 Hello and welcome to No Summary, Golden Thread's live stream series of conversations with artists who don't fit in a box. A note on Golden Thread and land acknowledgement. For those who may not know, Golden Thread is the first theater company in the U.S. devoted to plays from and about the Middle East. Golden Thread was founded in 1996 by playwright and director to range Yegyezarya, and they are based in the Ramayitish Oloni land known colonially today as San Francisco. I'm going to introduce myself. I am a trauma informed therapist, psychotherapist and theater artist, and my relationship with Golden Thread is I think just I would love to always watch plays there since it represents some of the stories that I am familiar with and that mirror me as a person coming from the Middle East. I'm going to also introduce my guests. Today I'm delighted to welcome an exciting conversation with drowning in Cairo's intimacy coordinator Maya Herbsman and fight director Carla Pantoja. Hello everyone. So I'm going to just provide some context about the conversation. I watched drowning in Cairo and it's amazing by the way and would highly recommend it. When I watched it it caught my eyes. There were some moments of strong physical altercation and some moments of physical intimacy and I wondered how the crew actors and director went about it in terms of safety and in terms of consent. And I'm a theater artist myself and as an actress I also you know I also been through not also I've been through a couple incidents on in the rehearsal room and on stage that were felt like a little bit somehow violent or like some touch that wasn't consented. So I just want to highlight the importance of respecting the boundaries and how mushy the boundaries are in the rehearsal room and in the performance space. Regarding like you know when we're acting it's a little bit mushy what is real and what is not and what is my body and what is which one is you know the roles body and how all of that play together. Maya and Carla will discuss their creative process and their role in safely driving the story forward. They'll share insights about the protocols that need to be used in such instances and we'll have a broader conversation with them and if anyone from the audience also would like to ask questions directly to the panelists I highly encourage that. You can do so by utilizing the chat function or just raise the hand function and I will bring it back to you. So now coming back to Carla and Maya. Hello and would you like to put your mics on? Yeah Carla do you want to start? Go ahead. All right. So tell us more Maya and Carla but Maya you're volunteering to speak first. Maya about your experience as the intimacy coordinator and anything you would like to share too. Yeah hi I'm Maya I use she her pronouns and I live on Ramayita Shaloney land clonially known as San Francisco and so when we talk about what the process of intimacy looks like on a stage play and I could speak specifically to what we did in this process the place I always like to start is with the story. For me there's no better more important place to start than making sure that I understand the story that's being created in the room and that the rest of the creative team the actors Sahar everyone else in the room that we are all on the same page about what the story is we're trying to tell. Of course there's what's on the page but knowing that every rehearsal room ends up finding their own nuances their own layers to me I get really excited about diving into the kind of nitty gritty of that story because I get really excited about using intimacy as a place for nuanced physical storytelling. So in this particular process we started off just sitting on the floor chatting through the relationship between the characters I asked questions they asked questions and we all just sort of talked through the overall arcs that we see and saw between the characters and so from there once we're clear about the story that we're trying to tell then that's where I move into consent and so before any choreography happens it's always really important to me to make sure that actors are discussing consent and discussing their boundaries I think to your point the boundaries can be fluffy and I think actors aren't generally taught to have boundaries or even that it's okay to have boundaries and that's what makes it more mushy is that we're taught not to have boundaries to just give our bodies to theater and to what is needed. Exactly to just say yes right or if you don't there's 50 people right out back who will say yes if you don't so I see a lot of my job of course there's a creative elements but I see a lot of the work as being about being an advocate and and being someone who can empower actors to find their own boundaries and to recognize that it's okay to have them and good to have them so we start by talking about that about boundaries about consent and oftentimes actors don't always know immediately what what their their boundaries want to be right because most of the time they haven't been asked and so often I think about my work is creating a safe enough room that if a boundary is crossed because we didn't know it was there it will all be okay and we'll be able to handle that and it won't be a big crisis so it's holding space for the process too of if a boundary gets crossed or violated how you show up for it. Exactly and setting up structures also so that when I'm not in the room again a crisis will occur everyone will be able to resolve it quickly and easily and and just for the actor to know that there's someone for me to go to even if