 Not yet. Ah, now it is. Okay Hi everyone We are we are here we are at sort of our last case study Before we have our closing and wrap up for today So there's been a lot of talk over the last few days about being a change agent There's also been a lot of discussion about otherness all the different ways of othering that happens As well as the power of art to create pathways between communities in order to heal So I am excited To introduce you to a change agent 30 years ago Judith Smith set change in motion when she founded access dance company bringing together disabled and non-disabled artists to make physically integrated dance Since then the company has traveled literally all over the world and pioneered integrated dance training programs and engagement activities in communities around the country last year in 2016 Judith engineered the first ever National convening on the future of physically integrated dance in the US, which was followed by a series of regional convenings That took place throughout 2016. No doubt catalyzing even more change in their wake. I Was fortunate enough to be able to attend the national convening In New York in May of last year as well as the New England regional convening Which was organized with Deborah Cash and the Boston Dance Alliance at NIFA Judy and Axis have a long history with NIFA and the National Dance Project Axis received their very first national dance project grant in 2003 for a work by acclaimed choreographer and in DP recipient Victoria Marks That work was called dust and since then they've gone on to receive four more in DP grants distinguishing them as one out of only 20 out of nearly 350 companies who have received five or more grants in NDP's 20 year history in 2014 Axis was awarded support for to go again, which we're about to see To go again as choreographed by Joe Good And Judy specifically sought out Joe for this project. It's their third collaboration In over 17 years Joe himself is also an NDP recipient and an award-winning choreographer Who's made a huge impact on contemporary dance with his work that collides music text and movement in stunning dance theater works that really explore what it means to be human With NDP support to go again reached seven communities from Texas to Tennessee And it kept going long after their NDP support had been exhausted They'll be at Boston University later this week on March 18th to go again explores Resilience following severe life changes and brings to light issues facing our nation's veterans and their families and friends Judy spoke up yesterday to remind all of us that the disability community holds a vast Body of knowledge that needs to be integrated into the conversations The connections and the actions we take as a result of our time together this weekend And with that charge in mind, it's my honor to introduce Judith Smith Joe Good and Axis Dance Company loving the weather I'm from California, and I moved from Colorado to avoid this stuff I really want to thank Nifa and Doris Duke and Andrew Mellon who have been huge supporters of Axis and this convening and just work that's Changemaking work that's happening all over the country For those of you who aren't familiar with Axis. We are based in Oakland, California, not San Francisco And we're in our 30th year our mission is to change the face of dance and disability And we do that in three ways first and foremost through performing and creating Contemporary dance. We also do a lot of education and engagement. I Think that we've become one of the primary pre professional training grounds for disabled dancers in the US and possibly internationally as well I have to say that to go again is really one of my very very favorite works that I've commissioned I think there've been over 25 and It's my final work for stage before I Well, I turn the artistic director reigns over to mr. Mark Brew in January And I think like a lot of people, you know, I've been very disturbed by the war and being disabled especially by the number of vets that are coming back with both visible and invisible disabilities and I think like a lot of artists, you know, we want we wanted to do something want to do something to help and in 2013 no it was earlier than that 2011 or 12 we were approached by Palo Alto veterans hospital to help in a study of Vets who have spinal cord injuries and how social dance could impact Their reintegration into society. So that was kind of my first contact with the veteran community and In 2012 I was approached by a man named Jeff Fallon who is a retired lawyer and ex Military, I believe he was an officer wasn't he yeah, and he wanted to commission access he flew to columb from Columbus, Ohio to do a work about vets and And specifically disabled vets and he sought access out because we are a company of dancers with and without Disabilities and I was rather intimidated, you know by the idea of doing a piece about vets And I said well if I was going to do it I would I would want to work with Joe and when I contacted Joe in 2013 it was in the fall and Synchronistically, he had just done his resilience project in Kansas with veterans So it was just and I was actually really relieved because I was so intimidated By how we were going to do this piece and how we were going to do it Respectfully, and it was I was so glad to know that Joe already kind of knew what he was doing To go