate better because I know how to make how to make a space that enables that and to really be able to know that that's what you can do and that that is extraordinary and unusual. It's very specific, and that it's not just that you happen to have this meditation practice that may or may not work, but that we really have the confidence in, in what we offer. And that's, there's no sheepishness, you know, I think, no, no, no apology for for the value of these things in a wider context. For me, I think this is a really exciting it presents some really exciting opportunities within a world now where we've learned or certainly I've learned that change is not that big a deal. But that change that radical change and radical rethinking is not the end of the world. You know that we've seen so much and we've seen so much change that we've been able to absorb and I think certainly for me my internal expansiveness about navigating that change has been dramatically increased. Amazing. I think the two of you are just completely extraordinary. And, and so much of what both of you are saying is making me think about something about revaluing the process part of the making. And, yeah, among the things to possibly shift is where we place emphasis in terms of value that there's, you know, something about being able and only as you say, to create an architecture of engagements we do it without thinking it's like completely second nature. But to make to make the skills in the in the process, more explicit and more articulate and and more valuable even in our own minds. Yeah, might go somewhere at least for me, you know, in terms of rethinking all these ideas about value and skill and, you know, articulation. There's some there's some really interesting things in the chat that maybe we can pull through. Either Jehan or, I think it was Ali or Mbongini who put things in the chat you just want to speak some of those thoughts and get a conversation in the room going. I invite you to. Oh, I was hoping that typing removed me from being in the spot. Yes, the last comment I just made. Firstly, thank you and Donnie, when you're for those absolutely kind of grouping and really kind of rich reflections on certainly taking a lot from this that is helping me think what I'm doing. But I guess what Jehan was picking up I was responding. I was talking about having to kind of manifest this mental shift from thinking about actual physical space to what digital space means. And what I was adding was that in the same moment. I'm very alive to what Donnie pointed out which is in the embrace of those spaces that we need to be aware of the, I guess maybe implicitly so I quote politics that undergird those spaces what are the invisible architectures that that shape how we access engage in and mobilize those spaces while still taking them in hand and deploying them to our own ends. And I guess what I was saying was that for me there's certainly a distinct kind of continuity between the ways that we have historically interrogated the meaning of space and performance and thinking through the same kind of logic of the same kind of physical logic around what digital spaces do. I think that we can absolutely approach those those from from the same kind of critical entry points that that we have used to think about, you know the physical spaces we occupy and the politics that that shape our, you know, access or lack of access intelligibility of subjects within those spaces and all those other delicious things that you know came out of that that that shift in thinking about or shift to thinking about what happens when you remove performance from underneath the sign of the percentium arch. Yeah, this is all terribly exciting to me and is as provoking as provoking as it is kind of frustrating because right here in the thick of it trying to figure these things out, I need to stop there because I need to continue if allowed to do so. Thank you. Yes, please do jump in. Yeah, I'm really excited to hear all these amazing things and thanks for laying that out as well in such a beautiful way. And the point I made I was making the chat and was was jumping off of Clarice and thinking about power and control and kind of revisiting that within oneself. I think this is really, it's really a beautifully profound and hopeful moment if we can enable ourselves to be vulnerable. And that's really hard because in in so many of those structural ways about over 19 and how that affects people disproportionately, you know, we're experiencing vulnerability in very differential ways. But this kind of personal sense of vulnerability and how might how might we kind of dig deep into ourselves as we're as we're thinking of, oh gosh, this is really a hostile environment to be a creative. At the moment, I hate that word created, but I'll just use it for now. And so, so how might I need to flex in the back. And yeah, I think I think students all across the world are experiencing this kind of profound vulnerability and it's a huge responsibility for educators to to make that vulnerability. Okay. Thank you so much, Ali. And your sound was getting kind of louder and softer as you were speaking so when you speak again. Maybe come closer to your mic for thank you so much. And something I want to just pick up on from what you were saying that you made me think about is, you know, you were talking about the fact that your second year of last year, you know, were surprisingly in your mind ready to graduate and and relatively unruffled considering the context in which they were graduating and I really have to say, you know, from having taught at the lab and made work with the students and, you know, first of all, it's one of my most fulfilling places in which to work for stop. And so it's real credit to the kind of environment that is created there by you by the people who come in and out by Rudy Tandeka that that is possible, right that students can graduate in, you know, a graduating class for global pandemic, can do what they need to do feel unruffled and and and and stick with it, you know, so I just want to say that that it really feels like it's a real credit to you in in in the lab's direction