 politics with Derek Goldman and before I give a brief introduction to our next panel I just want to add my own thanks to the simply phenomenal Jojo Roof who's done such an incredible job. I know all of you want to hire her and that is not allowed that is like the rudest thing you could even think of so don't even don't even ask. You know I come I'm sort of like Dean Hillman a little bit on the politics side of the performance and politics I come to this from having experienced as a diplomat when I had the privilege of being the US ambassador to the Netherlands having experienced the importance of culture in international affairs and diplomacy and also having experienced how the State Department doesn't take that very seriously or do much at all with culture. I figured I probably couldn't take on the whole State Department but what I could do was try to change the people going into the State Department namely Georgetown students and luckily now I'm able to do that together with Derek and why is that important why do I say that culture really needs to be taken more seriously as a part of diplomacy normally I'm giving the spiel to diplomats and foreign service people saying please take culture seriously now with you guys I'm saying please take foreign policy seriously and the two of you really need each other why well let's take for example one of the greatest problems facing the world today countering violent extremism this is a cultural problem this is a problem of narratives this is not a problem to be fought or won at least with bombs and drones or you know even hashtags from the State Department which is an actual real strategy if you can believe it but this is a problem to be approached a long-term problem with many facets but one approach that all of you and we together have some control and ownership over it's a problem to be approached by listening to authentic local voices as we've been doing all day today leveraging those local voices and finding ways to help them be effective with their own communities and ourselves learning from them that's the only way that we can begin to approach these problems I'm really talking about a human centered approach to diplomacy and when I say that to me that sounds like evidence-based medicine I mean what other kind would you do but but you know human oriented diplomacy that is not what we do and and I'm going to end by giving you an example if you all were Georgetown freshman going into your first international relations class in that first class you would learn about the million dialogues and this is essentially the justification for the strong the Athenians to massacre the weak the millions who they'd already conquered the millions asked for mercy and the Athenians say no I don't trust you I'm going to kill you and and that's taught and the rest of the story actually goes on the Athenians eventually pay for that but they don't study that they study the massacre of the millions which is presented as a justification for real politic you know sometime even if you're as great as the Athenians you just have to suck it up and massacre people and well we're pretty much doing real politic and how's that working out for us now another approach instead of reading the million dialogues what if they read Euripides the Trojan women and we'll hear from one of our amazing refugee actresses in Syria the Trojan women what if they read about history from the victims perspective from the human perspective what if that were the starting point which would create a sense of empathy rather than a sense of privilege and domination you all have the incredible capacity to change that million dialogues narrative to a more human centered one and I really hope that this can be the beginning of real interdisciplinary continuation many of you do it already more interdisciplinary cross-cultural collaboration because we really need it now I'm very happy to introduce our next panel history and home we're going to have three amazing playwrights here to talk about how their cultural national and personal histories engage with the present tense and Catherine Coray will moderate the panel she's the program director for the lark Middle East US playwright exchange and a faculty member at NYU tish and also NYU Abu Dhabi that's right thank you thank you so much hi everybody thanks for hanging in it's a long day but it's a great day I have learned so much already I can't believe it I'd like to introduce the wonderful people that I'm here to speak with starting with on my far left Fabio Rubiano who was a playwright director and actor from Bogota Colombia and founder of Teatro Petra which he co-founded with Marcella Valencia in 1985 Fabio has written and directed over 20 plays of which four have received Columbia's national playwriting prize he has received numerous grants to create new works as well as playwriting residencies abroad in Spain and Mexico he received the premier national day direction Teatro in 2013 in 1994 his work his work was recognized with the theater ward from UNESCO his plays have been produced in Chile United States Spain France Mexico Peru and Slovenia his work has been translated to English French Portuguese Bosnian Chinese and Slovenian and has toured festivals in Europe South America Central America Mexico in the United States welcome Fabio and next Kyung Park who was born in Santiago Chile and is the first Korean playwright from Latin America to be produced and published in the United States he is the author of a number of plays including Tala which was produced by Kyung's company Pacific Beat Collective Adhere Arts Center and a short play called Mina which was included in seven contemporary plays from the Korean diaspora published by Duke University Press among many associations Kyung is a member of the Mayi Writers Lab is a New York Theatre Workshop usual suspect and is an alum of the ensemble studio theaters studio theaters Youngblood he has enjoyed playwriting residencies at central cultural Gabriela Mistral in Chile the Royal Court Theatre in London and has been awarded a TCG Global Connections grant a Princess Grace Foundation special projects grant and was named a 2010 UNESCO Ashburg Laureate Heather Raffaul on my near left is a solo performer and writer of the Off-Broadway hit nine parts of desire which details the lives of nine Iraqi women for her creation and performance of nine parts and its national and international tour Heather garnered many awards many including a Lucia Lortel Award and the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn and Marion Seldis Garson Cain and playwriting awards as well as Helen Hayes out of critic circle circle and drama league nominations for outstanding performance her current project for Lucia the first opera on the Iraq war with libretto written by Heather and music by Tobin Stokes was featured at the Kennedy Center's International Theatre Festival in 2014 and premiered was premiered by Long Beach Opera at the National Guard Armory in Long Beach I want to hear about that and it will premiere at New York City Opera in November 2016 Heather enjoys an ongoing residency in the Department of Performing Arts at Georgetown University she has taught and