the actor did it and went home to sleep and then in bed I was like oh then this wasn't good this didn't feel good oh but well I have someone supporting me where I can go to so there's a safe space for me this availability that you you offer as the intimacy coordinator is precious too. Thank you yeah I think it's important and so once we've talked about consent the beauty of that right is then one doesn't need to ask for consent every single time right because we've set up this is what's on the table this is what's okay so instead of having to every time and that's walking can I touch your shoulder can I move it slightly down can I adjust the angle of my hand right then we can just sort of save the time and the actors don't need to be concerned that they're crossing the other person's boundaries right and so from there we start to get into choreography and that's part of the work that really excites me artistically. Yeah I want to I want to ask more about choreography but I want to go first to Carla so that we're having just about intimacy and how you navigate intimacy as well as just about how we navigate fights and then we're going to expand further to artistic means thank you Maya. Carla welcome. Hi y'all I am zooming in from the land of the Shasta and Tekelma people which is colonially known as Ashland Oregon. I am normally from the Bay Area and but right now I'm at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a fight director. I started training in stage combat over 20 years ago and I have been my connection with Golden Thread is auditioning but also being a fight director on many many productions with Golden Thread and I'm so appreciative and grateful to be able to practice and hone my craft as a fight director at places like Golden Thread that have given me opportunities to to work with so many different directors and new playwrights really exciting and and helping to support stories that that aren't that are not shared mainstream whatever that is which is really important to me. And how did you find your way to to theater in general from the combat combat world too? It was one of the trainings I started training this is sounding so hoof but I started training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and I took a summer Shakespeare workshop which was affectionately or not affectionately termed the American program so I took that and with with that programming came stage combat which I loved oh my gosh I was like oh my gosh this is incredible and I continued to train when I came back to the States thinking that I would never use this in my life as a female actor that I'd never get a chance to wield a sword or do any of that and I've built a career out of that so this was part of your training program as an actor and then you kind of branched out from here that is correct yeah and kind of specialized and continued my training and and focus and I'm still training to this day everything is like an opportunity numb numb numb take take it all in and working with this this particular show what I tend to do is when I when I come into the room I start off with a basic stage combat workshop of tools that I think we may need after just like Maya I read the scripts I talked to the director see what is the story we're trying to tell here what are the images that you're looking for what do you what is the the string that you want to pull in the audience as they're there how do you want them to react to the story or this fight and so that is all the background work we come together we do a kind of a mini workshop because not everybody has the opportunity to train in stage combat in other words it's it's one of those things that I obviously feel every actor should have because it's a way to keep yourself and your partner safe we talk about that in stage combat the person that you're fighting with in a scene is not your opponent they're your partner you're there to tell a story it just happens to be a physical one and so we we build with some of the some tools that I think everybody could use and and it also gets me a feel for how folks move with unarmed work that we did in this one unarmed being hand-to-hand combat which it's a weird way to name it unarmed there's no weapons involved other than words I tend to give folks some general ideas and then I want to talk to the actors about how they're feeling I do ask about you know are there any concerns I things that are important for fight directors to to understand and and something that that helped solidify for me was working with with Maya before and working with some intimate and training in intimacy direction is asking folks about and holding that space for folks to have those moments of like I don't think I want to do that particular move okay we don't need to I don't need to force an actor to do something because it looks cool or whatever and that's like Maya that's a safety measure that unfortunately it's not taken into consideration in a lot of the productions that happen worldwide and and here in the US so here you're raising a very important point there's a consent that the actor needs to give and it's not about just forcing like well this is what the role says and this is what we need to do we can if someone is creative they can go around those things and make the same story pop the longer that I've worked as a fight director the more I encounter folks who have had personal connection with violence and so it's about being mindful of making sure that folks the actors come in safe and they leave out they they come in clean leave clean in other words they're safe mentally physically they're