 You're my first interview. So yes, I'm telling that about people. I've never interviewed. So work with me here. Forgive me for any weirdness. But basically I just wanted to hang out and talk to a harp artist who works for the company in tandem. And she's been a harp artist for how many years now? This is my fifth year. The whole time working on this carbon variations or you were working on another project, weren't you as well? The whole time I've been working on the carbon variations, but the pandemic here facilitated a little digital project that was conceived, created and performed digitally. I feel that if we are not creating and I'm sure you share this, it's kind of like I don't know what to do with my life a little bit. Yes, I think I do know. What is my purpose? Right, then you start thinking, oops, maybe I get more dogs or cats or adoptive, I don't know. I was this close to getting a dog. I'm so glad I haven't. Yeah, exactly. So why don't we talk, if anyone doesn't know, the harp program is variations because they work with lots of different artists. Usually it's hybrid, meaning they pull lots of different form styles, genres together, techniques and the artists are making work that is varied often. Often there's music and often there's some kind of technical element like video or whatever, but that's not always the case and they give you multiple years to develop a work. Sometimes you're producing it yourself, sometimes you're co-producing it and sometimes the Heroin Center is producing it. So it just depends on what the artist wants to do. You also get all these services where there's breakout sessions where you can ask fellow artists, how do we do this as self-producers or how do we do this as independent artists pushing our way through this kind of challenging industry? So that's a little context on what the harp program is and you've been working on a piece called Carmen Variations and why don't you tell us about it? Yeah, I've been working with them for five years now. I think we have to take one for 2020 and the Carmen Variations originally was inspired by Vissette's Carmen, you know, the opera and it all started when I went to an opening at the Met by a friend invited me, it was the recent production of Carmen and we were in the midst of the usual debate about making illegals legal who have been in this country for a long time and I remember sitting down and then people standing up and bursting and clapping and it was indeed a good production of the opera and the music, you know, it's pretty catchy. There's a lot of jingles that they have done for TV so people may not know how much they know the opera but if you're sitting or you mentioned some of them everybody knows what is it about and what really got into me at that point was oh wow we are standing and clapping to this woman that bottom line, she's an illegal woman. She's an illegal woman who is using every source she has to survive in a very hostile environment and without taking out the happiness, the joyfulness, the sexuality of it because I think we all have that I was thinking are we aware what are we clapping to as well are we aware where we live and how we women and immigrant women because I was born in Peru, we survived in this country and what it takes to move you know and the other thing that was very interesting to me is that this woman that is using every source she has she needs to die in the end and she's in the opera framed like a devil you know devil that needs like whatever is not part of the normative male society you need to kill it you need to bury it or shoot it or and I feel that we identify without feeling right like what we're living in a new time where many of us are different lives and have made spaces so why are we insisting in retelling this story over and over again and so you're sitting in the audience you're sitting in the audience and everyone stands up and applauds and and they're they're applauding the the kind of the theatrical theatricality of the moment and the outrageousness of how wonderful opera can be and they're applauding the music but it also feels like they're all applauding the fact that this immigrant woman has just been killed right you can't help but feel that way exactly and that she's being uh kind of condemned if you want because she's erotically in charge of her own self and her own sexuality yeah and that to me was like so so that was appealing and in a way hurt me as much as I like the opera I was feeling okay how do I feel about that what do I feel as a woman and how much I myself have been have been trained to repress that side of me because it's bad or it's wrong how many women like me integrate you know and and some of them with not the the luck I had you know when you are an illegal and you have to do anything you can and you have to use everything at your disposal because if you think about the sick Carmen for the people who don't know the opera you know she traits counterfeit mansion dies she organizes you know the maps of the city where they can go with a counterfeit where they can rob here so she's a mastermind she's like a big entrepreneur in the deep seas you know and and and then I'm thinking okay so there is another layer there is multiple layers to one story and we've been here in days over and over and over again so I decided to start that was the first the beginning impulse that led me to create my application and I was thinking when I applied to here I need time and this needs to be an opera because you know this idea that ambogad always quotes when you feel something you speak but when the emotions start kind of overcoming you you start singing right and so I was like this this disease about singing with her real voice and there was the beginning of this whole journey and to start