 Welcome, everybody, back to the Segal talks here at the Monteney Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY in the City University of New York and then from Manhattan, the city of the state of New York, which is of course most affected by the virus, again over a thousand dead people in the U.S. Yesterday and Manhattan as the New York Times reported on New York has been the epicenter so many other the infections do travel through here. It's a town with 12, 13, 15 million. We don't never really know how many people are here. 3, 4, 5 million people that's up taking the subway every day. 300,000 people coming out of Penn Station every morning and going back and we New Yorkers like to be together to talk to touch to dance to enjoy life, go to bars and especially theater. It's a town that's connected in an identity also to theater and performance like perhaps no other town in the U.S. and the United States. That's a fantastic place. And everything has changed. It's a full break. The car is about to flip over here. It's in the U.S. Again, I think 3 million people filed for unemployment. They are over 30 million people, 32, 33 within four or five weeks. It's unimaginable what happened and we all don't know how can the country survive. How will people survive in our healthcare workers and people in old age homes, people who do God's work and homeless shelters. It's a severe stress in families and of course also in the artistic community. Some playwrights we talked with Blackfest. They said their families are actually making wills. They feel that they haven't done that. They sit around, support each other. They say we don't know how we will survive this. Traditionally, we haven't had a hard time in this country. We are the first one again who are on the line as the people who live more on the outskirts than in the margins and we do not get the help we need and now people look at us because they are higher numbers of diabetes or others, which is just by DNA. They are looked at as people who potentially have an impact on a healthy need. It's a terrible situation. We heard from Romania this week of thousands of workers who cannot come back, who want to go out and be seasonal workers without any mask. We heard a devastating account again from India yesterday where 500,000 people tried to leave New Delhi on the streets, walking with their kids and the suitcases and that the artistic community really tries hard to help and they actually really do that. They say this is what they can do at the moment. And places from Hungary where we heard that Orban in his wisdom, the President said 60% of all people have to leave hospitals, terminally ill people, many of them died on the streets, basically on the transports home and next to political repressions, they created a system where they can basically implement any law, any degree without a discussion. It's a terrible time in the world. It's a crisis, but of course a crisis in theater also means something is changing. It's on the boiling point, but something will happen. Maybe this all already has happened. We don't know yet as revolutions when they really happen. Something has already happened before and there's a great German poet who I admire very much, Alderlene, who said if there's danger, that would save us will also grow or is already growing, but we don't see it. But I think this is the same here. So theater and the arts have played an important role always in societies, artists have been on the right side of history, the right side of justice, the right side of social progress and we have to listen to them. They did listen to them earlier they detected this they warned us was placed about social and problems about the race problems about unemployment about disenfranchised minorities and climate change, especially the very big thing hanging over us. This is just the overture, as many artists said and so those data artists have significant insight, and they are also the one who help us to change to imagine new worlds, different worlds to come to terms with different worlds, you know that's okay maybe what they show on stage yeah that's not so bad I don't have to live the way we lived before and it's in great to live with people from all around the world who enjoy their culture but also, you know, maybe reinforcing local traditions to work locally but globally and today we have two representatives of the American theater scene, who often also are not in the spotlight and I feel they should we have with us as Stacy Klein, who founded and works at the double edge theater and Western Massachusetts, one which is outside on a rural area where they work and create and teach perhaps connected a bit to an Eastern European experience one of the few places that successfully does that they have a company ensemble, and also with us as Stephanie. This is from the New York City Bandelstair family circus a circus community that is slowly growing we had a big day at the Segal theater. It's a significant art form or for my very love very much, I think it should be more in the center of attention perhaps also has answers in the great tradition of popular theater I remember at the funeral of Heiner Müller. And German speaker said, you know, his last talk instance burger was that with Hannah Muller was that the building ensemble was built on the ground where the circus was in Berlin, where people put up the tense the circle here and then it became a bigger stable theater and he said we have lost something. That's what Hannah Muller felt we have also to connect to a way so there's a great movement in France, the great circle movement was over four 500 companies existing living making a living it's a great tradition. And so now we are checking in with our friends here who took the time to talk to us talk to you to live and we can listen to them so to hear what is happening in in your worlds maybe we'll start with Stacy Stacy where are you exactly I know I said upstate New York in the place where I apologize as Western Massachusetts about what town and describe a little bit the setting of your work. I'm in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and Ashfield is a town of 1700 people. And we are a direct democracy. We are one of very few direct democracies in the United States. We are part of the hilltown communities of Franklin County, which is the poorest or second poorest county in Massachusetts largely due to its rural nature. We are being taking over so we are in a