there to do a job and and beautifully and to be able to do it without fear if somebody brings fear to the stage you can't bring your whole self to the stage always worried about that slap or that thing that oh that scene I don't know about it you can't get past that yeah and I love how you say it's about also creativity and being mindful a lot of the times when we have the space and awareness to be mindful around people's bodies and needs this is when creativity comes out when there's no space when we're just stuck into the role or by the book and here I want to also emphasize the importance of safety in rehearsal spaces because a lot of the time even theater teachers at school they promote the culture of well yeah I'm training you this is your body I can touch it I can push you without even telling you ahead of time what I'm gonna do you know like a lot of the times there's element of surprise for students in some schools that are not promoting awareness and are not sensitive to safety measures and awareness around this topic so thank you both for bringing this and I also like I'm thinking also about violence in general in terms of you know sexual harassment or violence in different settings and this is a setting a specific setting that we're talking about but it intertwines with all the all the ways that we show up in all the other settings regardless if it's home or work or theater or movies and we saw the recent shooting unfortunately that happened and I forgot the name of the actor please help me Alec Baldwin and around the safety importance of safety safety measures and in such a setting I would love to expand further on choreography and artistic aspects and how they move together with with this topic and Timothy and and fight and directing these two areas whoever would like to start first Maya you mentioned choreography oh sorry Karla I'll go I'll go and then I'll pass it to Maya because I was just just like Maya talking to the actors about what you know we've got we've got our our bag of tricks our tools right that we've trained in a basic workshop of what I think they may be able to use it's not all the tools that but the these are things that that will get actors feeling more comfortable with oh I remember doing this in in theater class or whatever then then we build it I build it with the actors with unarmed work I I tend to work with the actress to say okay I think this is where we talk about the story and and kind of probably similar to how Maya works is we talk about the story what the arc is and then I I talk about impulses from the actors what feels right and and working with to to make the journey look right with the script the actors the staging ah this is where so and so is coming from from over here and they're coming over here what does that look like what does years of pent up rage look like against someone who has been oppressed by a bully for the bulk of their youth and and young adult life what does that look like and so talking with the actors about what that looks like and and and build it from there so here you're you're included in psychological aspects and analysis of the roles journey around rage as well as the actors experience around rage so Carla and kind of in a setting where you and like what do we see let's say like I had a peak I went to on a day where Carla was working on this topic with Sahar what do we see we see Sahar and Carla sitting in on and then the actors on stage and you're moving around yeah and you're discussing actors looking at okay well what about this and and sharing ideas and actors bring their own ideas of like oh I feel like I want to do this okay an actor brings an impulse and I am able to uh because of my training help them do it safely so I look at distance what's the safe distance for like there's a hammer fist that's thrown what is a safe distance for that to to go through and look powerful so I give the technique we walk through the technique super duper slow just to make sure demonstrating have the actors try it then we build like what makes sense from here what happens next what happens next what is the body the way the body is moved this way it means it makes sense for the body to unfurl back this way and so we we build it from there I look at it maybe in slow motion maybe it gets a little faster maybe fast is not important the speed will come it's more about intention right and uh they're looking technically so actors now are carrying the technical of like okay I need to be this far away and I've got to do this through here and it's got to cross the plane of my partner's face there meanwhile doing a nap which is KNAP and it's a sound like a clap or a hit on a body we use those in live theater to pretend that there's been a hit of of contact and so they're the actors are thinking along the technical but they're also bringing their emotional intention they're acting intention behind it so they're thinking on multiple levels as they they do the fight right so here you're talking about examining impulses distance uh slowness because of you know we want to bring mindfulness and intentionality safety all of these are elements that are crucial to this to this exchange that we knew and and the director and the actors yep thank you Carla um Maya tell us about how how intimacy um and I'm wondering actually intimacy coordinator and five director why is it not like intimacy director why is it intimacy coordinator uh intimacy director is typically used in theater and intimacy coordinator is typically used in film but um people kind of use them interchangeably sometimes and that is a okay I'm allowed