performed at dozens of universities and art centers both in the United States and internationally engaging students about the politics and arts of Iraq and about her own experiences as an Iraqi-American playwright and actress welcome to you all so history and home and I wanted to start with everybody by asking you very directly about something that you are currently working on that perhaps addresses this particular topic what the project that you worked on or are working on means to you in terms of history and home and keeping in mind a few ideas that I have been mulling over and also came out of a wonderful conversation I had with Teresa Eyring yesterday that has to do with the balance between social responsibility and artistic responsibility in your work something I think that you've all been addressing very carefully and I really want to hear about that but I want to give you some rain in describing to us what your experience of each of these projects has been and I particularly want to start with Fabio and ask about Labio de Liebre which is a production that was commissioned by Teatro Colón correct a co-production with Teatro Petra with your theater come perfect which from what I understand focuses on a man who was responsible for the murders of many Colombians in which those people appear to him as ghosts is it kind of talk to us tell us bueno en español para no someterlos a mi inglés siempre está la discusión nuestras obras son como nuestro país que son ambigüas controversiales contradictorias he said he's gonna speak in Spanish so he doesn't submit you to his English but he said that in Colombia our contemporary plays are always ambiguous contradictory and really are about evidence of our national character es una pieza digamos que para algunos para muchos es una pieza con un alto contenido político y sin embargo ha tenido lo que se podría llamar ha sido lo que se podría llamar un éxito comercial lo cual es extrañísimo en nuestro país y para nosotros para nuestros 31 años de carrera nunca nos había pasado so love you can explain where the title comes from it's highly political it really is an intense look at the duality of the government the duplicity of the government in Colombia and how it affects the people and it's not a typical manifestation of theater in Colombia at the same time it's been an unbelievable commercial hit which is has never happened to the theater which he has headed for 31 years and so it's an extraordinary contradiction in and of itself la pieza habla de alguien que ha estado en un proceso de paz que se acoge a un proceso de paz que ha cometido muchos crímenes en el pasado y está cumpliendo una condena lejos de su país una especie de estierro como se habla que nuestro país es el más feliz del mundo a pesar de las masacres las violaciones el desplazamiento se dice que es el país más feliz del mundo la pena es estar lejos del país más feliz del mundo lejos del trópico en un país donde siempre cae nieve ok so the stories about a man who under the process of the peacemaking process that Colombia has engaged in over the last couple of years is sentenced to live outside of the country because of the atrocities that he committed he has been sentenced to live in exile and it's ironic that Colombia they call their country the happiest place in the world even though there have been massacres and rapes and killings they still because of the tropical nature of the country they still think of the of Colombia as the happiest place in the world ergo being exiled from the happiest place in the world is the worst sentencing you can get and the people said this is the best country of the world this is the best every time say that the man is in his house in the exile fulfilling his sentence and suddenly in his house they hit him and he enters a very strange person for this city for this country and he is a person who seems like a peasant and then another one comes out of the bathroom then another one comes out of the fridge another one appears in his bed and we realize that it is people to whom he was hurt in the past a lot of damage and they come to ask for something so he is in this foreign land a snowy kind of environment and all of a sudden he hears a knock on the door and in comes this strangely dressed woman who obviously is a peasant woman she's dressed in purple a peasant garb and all of a sudden somebody springs out of the ice box and somebody comes out of the bathroom and somebody is in his bed and all of a sudden you understand that these are people from his past who he has hurt who he has hurt very deeply and the character called labio de liebre hair slip the title of the peace labio de liebre is a hair lip in Spanish the characters say to them to the man look at me you kill me when I was a child do you remember I am piece allowed and and there's where the play starts so this was a co-production with Teatro Colón and that is a very prestigious theater correct and so did it represent any kind of a risk for them to produce a play of this content cuando el director del teatro vio el primer ensayo general de la obra dijo me so she so so she obviously wanted to know what the political implications were and she said he said when the director of the national theater this is the national theater of Colombia saw the first rehearsal he said I'm gonna get fired pero prefiero que me echinino que le cambien alguna cosa la obra but I prefer to be fired than you change anything in the play so it's an extreme case you should meet the guy from Sweden exactly we need those leaders so what was the response of the audience it's controversial our responsibility what como se portó el publico cuál fue la todas las funciones en estado agotadas todas las temporadas las funciones que tenemos fuera de la ciudad todas han estado toda y la gente sale muy muy cargada con con sentimientos contradictorios hay mucha gente que llora hay mucha gente que sale con mucha rabia y durante la obra paradójicamente a pesar de que hablamos de cosas terribles la gente se ríe mucho so the reaction first of all it's been sold out for every single showing as well as the national tour that they've done and and the public reacts in very many different ways some of them come out crying some of them come out very angry but it really provokes intense emotions and the people who see the piece porque se rigen un ejemplo de la vida real que aparece en una parte de la obra hace poco salió de la cárcel un líder paramilitar al que se le acusaba de que habían cortado cabezas y había jugado fútbol con ella fútbol soccer so there's also places in the piece that there's nervous laughter and so why are people laughter he's giving a particular example there's there's a story that recently came out of a paramilitary leader who had recently come out of prison and his story was that after they cut off the people's head they played soccer with the people's heads cuando salió la cárcel los periodista lo preguntaban es verdad que ustedes jugaron jugaron fútbol con la cabeza del señor del chocó es una región es verdad que se jugaron fútbol con la cabeza y el respondió momento nosotros si la cortamos nosotros si cortamos cabezas pero no jugamos fútbol con ellas porque no somos