struggling, extremely vibrant place in Ashfield. Yet, we have three kind of community gathering places in Ashfield. The entire county comes to Ashfield to double edge and to to other things going on here. It's a very tight knit community right now, and we have had one case of COVID in Ashfield since this started in March. One case confirmed or fatality. No one case that she recovered. Direct democracy. Can you tell a bit more what you mean. So we are, we don't have a party system. We don't have a mayor. We have town meetings, and we agree and vote on things directly. So we are responsible for our own set of laws and regulations and budgets. I think it's a really incredible example of what local politics can be and an example for the country of the difference that local politics could make. And this is very old it started in the 1600s like this and it has continued since then resisting the party system, which has taken over almost every place except the hill towns of Massachusetts and some New England states. And how does your theater fit in. It's tell us a little bit where it's set. I think it's on a farm I have unfortunately haven't been able to come out because even so you invited me of course you have been at the Segal but tell us a little bit. Where does that fit in and how does it look like. So we came double edge was founded in 1982, almost 40 years old. We came here in 1994 to have a, we, we bought a farm. And it was a farm that the farmer had been trying to sell the farm for 10 years because it's 105 acre farm, very, very difficult to sell large farms at that time. So we got it and we're tasked by the farmer with just grow something here. We elected to grow theater. But we also actually have came here so that we could be sustainable and autonomous and grow our own food and live in an environmentally sustainable way, as well as making theater. We just came here because of the economics of making theater in the city in an ensemble were too much we're supporting eight people. And we had guests artists from all over the world at the time, particularly from Central Europe so we couldn't really afford to even house people in Boston. So we came here to try to work and then realize that we had to do more than just work here and be isolated from the community that that wasn't going to work and we weren't sustainable. We didn't know anything about how to live in a rural community. So we really needed the community. And so we started actually doing theater here gave up our space in Boston and today is a whole other story. We're very, very integrated with our community. And they've perhaps helped save us. In this situation when we were our tour three month tour was canceled at the beginning of it on March beginning of this March 12. Yeah. We had to come home. We were devastated. We were supposed to go. We were going to we were in Albuquerque. We were going to California, we were going to Detroit, we're going to Washington, and we were going to England and Norway. All that was canceled. We came home. We were less like, you know, I'm done. And then our community really done meant you will have to close down shop you meant. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that's how I felt, because you will support yourself through touring your farm work and your being there is touring. So it was the bulk of what we were trying to do for this three months, which was going to support our year. Yes, not every year is the same at double edge but this was something we plan for two years, this tour. So it was a pretty big deal. It was heartbreaking to hear and that the community came out we will we will of course come back to this. Thank you as Stacy. And again, it's interesting that in this direct democracy. There is a theater that and we all say that when theater is alive and theater is kicking when theater is part of a community. It's a good sign for the city for a country for a state. And whether this proves it and wonderful that they, you know, feel that you are such an important part that they are supporting you we will hear more about now let's go to Stephanie. Stephanie, tell me a little about where you are at the moment I see you on a custom shop and I see a hat and a mask and iron a little sewing machine behind you. I'm in a home. I'm in a little old 100 year old house in Hudson, New York, which is Columbia County. It's a mostly rural county south of Albany the capital of New York of New York State. We border on the Berkshires. We are contiguous with in terms of like a cultural region or or an economic region we're part of New York's capital district. And so Steph is kind of divided in activity between New York City and Columbia County at this point. Tell us a bit about the history of you, you know it so well. Most of us, even I didn't know about it before you came to the seagull. I did that big event on circus in a national circus business, the local who is a toe who in Canada, and we did, but so we to focus on what is existing in America what's in Canada how can that scene grow and you came to tell a little bit about your New York City family circus. So Steph started in 1994, when I met my partner Keith Nelson, and the two of us formed a fire eating duo. At that time, say again, fire, we were eating fire and nightclub. Okay. Okay nightclub then. Yeah, it was, it didn't start out as a desire to go to Vegas we were, you know we were really performing ritual and in. And pushing, pushing taboos, playing with gender roles and and norms in terms of public behavior and just kind of pushing our bodies and fire was the you know as the transformative element the dangerous element that really spoke to us at that time. And because of the kind of, of performances we were doing in New York City at that time, mostly very underground clubs were permissive in terms of letting us do this stuff so our whole artistic, you know, roots are in the trans community the drag kind of fetish play playful fetish community, the queer community and the incredible kind of tableau vivant that we're going on every night in all these, these clubs really informed our aesthetic. And the kind of things we wanted to talk about, and the community that we, the family that we created. And so spindle steps origins were very underground and we remained very underground for the, I guess first 10 or 15 years of our performing and touring in New York City but also nationally. But then, you know, as we got older members of our little family started