 We're going to get started here. Welcome back. I hope you had a wonderful lunchtime and had the opportunity to check in with each other and reflect on the programming this morning. My name is Teresa Eyring. I'm the executive director of TCG, Theater Communications Group. Thank you. As I think you heard, this morning I spent at another TCG pre-conference of about 40 TCG member theaters who are part of an equity diversity and inclusion institute. And what they've been doing, we actually have one cohort that started three years ago. And they're sort of graduating this year and a whole new cohort that started today. And we're really grateful to the funders who have helped support that, including the Mellon Foundation. But what we've been doing is trying to go deeper in our work to dismantle the systemic inequities that have plagued our country and our theater community for so many decades. Listening to the panel here just before we broke for lunch, these questions of equity, justice, human rights, they cross all borders. And they're crucial. They're of crucial importance to theater makers everywhere. And I think that's part of the reason why we're all here today and at this conference. So for those who don't know, TCG is the national organization for theater in the US with a longstanding commitment to global citizenship. Our vision, in short, is to make a better world for theater and a better world because of theater. And more and more we think about that second part of the sentence, making a better world because of theater. So the National Conference this year has a special theme and that's theater nation. And what we're doing is bringing together artists, theater staffs, funders and trustees. We're gonna have over a thousand attendees, almost a record breaker. And tomorrow afternoon, we will all come together at the Renaissance Hotel. It will be our first time together. We're gonna hear from Anna DeVier Smith to kick it off and it's gonna be awesome. So when we started planning our conference in 2015 is when we really got going with the planning. We knew a few things. We knew that Washington would be filled with the electricity of an election year. We didn't know quite how complicated this election year was going to be. But we wanted to take advantage of that. And by the way, apropos of the discussion earlier, tomorrow morning we have 200 people going to Capitol Hill to meet with their elected officials. And we're gonna be talking about all kinds of issues that affect the arts community. And one of them is immigration policy, particularly as it affects artists. We knew that we would be going deeper into our commitment around equity, diversity, and inclusion. And we knew we wanted to make the conference more inclusive and engaging to the global theater community. This conference also coincides with the formation of the Global Theater Initiative, which you may have heard about this morning as a collaboration between the Laboratory for Global Performance in Politics and TCG. So this global pre-conference is our first really big project together. And we're having a great time. And I'd like to ask Derek to come back and say a few words about the Global Theater Initiative. Great, thanks, Teresa. I'll be sure you heard me talk a lot already, but I did just wanna fill in a little bit more about GTI. And I guess to echo again that it's sort of, this feels like the dream of GTI, this gathering itself. Through the alignment of programming and resources, GTI seeks to serve as a hub of global exchange with three core areas of focus, connecting practitioners with resources, knowledge, and partnerships to strengthen their work, promoting cultural collaboration as essential for international peace and mutual understanding, and innovating new strategies to maximize the global theater fields, opportunities, and impact. So all of that is working very hard not to be redundant, but to be additive. There's an enormous amount of amazing work happening already. How do we have something to contribute to amplify that work and to forge new connections? Importantly, GTI also serves as the collaborative leadership of the US Center of ITI, the International Theater Institute, which many of you know about. There'll be opportunities during the main conference. When is the session? Do we, Friday, thank you. Friday to have a deeper window into ITI, but I wanted to acknowledge the Director General of ITI, Tobias Bianconi, who's here with us. Tobias, are you in the room right now? If he's not, he will be back. It's special and important that he's here. And also the leadership on the US side for many years of my colleague and collaborator, I'm Amelia Cacciapero as the Director from the US and as part of our GTI core team. So that's a little more about GTI and we're going to Amelia to introduce the next thing or are you using it? Great, okay. So Amelia, come on up and introduce our next session. There you are. Hello, you all. Very full day, I wanted to give also a shout out to our international guests who many of whom have traveled hours and hours and hours to be here and that commitment to come and join in the conversation with us today is greatly appreciated. So thank you for that. As Teresa said, TCG is deeply committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and diversity, our core values are diversity, artistry, activism and global citizenship. So actually this panel coming up folds very right into our mission, our core values, the way we think and work. There's so many parallel issues and conversations in the equity, diversity and inclusion conversations that parallel and aligned with conversations that happen around global exchange and a lot of those are coming up today. One of our activities, international activities are to do delegations