 Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to day two of training transformation to training the city company's symposium on the Suzuki method of accurate training. We'd like to welcome you all again and welcome our live streaming audience via howl around We're going to talk yesterday. We began talking about the past brilliant panel beautifully moderated and wonderful speakers And today we're going to talk a little bit about the present We're going to talk about the training with people who have long and varied experiences about the training this afternoon We'll talk about young companies in the future So to begin I'm going to get very short bios because most of you have the biomaterial in your Packets and also for those of you live streaming that material is also on the website But I'm going to give us a little bit of an introduction to our four panelists to give us a little bit of context And then I'll begin with the first question. So welcome everybody. How's your legs? City company member Akiko Izao was 16 years old when in 1979 she saw a TV program that introduced Mr. Suzuki and his theater company on NHK Japanese National Television eight years later in 1987 she began working with Scott and in 1998 performed in Trojan women at the Sydney Opera House She then performed in eight Scott productions. Akiko joined city in 1997 and first performed in culture of desire among her many other city productions Which include steel hammer and a right this December she'll be in the premiere of cities production of Hanjo And she is also a member of the city conservatory faculty. Akiko Izao Jeffrey first aid is a veteran theater Artist with more than a hundred professional credits in the past 25 years as an actor director writer and producer Jeffrey first encountered the Suzuki training at a summer drama camp while he was in high school Jeffrey's a founding member of the award-winning immersive theater ensemble Connie's avant-garde restaurant Writing and performing in the original shows last year He created and performed in the life model the tri-lingual multimedia production inspired by the events during this Arab Spring uprising He's originally from Nashville, Tennessee Jeffrey received his MFA from Columbia University He's a former associate artist with the city company having performed in a mid-summer night's dream Culture of desire and war of the world's a radio play Jeffrey's an associate professor of drama through University of Washington's MFA theater program Will Bond Bondo is a founding member of the city company He first encountered the training in 1984 at graduate school from future city company member Kelly Maher He later toured in Tadashi Suzuki's Dionysus last summer Bondo returned to Togin performing the 40th anniversary Toga International Arts Festival in Tadashi Suzuki's Tale of Lear What's that of the festival? 50th on the website. It's at 40. That's a commission. I was said. Thank you for correcting me in public That must have been Ellen was that hell yeah Thank you Bondo has performed internationally in many city productions including the Bill T. Jones Aren't using dance company collaboration of a right and most recently in chess match number five and of course Bob Bondo was awarded the 2013 impact dance movies Commission for a short film lost and found he recently published in the 2013 Rutledge companion to Stanislavsky and he's a senior artist in residence here at Skidmore College Bondo Actor and educator Mark Corkin's first encountered the Suzuki training over 30 years ago as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's professional theater training program after graduation Mark was invited to play Cornwall in Mr Suzuki's Tale of Lear a co-production of the Japanese Performing Arts Center and four American regional theaters Through his connection to mr. Suzuki Mark was introduced to Anne Bogart in the city company where he helped create and perform in the first Production of the medium based on media philosopher Marshall McLoone Mr. Corkins has worked with the Utah Shakespeare Festival stage West Berkshire Theater Festival Madison rip Illinois Shakespeare and many others Mark has also been a member of several resident acting companies including the American Players Theater The resident ensemble players and the Milwaukee rep mark We're gonna begin a little bit to give us a little bit of context. We're gonna talk a little bit about history I mentioned briefly When they first encountered the Suzuki training, but I'm beginning with Jeffrey I'm gonna go in order chronologically backward of most recent exposure to the training and the question is this Jeffrey, can you tell us a little bit more about your first exposure to the Suzuki training and what your initial reactions were? So, yes, it was summer drama camp in high school for those of you who know what this is actually forensics camp And So I was acting to the best of my ability and an MFA Student from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee was one of the teachers there. I think it was Steve How I'm actually messaging with him on Facebook right now to see if this is true And so amidst this summer workshop with you know high school actors Steve actually had us doing sitting statues and speaking Fee-fie faux-fum I smell the blood of an Englishman be he alive or be he dead I'll grind his bones to make my bread and This was nothing like anything that was happening in any of the other classes in which Teenagers were just trying to emote a lot and feel things It felt like we were doing something real and I thought it did some cool stuff to my voice So off I went to college did theater never you know, there was no Suzuki training around there So backstage I would just do my own frickin statues and stomp. I had no idea how to stomp I just heard there was stomping in Suzuki, so I just stomp And then after college I tried to get into a grad program with Suzuki training So for years I applied to UCSD and UW got rejected again and again And then I heard that Anne Bogart and Andre Serban were both at this radical new training program at Columbia University So I got on the phone the next day Figured out how to audition and that's how I re-met the training because Ellen Lauren was there and Then it was real it got really real And I think we'll go into what that training meant to us as we Let the others do their meeting and then I think we'll talk more about how it got in Thank you. Thank you. Well, as you said, so I was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the time 1984 and I had a I auditioned for the Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival and I got some little rules that summer And I've been working in a bar hub breading fish Five o'clock in the morning every morning as a result of the festival the graduate school there called me and said Do you want to go to graduate school? I said, yeah, I don't go to graduate school And so I went to graduate school and You know, so it was a kind of a lucky lark, you know, it was a lucky thing and I just said yes, and And it just happens that Kelly Maher Arrived at Pittsburgh at the same time Fresh off the plane from Togo more and I think she'd been there for the last two or three summers Working with the mr. Suzuki in the company and she and so on day one We be she began teaching this is a train among other things period movement and I gotta say the people who come out of that program Are really well trained so she had a lot to teach Among those things was I don't know if you know this in the mid 80s. There was a thing called aerobics An outfit So she did that twice a week, too, but she was teaching the Suzuki training and At the end of that first year of graduate school She said very kindly, you know, you seem to take to this you should go to Japan and And so she wrote a recommendation for me to mr. Suzuki and and and the Japan