depravados de que depravado ok so he said the guy was interviewed by journalists who were extremely curious to know if they had indeed as the urban myth was going around that they played with the heads of the of the people who they decapitated and the guy was very offended and he said well yes of course we cut off heads but we're not deprived enough to have played soccer with them so he admitted that he cut off the heads but just he didn't go as far as playing soccer ese tipo de cosas que están tan en la realidad y que entran dentro un terreno del absurdo son las que producen risa no es que la pieza sea una comedia pero el absurdo de la realidad genera estas risas al final del de la representación era muy común que la gente dijera sentí culpa por reírme me reí pero no sé que me reí ok that type of level of absurdity that comes out of real situations is what provoked nervous laughter during the piece and he said you know there there were people that came up to him afterwards and said I I laughed but I feel guilty that I laughed I don't know why I laughed understood and I just want to ask one more question which was did you actually face any particular ramifications politically or socially because of the production of the play y la última pregunta es que si hubo ramificaciones políticas en ti mismo y a tu compañía por esta obra que hubo un rechazo si rechazo alguien trató de censurar o no censura no hubo de ninguna parte muchas críticas buenas o algunos colegas que decían que era una obra de defensa de los paramilitares otros decían que poníamos al paramilitar demasiado malo esa había críticas encontradas es una obra a la que ha ido todo el presidente fue a ver la presidente de la república fue a verla so he said there was no real political ramifications even the president of the country came to see it but it did cause a huge polemic some people felt that was too pro paramilitary some people felt that it was unrealistically harsh but but there was no censorship in attempted from any given part including the theater or the government and so at the end of the day it was it was a huge step forward in terms of that having that dialogue on the stages of Colombia I added that last exactly it sounds like it yeah to get a very important conversation I'm young I'm you know you have a very interesting really well so you are of Korean descent you grew up in Chile you moved to the United States that was a choice and your work existed all those intersections and I know that you play taller which I've read and seen is very much the embodiment of that but right now what I wanted to ask you about was a project that you embarked on actually using a TCG global connections grant to go to Santiago and work with street dancers and that I've been reading about it just sounds incredible could you talk a little bit about that yes hi so the project Catherine speaking about is this project called Keon the Hamlet I was invited by Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral in Santiago Chile to work with them and these group of street dancers that gathered around the theater to dance Korean pop songs it was a strange phenomenon that started happening in their public plaza is about four years ago and they wanted to engage with an artist to work with them and they said hey you're Chilean Korean I think you're perfect for this right no competition so with support of TCG I went there last December and I worked with students age 14 to 17 and for two months we had an open call inviting them to participate in this project and for about eight months I did some research as to why this was happening to give you a little bit of context gam is one of the premier arts and cultural institutions in Santiago it was built in the 1970s by the presidency of Salvador Allende it was built by the people as a promise of creating a space for the UN to host a development conference but that after it's building that it would be given to the people as a cultural space during Pinochet's regime the space was occupied by the military forces and became a military base until the transition back to democracy in which gam came to become a place for the arts people and and the public so in this context we looked at to why these students and kids were gathering there and it turns out that not too far there's a part called parques and borjas where four years ago teenager named Daniel Samudio was murdered by Chilean neo-nazis Daniel Samudio was a K-pop dancer who was also gay and he was killed in a hate crime that led to the first legislation protecting gay people against hate crimes in Chile these kids gathered in the park to practice their choreographies they come from the peripheries to the park because it was a central location for most of them but they did not have access to arts education to dance classes their marginalized they don't identify with what's available in the Chilean mainstream so in this world of sort of new technologies and new media they were identifying with things that were extraneous to Chilean the mainstream culture such as Korean pop so they came to gam as a safer space for them to practice they use the windows of the buildings as mirrors for them to practice their choreographies and during my time I sort of place their stories in this social cultural context to then also ask them about their experiences dancing K-pop and why they were doing it there it was a challenge to build trust they were concerned they were going to be censored I actually had to ask people from gam to tell them that they were not going to be censored we had to speak about gender and sexuality they're in their teenage years and they were exploring their gender and sexuality boy bands would form and dance Korean female pop bands female bands would form and they would dance Korean male bands so obviously there was a gender exploration not necessarily a sexual one but you know there are some basic assumptions that are to be challenged such as male dancers are gay that wasn't true in this case I was probably the only gay person in the room but there were definitely explorations of gender being done so I started the interview process we work with institution to create a different way to engage with them with the actual space trying to get them past you know the public plazas into the theater into a rehearsal room into a dance studio where they could work at that capacity for the first time most of the students learn their choreographies from YouTube videos posted online by Korean pop bands they do this they're called dance training videos and it's a way for fans to learn the choreographies of these bands so the kids were really familiar with a dance studio setting because it's where they were learning the choreographies from but they were always looking at these Korean faces and representing and imitating them so as we started conceiving of the project and trying to think as to how we were gonna deliver this to the public I had the idea very last minute to basically engage with some local filmmakers to taper performances so that we could post them online on YouTube so that they could in that same medium they're familiar with see themselves dancing but also see themselves telling their own