where we bring groups of US theater professionals to meet with their colleagues in other parts of the world and we brought people to Fujaira and the Emirates, to Columbia, to Sudan and also to Havana, to Cuba. We recently brought a group of which Sanja Parks who is moderating the panel was on the delegation. Sanja is supported by our Fox Foundation residency program for actors and she was there watching this international festival, a very renowned and fabulous work and she had this insight, this glimmer that where are the Afro-Cuban artists here? They're not represented and we are in Havana. And so it went into a deeper conversation. I know that Teresa connected Sanja up with Afro-Cuban artists in Havana and we kept this conversation going and felt that it was important to have this window in into the African diaspora and looking and thinking about race, colonization and art all combined together. So that's the genesis of this and I'm gonna turn it over to Sanja. So please take it away. Thank you, Amelia. Thank you, Amelia. Thank you, Teresa. Thank you, GTI and Georgetown in the Lab for this opportunity to have this conversation this afternoon. Everybody have a good lunch? Yes. So we have a very distinguished panel here. I am not going to read their bios. Please open your packet and their numerous achievements are listed there. They're some very accomplished folks. So I will, however, let them introduce themselves and we'll just go down the line. Hi, I'm Julius Tenon, President of Production and Development of Juvie Productions in Los Angeles, California. Hi, my name is Josette Bushelmingo. I'm British born living in Sweden. I am the artistic director for Riksdjartens Tustjartens which is the sign language department. And I'm also a member of an organization called Turik which translated means push. And that organization really is the gathering of Afro-Swedish cultural workers. Hello, my husband there. My name is Lloyd and you guys know I'm from Zimbabwe. I'm currently the national coordinator for the Zimbabwe Center of the International Theater Institute. Thank you. Hello, my name is Manuel Viveros. I am an actor and professor, working in Buenaventura, Colombia. And this is my first time speaking English in front of a lot of people. So if I have a problem Olga, I might do it. Yeah, I'm Olga, good eye English and I'm the translator though who doesn't need one. And then joining us via Skype is Nikke Joda, Nikke. Hello everybody. Can you hear me all okay? Yes. Really great to be here via Skype though I would have liked to be there in person. I'm Nigerian, I am British descent and I live in the UK. I'm the new incoming director for the Afro-Vibes Festival in the UK. And I also am setting up a pan-African interdisciplinary performing arts market which will take place in Blomfonte in South Africa for people from across the continent to be able to share their work to the rest of the world and tour their work and increase business opportunities. Thank you. Thank you everyone. So as Amelia said, this conversation really started with a trip to Havana where I noticed a lack, a lack of representation and that sparked a greater question in me of where else are Africans of the diaspora not being represented? Is that something that is happening globally? And if so, what strategies are being implemented in the varying countries that perhaps we can collectively use together to combat that lack of diversity or that lack of representation? And so this panel is really a representation of the many countries of the diaspora where Africans are living working artists and have been living working artists and are doing art that speaks specifically to us, for us and about us. And so we started with the question of how are we making certain that our voices as Africans of the diaspora are being heard and recognized in our respective countries and what are some of the strategies that we are individually implementing and can those strategies be implemented globally? And so with that I'm gonna open it up to the panel and we're just gonna have a discussion and afterwards we will have ample time for questions too. Absolutely, our world has become smaller because of the internet, right? So then this whole notion of inclusion should seem kind of pretty, the demographics are shifting here in our country. And so then it seems that then there should be more inclusion. Here in the States we talk a lot about diversity and that's a great word. But if you don't put the I, if you don't use the word, the I word, inclusion, then what does diversity really mean here in the States where we do have great opportunity to voice our opinions, be involved in the conversation and the like? So it's really important that as we see our world changing that then you look not just here in the States but worldwide and then yet the voices of Afro-Americans and blacks all across the globe are still not being heard. I think for us here in the States and for myself and my wife particularly, some of you may be familiar with her. Her name is Viola Davis. And some of you may know who she is. I never heard of her. Yeah, you never heard of her. Sweet, sweet. But we started our production company because there was a lack of roles even for her. Someone of a great talent who went to school and went to Juilliard and did all the work and all that then you get to Hollywood and all that then she's been on a stage screen and then you get to Hollywood and you realize there's not much there. So then what you have to do is you have to do what? You have to create, you have to find a way. And I was asked a question a few months back. What is some of the challenges as an African American producer you face? And I said inclusion. I mean, we talk about how we're gonna do this but then we're always kind