figuring out what of Carmen we can twist and give different shades you know have different perspectives so and you've done something interesting with your so you're the writer and director you're the librettist and the director you know now I am I am it's just moved you know I started that but now at some point I decided that the best thing for the piece was to collaborate with something and here here comes into place because I met these two amazing people during the hard retreat one is Paul Pinto he's a wonderful musician actor collaborator and Sarah Farrington and during when I started and I just fell in love with them and we were talking so much about these piece you know they were giving me feedback so we came to an agreement we are collaborating now where I am the uber idea is mine if you want I'm the uber director but Sarah Farrington is the librettist and Paul Pinto is the composer and this is where wonderful yeah we're moving now to our last hopefully last phase if COVID permits last phase of this to put the opera up so yeah um and so but in the piece you've done something interesting where you've you've set it in a museum with a woman the character's name is Elizabeth right is that yeah so Elizabeth is has created an art piece essentially an exhibit an exhibition of of Carmen of variations of Carmen exactly and and people can go and see at the exhibit you can see documentation from the production I'm guessing and and various things like that but also there's there's visual art original visual art as part of it and you go into these separate rooms this evening and so um that's within that's the the the play within the opera exactly the play within the opera yeah we were playing a little bit with going into this kind of rooms when you see a variation of Carmen a development of a possible relationship that sometimes carving is not even female it can be a different gender you know where we're working the idea of of of Carmen can be a female impersonator or can be you know a hybrid version of a human plus animal or different versions we're exploring Carmen the triangle between Carmen and Don Jose which is the love interest who kills her and the bullfighter in the original opera as a triangle that gives us possibilities to move around sometimes don't say can be a woman too or a gender woman or not so we are exploring those kinds of relationships yeah and and um what I I was wondering so much about the the use of restless the team and the use of a dialogue because this this woman who's organizing this art exhibit she's uh or creating it she primarily is just it's all dialogue for her right and yet all the other characters sing in restless a team when she's in dialogue with them and so I was curious about that choice and because I know the original Carmen had dialogue in it but then they replaced it but restless a team and and one of the things you're working off of has a lot to do with freedom and cat captivity and and so I was just wondering about that that artistic choice that craft choice to do that in relation to your theme and and the history of Carmen and all that yeah I was we were thinking with that you know about um how can the main question and you know this is where we are now and this is a thing in development but the main question is how can we make the archetype or or deep deep inside Carmen and make her sing with her own voice and kind of the answer is she has many voices I feel it's not one single voice but from there is that we started that this woman at the beginning even though she speaks she has no voice she has no singing voice yeah yeah and then I don't want to give away the ending but you know where like there's a voice a voice disappears at least yes a literal voice exactly and and the idea of when does she when she can she speak with her own voice when can she sing you know because the other things we're developing in the next top iterations of this piece is how these characters of visee and halla we need to gather to create this ideal woman for them but has nothing to do with a real Carmen with a real version of Carmen and you know what are the different voices that we can bring to singing in that so we try to make a point with her not being able to sing at the beginning basically only being quiet you know she's the one that we want to shut her down because I feel Carmen talks about female eroticism does it is my question right is that is that a robotic thing you know right i think and then when she speaks we have to kill her i'm like oops you know um yeah so that's that's a little bit where it was coming that choice uh-huh and um that the beginning of the piece uh had this really interesting thing that i've never seen i've been there's nothing as new under the sun so maybe it's happened before uh but i've never personally seen it where the audience is watching at least in this development portion that the audience is watching museum goers and it's very much a kind of dance and uh and and i was wondering in terms of movement and because the video is also very um it flows uh quite expressively and and it's uh and it's there it's changing and the variation is in the title so of course everything is changing and the and the scenery is changing and and and i'm just wondering about you as a director sinking into a physical staging of a piece and and how that works when you're when you're considering your themes yeah there is something and i think you're touching beyond Carmen with that in me about transformation in general and uh theater as a machine for imagining i tend to think and by that i don't mean necessarily we need to have the solid set or the or the technology of the world but how can we do with the means we have available at transformative staging that will make you dream and i think you