to have families of their own and and we started to kind of make work that spoke more to youth and families and left some of the more kind of boundary pushing stuff and taboo breaking to move into a different realm but over the over these 25 years we've gotten to work with. When I say hundreds I really literally did we have a list somewhere there's over 400 artists that have kind of, and many of them who come over and over, who are kind of in our family tree, and some international ones as well. So how does it work like you rent a tent and then you were in the summer you play in a town or in New York, and I think it's close to impossible almost do that in New York City but maybe you do. So where do you perform and and what do you show. We started in non traditional vent I mean for as a circus and even as a theater company we we never performed in traditional venues from the very beginning, we would in Nebraska we found some kind of concrete outhouse in the middle of a cornfield to play and that some local artists and told us about in Salt Lake City it was an art gallery in San Francisco was a converted warehouse that had a bunch of artists living in it was always these spaces that artists had taken over to make, you know, as, as, as, as you're Stacy with double edge like to create a community around the kind of art they wanted to make. And they were welcoming of us who would you know come along and do our thing and keep moving. And you know there was this great cross cross colonization of creativity and ideas, and it was around circus it just it was a medium that spoke to a lot of us at the time. Because it seemed, I mean, when you're coming along to something at 22 or so you feel like you're inventing it or discovering it for the first time. And we didn't realize how rich the kind of new circus scene in in the US really was going in the 1960s and 70s with kind of new comedia explorations the pickle family, doing political, you know, political theater by the San Francisco mime troop. In New York City Circus and Muck doing really politically oriented circus of public theater in the streets. And that's what that's what we were attracted to so it was never about getting a tent, or you know playing the new Vic it's, it was about bringing the places where it had never been done before. And by, you know by dint of being ignorant we we just kind of dumbly lucked into these places where we could play it and, you know, because of the nature of who we are we love we love to read we collect lots of, you know, literature about circus in vaudeville in the United States we began to see that we weren't inventing anything that you know we're carrying on a tradition. But I, you know, what's interesting Stacy is about what you were saying about how, you know when when you're told you can't do this, it feels like the end of something so like for you it was your tour for us it was the same thing with you know we have an annual New York City season which this is our 25th anniversary. And we're now we're facing we can't do it. How is the situation for circus artists or whatever in that field performance circus on these kind of hybrid form how how how is the situation for you. What I want to say is what what's coming out of that you can't do this is is like we're forced to not do it and reevaluate what's going to come next and a lot of the questions that are coming up in the circus community have to do with sustainable touring and the environment and is the model that we were relying on to, you know, make money going to be doable in the future and can we can we rationalize like flying to Iceland to collaborate with a company up there because they have money, or something you know, like, and so I, what it looks like is a much more locally focused model of creation and collaboration and reaching out to other, you know, artists and folks who are not necessarily in this medium to to stay. What support do you know of any funding that comes to that group of circus performance or hybrid street theater, however you the term is right what you would describe your is there are you getting help. We, you know, I was on the call yesterday with a dozen circus people from Gypsy Snyder to Mark Lonergan to the younger generation who are kind of like founding companies. And we're all asking these questions. One of the things is looking outside of traditional arts funding models in terms of foundation funding or, you know, donor and subscriber funding and partnering directly with municipalities like in Hudson, the local Common Council has a tourism board and they're trying to figure out like how do we reopen our economy. Oh, the arts you know the arts and culture sector are attractive and will drive tourism which will drive is, you know, and a lot of us who have this conflicting idea about what tourism does and how it gentrifies communities and, you know, marginalizes people even further. You know that there's a lot going on all in that one question of like where the money comes from. Stacy tell us a bit what happened you said that your community helped or came through or what what exactly happened. What happened was that in spite of us being in Nashville for 26 years and developing all this I really had no emotional idea about how tightly knit and how important double edge was in a real way. I had proven it maybe over and over but maybe not to myself. We got back and the first thing that happened was our, we talked to our bank and our banker said that we weren't going to go down because we couldn't pay our mortgages and we said we didn't need to pay mortgages and interest for three months, just to start with, and they sent us a contribution. This is a local bank. It started that conversation really in which there was a lot of crying I think really was like mind blowing like oh actually a local bank is not the same thing as a big bank. And it went on from their local funders are members. We have about 400 members of double edge that share with us, and they started contributing to us. People the coops the local coops started like helping us like we could get bulk food from them directly and etc. So I think it was in the end more. It was so powerful and so inspirational and I also think I'm not sure if touring was in the future in any case as a as a sustainable thing I think local is the only way that we're going to transform our society. And that doesn't mean that we can't have huge exchanges in other places. It just means that our focus is