again has actually been seen in 20 cities now And I am hoping that it remains in the repertory and that will be Up to mark, but it's been a really important piece for us and in conjunction to Performing it. We've done workshops with veterans around the country where we've taken the piece and shown it informally Mostly at VA hospitals and veteran centers And I've specifically made those closed workshops so that we could create a safe container for veterans and their families and It's I think it's been The dancers who you'll meet at the end. I think they will tell you that it's one of their most impactful Experiences doing engagement work. So I'm going to turn it over to Joe As Judy said, I had just met Art DeGroot. Is he here today? Where are you? Oh In Kansas and I had done a Work there and was just kind of beginning to understand that I there was a conversation that I could have with veterans I'm a gay Buddhist choreographer From San Francisco So so I'm not sure I know I was open with that with the vets Bonzas So it's been a journey for me to understand what that conversation was and The resilience project really I've really approached the vets as teachers about this thing called resilience I Don't yet feel empowered to approach them as someone who can heal their trauma or be even fully understand it but To approach them as teachers and ask them for their knowledge and these oral histories Conversations with food as we've discussed Have been really really amazing for me, and I've learned a lot. I feel very gifted So to go again is based on conversations that we did at the VA hospital in Livermore and kind of around the country one of the dancers is a vet and we use some of his personal contacts to do some of the interviews and It was It was brilliant for me to work with a Mixed ability company on this work because there is There are some parallels. There are some stigma That is parallel to what to what the you know what the military people feel sometimes and certainly, you know Being disabled you know something about being resilient so there was that Intuitive connection Before we begin I'm gonna go through a little exercise with these folks Ask you to do a little resilience practice with me That I made up. I'm all about the body Practices, that's my territory So if you will indulge me and I've done this with Several different groups Often military groups and their families. I should also say the resilience project. This is scaring me the resilience project is Really interviews with vets and their families so We We always include the families and both in the in the oral history part of it But in all all the all the steps of the journey so If you can just place your hands on your thighs and your feet on the floor Take a couple of clearing breaths not theatrical breaths, but listening breaths Listening to your own breath feeling it and then we're just gonna rub those hands on the thighs and Create a little heat so this is the part of bringing energy and Vitality into the body Bringing a little belief Into the body. I'm still here and then the next part If you're like me and you're bespectal cold you have to take them off. I like to hang them here like grandma Grandma used to have like two or three pairs I feel like which one of those are you wearing so One more time rub the hands Get them nice and hot and then take the heel of the hand and or any part of the hand and place it over the eyes and Here we're just going to think of excoriating burning out all of the repetitive thinking the the tape loop of Who you are who you aren't? What you need what you like what you want just let it all go for a second sort of burn it out Creating an empty space And then we'll just open the gates And I I would leave my eyes closed, but you might want to look at me to see what I'm doing and Imagine that fresh new perspective can come in That's part of being resilient you can keep playing the tape of your hardship Or you can let some gentle new Perspective float in and then the final step really is just to send that out Every veteran that I've spoken to Said their real healing began when they started to share it When they started to talk about it Spread it around with others So let's do that one more time the whole process a few couple of gentle breaths listening to the breath Their mind what is the tempo? What is the temperature of? those breath and then a little heat Bringing vitality and energy I Need to wake up to do this work of being resilient And then cover the eyes Burn out the monkey mind the unnecessary Loop that plays and plays and open the gates and Allow some gentle Fresh thing to fall in there. You don't have to know what it is It'll just come Into the emptiness and then finally share it Send it out. You're not in this alone. So thank you now. You can all move to San Francisco And and the woo-woo hippies I Think we'll just show show you what what we did what we did. Yeah to go again Combat injured veteran US Navy Desert Storm mother Mechanics contacts leader spinal cord injury Iraq military daughter wife and now mother of disabled veteran Afghanistan These are some of the stories some of the words that will be spoken and speaking them matters It was devastating It was my whole world At that time what I thought was my whole world just collapsed From the physical aspect of being an athlete my whole life and thinking I wouldn't be