American Friendship Foundation, which was Working at that time was very generous and helped people like me go And that was my first nine weeks Training with the Scott company and then mr. Suzuki invited me back The next summer and then that's began a lifelong relationship to the training Yeah, Mark. Hey, hey everybody great to be here. My name is Mark Yeah It's fascinating because as I listened to these stories I realized how unique they all are and and how rare it is that You you get to talk about it because it's just not around people number one for whom it's interesting and Let alone that they would understand I I went to undergrad at Wayne State University and it was fine But I knew I was looking for graduate training specifically in and how to talk Shakespeare And I thought like a lot of people the place to go was Yale or Juilliard or what at the time was called one of the league resident training programs and There was one that kept coming up on my radar That was fairly new and that was the professional theater training program at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee And every little thing I heard about it. I began to be more and more intrigued and anyway, I ended up In August of 1984 starting my first year in Milwaukee and what Talk about an eye-opening experience just in so many ways, but we started the Suzuki training From from right out of the gate and we did it for that first month I do believe at least four hours a day two sessions and It was It was really a Shock to the system, but also as I've heard some people say a little bit likes I kind of I recognize this as something that that I resonate strongly with and so from from there I realized that I had a real affinity for it and You know going back to my earlier training I realized there was this open Or you know conspiracy of silence around the whole issue of how to exist on stage It was just kind of taken for granted that you knew how to breathe that you knew how to enter that you know I knew how to exit but what what this is a key training did for me is it It opened that up as as an area to to inquire What is this as opposed to just kind of skipping over it and oh here's your blocking and know your lines better So that was really the perfect thing for me at the time My first recognition of the training came to me 1980 when I was 16 and I happen to watch the TV in after prefecture the raw area in Japan and and the youth square or young square some of you so the film from the previous day and Black and white TV monitor and then what's going on top of the mountain and I thought oh Infugist young artists there Wow, what's the recognition and then I thought oh I should go to see the Tonga international theater festival some of you and four years later 1984 I watched the play and the end of the Last performance they did the lecture demonstration So I witnessed that walking and the kanjin job What else standing statue and some basics and I thought oh, it's weird and strange and It hurts me just watching But that concentration and you know I witnessed the play first and then I saw the training I uh-huh That's why they're Good and attractive and strong and ground. I decided I should train So three years later, I got into the company because 1987 at that time the training was not open to the public so to Japanese so I sneak-chain The company from the office That's my encounter it was hard, but I was really happy to be there With my hero train Thank You Akiko mark you started us off actually on the next question, so I'm going to come back to you the question is this Akiko you have dance training the other gentlemen you've all gone to graduate school So you've been exposed to a lot of different methodologies and philosophies of theater training So what was it in lieu of studying Shakespeare and forensics and Grotowski and everything else. What was it about the Suzuki training in particular that all of us have grabbed gravitated? We've heard the name jewel Walker a couple of times over the past couple of days and he was my Movement teacher and definitely one of my mentors and one of the people that really spearheaded having the training be an integral part of our Program and one of the things he would say is that maybe perhaps thanks to television and film that we see so much of that actors in America have become talking heads for all intents and purposes and I know that for myself Coming from as as Ellen mentioned an athletic background and a little dabbling in dance and a little in mime and a little in martial arts. I had this special Affinity right from the get-go with the training and what it allowed me to do was get out of my own head To kind of lose my mind to come to my senses and that was crucial for me because I tended to As we all do if we get go down the rabbit hole of the bastardized Stanislavsky trying to feel real on stage and fool yourself that you're actually experiencing the the character I Realized it was such relief to find a way to to address embracing being fictional in a theatrical context and And and that was just a tremendous opening for me and very free Because I realized I was driving driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to fool myself into I'm not really on stage and you know Thank you. Same thing bonda. What why this is okay training among all the things you studied including aerobics. Yeah, I Why aren't you an aerobics instructor? No, you know I got so lucky I Just got lucky. I got invited to go to school. I didn't even know you could even be an actor at that time I didn't know you know How to do it and so I got invited and then thank God I met Kelly for for many reasons And and I guess I will say too So I can't for the life of me remember what we did in graduate school What we studied and I think you're expressing it so deeply mark it which is the kind of unspoken Atmosphere of American eyes Stanislavsky or met I don't know what we were doing and and I just felt always like I didn't know what I was doing and Apparently I had some kind of ability or something and and but I actually it wasn't so it was difficult until I encountered the Suzuki training and and suddenly there was a palpable Way of working, you know working on my breathing working on being still working on on speaking and having a good reason to speak other than some Something that might have happened to me a long time ago having a good reason for being on the stage and So you know in a dumb way just technically it was logical for my brain, you know to to to work with the senses and work with space and time and have real things to work on and I just as a creature of needing discipline it helped me in that sense and So just think it just was logical for my body and and I really I took to it Desperately grabbed it so that I had some way of knowing how to do anything and and So that's a technical a technical way of answering the question how to get better and Then I will say although at 24 and super naive and having no artistic context in which to base any of this Literary books or anything so but the other thing I will say now in hindsight So that I'm going to go out of here go Otherwise why you up here? I suppose but it's like the trade so there's the technical aspect Which I just rocked right away. Oh this seems to make a lot of sense But the other part of it is personal and this is Ellen pointed to this yesterday even after all these years It's really hard to talk about Why you do it or how to do it or anything like that? It just hits you as Cindy said like a wave That makes a lot of sense to some of us and But the so that's the public technical side of it But there is a private side of it, which is now I would use I would quote Peter Sellers And I would say who says what gives you the moral authority to stand on a stage And not moral like well-behaved But moral in a global sense Because you know truth be