to say how do you direct intimacy is that okay absolutely so how do you direct intimacy in choreography yeah I mean I think in a lot of ways my process at least begins very similarly to Carla's and then I think we um we at some point kind of diverge uh because as you would imagine going in slow motion is not exactly something that would work well for a kiss or something right it would actually probably make it like significantly more uncomfortable than it needed to be so at some point we definitely kind of split off um but I think we we start similarly um and we start um we start with sorry this dog's gonna start barking um we start uh with just as Carla said looking at the sort of psychological elements of the choreography uh or of the moment rather so in the same way that Carla talks about this sort of the years of pent-up rage I'm looking at what does this kiss mean for these two characters um and with this show in particular um with you know thinking about the the environment the world that Khaled and Moody are living in and the significance of a kiss and how different that would be from maybe say you know two gay men in San Francisco on Castro Street right that that we're looking at the psychological aspects of the character but also context yeah the context exactly the broader cultural cultural context historical context yeah exactly that the intimacy is is happening within um so you also get into psychological aspects and and different contexts like Carla who are talking yeah definitely is this their first kiss um is one of them has they've been thinking about this for a while is one of them more excited than the other right I like to kind of get into the nuances of the story we're trying to tell so that we can be specific um and so so again starting with story right and so then once we do that then we start to figure out the practicalities um and I I could not agree more with what Carla said that I think there's always another way to tell a story um really early in my intimacy work I was um working with two actors who had a number of of kisses of lip-flip contact and one of the actors got mono um and having to then change all of that choreography of course right to prevent actors from sharing the the illness totally cracked it open for me and I and I then understood that even when it just it seems like there has to be a kiss there there has to be it has to be it has to be it has to be that was the moment for me where I learned that it actually doesn't have to be anything and that there's always there's always going to be another way to tell the story well whether it's because of mono or because of an actor's boundary or anything else um and so as much as we want to be respectful and mindful to stage directions I also always sort of take the time to get a sense of do these stage directions actually align with the actor's consent and their boundaries um and do the stage directions align with the story that's being told in this particular room um so once we have a sense of that then we start to build the choreography I I like to go choreography really collaboratively um in the way that maybe a dance choreographer might sort of prepare all the steps um and come in with something totally choreographed to then teach to the actors I would never approach it that way for reasons that might be obvious right that it's it to me it feels antithetical to consent um to come in and tell actors that they should do an intimate moment of intimacy a certain way without taking their impulses and boundaries and needs into account big time so it's actor centered it's not imposed on actors absolutely it's very actor centric um and of course always working in collaboration with the director um sometimes Carla and I might work in collaboration or I might work with um a dance choreographer in collaboration um but so we build the choreography together um and then from there um I'll I'll the way I like to work is we'll build a shape we'll try it and then we'll see what's missing or what didn't work or are we getting the story okay that I didn't feel like I had enough time as an audience member to process what was happening so maybe we need to lengthen that I like to approach choreography really technically much like Carla does um right how long does a certain moment last where your hand's going things like that right and not just that there's not room for improvisation there is um but I like to start from a really technical place um for a range of reasons but I think the main one being that it keeps it consistent it can make it make sure it's repeatable um and I think that that can take to Carla's point that can take some of the weight off right that you're not then having to worry about how that slap's going to go or that kiss is going to go because you have the structure in place um yeah so that's how I approach choreography and then I get the last step that is you know we sort of we finish it out in the rehearsal room and then I come back um usually during tech week or maybe you know before or after depending on the circumstances but I like to see it in the greater context of a run because maybe what felt really good in my isolated rehearsal room actually isn't totally vibe once we're on the set in portrayal stage um or maybe the design has moved in a way that we could better be supporting um or or whatever it is um but I always like to come back before the show gets in front of an audience to make sure that the choreography is still feeling like it fits within the greater arc of the story. Yeah and um yeah and here you can read Sahara's saying another aspect that might