of left on the peripheral and I always think you have to ask the questions. You always have to say, this is what I wanna do and this is how I'm gonna do it. I wanna work with people who see our vision. We all have a vision. And so we wanna work within, we want our vision to be seen but we wanna work with folks who get the vision, who catch it and say, okay, let's do this and we can have a more inclusive artistic society that way. And I think that going into the schools, Viola and I feel like going into our schools and especially in the impoverished areas throughout the country that don't get funding, that don't have opportunities for kids to be in music arts or theater arts and all that. We feel like here in our own country, those are areas where we really need to go so we can find our next generation of artists. And through our foundation, that's what we wanna do. We wanna target those places that really wanna give these kids opportunities. And here in the States, that could be one of the ways where we could expose kids to the arts in a different way so then they become better citizens because they wanna go to school now. So then things shift because they wanna go to school, the grades get better, they find something they love, they can be citizens and then they can do something that's incredible. So that's part of kind of what we wanna do to shift voices and that kind of thing. Thank you, Julius. Yeah, I think the point that you made about the next generation of artists and audiences is really important. It's an aspect I think that doesn't get looked at very often. Hi, everyone. I think what's important in the question you asked is I wanted to place a context. I am a black British woman. I am not a Swede and I actually mean not the vegetable, I actually mean a person. But that's the British side of my humor coming out. But for me, what's very important is to contextualize Sweden. Sweden has a very particular image of itself and it also has a national and global image of itself. We have succeeded in doing extraordinary things when it comes to equality, particularly between the genders, between men and women. We have a very strong human rights record as well as everything is questionable, I know. But also, we also have a very strong child-based law and support network. And of course our welfare service is one of the ones certainly been admired for many years. But also Sweden has a history. Sweden has an Afro-Swedish history. There are blacks that live there and I use the word politically. It is registered from the early 1500s were the first blacks to arrive in Sweden. Sweden has still slave castles. We were part of the gold and their wood trade. And of course we have our own history concerning the race biology, as well as onwards into all sorts of rather peculiar situations which I won't go into. But that context is very important. There are two things that I think is also important. It's also about investment and how you invest in the future. And as a phrase that you like, is I'm tired of being invited to the museum of my life. I am tired of being a guide to my own life. I am tired of being asked to build, to paint, to give stories, to give ideas, to give input and then I can't even get into my own museum. I'm tired of it regardless of whether I sit on a national theater or I sit with an independent organization. I don't want that anymore. It cannot happen anymore. We must take ownership ourselves. I think one of the things also as well is a level of uncomfortableness. What is in the room when we are sitting on this panel? Really. Because talent, history, possibility, capabilities not on the agenda for me anymore. But if we can or should we or will we or can we, we can. So it's not about that. And the rest of my colleagues that are here can vouch for that. There are two strategies really that are being used and I'm very proud because the theater that I represent, the Riksdjartan which is the national touring theater of Sweden. I have my CEO who's right at the back, Magnus Aspergrian, who's winking away and also Yamam, who's the head of our equality policy. One of the first strategies that my theater is doing is now to begin to create a policy, a policy that is going to look at using law that is legislation that exists via the UN, via the race equality laws across both United Kingdom and United States and in fact laws that are also including census, statistics, other types of information that can help theater makers make the right decisions because many theaters want to, but the laws and structures that exist aren't there to help us. What's important about this is that it's not just for us in the theater, it is for every arts institution. What's very important in Sweden as well, we can only, how can we say, positively discriminate via age and gender. Nothing else. That's the measurement systems that we're able to use in Sweden at this point and this policy is there to break that and open it out. So I'm very proud to know that my theater is beginning to do that and the difference is that it is the CEO who's doing it. The government have asked very nicely in Swedish, would you be so kind to fulfill your political remit? It is still up to the artistic director and the CEO to deliver that. And if they don't deliver it because they don't feel like it, don't like it or they're afraid, then it's something else. But my CEO is doing it. Good on your magnets. No, one of the things in Sweden as well is that our history not only because of everything else but also what we did as a theater is we really pushed language because of the different, the change of the demograph in the country. We went really focused on language whether it was Bosnian, Pashisker, Persian languages. We focused on language, Swedish, Finnish. We focused on