you you know this you know as much or more than me you know how with a object just by the way you handle it all of a sudden you are in a different environment you're a different persona and you are attacking a different level and that's i guess the attempt that i was aiming at because i i strongly feel that if there is something in these pieces that is not solid it cannot be a solid set with a solid Carmen with one person singing that you know exactly right yeah what i am trying to explode a little explode in terms of explosion or exploitation but in terms of just burst open you know how what we think is so solid as okay i am a female yeah what does that mean really how many layers of that you know who we are and in the continuum of eroticism where will we find each other you know and i feel that needs to be embedded in the staging what you saw with with the baritone cuff and which i will share a little bit now it was our attempt to explore mostly the the composition the the general the beginning of the composition and also the video and then we found that what we loved about it is an empty space that all of a sudden becomes and becomes one very solid and then it transforms and changes and then it becomes another part of solidifying like a certainty oh Carmen is this and then it melts and goes somewhere else you know yeah and at the end there is almost nothing and and there was a really which is which is when it happens when the lights come up in that moment i it kind of took my breath away a little bit because there had been so there had been so much movement and and it's a large cast too so you know to wrangle all that is challenging but also the video and the and and this is was just like a bare bones kind of production that i was seeing but when but when the lights went up it just it felt like oh they're really they're focusing down i don't know it was quite it was moving to me just to see that transformation oh thank you i really love that you can appreciate that in the video um i also will be you know because this is a work in progress and i will be a bit critical of that of myself in the sense of as audience when we do the final show we need to find where we're grounding you know and i think right i know that we need to find posts to just little it can be one little thing it can be you know maybe just the actress or i don't know yet what that is i think here we're really going wild with the movement and going in this sensation to see what are the possibilities so yeah so you're when you say post you mean anchors or yeah like little things that ground us in yeah i thought i thought grounded in space though the the whole time so i mean i think you're you're headed in in the direction you want at least for me right i i just got to hear you knew that's what i love that i am your first interview i think here i am getting that from you that i've seen you many times in the meetings because you're such a wonderful person that comes to our meetings and have shared your work with us and you know we're always talking about different things but now i can get to this little meet with some of my work only yeah yeah yeah well yeah i wanted i wanted to ask you about the choice of english it's primarily in english there's it's not only in english but um uh what was what was that choice why was that choice made i mean i can guess but i'm curious um that is still something we're trying to figure out you know there was in one of the previous iterations uh some spanish we talked about portuguese too uh trying to pay homage to the people who are creating this like paul pinto is half perubian half portuguese descent he was born here but i am perubian so my mother tongue's Spanish and we were trying to pay homage to our diversity which is something that we find fun and you know we we love that uh but now i guess you know when you start moving forward it's it's been hard for us to find certain performers that can work in the way we work when you saw this cast these people that work with us for uh baritica they're amazing and they work very well with our collaborative environment we really dropped many ideas we were transforming things paul was writing music up to the last day and that's how we like it it felt vibrant all through the two weeks of work you know and without okay we want to find an ending and find it okay we rehearsed what we just found yesterday it always was moving forward and you know when it comes to opera you need a very particular performer there because learning the text is learning the music you know rehearsing and i have to say that our uh conductor was just amazing so it's really complicated the score is very complicated uh and and the performers do an incredible job they're all really great actors as well and and i'm um this is kind of a two-part question in terms of the the architect opera in at least the kind of opera that so many people understand and know um have been raised with it works in archetype right and so the acting can all often be um uh broad stroked right and and the choruses can often be um uh very indicating like we are pointing this way we're doing this you know and so i'm wondering when you're because this is really a theater opera in a way uh it's this hybrid and i'm wondering when you're when you're working pulling from that world and you're obviously trying to challenge the the concept of the archetype um for this piece specifically so when you're pulling from that those styles of performing and um actors who have been trained in opera singers who have been trained in that kind of style um how do you have to how do you how do you juggle all of that and how do you juggle the expectation of the opera audience that knows that a little hammy acting is part of the tradition and the joy of it and