stories so TCG was very helpful in letting me change my budget we found so local filmmakers to come record a very close performance which was actually the first time the kids invited their parents to come see their work so it was we had a Q&A and you know it's funny the kids said we didn't expect anything from this project we didn't think anything was gonna happen and the parents were very moved and they cried a lot because as we asked the students to tell us about their experiences they spoke about how the media was severely portraying them as these troubled gay kids who were addicted to drugs and you know sort of parting on the streets irresponsibly when they were out dancing without any financial support raising their own funds to produce their own costumes to provide their own sort of like you know dues to compete in these popular dance competitions and that they were artists but were not seen as artists and I could totally relate to that you know they were sort of very entrepreneurial young artists dancing and finding their own ways to rehearse to organize to commit themselves you know to their projects and to each other to make the work and when they were given a chance to tell their own stories and and speak of their experience through using their own words the parents saw a very different side of who their kids were not the side that was mediated by public television but you know the kids stories and and and their stories from their own point of view so so that was really important and it was also very important for me to extend that safe space not just to the kids but also for the project because you know teenagers these days there's so much bullying happening online they would come to rehearsals and say you know kids know we're doing this and now they're saying we're really bad dancers and shouldn't be doing it so we had to protect them from cyberbullying and make sure that the final project would have a safe sort of platform where we could really monitor comments to protect the kids and protect the project and and and make sure that that that sort of safety was extended throughout the making yeah thank you I wish I'd been there I have watched it I have watched it Heather you know we've talked about how moved I am about so much of your work and but the one piece that I don't know yet is Fallujah and I would love you to talk about the the way that it was conceived this is the opera that is going to open at New York City Opera in November and I wonder if you could just tell us how it was conceived what kind of research you did to find out what you needed to know to write that libretto yeah I I would I would definitely say it was the hardest thing I've ever done except for childbirth you know it's harder than childbirth because for those of you that know me or don't know me I'm my dad's Iraqi and my mom's American and I was 20 during the first Gulf War so that's going on 26 years now of Iraq versus America versus you know so this completely grew me up and changed the lens through which I viewed myself as an American and just to put it in context of history and home when I last saw my uncle in 2006 my Iraqi uncle like how are you today uncle oh Heather Heather it's like this and like this and like this because of the Americans because of the Saddam because of the English because of the Ottomans that are because of Nebuchadnezzar yeah really uncle it's like that today because I'm never gonna yes yes because of never can you know and this went on for three days in a row how are you uncle and he wants to tell me this this is the history right so this is yes I'm an American kid from Michigan but this is that this is what I'm carrying and the idea of home is that I had about a hundred family members at the start of this most recent war and now I have two in Iraq so when I was asked to write an opera about a Marine who served in Fallujah and it was gonna be this real life Marine I thought that's not my job that's not the story I can write I spent a huge part of my life not being able to humanize anyone in the military and I knew the only way I could do this was to deeply humanize so that was that was the first hurdle I'd also just given birth to my son and I'd had a daughter but the son I don't know the son thing was like they this one could serve this one could go to war how am I gonna raise this one right so that these are right and then it was about a real life Marine so I looked him up online and and the story that was sent to me was definitely a hero story and I let it be known that you're not you're definitely not hiring me to do that one you wouldn't want to that's that's not what I can deliver I said but this is what I learned about this very young man online is he's had five suicide attempts since coming home and I said isn't it a lot harder to come home than to die a hero and if that's the story you want you can hire me and there will be a rocky characters and they will be humanized and then then we were on and then it was 10 hour a day interviews I think they flew him to New York and he had he had as much of a guard up about meeting me as I had about meeting him but we we both knew it was gonna go well we just had to we had to go there so as he says now you know I know more about him than his partner than anyone his life I know all the details about his whole life and about his life in Fallujah which if any of you know was pretty much the worst of the worst of the worst fighting for the American military so that was the story that I had to piece together what I found along the way for myself was the story was about how do you talk to the people you love after such immense violence and that was a story that I've been writing my entire life and still continue to write because I'm still asking the question I'm just tackling that from every angle is after that much violence how do you how do you love that part how do you go back to those kind of conversations those deeply human conversations so he and I had to kind of grapple with that together the story I created was about a young man returning from war with the five suicide attempts needing to talk to his you know his mom's outside waiting to talk to him and he can't talk to can't even face her it parallels an Iraqi boy and Iraqi mother story so here I have my son that I'm my newborn and it becomes a story about how are these moms and sons ever gonna speak about this truth and another thing I learned along the way was that military people who had served especially combat really wanted to talk to me in depth with their whole heart while I was doing nine parts of desire I had an inkling to that but I didn't quite understand the inkling in that I would get emails from overseas from people serving in Iraq dying to read my Iraqi woman play because they want they wanted to have these and then they wanted to just correspond with me in depth about who Iraqis were and why you know so this this was not this was going against the stereotypes and I had to I had to dive in so I was ready for that I wanted that but it was it was still really hard it was still really really really really hard because I was completely against the war politically I saw it in the historical context of