 Hello, welcome everybody. Good day to you, to our listeners and viewers and those that will be watching this later. My name is Taiwo Afolabi. I'd like to start by really acknowledging that I am coming to you today from the University of Regina Saskatchewan in Canada. And it's situated on the territories of the Nahiyawak, Anishinaabe, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota, and the homeland of the Mistees and Mistees Nation. And also the University of Regina is on three to four lands with a presence in Treaty Six. I'm really excited about today. I'm an assistant professor at the University of Regina and I have the amazing privilege to be working with great people and practitioners, drama talks and organizations who have sort of team up to work together. So special thanks to Howround, special thanks to Safeword Pace, Pan-African Creative Exchange, the Atoms for International, and of course the University of Regina. Today we're starting a first episode of Decolonizing Dramatogy and I have the privilege and the honor to be engaging with Dr. Fumi Adewali. She's a senior lecturer in dance at the Montfort University, Lechester. She started out as a media practitioner in Nigeria but went into performance on moving to England in 1994. For several years she toured with physical theater and African dance drama companies before studying for an MA in post-colonial studies and a PhD in dance studies. She began to work as a drama talk in 2013, mainly with professional performers, choreographers, mainly choreographers working with dance forms of Africa and the diaspora, or what we can also refer to as interdisciplinary theater makers. It's good to have you here today, Fumi. Thank you very much, Taiwo. It's an honor to be here. Very exciting. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you. What we're going to be doing today for me is really, this is a five episode and today it's the first episode. We just want to create, you know, a discuss will be around framing that would hopefully, you know, help us with the remaining four episodes. And I think my first question to you as we get on this journey for the next, you know, 90 minutes or so is what does drama talk to you? And just in a minute before you answer that question, I'd like to also say that we have live captioning happening. Amanda is there behind the screen. And Sariqa is there as ASL interpreter. Thank you. And of course, Ti is there helping us and Brandon, they're also behind the screen, helping us to troubleshoot if there's anything. So just want to thank and appreciate all the crew. So over to you, Fumi, what does drama talk to you mean to you? Well, drama talk to me is the logic of a performance. And when I say the logic of performance, in my mind I'm really thinking about performing where the physicality, maybe the visuals are as equal importance to the text. Or there's no text, you know, there might be no place script. And therefore, the meaning of the performance comes through how code symbols, visuals, movement, the performer's set is being used to convey a story or a journey through the piece, because it might not be a straightforward linear narrative. And so there has to be a logic that the audience is following in how these symbols or props or sets or movements or performers are working together for us to get meaning. And so it's the narrative of the piece, how it's brought together. When I say narrative, I'm using it in a very sort of broad sense. And that structuring is what I will call the drama turgy of a piece. And I remember having a discussion with a colleague, a group of people actually, and someone said something which I agree with. The other person said, all, all theater or performance or performances not necessarily from theater or performances have drama turgy, but not all performances, performances have a drama turgy. I mean, what I took from that, and I agree with it, and that's why I'm including it in my description, is that not all performances rely on that structuring to convey their message in that explicit way. You know, I mean, so if I, if I put a play on stage with a text, maybe a classical play. It has drama turgy. Obviously, it has a structure. But is it relying, is that where all the focus of the performers and the artistic directors was, in order to convey meaning, possibly not. And so drama turgy becomes comes to the forefront as the focus of a piece when that's what we're relying on for the meaning to be conveyed, or, you know, the experience to be conveyed sometimes. Interesting. I do recognize that, you know, defining drama turgy is, I don't think practitioners or scholars have sort of arrived on a particular definition of it. I think you're connecting it to the idea of the logic of the performance. I wonder if there is a specific example you want to kind of just throw in there to help us understand what do you mean by the logic of performance, you know, is that in terms of the interpretation is in terms of the performance analysis, the script analysis, obviously for those for, and, and, of course, for performance that are not necessarily scripted. What do you have the examples you could point to that I really speak to the logic of the performance. Well, what immediately it comes to mind is a piece by a colleague of mine called her name is Alexandra Sutain. I believe she's performed in Canada before but she's performed globally. She's a choreographer and a dancer, and she's based in Britain in Belgium and she's of Zimbabwean background. She's called Sussine Panouach, which means this is not black. And she's a black woman of mixed race heritage. And in this performance, she starts off sitting on the stage with her back to the audience with a head wrap, she has a head wrap on her hair. And she's, I think she's wrapping her hair slowly and as the audience comes in and there's opera moves music playing. And that and when she finishes and everybody seated she gets up and she starts talking to the audience. And at some point she takes off her head wrap and she passes it to someone, one of the members of the audience and ask them to pass it around. So she asked people to pass this head wrap around and she said smell it and pass it on. And they do that and she continues performing. And at one point she says, can I have my head wrap, can I have my head wrap. And then someone from the audience runs on stage, you know, and she says it was such an urgency that the person runs on stage with the head wrap. And, you know, at some other point she's joking with the audience and she says that this head wrap is an African head wrap and it's made in Belgium, you know. And so she's also talking about issues of identity that anyone who sees it on the street with her they will say it's African, but she was saying it's made in a foreign country. And then in a later part of the piece she ties the head wrap around her waist, and does a particular kind of dance, which is, you know, grounded in Southern African culture. And towards the end of the piece she wraps her hair again. She plays several characters. Now, what I'm saying about how that head wrap, you know, contributed to the story of the piece. The piece doesn't have a singular narrative at all she does children's games at one point she sings into a microphone at some point she does something that you know she plays about three different characters she switches. She switches characters, children's songs come up, you know, as well as spoken word. But this head wrap is going through the whole piece all the time and as she transforms there's this head wrap transforming into something else within that performance, I think in certain times she puts it down and then goes back to getting. And so, after a while you begin to find a link. It's one of the things not the only thing but one of the things that creates a cohesion between all the various sections in this particular performance. And adds a logic so while you're seeing all these various things you're saying this this this head wrap becomes symbolic, and we begin to see it meaning different things and when it's absent, ie she puts it down you also wonder you still look at it on the chair and say what does it mean now that she's not wearing it, you know. And that's what I mean about the logic that that made the whole performance logical. It added a poetic thing, you know, to it and a symbolism, which brought brought so many things from different parts of her life and her experience together. So that's why I'm sort of thinking about the logic. I think sometimes the logic is very poetical, very, you know, very metaphorical sometimes and symbolic. I know you're you're it's your turn to ask me your question. Go ahead. Well, I'm just going to just bring that question back to you. What is dramaturgy to you. Yes, because also, as you said dramaturgy means different things to different people. And it also means different things to people coming from different areas of performance and I as you said in your introduction I work a lot with