told I sound like a joke, but It's not all that fun always to be on stage and always like it You know me and so what gives me the right to stand there to me. That's personal. That's just me and Like an opera singer he would talk about or a musician, you know the 10,000 hours rule or something And so just the comfort of and I could speak more about the vocabulary as Ellen was doing yesterday but just having the Foundation of a viable and well-practiced and verified training helped me stay there And so I guess I would say it that way too That's related for me personally to company also that we can get into that later So that's and and it was a cellular transformation You guys are all doing so well you answered the second question you started Jeffery same same thing Why all the wonderful things you studied at Columbia? Why why the Suzuki training? Why still the Suzuki train cool? Okay, so I'm going to try to be focused and maybe a little bit reductive just for the sake of clarity and time But I got to Columbia and suddenly the bar for everything was raised But what I had encountered again acting lies in college some good stuff, but it often seemed Rather indulgent and it was like it felt like the actor could take all the time in the world And I got to Columbia and suddenly I had Andres Serban demanding that every second on stage Be entertaining. I'm using that word because to him it seemed the worst sin was to be boring So whatever you do I keep Andre awake in every second on stage And we met and Bogart who seemed to demand that at every second we be aware of as much as possible All the time and we met Ellen Lauren who seemed to demand that the training demanded that at every second we be concentrated that there be a focus and We be striving beyond ourselves somehow I think that might Relate to what Tom was saying and what Mark was just saying about being fictitious on stage because we're doing something That's not just us, but we're striving beyond us as well And and then as Bondo just said it was training Something that I could actually practice and go back to over time Which was different from everything else I had met So I have kept going back to it over time When I hear the word training for my for me training is my 16 years that dance training and 25 years karate martial arts training and 30 years To the training and the people in training of course with the city company So I don't have So-called Theater training, but that's training. It's really What are you doing for 20 years? University this kind of program package or you know the I'm sorry. I need Thank you But when I heard training it's just it's for me it's five of them, but they have the old similarity It's about your mind and body and the core and how to deal with the possibility in possibility Or progress training is like my mirror because basic things there So I can see that where I am and also future where I want to go What I'm saying. Yeah, so similarity Plus it's important to get a good teacher for you So I got lucky for the same lucky for taught by Met city company or city company And also important thing happened to me training Because of the city company's mission. There is a teaching is one of the mission So I was surprised. I didn't like to teach but during the course With my colleagues courage I Began to teach that was the training too because you know, even yesterday today only Limited amount of the time when I train Or I teach in charge of the class It was the training and then a Suzuki training is my core because it fit me I cannot explain but that training talked to me and I can respond But not it's only the training. It's mingles All of my life Yes, thank you, Akiko So bondo you you talked about I just got lucky I just I Isn't that isn't that that's true for all of us in the room and It's the same thing as just getting the job, you know, there's so many people that are talented That aren't working when you get a job a lot of this luck that we're in this room together Thank you, Ellen and mr. Suzuki, but it's also partly luck Um, but going back to the next question So you talked about the ability to exist on stage. What's beautiful you talked about the moral authority. So And then you also talked about on the chain on the cellular level So how has all this training all this existing In the Suzuki method has it changed you In some way both as an artist and also perhaps as a human being And I'm not trying to get to we go we but seriously has it has it how has it changed you if it has well, um I mean if you go deeply into it like anything I suppose anything any rigorous training Whether it's Suzuki or anything else it it In my experience Although my encounter was so rapid and then going to Japan so rapid that it hit really hard really fast But in my my experience spending a lot of time with it, of course it transforms you Uh, especially if you start with a young and have no world view and no You know system of belief or anything, uh, it does become a kind of world view Hey, there's theater happening out in the world That is not anything like what we have here Most of the theater isn't and then so suddenly just you know as a global citizen you begin to be more Live more inclusively or Or be more accepting of other things Which I think art is supposed to do say yes come in So so there's that so so then and then it gets political and it gets political in the sense that I realize very quickly after I I Well, I could describe it, but after I went to Japan and realized oh, there's a company of people doing this Suddenly I realized, you know, maybe stuff that was intuitive already. I wanted to be in a company I mean that very quickly And that's part of a way of living that's part of a way of making work a but also You know driving to get there and eating meals together Sharing holidays together and and having you know building a an ecosystem I guess of of a life so So that was a change that was a revelation And and that's the way I realized I wanted to live my life so So, you know, does it change you or do you just sort of go? Oh, right? That's that's who I am Anyway, you know, so I will say am I addressing the question? I don't want to get yeah Right, it gets wide pretty fast, doesn't it? um And and also back to the moral authority part part of it is the training, but it's also Because of you, you know And and and the company that says okay go you can't you have permission if you go do it You could be terrible. That's okay. It doesn't even matter, you know But here we are agreeing to do something together and that's a Very lucky way to be Mark same thing. Has it changed you? And if so, how? Yeah, uh, yes And it it's probably difficult to accurately characterize from from in here there there was a time Late 80s early 90s when I was involved very heavily with with Suzuki in the rehearsal hall Uh performing like I don't know what it would be like to do Trojan women eight times a week But we did we did the tale of Lear eight times a week in in, uh, you know regional theaters and That was an interesting collision So anyway coming off of that I realized that because my other colleagues not in that world knew of my connection To Suzuki they were sometimes asked when I was doing so. So is that is that the Suzuki stuff and I just Yeah, you know you just cringe because Ultimately as I think we've tried to articulate it becomes part of your marrow and dna as opposed to I've got a technique that I'm going to apply here But it does become internalized to the point where not unlike tom hewitt I've tended to specialize in psychopaths Dead people I've played a lot of ghosts and I don't know if that's If that's something that was there originally and the Suzuki training kind of gave me a container To to put that energy into or if the Suzuki training really allowed that realm to open up as something You know just by default. Okay. He's