needs to be on the local and whatever that means to people, because we really need to grow our communities and the strength of our communities and I think for me it's like totally been proven. And over again every day there's, there's another effort, including people encouraging us to find a way to do a summer spectacle, which is what our popular version of our work is that we do a very large performance indoor outdoor traveling around the farm every summer and we tour that as well to other communities and people in the community are involved in that and they help us with that and they build things with with us and crafts people, electricians plumbers. So, we've, we've been encouraged to find a way to do a safe and distant, but something where people can get together and get, let's say, six feet apart altogether. So, I think that just really changed the mindset and also our thinking that we can really have an impact in America, we can change something in America, which we desperately need to do right now. You know, just the very fact that you exist that this direct democracy model exist and seems to be working is good, good for everybody it's a, it's a significant model in itself theater it's interesting always is a model for something even on stage something that it could be in reality, we think through our imagination and representation of a reality that for a fleeting moment is there but it has deep, deep influences and consequences and think that your work shows that there are alternatives I remember Melanie Joseph, who also was in our program were created by the way a little network also to support artists you can go on her on her foundry website that still exists even though the foundry closed from enclosed enclosed again often but Melanie said that when she pre showed the book that pre did about the history of a great history of the foundry theater they said New York City doesn't work. I tell young artists don't stay here don't go through all of this what we went through for us it was already hard it's hard to see your future so both of you have models that are outside you are in a community and you feel it's been rewarding. Also, Stephanie you are out in in Hudson you started in New York in a way. How how has the experience before you is both of your work maybe one of the many answers of the impossibility of doing theater in the big cities in the metropolis is that something where you say yes this is a new form we were pioneers but maybe you guys you young artists or others think about this seriously, much more serious than perhaps you entertain just thought like this before. The first season in New York City, the first of our annual 25 year seasons took place in a bar called the Charles Charleston in Williamsburg, and we had clip lights, and we had the bartender flicking the house lights on and off from behind the bar, and we did a series of performances there and that was our first season we did it all winter long. This year, going well going back to, I guess, November of 2019 I began to look into renting spaces for a May or June production of our 25th anniversary season, and I couldn't get anything under $12,000 a week. And that was just for the space and that was a union space, and that doesn't include rehearsal and creating a show that doesn't include any of the marketing that doesn't include any of the expenses that creating a new show with circus, which has equipment and you know, liability insurance and all this stuff. So it was all it was already doubtful that we were going to do it. And that was going to be possible. And then this happened, and it was almost a relief to not have to produce because we knew we were just. We weren't gonna it wasn't going to be and Frank you and I talked about this at the time. I even contacted New York City Parks Department to say can we just do some free shows in the parks. We have to fulfill our obligation to our funders. We have to, we have to do this for our community and for ourselves like we need to do this. And we just wasn't a way to do it. I said there's no place for you. Even the parks said we couldn't do it. And, and so what, you know, what Stacy has there, you know, a community, a place outside of, you know, the urban zone of economy is something that has long appealed to many of us in the circus community. And Frank, when you first convened us together with, with, you know, at this at the seagull this, this past year, many of us have continued that conversation and I and I just spoke with Angela Buccini and Yoni Kali of the Muse, who are looking to get out of the city and buy a big farm and create a circus compound. It's something that we fantasized about in many different ways across the community. That has its own issues, I think. And I wouldn't recommend that to young people. I think we started here in 1994. There was very little in Ashefield. It was a very economically depressed community. We couldn't survive and neither could the community survive at the beginning. There was a lot of external work that had to be done. We also learned that you can't just plop into a community and say you're here and everybody's going to be whatever. This is also, as in every rural community, it has a lot of different people and a lot of different ideas and values. So I think that's grown with us. We have invested a lot of, well, our whole economy here. We're now the largest employer in Ashefield. We've grown from eight people, five people moving here to, we have 22 people that work at Double Edge in our group right now and three properties, 14 buildings. We started with one rundown barn. So I think when we're talking about local, we could be talking about local in New York. We could be talking about a neighborhood and any place that you go or that you are is in New York City is just not possible for circus artists and large scale theater. It's just, it's outside the realm of fiscally possible at this point in terms of real estate and even if this global pandemic brings about some kind of restructuring of our monetary system restructuring of real estate values restructuring of our, our, you know, aspirational standard of living. I still question the viability of an art form that takes so much space and so much specialized space in New York City and circus is that thing. There are four big, like circus training spaces and there are dozens of small ones, but almost, almost all of them are on the verge of having to let go of their spaces. Which one are the