choreographers and theater because who use dance as well as other aspects. So that's what I'm coming from and they're usually people creating work for stage or staging performance even if it's not on stage. So I'm coming from there so you from your background and from where you work within performance how would you define dramaturgy. Thanks for me. I'm it's really important where what you just noted the fact that defining it itself. It's like, you know, it's, you know, there is this is this a metaphor that when I was growing up and my father and my mom used to say that if you touch an elephant. The side that you touch would determine what you call it. If you touch the ear, you define it as it's very smooth but if you, you know, touch the truck, it's different right. And I think that's for me that's the that's that's the thing about that recognizing that it's definition. It's, you know, some sees that as a composition of, you know, of, of, of different theatrical components. And some see it as a composition of text in some places, it's regarded as really researching and you know, some sees it as coaching, you know, different, different, different things like that. Also, based on the geography that we're looking at and the, and the, and the performance tradition also defines how we define it. And for me, I think it actually goes back to the how I see dramaturgy. And of course we're going to talk in terms of where we're coming at this and our own background and all of that. But how I see dramaturgy is really as everything that makes up a dramatic composition from an aesthetic standpoint from a political standpoint and from a human standpoint, and I'm going to come to that in the question around how I see dramaturgy because I feel that, you know, when we put a piece on stage or we devise a performance, it's not just the aesthetics of it. But what makes it blood to use your term the logic of the performance is that we've considered all of these elements from, from a script standpoint from performance standpoint from a political standpoint from a historical standpoint, all of what constitutes, or everything that constitute that narrative that we're putting on stage that would, you know, or putting in, you know, on, on the media, whatever all of that constitute that narrative is for me what, what, what I see dramaturgy. So, it's the composition of all of that, what that looks like from a political perspective from a historical perspective, from an aesthetic perspective from an human perspective, how does all of that come together to becoming that piece describing that headgear that is being passed from one person to another, and it's being used as a metaphor as a symbol to tell a story that when we now see that object, it becomes the epitome, it becomes the summary metaphor for the entire performance. It's a lot of thinking that goes into that. And I think for me it's the entire composition that is that's what I consider as dramaturgy, the process of having all of that in. Yeah, I agree with you there. And I, but I think the challenge of dramaturgy is to find often few articles, symbols, words that can carry all that you're talking about politics, you know, ethics, you know, the human stories. I mean, and like you said a lot of work goes into making those choices. I mean, when you work as a dramaturge sometimes what you're, you're, you're doing when you're talking with the, maybe the artistic director even sometimes the company is saying, you've got so much on stage, you know, so much is going on. Where do you want the people to focus. And then you start saying, or, or how can we imbue the politics of what we're examining into these particular actions or, you know, and sometimes you have to strip some things away or put some other things in the background so that some things come to the forefront. So when we're thinking aesthetically, like, like you were mentioning, we are not only thinking about the aesthetics we're thinking about okay, and I think what Alexandra found in that piece was she found, considering what she was trying to talk about because when she was seeing a panel, this is not black, I think she was talking about the complexity of being a black person. That's right. And you know, you know there's this famous painting where a pipe is, I think a pipe is painted in the picture and underneath is written this is not a pipe, you know. I think she was she was playing off of that particular artwork. But then she's a mixed race woman who does who looks like a black woman who does not have a white parent but she has a white parent so she's talking about the complexity of being black. And the head wrap is something that sort of symbolize this complexity could be made in different parts of the world but it's still considered African you know women you tie on their waist they tie their baby on their back with it they tie on their head. You know, so this head wrap is utilising so many forms culturally and and and that was embodied so it then becomes it then takes a political resonance and I think what you're saying dramaturgy bring in all these elements together but the what the theater company has to struggle with or is how do you choose the logic how do you create a situation where people logically can see what you're trying to say with a few select items or actions or text. So it's this condensation that sometimes happens. Interesting. Speaking about condensation and kind of focusing and framing I wonder if you can speak to your professional journey to dramaturgy, at least to kind of give our, you know, listeners and viewers that context where we're coming at. And before you I just want to say for those listeners, if you have questions please put it in the chat we'd be happy to, there's going to be a Q&A where we're going to be engaging with the question so feel free to put your questions in the chat and we'll for sure get it across and answer them. So back to you for me, what's your professional journey to dramaturgy? I know that right now you're co-creating, you know, at the pace, you know, an African creative exchange, you know, at the time I was working in a political lab, I do know that but what's your professional journey to dramaturgy? Okay, I would say my first professional job started from 2013, but I would say two things that brought me into dramaturgy. One, I would say in my career what was most valuable is that I've worked from various perspectives within, I've had various roles within performance and within media. Because there's something in dramaturgy which is about translation, you know, something about how do I make this idea readable to an audience? How do I make this idea that the artistic team or how do we make this readable? How do we make this experience something that the audience can receive or be part of? So there's an idea of translation there and I would say it's because I've had quite a varied career. So I'll give an example. I actually studied languages, so I studied English and French. I don't say that too loudly because my French is awful. Now, I graduated years ago and never used it. So I did English and French, so I did quite a lot of literature. But then I was in the theatre and I took courses in theatre and communication. So my education was quite broad at university level. And then after that, I worked as a journalist in newspaper, print and television. And then when I came to Britain, I started touring because I started touring with theatre companies. But then I started touring with experimental companies and then I was traditional African dance drama, what people are calling traditional African dance drama, which can be quite modern actually. Then I danced with bands, then I did straight forward plays, what we call physical theatre. And then I, because I had a background as a journalist, I worked in Nigeria as a journalist for a while. I started writing about dance and that took me into a lot of conferences with people and arguing about meaning. And then I decided to do an MA post-colonial studies. And then I started studying teaching. I mean, I became a teacher, so I did a course in teaching. And I would say it's jumping from these different roles that helps me to look at things and say, this is the meaning I think you might be trying to convey here. Also, you know, being in the production, but also being on the creative team sometimes. So I would say that helped. The other thing I would say my life, the fact I was born in Britain, I grew up in Nigeria, then I went back to Britain. I think that kind of journey. But I would also say the journey of living in Lagos, which is a cosmopolitan city, then coming from Ileife. Even that was a process where I'm translating ideas, you know, and translating how I present myself and speak and be understood or misunderstood and deal with that, you know. And also, I think the fact that I didn't train my first degree is not in performance. It was in languages. The basis of my technical training, I came came from a social world. It actually came from dancing, I