an athlete again These are real words from real people People who have lived through difficult circumstances But who doesn't have difficult circumstances and every time we stop We go again Thank you. Yes, the recovery is going well To me it seems it's going slow, but it's going slow in the right direction Yes, I wake up and feel like that I'm doing good So I need to keep on going forwards real people I Think there were a lot of things that played into the dark times One that is almost the hardest that I always kind of stuffed down That I lost two of my good friends in the same incident because Who doesn't have difficult circumstances in this war in this conflict? Everyone faces obstacles Everybody goes through these kinds of things and sometimes It's how we get through those things They had us on patrols every day after 9-eleven. They postponed our graduation of advanced tank training because of it There's only one door in the entire barracks that was open The rest of them were tape shot slam shot Lock shot when you came in the front door of the Marine barracks There was a an m16 with a grenade launcher on it looking out the front door No pistols no flags no nothing If we didn't like you we'd blow you up in the parking lot. We had guys on the roof sniper watch Our patrols were mostly around the gates. We would look for bombs That's what we do We knew We were already amped We felt our hearts pumping we might actually get to use all this training She's safe people don't believe in that kind of 3rd of July 2005 I was telling her on the phone. You are not in the accident anymore You're safe Nobody years out. We're much better at not crying. You all know what the m1a1 Abrams is They don't know The m1a1 Abrams was the new ticket for combat when the century turned They were the baddest boys on the planet But they can't work alone What happens if a track breaks? Those tracks are seven tons of peace you put them back together by hand You do that while you're under fire you put them back together by hand And if something goes wrong with him with that Abrams You would see me Trying to get that tank out of combat like you would drag a soldier that's been shot You drag them out of combat by hand But the Abrams weighs 69.4 tons Almost 70 tons of hate and discontent as we call them my job is to make sure that's trooper That weighs 70 tons gets out of the zone Because he's hurt We actually refer to our tanks with names We named them we talked to them we lived in them. We got tired of them And when we got away from them We wanted to come back to them You know Those were our homes Those were our biggest partner Was a tank our training chains our targets change the kind of operations chains We drill it in the dirt and we drilled it in the woods and then we changed into the open field We knew the change was coming we knew the war was coming We knew that all the changes meant that something big was coming my staff Sergeant approached me He looked at me. He said Lance Corporal Bell. I need you and my heart was filled with dread He said it's time to go go get your gear and find your stuff You only have three hours in that has to be enough. That's all that I was given just three hours say goodbye I was in my camouflage And I got to the front door of my little duplex right outside the gate of Camp Lejeune. I Opened my front door. My wife came up and hugged me She always did and the moment we embraced each other. She pulled back and said What's wrong? I Said Melissa. I got the call three hours and she Failed I got a little story for you and it goes like this when I was 18 I Used to look in people's windows And if they weren't home I Would steal their stuff Yeah but That's what happens when you grew up in chaos Sad story, right? I can tell your Looking for a little more okay, I Wasn't a bad kid Just a little bit wild Yeah Just a little while and so I found myself in front of a judge And I had to make a choice jail Or boot camp the choice was clear You got it from there. It was early morning push-ups Long days on an aircraft carrier and Desert storm discipline, baby becoming a man Yeah becoming a Marine was a very serious incident in my life In order to find myself I had to lose myself lose myself completely was called up in 2004 to active duty and In 2006 he left in September for Afghanistan And he was actually there for 10 days when I got a funny message from a Marine sergeant That said we're in the area and we need to talk to you Now having been a military daughter wife And now mother. I don't know. I guess it didn't click. It was just like okay Well, I'm at the hospital and they said we'll be right there and then When I saw them in their dress blues that was scary and They said He's not dead On his second deployment he got tapped for a last-minute deployment two weeks came back three days before they were born so Yeah Resilience is definitely something that is needed in the military 100% just you have to be Resilient you have to be strong You have to be willing to put up with a lot of crap And you have to be willing to fight for your marriage Actually, I can't think of a single couple that we've known from when we first got married that is still together So it's hard Military life is hard. It's hard on everybody and a lot of people just don't make it He was called up in 2004 and in 2006 he left in September for Afghanistan and he was actually