better at it than anyone else. So get get mark to play the ghost of Hamlet's father But just technically the the kind of energy needed both in terms of intensity and control to create the illusion of something that's otherworldly Is directly related for me back to what I experience in training Yeah Has it changed you? Yes I'll start kind of I guess I'll start with the personal and maybe a little superficial and hopefully that'll grow into something artistic and a little bigger But I couldn't get anywhere on time for the first 27 years of my life And and yeah at some point. Hopefully we all learn that one should show up on time but for some reason With these teachers and this this company It went it went deep inside and so there was a question. There was responsibility frankly That I learned for both times and for space and now is the part where I don't know if I'm talking about what I've learned from Suzuki training or the viewpoints or Simply from being the city company I learned so much from this company is that that are with us here In the room I had never encountered such rigor and in and self responsibility in the rehearsal hall So the the bar for what how how I was supposed to be in rehearsal went way up from the first day of rehearsal with these guys and I feel like That is the training in them in their bodies and they transmitted that to me as much as I received lessons from Ellen And other company members in the classroom It it was part of being among these artists and and working with them So I just work harder now and that's more natural And more of what I demand of myself and now also of my students and actors who work with me Yeah My mind or how to approach the production or rehearsal room Changed it's more stable grounded And uh, yeah taking responsibility Buddy is up and down sometimes really good. Sometimes I cannot stump Aging maybe me back But I got Even if I can't stump or proper. I couldn't do the proper form My but Yeah, it's getting stronger And there's some success and some failure up and down but Getting better that might change Again, we're the questions are leading to the next questions. Um, one of the wonderful things about this week in the scene the spectrum of backgrounds the spectrum of ages, which I find very moving to see The levels on so many ways of the people that are here And it's that people the next question is that, you know age So all of us here in this room and on this panel we all have a long history with the training What is what has changed if anything? With the circumstances which include of course aging and loss of flexibility How do we how do you deal with those changes and yet trying to commit to that sense of rigor and discipline Which is such a part of the training jeff. I'll start with you since you're the youngest Haha, sure. Well, yes when I got back into the training in grad school with ellen and other company members I um, yeah, I was very strong Um, so I took to it. Um, I dug the rigor the temperature and everything and it felt like Great, I'm a I'm an athlete and I'm meeting something athletic and let's go and now Roughly 20 years later. I um because of my various other athletic interests I don't have much cartilage left in my right knee and yeah, things hurt and I'm just not as fast And so it's come to mean something else. I've had to get smarter about the training Not just thinking about it. Uh, not just stronger But smarter and I think the thing I mentioned earlier about how concentrated how focused I am in every moment Actually means a lot more now because I can't get away with the shit. I used to get away with Onstage just powering through Um, it's so the training is now going I think more up here or here in the sense of the In the sense of my mind if one thinks in I guess yogic terms of mind being your whole being Um, your your consciousness. So it's so I'm pointing at this, but I know it's here But yeah, Suzuki training has Gone more fully in my Consciousness if you will Wando, you know what do we have to do differently now? Do we? You need Well, uh Is that the same question? Yeah Well, yeah, how is the circumstances do we need to yeah, I was thinking is Jeffrey You know in a way, it's like a Like a great painting or something, you know the train, you know You as you get older, you don't make the painting look older You know make wrinkles on the Mona Lisa or something There you are again in front of it, you know And and it tells you something about where all of your whole history, you know and um, so And and for I think if we're being honest some of us, you know, yes when you're young and you're fast You know, suddenly it's it's a training that supports who you think you are Yeah, and then and also on the other level there's that kind of That hit, you know that you get from it, you know or anything that really inspires you and you You sweat and you feel like you did something for an hour and a half or four hours or whatever it is But then at a certain point, I love I love what you said earlier about Um entering and exiting like just how do I get on stage? And how do I get off basic basic stuff and then you realize Once those feed falls away or the interest in a cool shape falls away You can enter like when you go up and do statues you're practicing entering In a way and then expressing something if you have something, you know, it happens But so just back to basics again I'm just learning how to enjoy entering And exiting do you follow that? So uh so so so it doesn't have to be so shiny and flashy When you watch those people last night the Scott company, right Just glow be really still and enter I mean it's transformative, isn't it? It's not it's not a normal human way of being And and that's what I like to in terms of tom spoke about this about the fictional cell It's not asked of us very often even in theater and that you If you want to play on that level and not be a normal human being or a ghost Everybody's a ghost and as Suzuki said in his documentary We're all insane And and and and you get to do it sometimes in this training. It seems very clear touch your insane self But in a very controlled environment Now I'm just Mark, how has how has it changed? If it has if it has yes, um Yeah, the surface level for me is that As as I've gotten older and I'm not with a group like city company where the structure is already in place the infrastructure to support ongoing training so my encounters with it There tend to be gaps and there's always I'd like to tell myself there's a way to prepare But there's really not so it's always a kind of a shock to the system to to start to jump right in But because I've made the trip before it's not like on this path. I'm getting whacked by branches I can't I I kind of know the path back and it it somehow is more streamlined I remember um, and this is just jumping back to a personal experience I had because the very first year that I trained I was lucky enough To thank goodness, uh, see a production of Trojan women Sandy got our whole class down to Chicago to see a shiirishi in in the lead role in Suzuki's company and we had already been training for a while So we had the training first and then saw it And then we had the great honor of having Suzuki and shiirishi and a man named Kenji Suzuki Come in and kind of give us another shot in the in the arm about training And it's fascinating because I don't know if Leon's in the room Leon was a sea change for me several years later because we finally had someone who Had the depth of knowledge of the Japanese language to actually translate What was being said whereas any question that was addressed? We just didn't have good translators. So you always come back with uh, Kenji would be um, yes, uh, so um, maybe to um, um, Suzuki-san say, uh Stomp harder And that was it, you know So the benefit of training with shiirishi and and working with her we had