language and we saw very clearly in 2016 this was not going to work. We needed something bigger, richer, broader, much more long lasting and this new policy, as scary as it is is going to change things. It will make the other theaters sit up. This is one area of strategy and I'm along for the ride, that's for sure. The other area that we're looking at which is really why I'm here is also an organization called TRIK which translated in English means push and that organization really is there to gather together Afro-Swedes and our strategy really which is what several of our colleagues will talk about is actually gathering together and there's something that happens when we gather together. Something changes in the room when we gather together. People become more uncomfortable. A little bit afraid, nervous, wise. Is there something wrong? Yeah, maybe. There is something wrong and it has to be changed and that wrongness is something that we must own. So that organization TRIK push is there to give advocacy, is there to give artistic support, it's also there to be able to support Afro-Swedish colleagues when we come to positions of conflict within other institutions and we have also put together a complete catalog that documents all of the Afro-Swedish artists in Sweden so that arts institutions can get hold of them. These are two of the main strategies that we are dealing with at the moment and each has their pluses and minuses. Thank you, Joseph. You're welcome. Thank you, Lloyd. Thank you. I'll respond to the question by saying what are the effects of colonization in Zimbabwe theater? The effects that we have seen or witnessed in Zimbabwe was that when our colonizers or the masters we're putting up everything when they were in our countries they did what they called colonial theaters and then open spaces for people like us to go and entertain ourselves. So after independence, we got our independence in 1980 in Zimbabwe, these structures to remain the same. The white folks, what you call the people of color in America, it's actually the opposite in Zimbabwe because I started to implement these strategies. I think the white community has been driven away from Zimbabwe and then they are becoming the people of color because the black guys dominate a lot but the effects are still that there's two on those spaces and we're still in those open halls. Like one of them, if I'm going to do a theater we don't even have lights, six lights. I was at the show last time, two weeks ago. There were not six lights, I mean these six lights for the theater and they're saying it's a professional theater venue. So we see some of the effects and then the strategies that we started to implement is ITI to see how best can we voice the black voice as much as we are the majority, how can we then voice and take our space is through training now because even if the Nang government organization, civic organizations, the corporate, most of them are being headed by white people. So even if you go there with the brilliant proposer or stuff like that, they need to see a white face or a white name. If over the production that you want to do it's better be a white colleague who submitted that to get the funding. But I mean in 2011, I mean Merchantman from Delatte and also the Delatte School, they started offering Zimbabwe's one year training scholarship to every year to one deserving Zimbabwe to go and study in the US and then go back and implement whatever that they're going. So we saw that is an opportunity to start building ourselves and to be able to speak for ourselves and forget about those, let me say white minorities Zimbabwe who are not opening up their spaces for us to utilize. No, we're doing our art for art's sake. We need to tell our stories that people dying of starvation. I mean, you're talking of migration. A lot of Zimbabwe's might not hear them but they are migrating to South Africa. People are being killed, people are being grabbed. People are going to the UK but I'm saying some of the strategies that we're implementing also is ITI is trying to train as large young people that we can and then also grab spaces that we can then build and share our stories. So yeah, that's what I can say for now. Thank you, Lloyd. Hello. Well, okay. I don't know if it was great or bad or country always has governments who has centralism in the last 80 years and that make that all the African Colombian people lives in isolation. Yep. But after the Obama's election as a president, my country tries to copy everything and in the last maybe eight years, 10 years, all the African Colombian people are fashion. So we are fashion now. What does mean? Now we have festivals, music festivals and arts festivals based in the African Colombian culture but that's great. The idea that we are just good for dance and sing and no more. And that's not good always because, okay, at the same time, my country signs some commercial trades for the Asian countries and now we need a great place in the Pacific coast to work. This place is when I went to where I live and the country discovered this place and knows that we have gold, coltan, oil and also people, a lot of people, African Colombian people. And now we are trying to show them, to show to everybody that we can do many things than sing and dance. I work in the first one, a professional school for the Pacific coast. This is important, I think, because we're gonna try to show to ourselves is the first one, the strategy. Try to tell ourselves that we can do many things, different things and good things. That's fair. I have other ideas. But the first one is change the mind or minds because when I have a student that comes, sometimes they don't believe that they could go until they finish or their students and get a diploma. All