spaces before? Circus Warehouse is a really big one. Streb is a really big one. The Muse is a big one. And these are, these are the, these are the centers of, of entire communities of people and there's overlap and we all know each other, but like each one of those spaces has its own culture and its own kind of mission and its own, you know, audience that they speak to. I certainly, you know, I agree with the idea of helicoptering into a place and just kind of expecting to take over. But I also see like, you know, not running away from but running to something else and most many of us, I was born and raised in New York City but many people come to New York City from other places. And so the idea that you have to go to New York City to make art and to make theater and to make it something of yourself. I think is, like you said, is an outdated idea, and like to go back to your own community with this gift of what you know how to do is something else. Yeah, there's there's something about humility there that Stacey I think you're touching on and expectations. But what do we do. What can we do. I think, you know, the vagary the, the digital platform right now is another thing that so many of us are kind of grappling with and especially if you're, if you're from the tradition of live theater and you know what that feels like and what that connection is and you know that, you know, what we really need right now is a healing and like a way to talk about what we what this what this is bringing about in our society. And the platform and the and the screen is is something that not of us, we don't embrace but we have to we have to also begin to learn, you know, how to use this, this thing as as a way to get that feeling. So I wanted to talk about that with you as also Stacey, are you are you thinking I know your work is also physical it comes in a way out of Eastern European about maybe the realm of a grotesque tradition or bar by so what do you think about screens and the are you on the farm and are you thinking about producing work for a screen to in Kobe let's say this will go on for a year nothing will happen, your summer festival will not happen. No, we're thinking of how to make our summer happen. We are. We, we talked about what we wanted to do digitally and we decided we didn't want to. Why not. We think that our relevance is live. We can, of course, offer our 38 years of archives which we've been going through and had the opportunity to go through and that's been incredible. Making some of our origins, our use of ruins in Central Europe, making us re re examine how we got to where we are today. I think that's been really important for our group. Essentially, we, we think that our contribution is right now is outdoors. Instead of trying to broadcast for performances for a lot of people we decided to offer tours, like people could come to the farm and go on tours and walk in the fields and see the artwork that exists on the farm so it's a small intimate idea but we've been getting about 20 people a week coming at different times just to be outside. Our parks around here even are totally full on the weekends dangerously so, so we're trying to find a way to offer the natural sustenance without being dangerous for people, and we've, we've actually started to understand how to do a physically dynamic spectacle that is that keeps its distance from the audience this summer. We're going to take 12 locations on the farm and create a scene from our past work, our past outdoor work over the last 15 years. And some of that will be more reflective than others we have a labyrinth we have a lot of different outdoor spaces that have been visually created so we could even have five people in each space. Even if we can't open up to 100 people we can open up to 30 people or 50 people we think that people need to be in the natural environment right now in order to find courage to continue on. I think that there's many, many people who are doing great digital things and we're just not going to be great doing that, although one of the great things that happened to us when we got back was the Jed Wheeler from Peak Performances at Montclair called me and said I heard your tour got canceled. I want you to come and I'm going to film your performance of Leonora and Alejandro for broadcast so that not just the people that didn't see it on tour but the the entire country or the world can see it. So that was very uplifting but that's an example of a professional professionally done broadcast like that's not what double edges work is. And I also think that even in like people like us or people that do make local work can make smaller things or be more imaginative about what we can do. We're doing a lot of collaboration work right now with the Nipmuc community. Say again which committee. The Nipmuc community. Can you say a bit. Nipmuc are indigenous people that were here on this land before us. We have created a space one of our spaces at Double Edge for their practices and we're doing a lot of work with them where they can re reignite their storytelling and the work that they did on the land. So it's an opportunity right now for them to really have a lot of space to develop those practices that they want to ultimately give to their youth. For instance, I think this is more than a theater opportunity. This is an opportunity for us to recognize that we need to uproot this country. We really need to change everything. And I hope that all the theater experiments will be part of that process. We can't wait any longer to have change here. Stephanie, your mic is off. Sorry. I agree. I think that the experiments in theater are really experiments and healing and ritual that brings the community together and encourages folks who have just either through trauma or choice just shut off their emotional capacity because it's too overwhelming and theater invites you to just make yourself vulnerable, lay yourself bare and the kind of suffering that's happening right now has to be honored, acknowledged and processed. And I think that art is the only way we're going to get through this. Aside from, you know, reworking the way that American society is kind of organized. I just put a link in the chat. We did last night, we're going to be doing a series of tiny little pop up parades with myself and two other community members that are getting up on stilts. And we're just kind of popping up in residential areas. And they're just for people in their windows