uh, a scene, um, you know, uh Osplendor, I don't know how many of you know that line osplendor of slenders menelaus. We actually did Encounters with shiirishi as heck about you know, and that experience that tom Described to being literally blown off the stage Was was exhilarating But also to watch her training and I don't know how old she was at the time But I could see she wasn't her answer to the training was not just stomp harder She had internalized this inner sensibility and just throwing a lot of energy and a lot of speed and a lot of At it was not for her what was required And uh, that was great for me to see as someone in his mid 20s and now, you know, however many decades later I go, ah, I I can still train, but I don't do it with the same degree of I don't know Uh, violence percent But the I hope that the the the inner thing Is is still ignited And a lot of the training came out of her body You could see that last night watching Performance a kiko How what what changes if any have you had to make as you said earlier? Not being able to stomp that day or your body changing or Yeah, just uh, you know For example, basic number one is here It's there And then I will switch the focus what i'm working on sometimes image sometimes stomp harder Sometimes consistent or sometimes attacking Really attacking and uh, the Feel miserable. Let's feel let me let me allow to be feeling miserable To decay in my energy so Or sometimes I made the acceleration strategy So there is a ton of of course breath breath is now most important thing for me When I do Basic number one It's challenging especially chakachak new school. Yeah training not changing. I said I was wrong Training itself is changing too. So I catch up It's just Not getting easier anyway. So and I accept that fact I won't panic Just going I think that's good for all of us remember the room it doesn't you know, even though even though we get stronger To a certain point it doesn't get easier You know the more we know about it the more it enables us to continue to to raise the level In the bar. So again, you guys are doing great about pushing I want to jump in there because it's something that you're really important that you're speaking to and and um I I made a joke about it yesterday and training a little bit about feeling sad You know, there's the there's the as ellen beautifully said there's the goal, right? And then there's you and how you close that gap you spend your whole life closing that gap hopefully But that that's but I feel sad if I don't get my deals together or whatever and you were saying, you know Something similar just now, but what it it sounds like a joke But what it points to is that if you're actually encountering the container that It holds an emotional life, which is the really the only thing that matters, you know In a sense and and being able to express it accurately of course for the stage But that but but the and as you get older, maybe it becomes more apparent because the problems become more acute or interesting But that but that suddenly You encounter this very powerful thing and then you don't judge being sad or Or excited or something. It's just oh emotion. Great. Here we are. You know what I mean? And we we don't often talk about it in training. Certainly, you know We don't talk about the inner life so much Not often or I don't anyway, but it is pointing to that. No, I just wanted to accept that somehow because it's important So we talked a little bit about how how How do we change because the circumstances age or whatever flexibility Over the over the injury and or injury and and so the next question which is related, uh, and maybe Maybe this might be after the panel talks where I might go out into the audience a little bit as well, but So it changes because there's the circumstances of age, but also A lot of people here are connected to companies But a lot of us aren't and a lot of us work outside not in companies or we're in companies and we still work outside You're going to work in the right time. You work with conny. You work more with other companies So what is it like then what what changes or do you have to change? When you're trying to access the training if you do when you're not working with a group of artists Who have that same sense of rigor or vocabulary even if whether they have the rigor or not that sense of vocabulary When you work, maybe some people in conny's do have training But when you work with people who don't have what do you do you change how you prepare yourself? Is that question makes sense Yes, I'm thinking in context of conny's is aesthetically so different from city company or as if the company I'm not I'm trying to figure out if I can efficiently make a good example of that. I'm not sure I can that's like a It's rigorous in its way, but it's completely chaotic. So I'm gonna can I take the question as a freelance actor In this sort of meeting professional That's actually where I'm going. Yes. Yeah and I I'm going to have to admit that after working with city company. I'm a little spoiled And I can be quietly a little bit judgy In the room sometimes when I don't think other actors are bringing what I want them to bring and I try to keep that quiet and just do my work And here's something god, I hope this I with all humility as part of the exercises that we do on stage like when we're doing basic number one um There is you're taking care of your own stuff up there and trying to support and you know Bring it to the room yourself, but there's also a sense in which you're taking care of your ensemble like um Like I think I'm hearing the rhythm may be a little better than somebody else So I'm going to help translate while I stop bringing somebody with me bringing the rhythm to somebody Um, that's like on the rare occasion that I am hearing something better than somebody But um, and I'm also listening to other people. So I think there's also a way in rehearsal energetically to try to bring people to you and to try to translate energy from the material to them and listen to them and hear them back Be a kind of a conduit Um, it doesn't mean that I'm trying I think I'm better, but it does mean that I'm In my weight Trying to push A little bit things along In the rehearsal process and that is something that I credit how city company raised the bar for me So I'm trying to do my part where I can out in the world That's great. Thank you. Mark. Does that question make sense? Yeah, um, it may be slightly tangential and and I don't I don't want to get to a judgy either, but uh Way back in the early 90s A lot of us were were part of In toga a master class for teachers And the better part of a month and we you know basically got the the basics You know spelled out for us And um, this this is what you you are sanctioned to go out and and teach And then skip ahead Whatever 20 years and I'm encountering now Where I am in milwaukee students of couple folks Steve Pearson and robin hunt who teach they taught at ucsd. They taught at the university of washington, seattle And now they're at the university of south carolina And i'm encountering these students who Graduated as directors or actors and they they sought me out and said let's you know, let's do some regular training And it's interesting to encounter them Me realizing now i'm old school and then Expressing oh Oh, we we don't do stomping shakuhachi. They they discovered that The shape in which students come to them these days. They're afraid of people having heart attacks And I I remember I remember expressing this to to ellen and you know at a distance In cyberspace us just kind of shaking our heads Um, so it that's an interesting That that things have evolved on different You know different paths and then we can't come together 20 years later and I go That's not something I recognize, you know and and trying to negotiate Can we do stomping