and the theater audience that is expecting something um that is not that you know a little more grounded in realism how do you juggle all those styles that was very challenging actually i have to more than brush up my understanding and knowledge of music and reading they side read so fast they can memorize their bars and i read music but i'm not you know i'm not the opera director so they challenge me to that and well i think you are i mean thanks to them thank you but thanks to them you know i was like but also i found that some people prefer to sit in that some performers and then it comes the question of collaboration right with whom you collaborate some people would not fit into this world but all of the people that you saw except for one two of them were professional opera singers and i found they were so hungry to explore to be given certain rules and then to have the freedom to say this is hard for me because i'm not seeing the music for example if i proposed a movement or something i cannot do but we can try this way you know and i found this amazing collaborative spirit that they wanted to move more they wanted to be challenged uh you know i have personal sessions with each of them trying to understand what are their needs because you know they need to see the conductor especially this kind of music and in some cases because the music was changing from one day to the next they needed to have the text close by and i said we need to embrace that we cannot just make oh nothing is happening no so um at some point there were some you know this is not done in opera and i'm like wait why is not done and bottom line it is not done we're not going to do it i don't want to you know violate the sound of comfort of a performer if having a performer and i know how challenging that can be yeah but to ask the question of why so that you understand that it's just tradition or there's actually there's a reason for it exactly and then i can get it located in the reason right and maybe both of us know we can figure out other ways but what happened is when we hit that wall i've learned that some of them go and think it after ask well okay why what do you need what are your needs and i think mostly is the nervousness of not being able to hit the note to know what note you need to hit and in unison which is a lot right you know as you see oh my gosh it's always just anxiety over exactly able to hit the note metaphorically always and my job as a director is to take the whole room in one direction where we're going to maintain but at the same time uh give you my hand so you feel that you're willing to jump from that pool with my hand and if you're not willing to jump we're gonna find another way of jumping so it's not a solid thing right um i think that was a learning curve for me and i learned so much from these performers and would you do that in a in a just a play without music would you sit down with all of the actors and say what are your needs or would you just assume you know um because you've done it before and yeah sometimes i work with people i've known before but um i can always see if i sense something is not working i sit down and say what do you need because you know yeah i am not a believer of stuff we don't do this for suffering right and i mean no i don't know right we celebrate life and playfulness and yes it's challenging and it's hard work but i i'm not of the ones good things that starving suffering artists and we mean to be combulated no no no here we're to create a good environment that grows so i i can sit down and ask people very plain even my students sometimes like now in zoom you know i teach at columbia bar nerd and sometimes they're very like done and i just plainly and openly what do you need what is happening you know i need to know yeah and i yeah it's that simple but so few people do that i'm really like we're with collaborators so few people do it because we're afraid of the repercussions right i think we have grown because someone might say something that they need that you can provide is that is that what you mean or because don't you feel that when you express what you need some people feel offended has it happened to you uh yes of course yeah or they get like my needs are going to attack their needs right right and the best guide for that is okay so if your needs are going to attack my needs what's the work the work is usually out there right i i i try to to see your needs and my needs great but what's the piece of work we're doing and how can we make this happen right and that's the moment when my needs can be okay yes i need to give space for Taylor to read his his music so he can see because he knows how to see right right yeah uh and and so the and so it was fun for you to to work with people uh this is your first time working with opera singers uh yes it's my first time working with opera singers actually it's been fun it's been fun for the most part i i i've you know they're musicians of their voice i i have so much admiration for all the things i'm a fan of actors and singers and i'm a fan you know because i cannot do it it's too much to carry your shoulders and it's it's it's a wonderful at the same time and yes it's been really uh wonderful to work with them and yeah see the piece take shape and i can't wait for this to be up we are working right now in reading of the full script and probably with musicians and so we are getting ready to open this this year and how many musicians because the workshop has i think just piano right this piano we're expecting seven to nine that's our seven oh wow yeah wow and on those acapella sections if pa was here i'd ask him this but um there's there's a lot of acapella singing in it and i found it uh a thrilling exciting and is that it was is that intentional