and one of the we last night the place that we started was the place in Hudson where the highest density residential units are that are many of them are section eight. One building is for folks who are on disability. They're for elders they've been stuck inside anyway many of them aren't mobile, and the, the response that came from behind the windows was overpowering and tremendous and, you know, many windows were blank, but for us in the street it was just like a way to connect and I, and I think that is what I hope that's what's happening. When, when you, when, when we talk about, you know what happens every evening at 7pm in New York City, that's theater that's ritual. You know people are leaning out of their windows to bang pots and pans and that that that kind of thing is so powerful and it doesn't have to be pretty informal. But to encourage those kinds of community community gatherings I think are very positive and so when I when we talk about reimagining what theater is I think there's, you know, even more of an opportunity to make it less precious to make it less kind of ensconced and in an ivory tower and make it, you know, bring it back to the streets and make it accessible and make it, you know, let everyone claim it as, as they want. Yeah, this is. You're right with everything you both say. Are you Stephanie are you guys thinking to do digital work at all or you also say no our place is where we came from on the streets and unusual buildings or do you think we will have to find have a digital existence. We are doing a Monday night for about 15 years we've had an open mic night in New York City every month just for circus and variety artists and that is now on its live streamed every Monday night. We were very resistant to doing it but what happens is is amazing and you know you can see in the chat on the side that people are participating that it's meaningful to them to see it that it's that it's live. I have seen some really incredible innovation in the way that people are using the tools you know that the way that they're incorporating this screen and this screen and, and, you know, it's just, it's endless what what can possibly happen. And it's just a whole it's like Stacy you said it is a different medium that's certainly not my, you know what I'm good at. But I, I'm surrounded by people who are willing to try it and, and I have been very moved by some of the stuff I've seen. I don't know if you guys have become aware of this Italian architect and set designer Emanuele. He, he's, he's got these incredible he just keeps putting out these images of like what theater can look like now after the pandemic. One of the images is a bunch of cars parked in a circle with their headlights all facing in and you know two people engaged in dialogue in the center. Another image is a series of tents with people sitting inside an isolation but all watching a common thing. I'm going to paste this in the chat also I'm not sure if the people watching this would have access but he's on Facebook. And it's just, you know, I am so excited to reach outside of the circus tent and bridge you know like bridge to digital artists and bridge to these designers who are just conceiving of lots of different ways to bring people together and new formats. What are you guys, how do you guys spend your days at the moment what do you do and also do you read to your right to you create shows in your mind what's what's happening. I go to the theater every day. I go to your barn theater. Or different spaces we've just made a big new kitchen. I go to see the progress on the buildings that we're working on. Our ensemble has had some pretty incredible meetings that we never would have had time for if we had been working or on tour. And I'm thinking a lot about how the work that I've been doing can be brought forward to this, not only to this moment, but to helping people find a path and thinking about how the tragedy which means people are dying, our collaborators are dying, friends are dying. That's, that's the tragedy of the moment is really different from the terrorism of the moment, which is our institutional governments, trying not to be overwhelmed by how to help against that terrorism, and I'm thinking about love and how love of all different kinds. Love of my family, my friends, justice, love injustice, creating love in nature, the world healing itself, those things can really be a power to overwhelm the terrorism that we are part of right now. So anything that I do is in, I guess, trying to find my map between those three paths. Thank you Stacy. I, I have to admit that I spent a good chunk of time this morning sobbing. Why. I think what put me over the edge was the final conviction of the murder or the murder trial of the two who killed a mod Arbery. I deleted my news app weeks ago, I haven't looked at it in two months. This comes across in the social media. I saw another image of a trans person who had been beaten by cops. There was an amber alert that came across my phone at 4am. And as much, you know, my day really starts the same every day I spend a lot of time in meditation and contemplation because I just I'm a very sensitive fragile person. I need a lot of maintenance. Before I can just go into the daily business of running an organization and trying to make sure that our, our staff gets paid. But some of this stuff just seems too big. You know, like Bindelstift's mission is to foster community. And so what that means is that we try to, for us, it means making circus with other people. And contributing what we can to our community. So I spent a lot of my time. And I think it's to like we engage with youth here in Hudson and New York City. We engage with, you know, we practice social circus, which is the same thing as art justice, you know, it's like a way of using what we do to help build community and build individuals. So a lot of my day is sitting in front of a computer and not like doing the physical practice that I love, but I'm trying to find the balance with that I feel like, you know, these two and a half months have been more about zoom than anything else. Um, but, you know, I have to remember like I'm an artist and I need to find joy and make joy so like the that little parade thing last night we're doing another one on Mother's Day around the hospital here we have 300 active cases of COVID in Columbia County. And our nursing homes are full of those cases. We're going to just try to bring a little lift so