would say what people might call urban dances. So there was a translation of that directors asked me to turn what was a social dance technique into something which was legible as an artistic practice. So all these modes of translation, and it didn't necessarily make me a good creator of work. I was a very good interpreter of work when I was doing but not necessarily good creator my first piece, which I did. This is the second experience. In a physical theater festival it went down well but then I performed in a dance festival and people were like, you know, didn't go down too well, but then afterwards a choreographer approached me and said, I saw your piece. Could you be my outside eye, could you be my dramaturg for my next piece and she said, it was not, it didn't matter for her that it didn't go down so well for the audience. What mattered to her was what she could see was the skeleton of what I was putting together, which made her feel I could understand where she was going. So I would say that's what those are the things that sort of developed me as a dramaturg and her asking me to come and be her dramaturg opened the door to me to understand there was a need for the role. And then I started, you know, being invited. So yeah, that's how I came into into dramaturgy. It's interesting because when we speak about former education in the format training rather in the context of dramaturgy, how much of that do we have in the world in terms of availability right and then it seems and I am not, I'm not 100% sure of it. Because I've never done research around how many people that consider themselves as dramaturg actually had a professional of, you know, format training in dramaturgy. It seems a lot of folks that, you know, that come at this come at this from a different weather culture or social work or their work in the creative industry and all of that. But then you're kind of speaking to that interdisciplinarity of experience from a professional standpoint and of course in your own personal experience. Johnny, that gives you that robust lens to constantly really ask questions because I think one of the one of the job of a dramaturg is to really ask questions. There can be long times it can sounds like where can't you see that but I know I can see but I'm asking so that you can as a greater you can articulate it is that what you want to do, you know, and then that also helps you to create and curate a structure for a perspective for the interpretation of work. So, whether you're standing, you know, on the outside, or you're telling, you know, I'm telling creators about the experience or what you think it means, you know, or you're supporting them you'd like that soundboard, or you're helping them to understand where they're coming from and considering from different political and historical perspective, helping them to so that they can to enhance the interpretation of their work. It sounds to me what I'm hearing is that that interdisciplinary lens is very critical. Yeah, I think it is. And I think, yes, we were saying, because as you're saying you're looking for the logic of the performance. And when you're working with artists that are interdisciplinary. There's not a fixed way of creating the performance they might be standard and and readily known conventions on ways of making, but many a time when they start the performance they don't know what it's going to look like at the end. And that might be very different from how you would create a play you know sometimes at the beginning of a play you can sit around the table you can look at the play text you can say okay it's going to be in the 15th century. The way in the 15th century, you put that down. We're going to make it look like this is going to be two hours long, and you work. It's, it's more, it's more known is what you're going to end up with, but with certain plays, especially performances, especially the ones that interdisciplinary. You're not too sure what this is really going to look like. So what creates the logic, what what creates the logic of this piece. And like you were saying we're going to talk about the politics of it. What does it mean what's this what what do this the art forms or dance forms that we're bringing into it what do what do they mean, and what would they mean in this piece. And how are we going to frame it that we, the audience doesn't just impose a meaning on them. And that they retain maybe the potency that we feel they have, if not they might just be stereotyped and considered pretty things and we might say no no no, we want them to have a certain edge so how do we do that. So those questions are coming. And then, for example, you know, some people that I know of a choreographer who said he decided to go on on stage with he was doing traditional African dance, a traditional African dance but he said he will go on stage and he won't wear the costume or the clothing that usually does that dance, because the audience will automatically say oh isn't it a nice cultural display display oh lovely heritage and just sit back and he wanted to challenge them. So he went on in a dull white cloth, people expecting color, and it forced the, you know, and then at one point they stopped the drumming and it was dancing in silence and we don't expect someone doing traditional dances to be dancing without percussion. So it forced people to put aside their idea of carnival and say okay he's obviously trying to tell us something else and then have a readiness to listen. So the way he dramatized the piece was to play with the idea of sound and audio and visuality so that people would see him as a performer who has something to convey. There was, you know, he found that in rehearsal. He was in rehearsal maybe after two or three performances are not getting the kind of feedback he wanted. Then in rehearsal, you know, someone said it's this costume that's the problem. It's this costume that has framed you in a way that we can only engage with your culture but not with your message. So I just stripped that off. You know, so yeah I think so it's the lens you know he might, you know, I think if he went to maybe an African country or African city was performing in Europe, and he danced with the costume. People might still hear him, because that costume doesn't transport them to a fantasy land. Yeah, he could say what he had to say and they would listen. But once he lands, you know, in the middle of, I don't know, an English village with that. You know that minds might go to holiday brochures or they might even go to Oxfam. Safari is in yep. So it's that kind of thing. Interesting. Wow. We come to dramaturgical skills because we're going to land on that in the next round. Yeah, but don't I have to ask you a question I have a question to ask you because again, from the point of view that we work with different types of performance. So I want to ask you the question about. I know you've told me you work with various communities. I know that. And I'm aware that maybe some of these communities. They're not real they they are they're all fair with the concept of performance but they're not thinking in terms of dramaturgy. So what circumstances made it important to you to start thinking about dramaturgy in terms of groups of people and groups of performers you work with. Thanks to me. I would want to start by saying that I so my own format training kind of, it was really encompassing both Western and non-Western canons. And I'm really grateful for that. I did my undergrad at University of Joss. And of course, I'm from Ileife also so you know you're. Yeah, I know. And so you're there is that consciousness around the culture, the heritage, even though you know you do not necessarily participate in the carnivores and the festivals and all of that, but there is that awareness all over the place. And of course I did my undergrad in Joss and my masters in in in University of Eloran before I did my PhD at University of Victoria. But what's interesting also in all of that is that you're sort of introduced from a professional standpoint to Western and non-Western canons I was introduced to that. But then because my own work kind of focuses on in community community engagement. I'm critically working with so you know quote unquote on professional who are interested in a particular subject and we were engaged in applied theater, you know, to go and educate or to engage with that community to devise a piece. Most of the time it's not scripted. But then what happened is that in that process of community engagement collective and creative exploration. There is some sort of dramatic in happening right there. There is a practitioner here in Canada with the name Sadie Berlin talk about the idea of cultural dramaturgy. And according to you know, and that means really engaging with the historical really asking critical questions that are just beyond the script. What really that are looking into those nuances, those complexities that those scripts really carry. When I go to community, I