Nebuchadnezzar right like that I was carrying but this and our policy for all that you know is carrying all of that while going this blip of a mistake is seriously playing out I mean it's playing out right now we're all in it right we're all really really in it so what happened when you were at Long Beach so Long Beach was the world premiere it was awesome it was done it it was really beautifully handled by Andreas Mitasek who is the artistic director of Long Beach opera and the director of the opera he his outreach to the military community was extraordinary it's what we wanted and hoped for but when somebody's actually enacting it it's it's something else so he he got the armory and the VA and everybody to come on board he he made it a site-specific work in the armory it was it was a vast space it had three entire walls of a Fallujah skyline which were photographs taken by Marines that were there Marines combat Marines were working with the singers that were playing Marines I was bringing in my Iraqi friends you know we were all tired Iraqis were going and I have PTSD and you have people it was this big you know conversation it was very moving everybody had to stay after and talk about all the things that can't be said because the operas about what can't be said so then when there's the thing in the room that can't be said what opera's really good at is singing singing it on a scale that can compare to war right right so it's it's like it's human sound so from my point of view human sound in a warscape is something we we can't wrap our heads around so the only person that can do that in performance as an opera singer make a scale of sound that can encompass that much horror and violence and tragedy in their physical you know scale of sound so I was always pushing for uglier sounds and you know beautiful sounds but I aside from that that's what what happened in Long Beach was incredible that it even happened at all one thing I did learn from Long Beach as I was watching I learned two things about myself well first I started crying as an American and I went oh I haven't had any time to grieve as an American I have not even I haven't given myself an inch to grieve as an American I've only been grieving as an Iraqi right like this is like this is an American tragedy for me personally I'm gonna grieve with these Marines so that was interesting the other thing that really hit me military were have always embraced it and come out to embrace it and continue to and there's a there's a certain thing that's happening because it it was written five years ago but only got its world premiere now and I think the national conversation has shifted definitely when even Trump is on TV even Trump the war was this really bad thing this bad idea it all went wrong right suddenly it's okay for all of us to now be like that that that was the wrong thing and look at all this intense suffering that we're dealing with this is there more Marines that kill themselves from suicide than the died I mean more more military personnel that died from suicide than the died in combat so the military is seriously dealing with so those are the two things that hit me is because we're at a theater conference when we do theater when it's a little safe and it's comfortable in the national conversation and it's being embraced versus when we do it when it's not quite right that's something inside my mind a lot because of the handful of things I've written they're always kind of happening at the moment it's not safe right and then I'm waiting around for the window when somebody's going to jump in with me really interesting get on with it or how far impressing when it's in the you know so it's it's it's happening to me every single time where I'm coming up against it this thing was written this is already written but now I got to wait two years for you to produce right wow it's right now that it happened for the military that actually believe does segue into the question that I was going to ask Fabio next which it has to do with this moment in Colombian history when there is an opportunity for the country to vote for peace and reconciliation and there's a great deal of opposition to making that happen could you speak briefly about that so this is indeed a historic moment for my country perhaps as soon as tomorrow we might hear that a peace agreement has been reached there's only three more like agreements that have to be signed paradoxically there is a part of the the citizenship that thinks that signing a peace agreement is bad oh my god so so of course the first question you would ask yourself is why why would you think a peace agreement is bad and and some of the people say oh well it'll leave a lot of people unemployed of course many other people fear what the consequences are going to be what the penalties are going to be what the the physical take I mean the psychic take toil is going to be so there are valid reasons for being afraid and when I was talking about the paradoxical and controversial of our works it also has to do with a contextual behavior that exists in our country in front of issues so much so when I when I talk about why our theater is our brand of theater is so controversial it has to do with a contextual reality that that really exists in my country and if you ask in my country of course are you do you agree with people being massacred you agree with people being killed of course they're gonna say no gente tiene una frase que la pidaria para nosotros y es por algo sería so but of course when political motivated politically motivated death does occur there's a saying in the country oh he must have done something but they're not in favor of violence would you say that you know the the the writing and the production of this play lab labio de librae it's it the reason that I thought to ask you the question right then is because of what Heather said because it feels to me that all three of you are living in that place where you're you're kind of pushing the issues forward and in some cases then the play doesn't get produced for a couple of years in your case the play is happening right now and the decision is also happening right now so here as you're putting right out in front of Colombia and the audience is in Colombia what happened cuando hemos tenido funciones antivíctimas por ejemplo las reacciones han sido muy emocionales pues antes y después de la obra tenemos conversaciones y pues salimos afectados ellos y nosotros afectados en de una manera muy buena hay una respuesta que es el que nos ha sucedido en tres casos nos sucedió en México en Medellín con los en México en Medellín en Guanajuato, México en Medellín Colombia y en Valladupar que fue una zona que fue asotada por la violencia había una una declaración que decía eso eso que ustedes cuentan nos pasó a nosotros y siempre lo había recordado con dolor ahora lo puedo recordar así como usted me lo mostrar so you you talked too too long so let me try to put pieces together so the thing that's amazing about showing this work especially to people who have been victimized by violence either themselves or family members or loved ones we always have a discussion with the audience before and after the play to