to be able to hold space for students in that way. And anyone else have thoughts, things that that are bubbling for them at the moment that they want to plan the table and share and don't go ahead. The question that I that sparked when Clara was speaking is, you know, the process that I've had to go through for myself now, asking what do I know how to do. Where is the need. I think that is a line of questioning and reflection that institutions universities can and should engage in now what do we know how to do. Where is there a need to begin thinking about what are the opportunities that exist beyond the traditional, you know, avenues that we know of how can we access new spaces and, you know, places that are independent like the lab and the Mumbai school are different but with uct it is a part of an institution, which is an opportunity that can be taken up and I don't think that it is often enough where the university that the drama school is physically you know separate from the main campus main campus in Rondevash in one suburb and the arts campus is in town. So there's a physical distance, but you also have a really well resourced theater that is on the university campus that most students will never visit until they graduate. What a missed opportunity to make that space central to the life of the university, a space that invites students in no matter whether they're performance students or not. You know a space where lots of things happen, not just performances, but also this idea that you know through the university, you did a dual program a dual focus program where after four years you come out with the theater and performance qualification. But I also then chose English literature as my dual focus, you could choose gender studies, African literature, most students chose the literature and the gender studies during my time. But imagine what an opportunity. If you had drama students taking a dual focus in psychology maybe where they could spend their time thinking about neuroscience and behavioral sciences, and all of these new discoveries that are made, because the interesting thing about the literature as well is that the research is catching up to the things we've already known and been practicing for generations, things that were handed down to us, that are built into absolutely everything we do. The understanding that the main deciding factors for, you know, people's success, the sense of contentment in one's life, getting to the end of one's life and feeling like you are, you feel good about the human experience you've had. It's not about talent, it's not about the accident of being born in a wealthy country, the access to resources you have none of those things are the critical factor. The critical factors the research shows emotional intelligence, self awareness, the ability to reflect, change one's mind, the ability to work with others, to bring other's ideas on board, these are the things we do. We're coming out of the most respected institutions backs us up. So we need to have that confidence and the information to be able to say because we know it's real, but sometimes you need to be able to put science to get your, your foot into places and spaces where they don't understand what it is that we do to then be able to understand what are some of the spaces that we can take these core skills into, but it's a different understanding of that question what is it that we know how to do. I think that UCT can begin inviting students to explore other departments for this, you know, parallel studying and to bring students from other departments into the arts campus to experience what happens there. Hi Kyla, I see you've got your hand up. Kyla, please go ahead, let's go Kyla and then the circle and then there's a question from Jenny in the chat. Welcome Kyla. Thank you. Thank you. Donnie that was really well said and really hit me there. I just wanted to, I'm not sure if they comments or I don't know I just wanted to be part of the conversation. The first point I wanted to make is that I have quite a lot of interaction with the lab and have done for over several years. I don't have a teacher there but I'm a fairly regular teacher and I've just finished teaching a Buffon module at the lab, which I'll talk about in a second but one thing I want to say I also run a theater company in Joe Berg. And we, as a rule now actually we've been going for 10 years and almost as a rule, we seem, no let me just say as a rule but we seem to always employ performers from the lab, or institutions like Magnet, where there is a more you spoke about a more flexible or fluid I can't remember the word exactly but an ability for performers to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and who are ready to work, they're ready to get on the floor and they don't have a lot of institutional baggage, you know, like we can't do this we've done this they're ready to start devising and as a as an employer of theater makers I prefer to to let me not say prefer but I find myself continually drawn to to this kind of a team. So the most of our productions actually have included lab graduates over the years. That's the one thing I wanted to say, and just on the say on the note of like, not necessarily training only performers and theater makers. I think this is critical as you say Clara that our industry is a mess there's not I'm often find myself teaching and thinking in the back of my mind obviously I don't bring it to the forefront because that's kind of taking away a little bit of the experience of the class. In my mind I'm going, what am I, what are you going to do. What do you get as an employer, myself an employer of artists, I know how rarely I have money to pay artists for a proper in depth rehearsal rehearsal process so. This last course of bull fun that I taught the second year lab graduates we've just finished. I kind of brought that front and center I was like guys this is not about doing being a bull fun. It's not about doing a bull fun piece it's quite niche and a little bit Eurocentric as well. But it's about accessing a tool or finding a tool in which you can find your bull fun voice in which you can say something