work with community, I realized that many times they actually the one drama talking the piece for me. So I had, I have this example. I was working with this community, some couple of years ago in Canada, and then it was an indigenous indigenous community, and then really amazing people had a great time with them. And that was, I was sort of, you know, creating with them. And because of aesthetics, there was this particular word that I wanted us to change, you know, and all of that and they said no, no, no, we can't change. Let's go, we have to wait for one of our elders so they, you know, they mentioned the elders name, and then we stopped that day. And then the elder came the following day, and then she sort of schooled us. And she said, the reason why we cannot change this even do from an aesthetic standpoint, it's going to be beautiful and all of that is that if we change the pronunciation of this name of this particular word, we've changed a history. It means that we're passing. And this is in this particular river is actually what points to the fact that this land here belongs to us. So, you know, at that point I'm like, Oh, what that's interesting because, you know, I would claim that I you know I'm asking all the ethical questions, all the I'm trying to ensure that all the political components are being taken care of constantly critiquing and I won't work on all of that. Well then that hit me to a post I started thinking the role of the community that I'm working with the role of the civilization and the experiences of the group that I'm working with, how does that shape the the devising and the creative process for me. So I'm coming at it, not necessarily from the professional standpoint, Russian theater, but in in really that unscripted territory in community work where we're constantly engaging with people that are really doing this out of passion they just want to be interested in, you know, health issues so let's create something or interested in immigration, or they're interested in language revitalization. They're interested in it because of their own connection to it, not necessarily because it's a professional, you know, component to it not at all. So that's actually what brought me to start thinking about, you know, thinking about dramaturgy from that point of view that in what ways you know how can, and I will come to this in why decolonizing dramaturgy, and the key question for me then is, what is the role of the dramaturgy in a place of protest, and in a time of political and social polarization within my work as a, you know, as a divisor as a community, you know, connector as a natural in community, as also a learner, you know, in community through my work. That's why that's what brought me to dramaturgy. It seems like you're formulating a, I would say, maybe a philosophy of dramaturgy. In terms of the dramaturgy as listener here. Absolutely. And the role of listening in dramaturgy, I think all from all dramaturgs working with any group is listening, but maybe you're going into a cultural, culturally Pacific situation where people are drawing on a history, the joint history and things of value, you know, landscape of value and how they want their words to be said pronounced and used within a performance then I then listening I think becomes a very strong value and skill. So some other people could have, I mean I, I, in a, in a situation made a mistake once where I wanted the performance ready by a certain time. And I didn't pick up the cues from the class that they were sort of a bit uncomfortable about one or two things and I was like, we've got to close, make a decision. You know, put, put it together so we can do the presentation so when we have the feedback session they'll say oh day one you were great great to you a great three four or five. But on the day of the performance you became something else because you wanted the performance to happen. And I sort of stopped listening. And I think at that point if I had listened I maybe we would have presented it differently. There would be different presentation. And I think listening is even more crucial. If you're working as a drama to it because as a drama you're not the artistic director, you're not directing people around but you're helping them, you're helping your, your artistic director or it may be in this case a group an artistic group, whether they're paid professionals or not to bring forward what's most important what they think is most important to tell their story. And in a way it gives you a constraint, you know, in the sense of that has to be central to the dramaturgy. You know that this what they've said about this river. That's right become an important part of it. And then maybe that's the headache of the artistic director and the drama to figure out how it is done but they have told you what is important. And what will convey this the story so it seems to me that from working in this field of applied theater that there's a particular approach to dramaturgy that you might be advocating here. It's a possibility, but but then also just thinking in terms of what I'd experienced sort of helped me to really think about bigger issues right like the, the, the, especially in a system in a culture where many times you know I think things are changing gradually but there is so much attention on Western cannons. There is, you know, where there is need to recent realize or you know decentralized whatever we want to, and to start rethinking the notion of relationship the notion of responsibility, the notion of reciprocity, but we need to start, you know, really understanding and listening silence means power relations political realities, the aesthetics and the human components of, of interaction. You know, that experience kind of helped me to start thinking about those things that perhaps dramaturgy can give us a way in to all of these conversations. And, and I will, I will use that as a springboard to actually ask my next question for you to you rather that based on your on your, because you did mention listening as as one of the, well, I'm concerned as one of the motogical skills. Based on your interest in dramaturgy and of course your practice in the Pan African creative exchange dramaturgical lab. I would like you to speak to, you know, briefly, what, what do you mean by what are the dramaturgical skills, really, what, what, what do you mean by that and what, what are those skills that you think from your experience, you can consider dramaturgical skills in your work and in your, you know, interaction and your work with different artists and theater companies. And in talking about dramaturgical skills I am, I will be referring to the skills of a dramaturg as someone who is often considered the outside eye of a production that comes into the production on invitation from usually the artistic director the choreographer or the creative team to be an outside eye. So they're, in a sense, not part of the production crew in that they don't make the decisions. Usually, but they offer, or they try and get the artistic director to look at broader maybe broaden their outward look or to challenge their, their perceptions, you know, challenge the way they're approaching the making of a piece. And so they come in as the outside eye they make and they're used in different ways in many respects so I think as a dramaturg dramaturgs tend to have to be very flexible. In that, what company A may invite them to do might be very different or quite different from company B. But there's a need from someone from the outside who understand and empathize with the process and empathize with what they're trying to make to come in and support the process. Support the process to do what so I think a key dramaturgical skill is to understand positionality, I would say. You know I was talking about dramaturgy being in some respects a process of translation, you're translating something. Politics, ideas, politics, whatever, into into the performance, and in such a way that the audience can perceive it can can read it, you know, can give it some kind of interpretation. And you're trying to also encourage a way that it can be framed that they can't escape, you know the perspective that maybe the artistic director wants to put forward. So you, so understanding positionality, you know, is key. Who are they and who are they speaking to. It might not be you. It might not be you the dramaturgy that is the first primary person they're trying to communicate to. So you can't necessarily interpret it from what you like, you know, because it might not be what's very important. So how do they want to say what they're saying, will how they're saying it communicate what they're doing how they're performing it really communicate. So I think it's understanding your role is a key dramaturgical skill. I think it's understanding communication. I think that's a key dramaturgical skill. So who are they, who are they speaking to listening, because sometimes what they say, some people, like the