really deal with some of these issues and we as a company always comes out very engaged but traumatized at the same time interestingly when we went to Guanajuato, Mexico, Medellín, Colombia and Valladupar they all the audiences said this is our story as well and just having them embrace the story and and put it in their own context means that the story has a meaning beyond the immediate Bogotá context. I'm glad you said that because I'm reminded of several years ago this comes to your work that I was working with the Belarus Free Theatre and they made a really beautiful piece which played in this very space called Discover Love and it was about it was based on a real situation in which a friend of the company had disappeared suddenly one night and his body was found months later so these forced disappearances that also took place in Chile and I was with a friend of mine who's a theater director in Santiago and he saw the piece in New York and he wanted to bring it to Chile because he felt that telling the story of forced disappearances in Belarus would resonate with the Chilean audience without they're having to feel that the story was about their country and them. Do you want to say anything about that especially with regard to how somehow the dictatorship and the shift in power has had such an impact on your work? Yeah so growing up we knew that there was a military coup on September 11th 1973 but my history textbooks ended on that day so in the late 80s there was no history about the 70s and for a very long time there's been a collective amnesia as to what happened in Chile since the regime. I think with the transition to democracy stories are being told we are regaining our memory museums are being built to gather these stories so they're not forgotten but there isn't a real truth and reconciliation in the country and that manifests itself in different levels of sort of social turmoil. I think in that sense understanding history has been a very important part of my work coming of age as a playwright in New York witnessing 9-11 it was more than just a kind of awakening but also a kind of responsibility to ask myself to try to bring this disparate histories that I have inherited and to find the connections between them. If you look back you know my parents lost their country because of an ideological war that separated Korea into North and South Korea and there's no peace in Korea it's just a ceasefire until today. Under dictatorships my parents grew up and raised me too in Chile with the hope that I would live a freer life and I wouldn't as a transition to democracy America being my bastion of democracy in the world and my life here is not as free as one would think it is and there's a part of me that believes that unless there is peace and freedom outside America my life here in America will not be peaceful or free either so that's why the work I make is to promote a culture of peace and non-violence and to affect change here seeking change out there in the world. I think to be more specific to Tala which was a piece we produced last January you know Chile has a very changing understanding of its own history and as we're developing Tala I was telling my autobiographical story and mixed it with the story of Pepin Lupi two Chilean lovers going out on this really bad date on the night before September 11th and their dialogue was based on the correspondence of Neruda and Mistral two Chilean noble laureates and poets Neruda was exhumed three years ago after decades after his death there are still suspicions as the causes of his death Mistral's identity as gay women who lived in Long Island in a lesbian domestic relationship with Doris Dana a former employee of the US State Department was only unveiled a few years ago so through our shifting understanding of our own history and literary figures I've been trying to explore how our understanding of history can involve and is not fixed and what role we may play as storytellers and truth-seekers to question our own history yeah thank you Kim you know we don't have that much time left and I do want to open things up to y'all in case you have questions in just a moment but Heather would you read a little bit would you do that I oh I had asked Heather to read just a short excerpt from her play Nora which is a a reimagining of a doll's house if you don't mind contextualizing that and just read a short piece it's an Iraqi immigrant family and the if you imagine a doll's house as a marriage under massive cultural pressure I imagine this cultural pressure being both the pressure of being Iraqi and the pressure of trying to assimilate into America and this family happens to be from muscle which is where Isis is dominated which is where my family originated from so a lot of a lot of what this particular Nora is is trying she's trying to hold a lot of things and I think that the one thing I think about is that door slam and where that door slam is reverberating around the world right now for me is with refugees leaving it's the leaving of home and I'm not holding on anymore I work so long to get her back to go home Iraq is not home anymore with little I carry from as far back as Babylon I've already given to Yazan to Mariam to our grandchild my blood that's all that's left the rest is gone gone millions and millions of people flooding out with nothing leaving behind the beginning of time leaving houses and libraries and languages older than Aramaic no wonder so many of us are drowning that responsibility is impossible to bear it's the weight of being erased of not belonging anymore okay I wonder if anyone has questions for the panelists that you could ask now because the microphones are available yes yes sir Steven Stern mosaic theater hearing all of you very moved and seeing history and home above you and a panel earlier today we heard of a formulation that maybe my theater does not give answers but it asks the good questions there is such a cacophony in a swirl in the end that you guys are all working in asking questions and answers about history in and home I and I've heard some of you even speak directly to your asking questions of history or asking questions of how you build a home that it's lost I just would like to hear further reflections on the swirls that is at the center of the theatricalization of the central theme of this panel from any of you I'll dive in because I just I realized something today about myself too is this identity and belonging and where I thought I was in pursuit of identity in my work for decades I've now thrown it out the window and belonging is any is everything so it's kind of back to my uncle with this Nebuchadnezzar and that's the history and that's the identity but what I think I'm really after is where is this belonging because belonging is like the home and if you end up having to leave the place where you called home where Nebuchadnezzar was for thousands of years right that thousands of years home can you still belong somewhere how do we belong I mean I think about that as just myself I'm still looking for belonging I was just in the research for this play there's this crazy thing that came up because I'm Christian a rocky Christian well you know a rocky