there for 10 days When I got a funny message that said He's not Do we still have time and we have a timekeeper out there Do we ten minutes? Okay, so What I normally do with the resilience project is Kind of go back to this body practice Before we get into our analytical thinking and our descriptive responses Just sort of close your eyes and again Feel your breath down into the bottoms of your feet Notice if your body Is having a response and to just take that in Acknowledge it. It's important It's what really matters and then open your eyes you have any questions for these what a great job you guys did wow Amazing I also want to say that the music was composed by Ben Judah Balkas and his mother Actually also is connected she works at a VA hospital in California Hi, everybody. My name is James Bowen originally from Dallas, Texas Hey went to Kansas State University Join a access dance company August of 2016. I'm excited to be here everyone My name is Dwayne Chinaman. I Move to Oakland two years ago to join access. I moved from Tampa, Florida. My name is Julie crethers I grew up in Tennessee studied dance in North Carolina and move to access move to Oakland to join access in July of 2014 Hi, my name is Liv Schaefer I am from Chicago, Illinois, and I studied dance in the Bay Area and joined access in August of 2016 And I want to mention that we have two other dancers and an apprentice Also with us and and you'll get to see them if you're able to come to the Boston University Residency and Mark Brew who's down here in the front is our incoming artistic director. That's a bad word to use he's our new artistic director and Yeah anyone have a comment or a question or a Feeling you want to express Carla, okay That people heard that right and I just want to say I'm I'm almost moved to tears I am so so very moved and that's what I want to share with you. Thank you so much Thank you Someone is that Anthony back there? Who is that? Thank you so much for that performance. That was absolutely amazing I wanted to ask about the music the mood. I Was trying to put words to it and what I came up with was beautifully haunting and I was like to hear from you guys about The music, thank you Well, I can talk about how the music came about because Ben Utavacas is somebody I work with a lot in my work and he likes to be in the process in the rehearsal studio Feeling the temperature of what? Happening in various sections. I also I'm always about colliding language and movement and seeing how they can Can complement each other but also maybe contradict each other create a little friction or Dyslog you from the perspective that you think you have on the language that the movement can actually Shift you into some new perspective. I like that and Ben is very sensitive to that And that's not an easy collaborative moment when you tell a Musician or a composer maybe not so loud or not so much Music in this moment because they got to talk and he's really really great with that But do you guys want to talk about how it feels? I'm thinking about how it feels I Don't know Joe said everything. It was just interesting being in there. Ben was totally immersed in the process and and checking in and making little tweaks as we went along It was my first time having a musician in the studio That's not really true, but first time I had to that extent I don't know what else to say. It was pretty cool to see Bren and Joe work together and make those adjustments Julie and and Dwayne are the two two of the dancers that were in the original process With Joe and then live and James came in and and took on roles and you know, both of them have their own challenges So I just want to acknowledge that they were Julie and Dwayne were really in the thing those two and Dwayne Helped me with some of the oral histories. Yes, Colleen Like to ask you to the the dancers to talk a little bit more about the oral histories and how you embodied them and And as being a dancer, I'm always thrilled that dancers can talk and move at the same time Yes, we can I'm also a fan of dancers who can talk I Did my best to relate to my own personal history I feel that there are moments when I am the character that I spoke with my monologue But then also the character that James spoke of when I was Melissa with Dwayne And I drew from my own experiences having a loved one being far away not being able to get in touch with them and ultimately just had to Take a different perspective every time I tried it even from our run earlier this morning to today playing with different cadences of Speaking and different cadences in my movement if I keep it alive in that way. I can keep the character alive for myself So play For each of the interviews it was Joe and his rehearsal assistant and one of the dancers But it ended up being that any text that we said was not the text that we heard so I Wasn't able to even try and say it like it was said and so then I really got to take it on as my own and Recognizing it as not just a singular story. That's relevant to one person, but really the grander scope and human experience and When I'm delivering my lines, I like to pretend that there's one specific person that I'm speaking to over there And that kind of helps me keep it alive because every show that interviewer that person might be a little different Julie said it all. Yeah We weren't in the interviews for the parts