community you spoke about they're very clear, but sometimes people are not very clear. They're saying they want a, but really they won't be, and it's not that they're necessarily lying to you. There's a lot of pressures on them. And they say no this is not working. Why is it not working. Oh, you know the musician is not doing what I say you look back and you think, well, actually, maybe the problem is not the musician it could be the dancers, maybe we should talk to the dancers. So I think it's understanding process enough and how artistic things come together enough to, to, because you're on the outside. And you're not so tied into the production you can say, have you thought it might be this process that is blocking that process. So it's also having that awareness of dynamics. So one communication other one dynamics of, of, of artistic teams. Maybe the dancers or the divisor is is keeping mute because they're afraid of the artistic director. So they can't get the performance that they want from this person because they're afraid. So why are they afraid you might need to talk to the artistic director about that, you know so you need to understand a bit about the dynamics of how perform, performances are put together, and then non verbal. How the different practices of representation are interrelated, you know, you know if I do a dance in silence, that's going to mean something different than if I do a dance with music. And if I do it, if I do the same dance with a live musician present. It's different from if it's a recorded music. There's all these different ways of combinations that, you know, is worth knowing about, but I would. I would say it's not necessarily been an expert in. Expert in everything expert in communication experts in the dynamics of an artistic company and an expert also in how the different elements are interacting you might not be an expert in all of these things. But you know their importance. So you too can ask the question. The reason why you've insisted that everybody is wearing this costume. Oh, no, we decided to use this costume because it was there in the cupboard. Well, maybe you're going to have to think about getting another one or if you use this costume. You might be given this particular perspective. Oh, we never thought of the costume. You saw I mean, so you might not know everything. But what's important so you can ask questions so you can get people to think about things, you know. And I think being aware of the power of being the outside. The power being on the outside is that you can have that, you know, overview that maybe the artistic director because they're so engaged so in it so this so that they can't. They needed support to come back and see. So those are what I think are skills that are necessary that those are the knowledge you need. And then the skill, you need the skill to communicate it without creating a fight so the idea of being an outside I nurture a listener, a coach sometimes a sparring partner. And in the pace dramaturgical lab actually where we are coming from the point of view of how do people, how does the dramaturg relate and supports the team in these various in these various roles. Interesting. I know the year you also and later in the in the series are going to be talking about, you know, dramaturgical skills and creative process from different part of the continent, Africa, I mean by continent, and also a drama talk as a programmer. Do you want to speak to those things quickly. I know that those are also concepts that you're considering from, you know, in dramaturgical lab. Yeah, I think I, I try and read about dramaturgy when I, when I, when I find a book and it's one of those areas that I like you there's not many courses and not many texts, but as one text I found very, very useful. And the writer speaks of institutional dramaturgy, which I find very interesting. And, and that is thinking about how the production or the performance sits in the institutional, the ecology, you know, of theater. So it's in a particular venue, for example. That venue itself gives a framing, you know, to the for the piece, you know, if I put something in a certain venues in London they will say oh it's very, very high class high art. If I put it in another venue, or it must be a theater piece or it must be a activist piece because it's in this venue, you know, so even how things are presented. Starts giving the audience some kind of meaning because you're framing in it, framing it from where you place it. And that's why we are looking at the whole idea of artists as, you know, as the dramatic as curator, because sometimes the drama is invited to work almost in a curatorial position of how do we frame the production, how do we what do we put in the program notes, or if we're going to have a Q&A. Who do we get to ask the questions and you know, do we need a Q&A, you know that kind of thing and the dramaturg might be invited to actually lead the Q&A. And if you're programming work, there is a dramaturgical thing happening and aspect there because you're deciding to put it in your theater you're deciding to put it in a program with maybe three other or four other pieces. And when people see those four productions together, they might make a decision as to what this whole program is about. So there's an issue of what do you select to go into the program. So yeah, so we're looking at programming, we're looking at dramaturg, you know, in the funding role there's a dramaturgical aspect. And you know why all of this is important for theater makers working on the African continent. And one of the reasons why PACE, the Pan-African creative exchange put up the lab, for example, is the knowledge that many theater makers of different types are working with dramaturgical skills are working in dramaturgical roles without using that name. You know what I mean? And there is less support for them in developing that role or those skills than for other roles. So it's easier to get a course teach where you learn directing or you learn choreography or you learn to dance or to act. It's easier to get people to train you or teach you in that than to support you in these roles which people are doing, you know, they are doing, but there hasn't been much of a space within academia or within the professional associations where these skills are recognized and supported. You know, and seen as valuable, you know, people do them in the guise of being an artistic director as a, as part of the many, many things they're doing. So I think it's important that the, some platform is given to and space is given to that form of expertise. Wow, interesting. Okay. I know you're meant to ask me a question now. So, let's do it. So, I'm free to move on to why you have called for the decolonization of dramaturgy. You're the curator of this web series, and the person who, who has decided or invited us to talk on dramaturgy, you know, in relation to the colonization. What inspired this idea? Absolutely. Thanks for me. So, when I had the initial call for paper on decolonizing dramaturgy, I think it was sometimes last year. For me, I was really thinking about the fact that dramaturgy is not peculiar to Western performance tradition. Even though, and I understand to be, you know, I put my ignorance on the table here. I'm not, I'm not all over the continent of Africa. It's 54 countries have not been to all of them. But my interaction with a lot of professionals from that part of the world is we, we, we really talk about dramaturgy. Perhaps maybe that's part of what we do, the things we do. But then also the fact that like you rightly mentioned in terms of academia, you know, resources available are not the same way, you know, in terms of dramaturgy itself. But in my own workings, so I do understand that, you know, dramaturgy is not peculiar to Western performance tradition. And that's because different traditions, they have ways in which dramaturgical performances and practices and processes are really, you know, put in place. So, you know, regardless of cultural context, for example, and creative content, the dramaturgical process requires thorough, you know, thorough investigation, thorough inquiry, robust research, on biased explorations of, you know, various intercultural and various aspects of people's history, community existence and all and things like that. And also, I also, from my own work in community, I understand that the dramaturgical process and by dramaturgical process, I mean the telling, the adapting, the staging, the performing of stories of people in many cultures really require looking into the cosmological, the cultural components and all of those things. So for me, I started thinking a lot, you know, how much of those nuanced ideas do we consider when we think about dramaturgy. One, two is that decolonizing dramaturgy, for me, might give us an opportunity to speak about some of these things in a different way. And so that's why I started considering the three things I mentioned earlier on the political