be interesting to highlight is how we maintain safety after creating the choreography and after performances start running. Yeah um I can start on that for I'm going to see the way that we approach that there's a couple sort of protocol options depending on on the scope of the intimacy in the play. While I'm working with the actors on building the choreography and the director the stage manager is a really crucial part of that equation because what the stage manager is doing is they're taking notes and they're writing down for us exactly what the choreography is supposed to be every night um and because when I leave when the show opens I'm not there Karla's not there Sahara's not there well I guess Sahara's around sometimes but maybe not every night um but the person who is consistently always going to be there is the stage manager and so for me that's the person who's responsible for safety um and because most of the time a stage manager is watching the show right they're calling the cues but they're watching right um and so then what I like to encourage stage managers to do is just touch base with the actors um after performances if they notice something yeah I noticed the hand went a little farther up than it usually goes right um I imagine Karla's gonna talk in a second about what fight calls are um and intimacy calls are something that can happen um for this show in particular they weren't totally necessary um an intimacy call would be say if there was maybe um an extended scene of simulated sex that might be something really great to to practice every day to make sure you're getting it for something like a kiss it tends to not be necessary to practice that um but what I do encourage actors to do and ask actors to do is to just touch base with each other every single day when they come in they come in they're in the dressing room they're getting changed just take a quick moment to say hey everything go okay last night is Constance still the same today all right and so then they have to touch base every day and make sure that they're still in the same place if they want to talk about anything from the previous performance they can do that um and so we've got these sort of layers of systems built in so that there's plenty of opportunities for people to bring up issues right and sort of festering um whether that comes from the actress themselves or from the stage manager there are these systems in place to sort of catch issues as they come up and then of course I'm always available yeah after the show ends I very rarely need to go back once the show's open but whether it's for an understudy or someone gets sick or there's some other reason to change the choreography some things not reading some things not working um I don't disappear into a cloud of smoke I'm I'm always available um for team members to reach out Maya I can't tell you how as a psychotherapist I'm so happy and satisfied to hear about this their system that are built to support uh the actors because we all know that psychologically speaking people can get triggered way after um the incident itself it can be sometimes years it can be hours um and so that's what you're bringing here is very crucial to maintain safety and hold space continuously um in the process of creating a play and I should say that I'm also trained in trauma-informed care I'm sure not to the extent that you are but that has been a really sort of crucial part of my training it was in mental health first aid and trauma-informed care um and various trauma studies because yeah absolutely they're so connected um well that's it's so important too to be um having this background I'm glad you shared um so um I want to do a reminder here for anyone who's joining us is that if you are joining us now this is no summary golden threads livestream series of conversations with artists who do not fit in a box we're in a conversation with Maya Herbsman and Carla Pintuha about the safety um and protection and creativity of intimacy and fight as they come up in storytelling and in theater so um I want to let me see there's a lot of questions coming up but I want to also encourage the audience if you have any question please um use the feature uh raise hand feature or write it in the chat um and ask it directly to panelists we're more than happy to hear from you so um yeah as I mentioned there's different like questions coming up let me see what I have here um I want to ask is there is it something that like um you know you talked to Carla about being trained in it if someone is watching got so excited like oh my god I want to do this where do they go how do they um like what how do they train are there schools and in that process also I want to ask if you know these protocols are um um is there like any ethical codes any um order syndicate whatever containing this uh these topics these professions I I can speak about that um going back to the other question about how once I'm gone what what happens um there's a fight captain for a show and in this particular show because everybody's in the fight it's our stage manager because as Maya was saying stage manager is always there always watching um the holder of so many things and the blocking and so fight uh fight call happens before every show and it is all the moments of violence in slow motion there's there's also a level that that kind of just merges with with Maya Maya's work in that actors talk with each other how how's it going how is it how are you feeling um if for example if if an actor's like wow you know I'm I'm feeling a little out of it so maybe we do this fight a little slower