the time we are talking about the importance that they have to study to change their environment. They understand, I have two or three stories later gonna tell you about how our students are changing their neighbors, are changing their lives, changing their families. And that's very, very important to this space. Thank you very well. And Nikkei, our colleague who's joining us via Skype. We'll come back. Nikkei. Yeah, I think in England it's kind of interesting because I said it early when we sort of had our prep session that the Black West use of voices becoming quite strong. I mean, while I think there's a real effort on a number of organizations parts, organizations like the Arts Council and British Council and film council is a number of organizations that are responsible for distributing funds that are really keen to sort of see these shifts. And I think it's sort of being supported by law. We've got a single equality act that really means that if you're a public body in receipt of public funds, you have to demonstrate that you're diverse. You're looking at diversity and equality in terms of the work that you're doing, in terms of the audiences and who you work with. And, you know, it really sort of came into fruition in 2010 and I think people are still getting ahead around what does that really mean on the ground. But I really feel very confident that there's a will and there's a real desire by a number of people to kind of roll the sleeves up and get things going. And I'm not saying by any stretch that it's perfect. I mean, I see the challenges on a daily basis. And I think that having those sort of initiatives in those sorts of legal duties in place really allows for people to kind of be bold and take more risks. I think the issue that we've often had along diverse work is people don't like to take risks. They see it as risky, they don't understand it. There seems to be a singular narrative of what black is. I mean, I lived in America. I lived in New York for about 12 years. And I grew tired of trying to explain to people that Africa is a continent and I'm West African and actually it's very different to, you know, a Southern African aesthetic or mentality or culture. You know, even within Nigeria itself there's a number of cultures and identities within those cultures. And, you know, I remember hearing George Bush saying Africa is a very poor country and somebody came to them and said it's a continent and you see, you know, whatever it is, it's really poor. And I said, well, actually, we're really not. But I think there's a singular narrative about Africa. There's this whole narrative about it's poor, that things that are coming out of Africa aren't valued in the same way. They're not given the same sort of like meeting place or the starting point. People always say it is less fun. And I think all of this needs to be looked at. And, Julius, you put upon it when you talked about the schools and about looking about how one needs to start including. But I think it really goes back to schools. What are the young people looking at in school? I mean, when I was at the arts council, I remember a number of people who were working in education and said, all you seem to get going to school that are African drummers and African dancers, is there anything else? And I said, well, of course there is. But they didn't really know how to find it. They didn't really know how to package it to teachers. So I think there's a starting point even from the schools. And then when you go up to the universities, it's like, who decides on what in that canon? Who decides on who are the masters that they're studying in terms of what is great theatre? And who decides on the framing of theatre? Because the framing of theatre by Western standard is very different from how we would train theatre in Africa. A lot of our theatre can happen outdoors and they wouldn't have the same rules around what makes theatre, theatre. And it's not often acknowledged because people would just say it's community or they wouldn't really try to understand the context in which the work was made. So I think, for me, I think people need to travel more. I think they need to see work outside of seeing everything in America or in Europe. They need to go to different countries and experience festivals and theatre and the art making and working more with people on the ground. And it will start to dispel some of the myths and even insecurities about working with people who are different. And this is part of why I felt quite passionate about setting up the pan-African performing arts market on the continent. Because I kind of wanted to dispel people's myths about what they think of Africa. Because everyone in their head has this idea of what Africa is. I mean, one time when I was living in the States, some of my friends said they wanted to follow me one year to Nigeria and I sort of said, yeah, I arranged it all with my family over there. And then my boss at the time said to me, they've got a question to ask you and they're not really sure how to ask you. And he said, but I have to be there for this. And they said to me, how will we get from the airport? And I said, what do you mean? They said, are there cars and buses? And I said, oh my goodness, no. Of course there's cars and buses and they thought it was all sort of tell-down, basically. And these are people that I felt were quite, you know, wealthy and, you know, open-minded. But there is this kind of mystery around Africa that needs to be smashed a bit. Because what I'm finding now, working on this African festival is, a lot of the sort of Africans that were raised in Africa, they didn't recognise themselves in some of the African narratives that are out there. So that caused a little bit of a splinter, if you like, because they're like, well, that's not really talking to me and I can't relate to that. So I think really thinking about the multiple narratives and how we shift what is currently being said. And I agree with a part of them who said it, that we need to have it said in our own words. I think Joseph, you said, we need to have sort of how our narratives, for us to get our stories out there in the way that we need the stories to be heard. Yeah, I think that's an excellent point that you're making, Nikkei, about self-perception and changing not just the perception of us by others, but of us by us is an absolutely essential ingredient. And Joseph, if you would please talk a little bit about your production. Yeah, oh yes. Now, it's interesting. No, yeah, I'll talk about a production. Can I do the test? Can I do the question in the arms in the air test? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, how many of you here have heard of a production a raisin in the sun? Right, in 2016, Sweden did its first production of a raisin in the sun. Let it sink in. Now, all credit to you. Again, my CEO is up there. It was Riksdjartan together with the other three theatres that did that production. And what's very important about it is, apart from the door that Lorraine Hansberry gives us to all her counterparts, her histories, it is for myself as a black British woman, having seen the play so many times to have been in a room full of Afro-Swedish actors, because I think this is also about legacy. It is about the role model. It is about what's being taught in schools so that these plays, this play, this seminal piece of work, whether you love it or hate it, this seminal piece of work was not taught. In some instances, and you know, I have to say this very carefully, some of the actors in the company have not heard of her. The journey, I can't begin to describe the journey of loss, of joy, of celebration that happened when that production took place. And all of you out there know what it's like the first time you see that work and it speaks directly to you. But this wasn't just on that level. The audiences sold out. 48 performances across Sweden and Finland sold out, gone, dust, toast, reviewed. I mean, we were fried. It was amazing. I mean, fried in a good way. Not fried in a good way. They were like, oh, after that big speech, you were all fried, no. No, it was absolutely extraordinary. But I think for me, the other thing is about legacy and education investment, because those actors had to understand on different levels at that time that they were Afro-Swedish. They will never be Cinderella. They will never be Pippi Longstocking. They will never do that. And that is not negative. But the day you realize that is a bubble that comes in, it's something that shifted in the room. I was not experienced enough to be able to lead it. All I could do as a director is walk with them on that journey. Do you understand what I mean? Because I could not relate to it. I'd seen the play. I knew of Lorraine. I knew of James Ball. I knew of these things. But something deeper, I think, was also the resonance of the play itself, not just to our audiences, because it's about our audiences, but also those Afro-Swedish actors. Of course, there is a white role there as well for those who may not know, but for the white actor in that piece to be in a room for the first time with all Afro-Swedish actors, for actors to come into the makeup room, and I know this is really cheap, but coming to the makeup room and normally what is, you know, you're doing some play and someone goes, oh, so what are we gonna do with your hair? You know, oh, would you like these tights? And so, you know, wrong color, to all these things that were happening. And for the first time, our makeup department that asked a rather dubious question, which I won't say now, but she understood very quickly that I would have to do something different. So she went out and brought in an Afro-Swedish makeup group that taught her how to do black makeup. Now, some people would say, well, yeah, she had to bring her in and she wasn't employed in the building, but she made that first step of realization that I am now out, this is not my territory. The second thing maybe was watching actors come into themself and know that every line they spoke, every look they gave, every gesture of love and triumph and joy was for them. They didn't have to, it wasn't Juliet. It wasn't head of garbler, where somehow you had to fit yourself into some kind of corset, whatever that corset was. I could just speak and be. I could just speak and be and it would resonate way, way beyond. So this was also a Raisin in the Sun, or as we say in Swedish, in Druven i Sulen, and it was done and spoken in Swedish. I cannot even begin to thank and celebrate what happened in that room, but it was also quite difficult to. Yeah, the idea that in 2016 there are black people who have never seen or heard of Raisin still boggles my mind. But that is the question that we're being faced with right now, and it goes back to what Manuel was saying about training and the next generation of artists and having, I think, Nikkei, you worked on a project as well, archiving lots of the African, Africans of the diaspora canon. So our work is there and available for the future generations. It's so important to you. I mean, it's interesting is you just think, well, what else have young actors or theatre makers not heard about? Because if you have not archived it, then it doesn't really exist. And I've mentioned in our sort of prep meeting that we're at the Arts Council in collaboration with Kwame Kweyama, with the National Theatre, had sort of did a call and said, how many pieces that have been produced, plays that have been produced from the stage around