that's that's where I need to end my day. I can start in tears but I need to end my day feeling like I've done something. Are you guys reading something or listening to music or something that's looking at art something that gives you something that sets free energy. The history of the native peoples of New England, and it's massive and overwhelming. And I tried to balance that with some things that aren't heartbreaking. Like mystery books. Which kind. Historical mysteries. So, I think we are also at double edge we're singing a lot. We have our barn is 60 feet long, so it's big enough for all of us to be six feet apart singing. What do you sing. Well, mostly coral things from around the world. From here and from from around the world. So people have you have print out music sheets and you sing. Yes, Schubert or a. No, it's it's more folk. I would say. Oh, I'm not good at names. And that's something that I am not leading a double. But still that's amazing. Yeah. Stephanie what do you do you listen to something or do you read something or do you have what do you meditate to meditate to an image as culture. What do you do. I'm reading a lot of the Sufi poet roomie right now. And I've been listening to the red book. Yes. Yes, and I somebody just shared a link to another Sufi contemporary Sufi mystic who is talking about the nature of suffering and, but I'm also reading a lot. I am creating a community, kind of like what you're doing Stacy, in the summer I also am proposing something like that here in Hudson for our waterfront like a community. It allows us to have closure with what we've missed or who has passed or the thing the milestones that are like kids aren't graduating from school this year, our whole class of 2020 is, you know, all these seniors across anyway. There's a lot about symbols and and and myth and renewal and, you know, the re genesis of, of life after life after death. I love the Phoenix because I, I, you know, have fire in my, in my house is very powerful so I'm reading a lot of myths from all over the world about rising from the ashes and, and taking flight. I'm reading the, the Bacchai again, Euripides and planning my 40th anniversary performance of the Bacchai going all the way through the farm with the ritual women's ritual and ancient ritual and all of the women's rituals that have been cast aside over the years so that's been pretty fun and exciting and everybody's starting to get into that in the theater and we're starting to run around the fields now that it's hopefully won't be snowing anymore. It's been cold for a long time. And what do you, what would, what advice would you give if you would speak to Stephanie who was in the nightclubs spitting fire and Stacy starting out in Boston, what would you tell young artists what do you fall, especially with COVID in mind what would you tell them what would you tell yourself what would you wish you had known at that time and is there something in it, maybe for our listeners. There are actually starting mentorships of young artists right now we're working with Greenfield Community College we're working with about 10 artists who have been here young people and now they don't have any place to go to do their work. Their schools are shutting down, etc. So we we've started to open up to right now we're doing online mentorships with them where they can be training. They are creating their performances in sometimes in their bedrooms because that's all they have. We're still creating work. And we're, we help advise them and then hopefully during the summer, they will be able to come here at different times and work outside. So what we're, we're trying to develop some fellowship. What do you say to them what do you tell them what do you tell these are what you do that they. First of all, their, their hope is to continue creating and to get the energy to create and I think that's what we see is our role is if we can witness them creating. They may have a little bit more energy to actually do that because I think part of this stay at home and being in the cities is that it's confinement. So it makes you tired and lazy and it's not even laziness it's really just exhaustion. So we're trying to witness that they can do something, maybe an hour, a week of something that they feel is deeper or more inventive for themselves and that they do have a place where they can go outside. And they can create outside. And, and I think, again, just want to wrap back to the theme of local that I think wherever whatever is local, I think there, there isn't any way that people can survive and create without a community anymore. So that's the thing. And, and I also want to say that we're telling them that they really have to think about justice that justice goes along with work on justice goes along with any creative process now, because otherwise everything is falling apart. Thank you Stacy Stephanie. If I if I could talk to, you know, just even myself 2535 years ago, I would say, look around and see who's next to you and, and ask them to teach you what they know, and maybe you can share what you know with them. And that would have meant I probably would have stayed. I mean, well, you know, I was born and raised in New York City but I could have. I could have stayed, you know where I was and didn't, you know, what you have is enough your ideas are good. You don't have to follow your intuition. Don't, you don't have to go someplace else you don't have to, to be someplace else more, you know, to be more important or to be more involved. Like your art is where you are. And I don't know I just found that we know when we toured around so much and we would go to Salt Lake City or Lincoln Nebraska and everybody wanted to come to New York as we've said before and it's like now the city is right here. And there are elders in your community and there are living working artists in your community like what can you do together, you don't have to go anywhere else. And I think that that speaks again to that local idea and rootedness like sense of place and enriching the life of your community by adding to it and not taking away from it. And just keep, keep at it. That's what I would say. Incredible this is very significant and we should really listen to what you both say and especially great community and don't take away give and that really is, you know, of great significance both of your work is intertwined with your life. It does show that it's not a career decision to become