at least occasionally, you know, which is that then compare that to doing, you know at a couple times in a row Our first day here. So so that's an interesting Which is great about coming together again and kind of reorienting Finding that That compass point is is really useful for me Just being reminded so Mark can I just follow up a little bit? because That's great. Thank you and that is true, but also What do you do when It's not about a training but when you're When you're working with people just professionally who don't have the training aren't aren't interested in the training How do you I don't want to say keep up your chops. What do you what do you do so that you still feel? Yes, I'm doing the work. I need to do Whether it's accessing the training or something else Does that make sense Hmm, I guess it does and and I For for me it doesn't it's not showing up as As an issue in terms of I think in In my younger days. I used to definitely have a there's a standard people and I must admit I I've softened over the years I I I think um I've stopped trying to Think that I can control other people, you know What a revelation So so yeah at best I would say Even though it does sound not not terribly humble, but but simply saying I'm gonna If I lead it all in in certain situations, it's going to be purely by example And um and not necessarily I'm going to give you I'm going to give you a little hot tip here Kiko when you work with ripetime or or other groups outside of city Similar question. What do you do so that it doesn't you don't come across as I think I know more or you're doing it wrong But what do you do for yourself to continue to work at the level that you think you need to work on without? It distancing you from the people who are at that moment part of your company. Yes I think I want to answer that question from a different angle When I was in Suzuki company um Training is eco rehearsal and then the training is During the training. Mr. Suzuki Is there it's the audition kind of death or alive really really it's not a good classroom Live or die situation. It's really high tension because production itself and the training menu physical store is Really connected with the training really not connected or sometimes you know, uh the Productions choreography not choreography Not blocking production part of the production is getting into the Most of the time other training material And this city company is the different angle when I joined the city company. So I'm not dragging for the I So situation was different training attitude and how to say it But I realized to the training is any If you go on the stage very practical and Useful that's what I learned and then when I'm going outside of the City company or city company or whatever not sharing the viewpoint of Suzuki training Vocabulary I have I just try to be Serve the production so I'm not thinking I am from The Suzuki training viewpoint training that's training current the training That's my attitude Well, no, would you like one thing of course you can in the north So it doesn't always seem as though I'm Going to like try judging. Yes, exactly because sometimes I encounter Frankly like brilliance in other actors who don't share my training And I think another thing that this training has offered me is a way To respond to that intelligently as opposed to just being blown away by somebody else's brilliance I actually have a technique to draw on whereby I can respond better to whatever I'm getting so thanks for that to Thank you. That's a good point. Wando. Yeah, it's true. Jeffrey Acting is acting, right? You know from whatever tradition you come from and so And uh, and then on another level You know doing this training and working Scott company as tom said yesterday, I think it was um, you spend a lot of time by yourself Self-training self-rehearsing You know you you you have to show up their room and you're released to have a meal sometimes And you and you train and then you go over your choreography and you it's a all day affair and then Suddenly there's a convening in costume and specifically watches what you did and uh And so and to prepare for that too You're even before that experience training alone is just part of the Part of the game whatever your training is. I'm thinking of right. I'm thinking of berberta carrera from the barba company Gina barba and who you know, they had to make up their own training And then they teach that to people so self-training is Is a big part of it um, and and when there was no translation in the early days and you just Tried to do it like kenji, you know, that's how you talk yourself So so self-training is a big part of that process with the scott company So it's natural and then just kind of on a on a stupid level when i'm work work in a regional situation I really try not to let anyone ever know About suzuki training or viewpoints or anything You know truth be told it can get a little culty, right, you know Speaking of judging, I think we'll probably judge a lot As a city company You know, I mean, yeah, so one wants to be careful about that. I don't want to take the conversation in that direction but um So one's personal way of maintaining one's artwork is one's personal thing Yeah I'm going to take this out to the audience and then after that talking if anybody if anybody would like to address that a little bit in terms of I think the way you put it great Self-training or what do you do when you're working with someone with a group of people who've never had any training or have no interest in training And then after that, I'll open it up in general to see if there's any questions from the audience So, yes Can you speak up just a bit, please? That's a great question, but first I want to go back and if anybody would like to address what it's like for self-training to work on your own No, that's all right. That's a good question. That's a good question. I want to come back to it But is there anybody who'd like to address what it's like to try to do your work when you're working with people who have no No interest or knowledge of the training Everybody here working? Yes That's your personal way of coming into the room and so then I think the task is to seek out the people who bring whatever their own personal Way of coming into the room is that will lead you to that and maybe the conversation that comes up about training Or does you both come in early to the room and you find yourself that way? And I think that's been a really big lesson and one thing I've started to do is just tell people I have a space in the mornings. I will be here if you would like to join me And that way we start to share our own practices. I get to articulate What I'm trying to find out about this repeat by sharing it with them I learn another movement technique from them and then there's a There's sort of like an underground conversation and then to go on into our project and That's been competing in the room and watching all the people work in their own ways And trying to keep that going Thank you. Just anybody else Ben Well Anyone On one level but it's it's a little bit like I mean when we go to work in an opera or something You know and we'll run a viewpoints day or two and and just get everybody on the same page So it is possible with the with the right spirit to pull that off And and we invite people to work in the company frequently and They train with us, you know, and sometimes we help them and sometimes we don't we just say get in line, you know And that unspoken training starts to happen. So it's it's certainly possible to do Without being You know too aggressive about it, but there is a language And it makes me think of what just was just saying, you know, the fact that you have to You know in our culture Actors are taught never to talk to each other About their how to do their work. You have to tell