about the world and South Africa is rich pickings for that whether you are a performer or a writer or a journalist or a. There is so much material and it's about finding a buffoon gaze for the world and not necessarily training to be a buffoon you know and they're really responded so well to that and our final showing was like incredibly cathartic and. Rich in material in source material, and I just wanted to add that to say that I really echo what you're saying, all of you about the difference between these kinds of institutions and the kind of performers or theater makers or poetic voices they are putting into the world. Thank you. Thank you, Carla Davis. Very much. Welcome. Oh, good God. Hi, everyone. Thanks, everyone. And I wanted to talk about I think that's been sitting with me for a while but that this conversation has kind of helped me put into words and it's this. I'm going to call an institutional exclusivity. I don't think we are building an industry because institutions function completely independently of each other. So, like, I mean I've been in spaces now as a very young professional. Where we find ourselves saying things like, Oh, that's a UCT graduate. That's a UCT theater maker. Oh, oh, my word. Yeah, definitely magnet voice, definitely magnet voice. I don't understand why. Well, I think it would be productive to start thinking around a kind of council of heads of departments thing across the board, where everyone just gets together and kind of discusses our individual pedagogic models so that we're not becoming a platform, but at least constantly in conversation with what each institution is trying to do. And then I think that will help build an industry, and not just this weird thing that is around capitalizing on visibility, because that is what it is now right. And another point that I'd like to make, sorry. Another point that I'd like to make is, is about how visibility is capital at the moment. I mean you go to auditions and they ask you how many Instagram followers you have, and that is the reality. Is it a weird reality? Absolutely. But it is the reality. And I think a part of how we are thinking through professional practice needs to incorporate how we capitalize on our own visibility, how we make ourselves visible. And makers like Jefferson Chabalala are really getting into the space of capitalizing on this very weird thing where you need followers to work. But I think it's a thing we can exploit because it is what it is, you know, and we're struggling to change it. So what's that saying if you can't beat them? That's the one. You can't beat them, join them. Is that the one? So at least have a conversation with them. Exactly. Exactly. Clara, you had a response. Please go ahead. Thank you. I thank you, Lucifer, for that. Council of heads of drama schools, what a fantastic idea. I think we all suffer from a certain degree of being very immersed in our own worlds. And the determination to lift your head and to look outwards is really important. And I resonated with what you said, I think it's I think lots of drama schools are quite good at creating communities within themselves where, for example, generations of alumni are really supportive of each other. And the possibility to sort of expand that that network I think is really important. I actually wanted to respond to Kyla. Thank you for your, like the way that you described that profound course was so fantastically an example of what we need to have more conversations about in terms of conversations about relevance and what we're really learning. And I suppose I wanted to reflect something that's a very half thought that I have about why the industry doesn't work here in South Africa. And part of that is to do with the fact that we have absorbed or inherited an absurd amount of traditions from elsewhere. And I can you to insist to assert on to how we make and invite people to see it. They just don't work for our context. So we have theater at night in a city that has no public transport at night. And then we're like, oh, people don't come such a pity. You know, like we just absurd about our addiction to our attachment to traditional ways of putting on theater in buildings at times that just don't speak to the actual realities of being here. And I think part of what theater needs to do to survive. Yeah, I think that well, I think performance and live performance will always survive because it's inherent in life. But we just need to like shift more and part of that is in terms of the training is to encourage our students and ourselves to try and see more of these things as absurd to try and make them strange and not as different opinions about how we have to operate. And that was the, yeah, it's very half thought in my head, but but it's a process that I would love to embark on is making strange some of the things that I sort of assume as necessary to what it means to create and share performance and storytelling. Wonderful. Thank you. We have just under five minutes left. So Jehan, you had a response that you wanted to make and there's some also things in the chat that if you would like to pull into the conversation please do go ahead, Jehan. That's a double I mean responsibility. Okay, the first thing is, let's go I think you understand I mean it's so crazy that I'm everything is popping in terms of resonances because, and I've been saying this in the chat as well. But like I'm just seeing a universality it doesn't matter that it's contextualized right now in South Africa and the conversations happening in that direction. But my response to the thing of heads of department having conversations together. I actually think that and I'm not putting a plug in for unrehearsed futures but I actually think that all the stakeholders talking across the department so if suddenly it's, it's Clara and Jenny or a student from Clara's place and Jenny or something like that having the conversations. That's all we need for the industry to sort of really start to cross pollinate for each other it's to get everybody who's in each well and each silo to start realizing that there are no silos and they can actually start talking to each other. Nothing