today okay if that's what makes it safer and more comfortable then do it please you know there's there's you honor moment to moment um absolutely yeah and it's day to day something that I have incorporated with with my work um from learning about intimacy direction which work I got to work with Maya for the first time through golden thread a few years ago and I was like oh my gosh there's somebody who supports I was like I I've always felt that fights and intimacy you know there's there's a lot of crossover and a lot of safety and holding and boundaries and and care and I was so excited and not not all fight directors do this I do this but I I've added in tapping in and tapping out with actors and it's it's mainly an intimacy direction thing but being able to have eye contact breath in just a moment and then a high 10 to say okay I am I'm clocking in now I'm working this is this is we're working on this and it's a way to physically and mentally like step into the space of here I am this is what we're doing I'm here working as an actor on this character and then tapping out and the actors can choose to to use it or not but it's an offering um so with with fight call they can do a tap in at the beginning of the fight call checking in how are things going like you know maybe somebody's shoulder is acting up so that hit will be a little slower okay they're they're going to do the fight very very slow the stage manager's going to watch it usually I give certain like notes of oh watch this slap from this this point in the audience and over here just to see make sure that it reads that it's across the face and that it's not like you know happening up here or something and then then they do it with intention and and that's that's it so they've touched on those moments before so here Karla you're describing what's a fight call is like Maya suggested yeah thank you and I see before we go to where do people train um I see a question here from Sheila I would love to hear about process and technique of cooling down after the performance how do actors let go of big emotions yeah I can start there I think that that's I think that's one of the hardest parts of this um I think you know sort of coming back to the sort of the trauma element I think that one of the biggest things I've learned about trauma is that just because our brain knows that something's not real it doesn't necessarily mean that our body does um and so I think that sometimes actors can feel as activated as if the thing is actually happening to them even yeah as well just we fully know it's not yeah and here we come back to trauma um how how the body carries the trauma and it's not necessarily sometimes people don't remember what trauma happened but their body remembers exactly and so so we're not just talking about sort of like you know releasing after a performance we're also talking about this very real process of sort of calling the body down um and so what I you know every actor is different there's no perfect methodology to this um but what I see is my job is just to give actors tools and hopefully some work and if they don't then great come back to me and I'll see what else I can come up with and I'll ask colleagues and and see what else we can figure out um but the sort of starting the place that I usually start is I encourage actors to build rituals for themselves both with a scene partner and alone um so I'll use myself as an example I early in my intimacy career was finding that I was sort of bringing it home with me um just I think a lot of what Sheila's talking about here um with letting go of big emotions I was bringing home the actors emotions that I was working with the play it was all coming back in my car with me um and I realized pretty quickly that that was becoming a really big inhibitor um being able to do the work and so what I've built for myself is little rituals that I use to kind of bring myself into the space and bring myself out um I wear rings and so for me it's really helpful to have something physical so when I put on the ring I am an intimacy director I'm there and focused and when I take it off it's just me here why are you talking about the provider's way to take care of themselves when they're providing for others um because this can lead to compassion fatigue for a lot of providers when they don't um bring awareness to how they're carrying the people's energies and absolutely and so and I think that that can apply to actors too right and so you know if I have I use the rings that's a physical thing um I use music um I always like to sort of like sing and dance in my car on the way home to kind of get some of the energy out I have colleagues that run that's not insane um we all have yeah insensate whatever right we all have our different strategies and so what I try and talk to actors about is about finding that strategy that works for them um so that when they come home at the end of a performance they're not just you know letting themselves sort of come off of the adrenaline and then just kind of go home and lie in bed right that they're actually being thoughtful around taking the time to whatever it is I I invite actors for actors who physical things are helpful maybe there's something on your costume that can work or maybe you can you know sneak a little something somewhere that we won't see on the costumes right for some people it's about scent for some people having like an essential oil fragrance to smell after can sort of help break them out yeah and here you're talking about actors but I want to invite the audience to also incorporate that in their daily life