Christians aren't Arabs I don't know like I just don't know anymore like what are you gonna do take my DNA I don't know like it's just to just all these and then there's this whole part of the community going but we're not and then the ones going but we are and I don't know about identity like that's what I mean I threw it out the window I literally threw it out the window because all the work I've been doing with Middle Eastern women in New York and in the Middle East it's really about belonging we're where who cares what our identity I mean of course we care what our identity but you know like we find that place that feels but we belong gosh that feels good and it can be anywhere in in any way but I'm in pursuit of that all my characters are in pursuit of that and it's really hard to find it's kind of my son's cheek oh yeah that like that's the closest thing I can just that smell of that that part is like that okay that's belonging versus I don't care where I am or what somebody said I was from right did you want to say something young yeah so I think for myself it's been very hard to navigate the the American theater world just because I I live in the intersections of many different identities so it's very hard for anyone to beg me as one thing and I do not easily adjust to that kind of pegging anyway so in my work it's it's been about how to create work that is inclusive and inviting for the very different communities that my work engages with and speaks to and it's been very hard because as an immigrant I've not had a lot of access to opportunities to share my story that is why I created my own theater company and now that we are making our own work it's how to find a home for not just my work but the community that we have built and is engaging with the work I do have to say that when I look at that I I understand where the question comes from but I have to be quite honest I'm very excited to be here but the American theater in the end was not my home I had to build my home and I think that in that sense I am trying to create a new home and where I'm looking at is the streets because the institutions were not where I was supported you know as an except by TCG except by TCG but you know I just I just want to say like you know like like there was a very long time of struggle you know as an immigrant I jumped through many different hoops for 16 years and it wasn't my artistic excellence or my great employee employable skills that kept me in this country it was the miracle of gay marriage and the fact that I had fallen in love and was ready to be married and get a green card through a huge social change that had nothing to do with me as an artist as a writer or as anything except it was a very powerful social transformation that enabled this so you know these weren't these changes that that I am conscious of and are empowering me to stand here and speak to you today are sometimes not even artistic you know yeah thanks Kim are there any other questions oh did you oh please I have to answer in dramatic in dramatic terms dramatic as a playwright or no as a soap opera is seen on suppose una familia un hogar la mamá descubre que su hija de 15 años aborto y le dice con eso que usted acaba de hacer destruyó mi hogar yeah so I have to respond in dramatic terms this is imagine a family where a young 15 year old girl finds herself pregnant and aborts and her mother finds out and says to the young woman with this you have destroyed our home la niña le dice es de mi papá and she responds but it's my father's child la mamá le dice no le voy a contar eso a nadie porque va a destruir esta familia and the mother says do not tell the story to anyone because it will destroy this family es el hogar es el resultado de una historia de la historia de un país y de una fractura social que viene durante muchos años that story comes from a social fracture that has been in development for many years en esa medida quienes son los buenos quienes son los malos creo que habría que acudir a la historia antes que al momento coyuntural de este hogar so if you want to really dissect this story because in such a story there are no good and evil people I disagree with you you have to really look at the historical antecedents not just that particular family and in dramatic terms good who else had a question yes hi I'm Lisa mount with artistic logistics so this conversation among you all reminds me of a quote by the late Joe Carson who wrote 36 plays from people's actual experiences who often said never ruin a good story by sticking to the facts but in this moment of changing relationship to history I'm really interested in your dramatic processes in your artistic relationship to facts and how to convey facts which we've been dealing with kind of all day about the histories from which you come and how do you grapple with that artistically to make them engaging to make them real and not just a recitation of statistics I think what you're saying is something that Teresa and I were talking about yesterday which is finding that balance between artistic and social responsibility who anybody want to were you pointing at anybody they have nothing to say I only feel artistic responsibility I mean I do my research so I know what the facts are but when it comes to writing it's art it's art it has to be good that's to be full it has to come out of me like a piece of art like I don't I don't I throw responsibility out the window like the research I guess I feel responsibility in the research to know exactly what the facts are to know them better than anyone else around right you know but but if I'm creating art it's artistic responsibility but I suppose it is possible to be socially responsible without being tied to facts you know yes I come from a research based process especially when I realized that my work was becoming political I wanted to be more responsible because the reviews to my work were that I was being irresponsible so so I kind of developed research skills and I really investigate history but I feel when we're engaging with contemporary history what's happening right now it's very hard to know what is happening right now there isn't a kind of true sort of accounted for like a knowledge base to understand the present moment I think we're all trying our best to understand the present moment so I think to a certain extent I do research but I give myself the artistic freedom to take that research to understand the context in which we're asking questions and my process is really based on questions and artistic intents and personal goals for the artist involved when we gather I ask the artist what are your goals my goal with my previous show was to immigrate to America and how do you get a green card from writing a play I don't know but it worked in four years you know so it's it's you know there isn't a kind of scientific accuracy to what it is we do but there is a way to specify intentions and goals and to create theater with those intentions and goals in mind and I feel like the work that we are doing always reveal something but I feel like when it's wonderful it's when you reveal something about the future so when we are stuck two years behind is because we knew it