the stage manager that he's standing in my place Or he stole my joke, you know, isn't that through though? And and so somehow that talking about What we're actually doing Is has to be done secretly if if allowed and I've certainly been told You know, don't talk to me about what you're what you're doing or I'm not good You know, have you ever had that experience? In a in a regional situation, for example, the fact that one has to feel like they have to go underground I don't know who decided that I know right To go I'm sorry for hogging the conversation But then that's really for the focus question, which is that The thing that's most important to me in terms of your question if I understand it is It's a very old artisan way of working which is body to body You know, like a blacksmith or something you Not graduate school necessarily But but but that art is transferred energetically body to body like kanji teaching without having a language You know, you just do it and and that also allows for evolution. It's necessary so you can make a better Hammer or whatever So that to me is partially what we're doing here is just physically body to body It's an old school way of learning isn't it more human maybe in that sense So anybody else want to talk about that? What is it like again if I Can articulate the question or understand it for myself What is it like to deal with the lenses that change? You study with someone and then you study with someone who studied with someone and study with someone who's studying with someone How We're we're lucky again and the luck has come up so much that we Where we've had this opportunity again to see not only to get together and train at different levels But to see where the training can lead and seeing mr Suzuki's work, but well, what is it like to To train with someone who trained with someone who trained with someone Just It's just one of the answer One of the answers city company collaborated with mathogram dance company In american document and the bill t john's anne zane dance company Right, we simply exchanged the training they dancers learned the student training and Viewpoints and we learned how to dance So it's open minded and then sometimes you know company versus company Let's share That's the one of the way to go I think Does anybody else have any uh a question? Yes, sir I see One sense as a part of the lineage of japanese Who have founded something or established something and have written about it Uh, say, I mean created the no theater wrote all these essays that are very critical He'll say be elegant, but there's not one word in there about how to be elegant And that's the gap that you mentioned mark and you talk about how to be on stage And so what they did in those days you didn't work in another company. You work in that company only So so it was passed down from master to disciple and you didn't know what and what and what The difference with Suzuki-san is that he's made it public And I was thinking about what happened to my mind when I heard you just use the word got several times more I appreciate that a lot. This is the healthy part as opposed to the plot. What to do you think? No, but how do you do that? And what happened to my mind are these lines? I think we need to know these lines It's a four grid one from song It goes like this Ring the bells that still do ring There is a crack in everything. That's how the life We did that That's the health department is cultural Suzuki-san has created a public culture that is being pervasive but not yet universal around the world and it enables So how do you be on stage? Why are you on stage? How do you enter? How do you exit? How do you be silent and still be active? So these are new tricks Jesse has a question but I'm going to see does anybody else have anything they'd like that? Yes And just I don't have an answer. We were kind of brainstorming about it to continue the conversation but how do you approach the material so that Often that age range needs all the answers before they're able to jump in and how do you approach it that way? I really appreciated I'm sorry Jeff Jeff. Yes. What you said about your forensic summer school and how Your teacher just said we're doing these statues. You can speak right and to me that's my phone tool. Okay. Now, you know, so how to be Those are the questions. I think we have and I don't know if there's going to be an answer but Bringing this to a younger crowd to get them inspired In the way that we're all inspired by it I know a lot of grad students who like to know everything before they try And then the second year they think they know it I'm working on that with my grad students. Just getting them to go Do it and then think about it But I but I've taught High school students too from time to time and I've loved it. I found them really game and I think maybe that's a key word is like it's like a game to see whether you can do this Like let's see whether you can shift your weight, you know, how fast get underneath your center And they seem to really respond to the The the gaming the the athletic aspect of it And they respond to the fun of it Whereas a lot of the grad students seem to come in with like oh, this is work. I'm very serious actor And now I'm going to do very serious training work Which I mean there's something to that gravitas too. That's appreciated that that I appreciate but I I sometimes I want my grad students to have a bit more of the spark of life and of the fun And just like the little twinkle in the eye and the sort of here we go That the that I found in in the younger students So I don't know if that's I I don't know if I have advice for teaching high school students As except to say that in my experience they dig it just go for it Well You know talking about about the difference between game A game and and and play is that Game is play but with rules and it's the rules and that idea of the how to Is you know is kind of really crucial that there is that sense there has to be a reason For them to want to do Whatever it is that they do At a certain level for us as we look at the artistry and we go we want to do that because we want to be We do this because we want to be able to do that So maybe it's a way of finding out what is it that you can engage them in so that then you can challenge them to do something That'll help them get Lee does you have something you want to say I guess first it's most of the training Like 20 but I've been really serious It's been nice it's been exciting listening to all of the things you're Confidence and so many folks who share their training or seek ways to share it which is something that I Mostly do in the ways you're talking about my show In a room showing up doing my work You know talking about it when it's appropriate What you've done had to get your What does that mean to you? But but to just But to walk into a room and be like hi, I'm Lee Hendricks. I've been doing this for A hot minute. Um, it's been happening for a long time. I don't tell you how to do that I I think I think that's a great point just A place to start the next conversation. We have about 10 minutes left. We won't finish it here But I think that's where I'd like no, no This is where I'd like to start the conversation that will continue at breakfast or at lunch or in the evening But which is that well, what is it? What is the responsibility? What do we have as artists to ourselves but particularly here at the symposium? What is it? Do we have a responsibility to and particularly because this is a Suzuki symposium? Do we have a responsibility to the Suzuki training? Would anybody like to comment on that? Yes Astrio Why are we doing all these gymnastics? And so the what for came in perfect And so when I began to thanks to my experience working with man And seeing the American theater What was the man that couldn't be demanded of me? You