because um here we're talking specifically because the setting happens to be about theater but um you know in terms of self-care we really need to kind of set boundaries and these boundaries can be set physically through a ritual or through incense uh through anything that represents our boundary like okay my intention of setting boundary is to wash my hands for example between um one show one another or like one client and another or um I remember between clients sometimes when I used to work in the office there's a sand tray and then I would just put my hands on the sand and it just feels so grounding and brings me back to myself and then I can kind of cleanse and reset so here we're talking about like cleansing and resetting and coming back to our ourselves in a way that's respecting ourselves and just showing attention so it's just about helping with tools um and and inviting actors to sort of take even just a minute two minutes you know it doesn't have to be a whole long drawn out thing but just invite them to take the moment to be mindful of how they come down um and I found that generally what I hear anyway is that that tends to help actors that that thinking about just giving themselves some sort of closure for the night um can make a really big difference and I also invite actors to do that with each other speaking to Carla sort of tapping in and tapping out um you know they build they have these really intense relationships on stage um and so when we talk about cooling down for me I think we're not only talking about the actor within themselves but we're also talking about the relationships um right and in this particular instance the three actors spending an enormous amount of time together um and and so I wanted to make sure that I was able to give them some tools so they could just take a moment at the end of the day to sort of just connect okay we did this we were just moody and halled and now we are just ourselves de-rolling that's like in yeah de-rolling exactly yeah like getting the roll out and here are you also uh talking about what Sahar has uh said in the chat um setting up a ritual with and for the actors they both taught actors kind of ritualistic check-ins love that and it's been working for us Cairo team so uh these are the check-ins that are afterwards or there's also check-ins before um usually on both sides so the sort of like basic tap in that that I think probably Carla and I both use um yeah book marking I won't speak for Carla is um that okay cool um that I'll give um if Carla and I are tapping in when we come in at the start of the day maybe we'll check in we'll maybe face each other take a nice deep breath together make eye contact and give us a little high five high ten and that means okay we're starting our work session um and then at the end of the day after a show after a rehearsal um we're sort of clocking out so speak for the night then we'll all have just have them do the same thing again deep breath and another high five and so actors often will modify and make their own versions that fit better to them that's just the sort of template I give them um but exactly bookmarking it so that you sort of the body has a way to recognize okay we're stepping into one thing and now we're moving together yeah great Maya thank you so much Carla I want to ask you about um how to maintain I'm not sure you know during your experience working on improvisation how do you maintain safety and protection while actors are improvising and not rehearsing a script I'm asking this because what comes up for me now is um or I thought about it before uh presenting this I was like oh I want to ask this question because what happened to me as an actress one time is we were improvising and the improvisation was about like okay now you have to kind of as roles in the roles pick on each other and it kind of turned out into a kind of like a physical violence and I couldn't stop it because I was interpreted that I was saying stop in the role and they didn't know that it's me saying stop so that was like really hard I was triggered I was like feeling very unsafe and I wanted this to stop and just it couldn't until you know damage has happened and then afterwards I talked about it and it was really really um damaging so how do you maintain a container during improvisation first of all I am so sorry that that happened to you yeah thank you thank you I I have to say as a fight director as I was talking about the longer I've gone as a fight director the more I encounter folks who have had physical uh personal physical connection with violence or personal connection with violence and and that is the story and I hear folks come to me and they they tell me yeah some of their horror their their theatrical horror stories and I'm I know that folks tell Maya their theatrical their horror stories out there yes I know I know yeah and um I I it makes me sad it makes me angry that there's um a lot of um misunderstanding around what it is that we do or what that anyone uh can do at any time um for stage combat I don't I don't do improv stage combat that is a recipe for injury and trauma and harm now if I were for example invited to a troop that does improv together a lot I would take the group through some basics of stage combat and talk about how we do cues because you don't just even with the actors here in drowning in Cairo there are techniques to let their partners know even though the choreography is set there are techniques to let their partners know hey this is coming because sometimes when we're doing shows when you're doing two shows a day seven days a