that we spoke we were in other interviews, but I know for me I feel a lot of a like I really want to get it right I don't need to get it the same all the time but I really want to get it right because I I was in an interview with a woman who was injured in Iraq and You know seeing her and her mother being there when they told their stories And then realizing that all these other interviews that Joe was doing probably had the same experience I really wanted to make sure that you know that their stories came across in the way that they wanted them to while also keeping it as Julie said you know Equivalent to the grander human experience. I wasn't part of the process of them being able to interview The veterans but coming in as a new company dancer It was difficult at first because I was trying to Act like this person. I'm gonna say his name is John. I'm gonna know his name I was trying to act like John, but then I started to play around with the idea of Be James telling this story. My name is James by the way But yeah, just beat James because I'm a married man And so I was just kind of putting myself in this situation telling my husband that I have to go Back overseas and I don't know if I'm going to come back the same. So that's what the process was for me I will say that the woman that Dwayne spoke about who had the traumatic brain injury she and her mother and her Therapist actually came to the showing of the piece the preview that we did of the piece and This piece is really emotional for me still and to see them after the performance and How gratified they all felt that their story had been revealed that way I think was for me one of the highlights that actually Putting this project together don't make us cry I have a feeling we might be running out of time, but is there Yeah, okay. Well, thank you I feel like you all really unearthed so many incredibly touching honest hard moments Both in the movement and the text and the way it all came together I know that on tour and this piece has toured quite extensively That you all did interact with different veteran communities and military communities and groups While the work was in different communities and in addition to what you've shared about the creation of the work Is there anything that stands out to you all? In your experiences on tour that that might be really important for this group to hear I remember one time we went when we went to a veterans hospital and did a workshop One of the veterans came up To me because I did the scene speaking the lines about the tanks up there and Exactly like Julie and I were saying like and really everybody was saying we wanted to get these stories right He came up to me and said that was my story. He was like in tears and Sort of relieved and he was telling me how that was his story Like that's everything he went through and he was you know felt so Happy that we were sharing that with everybody and that was a You know go into VA hospitals and having more of those experiences was pretty deep my favorite moment of those workshops is often right when we go in we do a movement with the veterans before we share the piece with them and help them to open their bodies and open their hearts and They are often very reluctant So we walk in and are matching access dance t-shirts, and they're not sure what they're in for and maybe have just popped a can of soda sitting back with their bros and then we're like okay Everyone get up and no one wants to get up and then just kind of watching the transition into all you have to do is follow What I'm doing let's turn on some funky music and giving them the space for okay Now you create a move and watching like just the creativity explode I think really sets the scene physically and mentally and spiritually to be able to then digest this work for this So heavy on all of our hearts, so it's really satisfying by the end I'm always pretty fascinated as we go into each of the workshops. We maybe sometimes create a different order to things Maybe there's a showing of the work at the end, which is usually the case for us But the difference between when you show a work and then you dance together Versus when you dance together, and then you show a work I don't know that one is better than the other but this setting is one that it really Draws out a lot of high contrast, you know in terms of when you make that connection with people one-on-one Maybe it's a little easier after they've seen us divulge and enter into their world and say I I can step into that with you And how the relationship is different on the vice versa To echo what most of them has said It is a cool experience to go in to a veteran workshop and Get them up to move Another cool thing for me is that we when they come up to us and they tell us how cool it is for us to be able to share their story through our movement and how they could connect to our movement, I think that's Probably a powerful thing for me going into these workshops because I mean they're not dancers so for us to be able to show them this and then they can relate to it is the bomb Actually, there was a family member at a workshop one time and they came up and really thank us Because the parts of the family, you know the family serves as well and that story doesn't always get told and I remember someone I just wanted to share that because it was so important Thank you very much