component, the aesthetic component and the humane component of what I mean by decolonizing dramaturgy, because in all of those three levels, you find that as part of the dramaturgical process or the skills needed or the areas to consider in dramaturgy and when you're questioning and all of that. So it sort of seemed to me that, you know, when drafted into community engagement like me, and, and then, you know, activist settings like, you know, I applied theater and device theater and things like that. I feel like one of the major rule of the drama dog is, you know, is what I think it's Jeffrey S. Pruyl caused the nuances of listening. And I think he talked about listening around. So for me, I started thinking perhaps on two things. One is that calling for decolonizing dramaturgy as a lens to rethink dramaturgy, that what are those things that are missing that we're not talking about, not just a loan from a professional standpoint, but even when we're engaging with community. Two is that a lot of practices that does not necessarily fall within the context of professional theater, but therefore within the context of community engagement, perhaps dramaturgy can help us to start thinking in terms of all the bigger issues around ethics of engaging with them right around the politics of engagement around the power dynamics around the historical realities that surround where things are and where they are in their own existence. So for me, the reason I am calling these, you know, really decolonizing dramaturgy is to take on a decolonial lens to dramaturgy. What does that mean when we shift that gaze away from the Western canon and start looking at dramaturgy or the rule of a drama dog from those, you know, those spaces of questioning of listening of, you know, adapting, like you rightly said using your words now in telling those stories and to wrap up that question, you know, there's this particular, I mentioned him earlier on, Geoffrey S pro that said something that I was kind of very interesting now just read it out quickly. He said that the central significance of having someone called a drama talk work on a production. And for me, by production, I'm extending that to, you know, working in community on scripted plays whether Western or non Western canon is that attracting the name to a living presence encourages everyone involved in a production to attend more carefully to what is ever present. Often on the examine the inner walkings of a play performance a device piece for a place dramatic is not. It's not so much a simple given as a range of possible waiting, but to interact with the sensibilities of its creator. And by creating here, I'm referring to those communities. I'm referring to the elders that that had to tell us stop. This is what it means. So to wrap your question my response your question up is that I think my my calling for the colonizing dramaturgy is really to create that space for us to ask ourselves, what's the rule of the drama talk right now in this system where we find ourselves in these so much political and culture up polarization, and so much intense and society. What's the rule of the drama talk when we put on a decolonial lens to and embrace other, you know, other kind of skills that are needed in exploring and effectively performing the rule of the drama talk. What if we do that from the epistemologists of the south. What would that mean. Okay. Yeah, I had, I had that. I mean what you've just had inspires a lot of ideas but before I, I, I share those. I would like you to speak about what do you think is blocking that the moment that you are already out there working in communities, you've been doing that for several years, and you know others doing that both in the south and other parts of the global south. So since there's so many of you, or, you know, who are qualified and doing this work. Why do you think it's not being spoken about what is what is making this work or this drama to be invisible that we should decolonize if you see what I mean so what are the forces or dynamics. Yeah, that are there. Yeah, interesting. Thanks for that question. I know that many people that are working in community in, in, in, in interacting and creating with community and also with a constant and drive towards device theater on scripted pieces and all of that. I think that many, you know, what many folks working in that space, you know, I won't say whether we're qualified, you know, not necessarily expert here. I think maybe, maybe, you know, and I'm postulating here I'm just, you know, just, you know, putting out ideas here, because that's what we're hoping to tackle, you know, as we move forward in the series is that I think the first thing for us is that the community we're engaging with. And I think you and I kind of, when we spoke about this some couple of days ago. You know, this was rightly, you know, mentioned and clearly I keep with it that the community we're working with I really not it maybe not it really interested in this discourse because again like I said it down. It's not they're not interested in talking about dramaturgy they interested in engaging with that performance and they move on. So, so that's there, but then I think it's our part of our old part of our roles as practitioners and scholars. You know, whether from a Western standpoint of thinking about scholarship or from a non Western standpoint of thinking about scholarship. I think it's that are I, you know, I feel that perhaps part of our role is to start articulating these realities, so that we can, first of all, bring those epistems those ways of being and ways of knowing and be ways of doing things that are sort of on the emerging or periphery, bringing them to amplify them and bringing them to the limelight. Especially to the center, because I think center has to constantly be decentralized, because that's always that constant power shift. That's one. I also think to is that there's so much emphasis upon professionalism, and what is considered professional what is not and, and that's a I think that's going to be a long time conversation with amateur and community work and all of that. I think ultimately is that what in our work in community, and now that we're constantly talking about community based research, talking about scholarship within on the fringe and things like that. What are the things that we can learn from working in community and start bringing them to that limelight, so that we can start on settling what dramaturgy is from a particular lens. So I think that, you know, those are kind of two things that I'm kind of owning onto right now to say maybe, maybe that's why we're not talking about it or maybe not necessarily that why we're not talking about it, but that that's more reason why we're I am gravitating towards that, that to inspire and to create that space for us to start thinking about those that are not necessarily working within the professional sense or with professional actors and all of that, but they're working in community. And we know that power sits in that community also knowledge sits there. How can we unveil that I'm not in an extractive sense because I have to be also careful in that sense right. And I go then collect it is again, that I'm considering on those three levels of the political, where they're at in looking at historical or own positionality which rightly mentioned, looking at it from an aesthetic standpoint, you know, the beauty of the performance and all of that, and looking at it from the human perspective so that it's about relationality, not transaction it's about reciprocity, it's about responsibility and that I said the ethics of working with community and help us to start speaking about those bigger ideas and concepts. Yeah, I mean, what you're saying. It resonates with me on several levels. One is how we, you know the whole idea of how we produce knowledge, which epistemology has a lot to do with. Like you said before you work in applied theater you work with communities and I often look at applied theater work and productions and see them as very multi dimensional things. The applied theater discourse, or in dance we have a similar thing we call it community dance and when and community dance. One of the definitions of community dance is a professional dance artist goes to a community of non professionals and facilitates them to create a production. So there's usually the professional in the sense that somebody is paying them, or they come from an institutional setup where it's where it's recognized that they're doing a certain kind of professional work, even if they're not being paid they might decide to do it voluntarily for example. So that's how we look at it so we do see a sense of someone someone is a professional and this community is not necessarily professional professional and that doesn't mean they're not excellent performers, it just means they are not being paid to do it. I mean they're not being paid to do it and they were not necessarily trained to do it you know