to stay or it was that just because you haven't orchestrated the other instruments in it there are gonna be a lot of acapella sections because that's something that paul pinto was working with you know the hearing voice exactly to give voice to this corpus because one of the things that for us is important is that the chorus is not a group of you know like in traditional opera group of that sounds of the town or the groups of dancers in the nightclub yeah it's funny because when you talk to to to the musicians to the singers and you say you're gonna be part of a chorus everybody's like oh and then they realize that we look for each chorus to be unique so they have characters yeah it's choral in the sense of how we work together but it's they have characters inside and they play a very important role in the whole piece so it's an ensemble work i mean it's very much an ensemble work it's not no chorus member just sits there at singing in the chorus i mean no and i have found that when you cast like that when you when you write that way what it does is it makes everybody sink in a little bit more um i mean the opera has this wonderful tradition of having chorus members who are just chorus members and that's their job and they they're the chorus and all of it and it's quite beautiful to watch that but that's uh but that's uh that's not what you're doing here yeah because okay those wonderful operas were written they are there and where we are now as human beings and we need to it's like musicals you know i i love musicals i can't wait when i see new musicals and they are like really challenging what is a musical thing you know this right what we can say about there's so many things we can say we can you know not stay in a particular traditional way of seeing musicals and the same happens to me with opera we need to start and that's what i think here is encouraging with the harp artists and then with this festival the prototype first of all too right to create new ways of seeing opera there are according our new sensibilities because we're not the same 1700s 1800s well and it sounds like you're you're really interested in as an artist and maybe this isn't true but it sounds to me that it is that um you're interested in breaking free of archetypes you've done a lot of work of classic works that you've adapted and changed and and dug deeper into maybe the forgotten characters or the forgotten perspective so instead of it just always being painted with a broad brush so that we you give the audience the melodrama and they know who the character is the minute they see them it's they're more much more complicated in your work and and so the purpose of the chorus isn't necessarily needed for what you do is that is that fair no more than fair i think you're you're seeing no i don't think that it's only me i think is the the group of artists of our time right when i think of your work for example when you're putting on stage is all the time seeing this other side that we want to ignore sometimes is because political is not convenient or we just don't pay attention to and we live in automatic right you don't stop to think wait is this for me is this way on is this how i perceive things right and i feel that's kind of the agenda of many artists now and in particular the artists that are around here i feel there is always in my other fellow artists there you know this impulse to challenge that and figure out who we are to complicate i mean i don't know if that's the right word complicate but it feels that way to me that something simple and you're saying but maybe it's not so simple or somebody's ignored and that that is not part of i don't know it always to be honest it just always feels like white supremacy it always it always feels all over the world i wouldn't say that only here in the states right there is yeah over dramaturgy that's been over imposed for many many hundreds of years right and that lately i am sure you have been feeling this that we thought oh that was down there in the fifties and then you open the door it's in your face right oops we thought we're out of it no we're not we need to and probably here it's more than the color of our skin because it's now ingrained in us it doesn't matter if you're a man or woman a cisgender or a fluid gender person no it's ingrained in us and i think these conversations need to start happening on stage with art also that's what we're doing right yeah i feel yeah yeah absolutely i think it is the conversation it is the conversation of a of a generation or multiple generations at least the artists that are working right now is it so much about how do we get away from the homogenous to the heterogenetic you know how do we how do we go from this one thing to a multifaceted understanding of humanity and of ourselves right yeah yeah of ourselves yes yes that's what breaking those boundaries seems to be fun and provocative yeah yeah yeah um so i i mean i i haven't been paying attention to time at all but i think we're past a half hour is there is there stuff that you want to um you want the audience to know about this or about your work or uh about the world at large well wow i want to do i want to do i want to well the hunger is in the work definitely i think that um um well i i lost the feel that after everything we're going through now it might be summer for our industry our work in particular and i know it is and it has hit us is hitting us very hard but at the same time i think it's just pushing what matters to the forefront you know it's pushing the need to keep on doing this this this this challenging the the heteronormative system and to create this in a playful um in a in a playful sexy way on stage and i feel like we are part of that you know i want to celebrate that in in the