would please me more than to see DSM students working with the National School of Drama students are working with people who've been trained in different different ways because formal training is not the only way in in in India for example. So, so I do think that this model of more pluralistic spaces where we just hold space and the conversations as Clara said putting people in proximity with a bit of a purpose should should really help articulate that industry and I think holding space in this way so you could do and a version a format like this for exactly to solve for that problem is a thought. The second one is this thing I want to now read about cruel optimism by Berlin and this idea of, of, you know, the things that we need to make strange for ourselves like Clara said. I feel, hold on just lost my side of thought they will come back in half a second. We, we have to. I've lost it completely. Oh my god. We were talking about optimism. It will, it will, it will, it will come back. Yes, that's what it is. It's what I'm going to say about about, you know, when she first talked about first talking ourselves into jazz, and then later on talked about I needed to give myself permission to do this. Right. And I think that somewhere is this juxtaposing this idea that we need to give ourselves permission to to re question the traditions, or to stop thinking like this is another version of talking ourselves into jazz. And I think that we have to, I think that's what what this moment of heightened crisis affords us is the is the unlearning relearning space to be just that much thicker but if we don't I keep stressing about the possibility of lost up like like are we losing the opportunity to change as much as we ought to change. You know, because you also see the countercurrent of like, when things return to normal when we can go back into live space, constantly fighting to get back that that was lost. And I'm a little concerned about that and I suffer made as well and I'll just bring back one more point that I felt over here is that we're still married to space physical space theater as that co convening space. We have just finished a six month course on theater making in the digital space purely and then we gave them creative collaborative labs at the end because it wasn't theater it was something else that we're collaborating on. And what they came up with just proved absolutely that it works that I can teach across this medium and as somebody said in a previous talk I can I can across this medium transfer to you the tools with which you can learn creativity for yourself. And this was said at a talk about six months ago or whatever but so if that is possible and if it's all working and it is working it's not the same thing it is not a replacement but it's all working. Then why is it that when we're planning for the next one. I'm still think hungering for well when we get back into space when can we get back to see we haven't given ourselves permission and my faculty to acknowledge that this is a good thing that we have done. And it holds an equally valid space next to what we used to do in theater. And that's why I said that conversation is still not complete. The transitional way of thinking is still an imperfect and incomplete transition, because, because I'm still hankering for the old and I still haven't valued the new. Thank you so much for that. And it's, it's so difficult to see what the transitional moments are when you're deep in them, you know, I feel like we have absolutely no perspective on this moment, and yet we're so called to deal with it definitively. And so it is it's it's quarter past the hour on the dot and I need some guidance as to whether to officially close let me just tell you what happens so we officially close the recording stops and then there's an after party so so we can do that because I know Kyle has a hand there's some amazing things in the chat. Jenny has just shared some beautiful note here. So, and, Jay Han, those who know the rules of unrehearsed futures. Is that the way to go shall we officially say thank you, and how wonderful. Okay, officially say thank you, and just do a little plug on where they can find this talk and to come back to the next talk and let me sell it a bit. And I can sell the one after that a bit. And then we close officially. And then after that. That's exactly what we're going to do so thank you so much after this. I feel like we're in midstream, we're in midstream. So if anyone is feeling like we're in midstream and you want to stay and hang out and chat some more, we can definitely do that. But for anyone who has to leave and teach and you know get on with your day. Thank you so much for this conversation, don't need Clara really feel like inspired and wide open and curious and I am so thrilled that you were able to be here and be in conversation and share your wisdom and thank you for the contributions in the chat. And Bongini, do you want to quickly plug the next on her futures that you're hosting. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Yes, so in many ways next week's conversation is an almost direct content. We're going to be thinking again about the kind of current status of the world and the industry, but less so from the perspective of pedagogy and training as we've been discussing here, but thinking more around limitations and opportunities for, ultimately, you know, a paradigm of performance that that requires one to be in the body in physical space, or that is animated by that sense of life. So the conversation will be grounded in thinking about a colleague Tony Miambo and Palo Palo, who are the performer and an adapter who adapted France Kafka's report and an academy and just beautiful one hand are called Kafka's ape, which is a touring work, but has had is in a moment of kind of reimagining itself for for for the better word right in the current moment. So we're going to use that as a point of departure to reflect on on what it means to be practitioners in this particular moment. Yeah, so I'm hoping that you can all join us next week. This is such an exciting kind of format and really getting into it. Great. Thank you.