an actor or director that is about getting the Hollywood swimming pool or the roles and film and that theater is only for those we don't even make it of him. No, it's a decision how to spend your life. It's a decision a way of living just being an artist is a provocation already in the United States, especially to questioning realities is a very significant statement. Just that you say we are an artist we run a company do a theater you or more you do the impossible and you question the reality is in itself is a significant contribution as Gertrude Stein said for theater and getting together, just the fact that people get together talk to each other, meet at a point look at something talk about it half of it. This is what theater is all about. And so you put your life, you threw your body into the lives and stand with your whole decades of work behind ideas and they are not papers, written or shows given this is something that is real and there's something to look at and I think for many of us maybe also to really question and they are two solutions we both found that do work and it's local and they serve in communities and they also feels of work that has not been they have not been explored as much as they should be and can be I think Stacy's idea of walks on poor in nature perhaps also you might create you know the idea of a remedy protocol other little little radio place that people can listen to and you guide them through the nature that they said things they then you guide them to and so there will be games that basically you you create and help people to see things they might not think. And I think Stephanie's idea to be on stills and that people look out of their windows so instead we go to theater, you are where you are almost like in an opera you have your private load you look down to what have now your room is it and you create something we always knew already that theater is a backdrop you don't need to build a stage a city science theater already is one of the greatest discoveries of the 60s and 70s but now it becomes a new significance and that and the people behind the windows open the windows and share and it's local it's where they live and they see something that for a moment, you know, plays with the idea what's real and what's not what's a major and this is a significant contribution and that you both care so deeply, but the people around you the elderly the young people people who the disadvantage and there's something that theater always has done. It's what it does and this might make so very, very different from the many other art forms and that's why it's so great and that's why it is so significant to participate and keeps you young and live music it's clear and life theater will keep you engaged and and it is both thanks to people like you who do such work and again thank you for taking the time and sharing so honestly. The moment we are in now and we heard from so many artists all around the world as you know we're from Egypt Lebanon, Hong Kong, Romania, Hungary, Germany, Italy often so that is an important contribution you made about also a reality here in the United States through your work even so it's not always in the center focus about people think about when it comes to theater so thank you that's a significant contribution. So as women in the field what you keep together this seems to be often women who care and who keep the organizations going so thank you in the name for everybody for that. And I hope that also both of you might have time I know that once in a while you guys listen but next week we also have an incredible lineup again from the theater artists from around the world Ishmael Mohammed from South Africa from Johannesburg the theater will tell us what's going on in Johannesburg Natalia from the Ukraine a playwright also has been at the Segal she will tell a little bit what happens on that country where it's been denied that there even the virus exists. And we have a Nisar Subbi and Fida Zaidan from Palestine, who will give us an update on what's happening, what's happening there, Roberta is to the Dalva and Dion Carlos Carlos from Brazil to significant worker on the field will tell us what's going on in that country that also seems to struggle anyway but especially now during during this and then in Edouard Elvis, Voma and I mean Yolo from Cameroon will talk to us Edouard has been at the Segal also for the pan world voices, and he's a significant worker and then African context so we really look forward to hear these voices from around the world. Thank you guys for listening at home if you open your windows or not yet if it's warm enough but it means a lot for us that you take the time to listen that you listen to the voices of artists from artists all around the world. As far as we know we are perhaps the only institution in the US or in the States, perhaps also in Europe that can really creates new programming every day. And that's something that we committed to we have always done that at the Segal to bridge academia and professional theater international and American theater and I think right now. I want to hear these voices what keeps me sane and helps me so it's a big thing you all did do for us thank you for for for participating thank you for listening at our audience hope you will join us again. Thanks to how around great how around to host us every day in the week I know it's a big undertaking. And the, and we J and other things you do for us and of course the Segal team, San Young and and Jackie and Andy and we lost may one of our collaborators who had to go back on a military plane to Lebanon because the State Department said this is it, you know, full wide student you have to go back it's an unprecedented time Jackie had to death and her family now so we are all together in this and I think it shows that we all do care and then you both also show that you really do care about the world and that we are connected so thank you all and for the listeners I hope that you will reflect on what both of them said, stay local go outside the centers, create a community be part of it. Give not just take and it will also give back to you so thank you all and I hope you will have a good weekend stay safe, wear a mask and stay tuned and I hope to be with you again next week. Bye bye thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Such a pleasure to meet you Stacy. Good to. I look forward to connecting offline at some point. Great. Be well. Thank you.