two years before you know did you want to say anything when I have a material if there is a responsibility but then the question is this responsibility periodistic documentary therapeutic aesthetic when he has his hands on particular material one of the thought processes he goes through is this reportage is this really a documentary process is it an aesthetic process through which I want to tell the story entonces tengo que tomar una decisión y en nuestro caso nosotros le damos a los personajes las mismas garantías a todos los personajes que están les damos las mismas garantías incluso a los personajes que odiamos y con los que no estamos de acuerdo yeah so in our process we give each character a guarantee even the ones that we don't agree with or that are the antithesis of our belief systems si porque porque no sería valiente no darle las mismas garantías a un enemigo es como como tener un enemigo en desventaja si yo tengo en el escenario un personaje que yo odio tengo que hablar las mismas garantías del personaje que yo quiero porque si no no sería justo y no sería equilibradamente dramático and we feel strongly that we have to give the same tools and the same guarantees as he puts it so that even the characters that are antithetical to our beliefs are armed with just as many as much ammunition as the ones that we care deeply about otherwise it wouldn't be just and it wouldn't give a well developed result one more question if anybody has one yes hi I'm Annabelle give it up from a theater communications group first I just want to have a shout out for Olga that I English holding it down over there thank you so much so good but I do have a question for Fabio so just in the context he was talking about touring the show to different cities in Mexico and although he said that they didn't encounter in Colombia as much you know as the con the piece was controversial that they're that it would be problematic to present in Mexico where it's a country where a lot of you know artists and journalism journalists are killed for speaking out against the cartel I just wonder if there was any you know percussion or any you know advice or any just when you before you went to Mexico of anybody that you were collaborating with there that was nervous because it is you know it's very real and what advice do you have for the artists who are trying to create this type of political theater I think it's the same for us a work while the most particular more universal while I speak deeply of what happens in the heart of a society surely it will read igual en otra a nuestra obra la han visto gente de Israel gente de México gente de Perú y toda la ley en dentro de su propio contexto la la la hacen propia si no sé uno le una pieza rusa maestro y margarito no le vulgar como uno le echejo y uno siente que estará hablando de uno no le do esto y es que uno siente una identificación no quiero decir que uno se ha uno como ellos pero ojalá algún día se logre sera universal so he says in his from his belief the more particular you make a story the more universal that it gets and what their experience has been is that you know they've presented this this piece and people from Israel and Peru and Mexico have been in the audience and afterwards they come to them and and somehow they have absorbed the the story and and they can relate to it from their own perspective and he says it's the same as when we see a tale from Shackov or do so eski or the mask master and martin margarita you know that you are able to process that story according to what you were psychological and emotional experiences have been in life so you know hopefully that's the power that that art has I hope that you will take the opportunity over dinner to continue talking with these amazing people I think we're gonna call it a day for this panel thank you for your kind attention and thank you to all of you I'm very moved to hear from everyone thank you all so much thank you to our Catherine and our history and home panelists thank you to Sonja and our race colonization and art panelists we're wrapping up this part of our day I want to send another shout out to someone who's been really instrumental to the organization of this day and that's Kevin Bitterman and just like don't think about hiring Jojo away from the lab don't think about hiring Kevin away from DZG so what we're gonna do I just want to mention in addition to I think both of the panels we've heard today and participated in we feel this sense of this is a conversation that wants to keep happening and then need some structure for that so I know we're gonna be thinking a lot on the global theater initiative about how to make that happen going forward but there are also a number of opportunities to continue talking about international work on cultural exchange cultural policy in the conference going forward and we're also very excited if you haven't seen the schedule yet that we're closing the conference on Saturday with a plenary session that will include the UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Kwame Kwe-Arma from Center Stage and Oscar Eustace from the public theater so that's going to be a really rich conversation about theater and the arts and cultural exchange and cultural diplomacy so looking forward to that and now I'm gonna head it over to the wonderful Jojo to talk about the performance that we're gonna see in a few minutes thank you so we're about to go into a 20 minute break and then we're gonna go on our site specific journey McGrawr which is gonna start promptly at five o'clock so I'm leaving it up to you all to be prompt about that and so we're thrilled to welcome Adrian the artistic director of Kamchaka which is a street theater company based in Barcelona that has a long history of experimenting and investigating art in public spaces particularly around the theme of immigration so it felt very apt for this to be our evening performance. Adrian arrived here four days ago and has been working with a group of 14 multi-generational citizens since Sunday in preparation for today's street outing. We're really grateful for the Institut Ramon Yol for helping support this short residency and so what we're gonna do now is we're gonna take our 20 minute break and then at right at five o'clock we're gonna actually meet outside of the Davis Performing Arts Center and so that is where the journey will start. This is a walking journey and we encourage you to embrace the adventure and to go where the journey takes you so keep that in mind as you follow people throughout all over campus and potentially around the streets as well. So then immediately following McGraw we're gonna have dinner in the lobby here the Davis Performing Arts Center before we have our culminating event of the day which starts right at 7.30 so you must wear this badge if you would like to receive dinner and get back in here. We have a number of people who are joining us for McGraw and for prevented performances so please make sure to keep on your badge so you can get enough food and come back in. So and then if anybody has mobility issues come talk to us at the check-in table and we can sort of sort some of those things out but we'll see you outside at five.