middle of all the situation because i notice that sometimes i get oh my god and i need to remind me of that when i'm feeling this and i feel that now when i'm talking to you you know i know all the things that you're doing and and it's it's it's people like you and my fellow harp artists that are so inspired that people are moving forward so yeah yeah yeah and so when is the peace when do i know and like plan everyone wants have you noticed that everyone keeps wanting to plan like because we're all in chaos right now so in the living in the unknown so people in order to keep saying are like when is your production going to be what plan plan plan so i apologize for being one of those people but when's the production going to be what about we decided now so i try to commit myself to it with you let's find out if we don't know it yet let's say yes what is what's your fantasy version it's going to be in um February 2022 you're invited to the opening yay i will definitely be there amazing well i see that sometimes if you name it it becomes real let's let's go with that you know i know and i was talking with a friend of mine yesterday and like there was this project that was cancelled and this other project that was cancelled and i don't know we're gonna do this project again and blah blah blah i'm like yeah but we're gonna do it let's take a choice maybe we'll get back we'll talk again and we'll say taylor it's gonna happen two months later but we'll let's say February 2022 how about that i'd love to um revisit this conversation when the production's about to happen so that we can see where you know where you've been and where you're going and what's happening with it all that'll be fantastic let's let's do that let's just let's do that let's do that maybe we can be in this room with a how about that yes that'd be nice that would be lovely yeah and is that do you need any help from the larger community to make this what help do you need maybe somebody out there wants to help we want uh people who want to engage in a conversation about female sexuality and you know we need the help of course of funders to support the project and they can always go to our facebook page and themlove.org or to hear our center we definitely need people to stay tuned to our new iterations because you know i truly believe also that pieces happen when you share them with the audience the work in progress here have been amazing for that to guide us where we need to go and when we still have it next so yeah that's what we need yeah yeah i keep i mean the thing that's like the most moving aspect of harp is that it's a show up every day and do the work kind of organization in terms of you it's they don't expect it to just happen tomorrow they expect it to the part of the work is the building of the work part of the art is how you make the art with your community and and how how you balance all of the the showing up every day and and inching your way to the project so so that's uh that's what i wish more of the industry was like to be honest instead of i finish it and now they will purchase it instead it's you know like no every day we show up and we work together and we develop our relationships together and we figure out how to make it together i think here's a great model for you know institutions i would love institutions to be like here i i might be mistaken and i hope you know people can correct me if i'm wrong but i think it's the only institution that i know of that will give you space and support not only money but also advice and peers around you know with respect to create the work and process and that's what we need to change here if you ask me now that we're talking about this yes we need to create institutions to think more about process because you know this idea of just four weeks of rehearsals go up i mean i'm not sure that creates what we need right i mean how long do you take to the one of your projects and and it takes forever right it's years it's years yeah yeah yeah i mean i don't know sometimes it's not i mean gary i wrote in a year and they put it up and you know uh and i and i was really proud of the script but i can't say i was proud of the process so that's um you know that i i just always keep thinking uh the process part the process is the art it's part of the art absolutely every artist is going to tell you this the process is part of the art and people may tend to think sometimes oh yes it's some finished things no we will do work in progress we're aiming at the best weekend all the time you know even when you open a show yeah then you start receiving the audience robert le pache usually says that's his plays are done never first of all and they're always changing for the audience improve and yeah that's the way we we do things so yes yeah um i wish there would be a changing mentality after this and help us to keep on creating more stuff and yeah have you felt like if things have gone slower like or where you're already going at a slow pace before i i am of the ones of process i always tend to find ways to create these workshops that take time so things are starting incubating i cannot work in four weeks and i've never been able to do it and i figure out little ways here and there to do it with yeah so it can be it can go a bit deeper right not because what's the what's the purpose of creating something to do what i know no you know what i mean like that is boring right right right to get myself into trouble right and then get myself into trouble right that's the fun of it you know or is it you know which surfer is gonna go to the scene okay i know this wave can you repeat the wave let's go right that's wonderful maybe this one's gonna take me you sing me down in the ocean wow thanks so much for talking and sharing your process