they do it. The training is part of their everyday life and, and things like that. What I'm, what, what, what you're telling me makes me look at sometimes apply performance and know that yes, it's possibly for the purposes of what is it spreading messages. Okay, there's a health issue and the community needs to discuss this health issue and send out certain messages about it and people relate to development. But the kinds of things you've been talking about here are not necessarily part of that development issue. Just so I mean, if you're not talking about the health message that the community is talking about, or we want to introduce want to do something against poverty. You know I mean so we want to get the community together to do that or, or the marriage of underage girl underage girls. So we do a community performance with it in order to change the minds of the community or to get them to express their points of view on these issues. You're also talking about cultural things, historical things, cultural artifacts, ways of life, cosmologies. And these things are often not discussed so much so I think in my knowledge of applied theater that is not the focus the focus is usually the message the development. So I am saying that the applied theater is multi dimensional. Yes, we have this message of development, but there's these other things that the community are bringing to it this other knowledge is the community bring into it that are left out of this discourse. And I find it exciting that the topic of dramaturgy can bring these other aspects are often left out when we're talking about community dance or applied theater they're often left out. The aesthetics and the relationship to follow the philosophies of that community the spirituality of the community, or the, the, or the aesthetics of that community often left out, but the word drama, dramaturgy can create a space where we can start with a bunch of different kinds of things. So that's one thing I'm finding interesting and quite exciting here. The other thing it brings to the fore for me is this whole idea of what I call the public space and it's something I, I have been researching, and I've been looking at the whole idea of the artist as artistic citizen, as a, as a, as a cultural as a global citizen. And, you know, the thing about professional art, professionally, funded subsidized, funded by the government funded by, you know, funding body, or even, you know, commercial sponsored so it's staged and people are paid to create it. This is the art that gets the voice. This is the art that the journalist turns up to review. You know I can dance all I like in a nightclub or I can dance you know all I like in the street no one really will review that performance. You know, but if I stage it like the local government is involved in my dancing in the street is possibly that it might be reviewed or you know it people might write about it and it gets that gets that focus. Oh, I think there's a power in a professional performance working with a community because it brings our community in contact with this institutional framework this public space where we discuss things. You know I mean, and I think, I think the power in what you're saying that dramaturgy can open a space for new epistemology to come into institutions and create different types of dialogue with those in the public space, and the community. A professional can do that translation. And I do see the point of why you said there needs to be an ethics involved so that it doesn't just become something of extraction. So we grab the interesting dance moves, and we just shift it to our curriculum and we sort of forget them in the past. But it dramaturgy here is showing the potential of opening different a new type, a different type of dialogue between places of education places of media and these communities are often left out of those kind of discussions in terms of their own artistic practice in a way in terms of their own cultural practice. So I think there's a lot of possibilities that you are talking about when you, when you are saying let's decolonize it. Let's decolonize it let's take it out of this hierarchy of we only need to see how they dance in order to say this public message in order you know I mean let's take it out of that hierarchy. Let's put it into a space where we can have a dialogue over the art, the philosophy, the world of you, the perceptions. No, this is interesting. I also want to think but before that I just wanted to say that it questions where we're happy to answer questions if there are any questions. And we can put it in the chat for those that are for listeners and viewers who are happy to answer your questions. Yeah, while while we're, I'm running to me that a lot of appreciation and to the conversation and a lot of those that are watching are really enjoying the conversation so thank you for all your comments of appreciation. If there are questions we'll be happy to you know speak to them in the many minutes we have, but just wanted to say that I think the discourse or the practice and the discourse of applied theater is also moved beyond development. Actually theater for development is just a subset of applied theater. It's really considered by theater as extra anything you know extra. Extra. I'm looking for that word now is extra. I can remember that word now. However, applied theater is, you know, engaging theater beyond that the professional space itself, like the conventional, you know, theater space itself, using theater for social realities for education for we have data for development we have a reminiscence theater we have the victim theater we have the refugee theater, we have the museum theater whatever we like it's it's really huge. But I think that so that's one also. So what what that means is that when we've gone beyond that idea of just messaging as theater as a way to send message across is that where when you engage with a community with the people and all of that. There's so much nuance that goes with that from understanding that like you mentioned cultural practices, cosmology, the epistem and things like that. And so, in my opinion, one of the things that applied theater and all the kind of forms, you know, practices that takes us to community and work with community is that it opened access to us for us to actually be able to know human beings better. How can we function together as human beings how can we coexist how what are the histories it opens up just amazing door of opportunity for reckoning for engaging for critiquing for envisioning together that space and I think that, you know, you know, and that's why I'm really thinking to use your word back again to to take dramatic you were from the hierarchical sense or that understanding of what we think it is look take using a decolonial lens to kind of ask ourselves what are other questions that are out there when we're devising together with whether a professional or not professional, or we're doing a piece with a weather Western Canon or no Western Canon, and then Africa in this context is that I think there's a lot around our performances performance traditions like we rightly said, you know, you know that I think it was when we're talking last time you did mention that, you know, I think there was one, somebody that was using 10 tell I think you use 10 10 your 10 10 African drums and things like that. And, and, you know, the dramaturgy of talking drum, for example, it's something that I don't even understand myself as even though I'm Yoruba. You know, there's some drum, some things that they play that it's only my father that can actually take it he can tell you this is what they're saying. And there's something that when he, you know, if we hear it, he doesn't even know what it is because, you know, of that or a tradition and all of that, you know, we all know that and, you know, but then the beauty of that in itself speaks to deeper things about the Yoruba people just talking drum alone, you know, our sense of reading, you know, the culture around it, the annuals right for example, the family that are specifically annuals those that play drums on it, you know, or the 10 tight self, you know, one of the pieces that I did that I created back in Nigeria, you know, we use, you know, are you are you games that are very typical that, you know, now we don't even hear them again because of, you know, video games and all that right but you know what are those things that we're going back to to really drawing from, you know, from those realities and from those ways of thinking and ways of knowing. So that, that's what I'm really calling for that to say, can we put a lens to that and what are those skills that are, you know, as dramaturgical skills that we've taken on maybe because of our geography or because of our location and the kind of work that we're doing. So we have practitioners from Burkina Faso from Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, really South Africa drawing from all of these