had to create my own what for And when I had to create my own what for I had to read examine the training the work that I saw to do this It's important that I do walks because I need to understand specific critical information So can I unpack it? The how and what and what they would need to enter from the teacher. I don't know what it's for because I had to use it very carefully And so I think that That's very very important to me And really You know it's also true that I don't know if you agree with this you guys, but Certainly true in the viewpoints training, you know I don't we don't ever think about the training when we're rehearsing You know, we have a sort of feeling about Being still or face or something, but you know it once what you've trained it's okay You trained, you know, and so it's not so literally a part of the You know what I mean, like you don't think about your process necessarily So in that sense, I I don't know the problem And I also want to say that however and the what for I think that's so beautifully put Mr. Suzuki alpha talks about, you know How you How you do the training or let's say you're getting up in Chaco Hachi tells me everything about what you think the theater is And what it could be What for why are you getting up? If I read it right You have a dream of a theater that looks like that You know what I mean and it becomes very practical suddenly What your belief system is That's a kind of a big leap there but um So the what for is built into that And if you don't know when you're 24 or whatever If you just do it Suddenly there's a what for might arise, you know arise or something. That's what happened to me actually I think Mr. Seattle, you want to just say something You share with someone that Couldn't be here for any reason I think the most challenging thing to do is the ethic aspect Of the ethic yes Because just what you said like the ray you erase from Chaco Hachi says The kind of theater that you believe. Yeah, so build this environment global environment like here Of this what kind of ethic Do you build as an actor and if you go to a young really really really High school younger actor or different company members that don't share this kind of training It's not really about how your body deals because even with this training or another training It's really particular Right how your center of gravity deals with bread But the most challenging thing is how you can work with different people with or without the training in this ethic aspect because otherwise It will be really hard to build art if we share like totally different deals Art itself make sense. I'm sorry It's a word that I think it's it matters has this way, you know, it's a political choice being here and training in sharing and with all the responsibility that it has This is going to be really interesting because legacy is next and there are companies here to train with us and other people Probably that's the big question For the next Yes That that is comfortable culture of training together and being ensemble together and something about ego The word ego is just coming up for me and our relationship to it and and the What I say is that you've got people to go out the door Like there's a way that we come to the work where What we're making is more important than ourselves and that conversation that I'm having with you is instrumental to that So I think There is There's in my youth of how I make work As an ensemble member This is a political act That I've been very seriously And I respect that I respect when I go to other people's ways It's not going to be that way, but I've actually started to eliminate The choices I made around the art and the people that I want to be working with And maybe that's just my judgment way of getting Getting what I want from the world You know, like making the art that I want to make in a way I want to make it But um, I think that that politics is Is an important thing to bring up in this world Because we as artists and especially as we continue with legacy and training these are choices We are making and so that consciousness Of those choices has an effect On the American theater I think we'll take one last question or comment. Yes For me this The company we're an ensemble And it's about being together about having a teacher another person Being in a relationship And so maybe this is Identically practical, but to do that self training that you were talking about though Specific choices And then you can bring principles to society and other training, but Is there Are there risks and are there Tools, tricks Whatever around that Working on the forms of self Uh Yeah, I don't know You guys want to say about that? I I just want a superficial level You know go into the gym I go I go into the gym and I put my socks on and I Sometimes I play arcade fire and sometimes I play the stopping music And I just do it and uh, I suppose that's dangerous Yeah I mean, I don't mean Am I answering your question like it's it's can be as dumb as that or swing a stick and then try to talk I mean, it's it's I think I think that's how I'm hearing your question. So I don't mean to Do the basics one through six by yourself. Yeah Be achieved by yourself able to practice as opposed to Leading that I think it's really important to have a set of eyes on you. That's that's ann's job You know, uh, I ann is here. I keep saying like you're not here. I'm sorry When when ann brings her attention to a rehearsal that's that makes something happen the heat And I was saying we were say talking I I I want Suki-san to be sitting in that chair for you to train in front of because As he would say you have to get past me first You know, and it's not easy And it changes you it's a physical chemical change that you go through. So yes, I would say if you have somebody Respect put them in front of you and It's embarrassing But I think it's really important to have eyes definitely on I have a proposition that I think might tie what you're talking about very practically to what devore is talking about politically Um, there's a lot of answers to what is technique I'm going to offer a very simple one. It is the ability to be seen and heard That's superficial. That's also psychological people need to be seen and heard. It's also political People need to be seen and heard. There are people who need to be seen and heard in our culture The more you can practice being seen and heard the more you have a voice I think And you can help other people be seen and heard Absolutely, and I I'm going to say one short thing because we're out of time, which is this that I I'll say a yes and I think there's also the practicality You we have in terms when he gave us the how to which is brilliant and it's game and rules However, there are those times when you don't have a good floor. So you can't stop Or there or you only have 15 minutes because that's how much time you have before you have to start So there are there are always circumstances age You know space the people you're with there's circumstances But we have a structure that we can judge ourselves against And when we're when we're able when we have like-minded artists and a good space Then we can we can try to adhere to that structure But I I don't think mr. Suzuki would say, you know, if you can't do all these six You know in the perfect space with great people you can't do it It's what do you need to do to be able to do your work at the level that's of a high quality And to be able to do that at certain times with that. It's great. And then other times we're all going to have to make a Circumstances dictate what we're able to do on that note. I'd really like to thank mark Like to thank the audience if there's one at howl round and all of you We're going to take a coffee break and then we're going to go to our next terrific panel. Thank you all ladies and gentlemen guys