week you know six sorry excuse me six days a week you know double show days sometimes choreography just like everything else here like wait did we just do this oh yeah that was the matinee this is the evening performance that's right I'm getting slapped here again that we build in cues and eye contact to make sure that we're on we meaning the actors doing this story doing the scene or on the same page so I personally would never advocate for folks to just improv violence without any kind of context or training or trust built with each other um as I say the only way that I would maybe think about it is training specifically with a group that works with each other and knows how to cue each other yeah has a sense of trust is able to build those containers um very similar to what Maya was talking about is like hey let's talk about this before maybe we practice certain how are we queuing this okay great but um yeah that's that's not how I would go about it I even even when I work with someone else who is trained in in stage combat say we're building a fight and I'm working with somebody who is incredibly trained with it we work super slow and we talk it out and we indicate oh well if you do this and I want to do this okay it's not improv here Carla the difference what I'm hearing is that in the play that I was rehearsing or improvising the priority of the director was and the actors and the culture of the crew was um okay that's a priority is to do this and to arrive to a point in the script where we kind of creation and all of that and here you're talking about no the priority is us and showing up fully as us with our boundaries and safety measures and then comes the rest which I totally salute and advocate for too um in the theater where boundaries again can be so mushy and then no can be heard as oh that's the role or that's the um just whatever is coming up in the improv so thank you Carla for for bringing this to our attention Maya I have a question for you when I watching um I was watching uh drowning in Cairo there was an intimate scene behind the stage behind I mean backstage um so where we can hear the voices of the actors as if they're um they're supposed to be having sex the roles are supposed to be having sex and I want to hear more about that how do you work uh when the intimacy is happening backstage yeah I'm laughing because this is one of the weirder parts of my job but I get really excited actually about building soundscapes um actors who have worked with me as an intimacy professional will know that I have a lot of strong feelings about soundscapes and intimacy because I think it can make such a big difference in believability like I you know I've been to plays where I go and and performers are kissing on stage and it's silent and I think it's so confusing um because then I start to think about the story of why they're so quiet why I've not even hearing any breath so to me sound or absence of sound um is actually a really key part of intimacy um in helping it I should say clarify an intimacy that is trying to be someone in the world of being realistic right there I there's abstract intimacy sound is a different thing there but an intimacy that is intending to feel like real life I think that sound is a really big part of it um so in terms of the process of how that works sound is one of the places that I find that actors tend to be the most um I don't know if uncomfortable is the right word but um maybe it is uh perhaps unsure I think that and I think the reason for that is because I think the natural tendency is to feel like they have to make sounds that they themselves have made or would make um and so for me a lot of my work is encouraging them to think in the exact opposite direction we're not you're not trying to recreate how you sound in your private life we're trying to figure out how these characters would sound and I think that can the weight off a lot when they're not feeling like they're having to perform this really intimate thing um that they're just performing somebody else um right and and Maya I'm just noticing the time I can't believe it's already been an hour I can go really fast I'll just say I help them create soundscapes so I give vocabulary and tools different sounds different techniques for this show and for many others that I've done all record voice memos um and send them to the actors to give them a sense of arc um and different tools that they can use and I find that having that to work from helps actors feel infinitely less uh uncomfortable or embarrassed than they might have otherwise um thank you Maya thank you so much Maya and Carla for all these insights and for raising awareness about the importance of safety and protection and creativity in theater and um we have come to the end of our time many thanks to you both many thanks to the audience members and whoever is going to join later I'd like to thank sorry HowlRound for hosting this live stream event a recording of this session will be available on both whole HowlRound round sorry this is my second language and HowlRound uh and Golden Threads website um many thanks to our live stream technician Wendy Reyes and many thanks to all of you for joining us today and before we go I just want to say that drowning in Cairo is amazing and I invite everyone to go see it I saw it twice and um it's going to be in portrayal stage um until May 1st and there's going to be video on demand until May 1st as well and it's playing in DC in Gonda theater on May 5th for those who are watching us from DC and have a great evening or a day take care wherever you are thank you goodbye