experiences. I think it's very important because, you know, I keep seeing this statistic pop popping up all over the place that is it 65% of Africa is under 30 or something like that I don't know how true it is but I see that it's a very useful place. But, and I'm also very aware of the increasing divide into generationally, you know, and the big divide sometimes urban to rural. I mean when I travel sometimes from Lagos to if it's like I've traveled a long way in the sense that I enter into community who speak Yoruba very differently from the way they do in Lagos and have a different my posture physical posture changes when I get to the way I will stand and greet people. It's there's a different knowledge, but I was aware at the funeral of my mother. I didn't know much. I did not know. And how much he had died with. You know, and I'm aware that unless I mean the way we have constituted theater within Africa. We have theater courses. I see the power of dramaturgy as as a discipline now if we think about in a discipline way is a way of us looking at the logic of our practices not just learning a repertoire piece you know I always say that you know when I dance, you know you take part in a choreography, you learn a few steps of butter, and a few rhythms of the drum in order to do that particular performance. But if someone threw me out there with the drama and the dance I possibly could not cope with more than five minutes. You know I mean, because I've learned everything through a play, you know I mean. I think dramaturgy is an arena because you're learning about logic you're learning about principles and modes of communication to start approaching many of these practices, not just for how do I learn enough for my performance, but how do I learn it as a language. And I think this will help relationships between different institutions I think it will help passing down information between generations, for example, I agree. And if, if, if younger scholars start come approaching performance dramaturgically, they will probably know a different set of questions to, to ask elders than the ones they, they ask now. I think it's different from the anthropological study of culture, where you go and watch and then record and then perform or understand it. I think it's a bit more of a dialogic way of engaging with with with culture. I think it will change the link between the professional and the community and the link between the stage and what some people will say the field and the stage or you know, it will change a different link which I think is is is needed, I think, in the continent. And I, and I think in addition to that beyond the continent is the migration has sort of made the world what it is right now. But it wouldn't be regenerated now you have your bars you have those that are from Ethiopia you have those that are from South Africa, the same thing for you in London where you are the same way for other places, you know and not in all of the world is the migration but also open up opportunity where all these things can become useful in those are bubbles right so that you can you can see you know what I mean what I look like you don't have necessarily go to, you know, that part of the world before you see that, but it also the new generation, the new generation or generation that are coming. What would that you know what would that you know what that will look like and in the context of indigenous, you know, epistems and realities also here in Canada and some other part of the world is that that in itself also create that opportunity for us to start understanding other nuanced ways and other ways of doing this. I think we have a question here. This is for the wonderful conversation Taiwan for me really very inspiring other lab would discuss that there is often a dramaturgical focus with regards to story content text and storytelling. How about visuals slash design non text are the questions different for you both. So that's first question. The second question. Also any word of advice for the paste a magical lab participant as they are navigating these world of dramaturgy in the coming ones month what questions do you have for them. And what question do you feel they should think about. Okay, two global questions. Yeah, I mean, big questions as all global questions. I don't know, Ty, would you want to go first. I don't mind. Well, yeah, absolutely. And I think that the question is not just for the magical lab, peace, the magical lab alone. It's a dramaturgical question for anyone that isn't that does that whether they live by themselves drama. Whether you're not a drama talk or not is that in my opinion yes, there is, there has to be a consideration dramaturgical consideration for both the story content the storytelling whether you're devising or scripted, and also the visual dimension of it because many times also will constitute the aesthetics so when we're talking about the political the, the, the aesthetics and the human, the visual considering that part of that so I give an example. I think some couple of months ago with BLM movement and all the opera and all of that is a particular, I think a particular Monday or the particular day that folks wanted to do, you know, solidarity, and they put a particular picture on the profile on social media. I think some couple of years ago also there was something that happened in in France where we had pre for France all over the internet. There's also the orange, you know, shed day here in Canada. Those things are visual representation of not just an event, but people, an event or circumstance and things like that so in my opinion, I think that a dramaturgical focus should consider both of them. They're not they're not different questions we should be asking. In fact, they're additional question that you add on to that conversation, because we know that the visual is very powerful. The design is very powerful, the non text, the para linguistics, you know, the, the sign language, the metaphors, the symbolism, those things are the imagery, those things are very important that that's what I want. I'm going to say over to you for me. The visual is very important. As, as we said, I think dramaturgy as a, as a, as a practice has increased with the fact that more performances are not reliant on a play text. And if they're not reliant on a script, what are they relying on? Yes, they might still be speaking and singing, but it has a lot to do with the visuals and the movement and the physicality and who the performances are. And that comes down a lot to, to, to visual. So you could you, the fact that for example, one performance, the beginning was the, the director just asked the cast, each to come with an object that is of great significance to them. They brought the object to the studio, and then they explained why this particular object was of such importance. And then it was the stories from the objects, the use of the objects that were created the performance. And then they had to be a selection of which ones to focus on most because you couldn't put everything in, but some other objects continued in the piece, sort of in the background. And, and the tension between those objects in the foreground and the background, you know, though there was a tension between them that also created a meaning. And this is by the visuals, you know. So what we, what we see is as important as what we, as what we hear. So visuals are very impressive. They contain, they have meanings like Tyra was saying, the BLM, the banners, the motifs, the logos, they mean something. And that's very quickly to what I would like to encourage members of the lab to do is explore their own lives and how they make meaning with it. Is there a bracelet they like to wear every day. Is there songs they like to listen to other things that their mothers and fathers told them they hold on to closely. And then if those things, if you catalog those things and then, and you begin to see what makes meaning in your life and holds meaning. Then you begin to start seeing what must be happening with other people. Well, this is amazing. I think we're just going to wrap it up here because we have just less than one minute to finish. But we just want to say thank you so much for me for being part of this. I know that you're coming back in episode three I believe to with with Judy data and some, and some other amazing practitioners across the, you know, from the continent. Thank you for taking the time to engage and have this conversation. And I'm looking forward to engaging with the participants in the mathematical lab, and also to look forward to the remaining four sessions. So thank you so much. Thank you to Brendan to, you know, all the partners, including how round to to Syrica and Deb, and of course to our life captioners. Thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing you in our next episode from from my own end here. Thank you for coming to the cool nice and dramatic series and look forward to seeing you next. Bye everyone.