then, we thought maybe 50, over 315 still counting, that have been produced since the 1930s in Britain. So you think, well, what's happening in Africa, what's happening in the Caribbean, what's happening in South America, what's happening in the Americas, in terms of how are people accessing our work and how are they able to go and curiously have a nose around? I mean, the lecturers don't have access to it, the students don't have access to it, the critics who are just as important to this conversation also don't have access to it. So that they also then learn how to critique the work outside of a European lens? I don't think they've started that. I think it's something that I'm quite passionate about. I don't think they've started, I think they're aware of it because people are starting to re-look at theatre through different lenses. And I don't know if she's in the audience, but there's a lady from the UK called Dawn Walton and she started a really interesting writing initiative where she's getting writers to rewrite the narratives around what they see as black in theatre. And I'm just really quite excited about what this will look like because she's got a really interesting bank of people working on this. And, you know, those are the sorts of visions and projects and initiatives that need to come up. They need to be linked to lots of things, there needs to be lots of things going on. And I think we as a world need to support each other because you might find that someone in America is particularly good at a particular genre, but you might find someone in South Africa is good at another genre. And in terms of helping develop the critique, it's really important. And it's important to have these conversations about the art itself because we don't do enough of this in the performing arts. Visual arts, we can talk for days about their work. When you get an opportunity to really debate the work without thinking, oh, I can't really say anything about that theatre maker because he's my maker. I don't want to mess up what's going on between us. I saw a play recently. I didn't think it was particularly good. And everybody didn't dare to say, really, say it out that it wasn't particularly good because he's a really famous playwright. You don't want to upset him, but there should be a space to critique the performing arts and theatre a lot more in the way that visual arts have really rigorous critique and they really dig into it. We don't do that as much in the performing arts. Thank you. So I want to make sure that we leave time for questions from the audience, for the panelists. And yes, Manuel. Melastina, I have been thinking about real strategy to work together. Because I think the diversity is not only inclusion, must be action. Well, we can talk to Jojo, and Derek, and Teresa. But if we have, if we can have a line, special line, the name is African Diaspora Theatre. And we can make special meetings each year like this. When we talk about the voice, the body, the conception of the theatre, the image, the history from our experience and not only us, because I will translate plays from the Caribbean playwrights, but I would like to translate one of your plays or one of your plays and keep in touch with other African communities around the world, around the diaspora. Yeah, so we create a pan-African community. I love it. Okay, so I want to make sure we have time for questions. So there are mics floating around, raise your hand. And if you would please just say your name so that we can honor you with your name, the way that you're honoring us. I believe names are honor, so down here. The question down here in the front. Thank you. Excuse me, thank you. My name's Gary English. I'm really curious about the experience of the Swedish African actors in Raising in the Sun. From the perspective of the journey you referred to for them. Because the panel is dealing with issues both of diaspora and in the reality of post-colonial situation. I suspect those are very different. But I'm very interested in whether or not you think there is a theater developing about the psychological transformation of people coming out of the post-colonial or diaspora limitations. In other words, is there a play about the actors' experience in Raising in the Sun? No, but there should be. No, I mean, you're absolutely right. I think the experience of a Raising in the Sun was an example, let me be very clear. There is talent and there is history within Sweden. We are producing, even at theater high schools, actors of diverse background, absolutely from both Afro-Swedish and other minorities. But they're coming into theaters, they're coming into institutions and the plays are not there. Yes, the journey we had, for example, the possibility of doing the making of Raising in the Sun. And I chose not to do it because that would be the first time those actors go through that. And that is not for the film. That is for them to carry themselves and then to have control and ownership over that. I think the bigger question for us now is what we do next. So, it's true. And the biggest question, really, which is where I agree with Manuel, would be really to bring together others because what we discovered was that there is a huge desire to meet others. I spoke very briefly to Sonja about this, that for one or two of the actors, it was like coming out. It was understanding, not just the Cinderella complex, but actually who I am and what I gain from that. And what they are doing now is disseminating their journey to others. So, in that sense, no, there isn't a play, but there is definitely ongoing storytelling now that is ricocheting, even as we speak, again and again, more and more. And some of the strategies is how we hold that. We're now discussing the radio play of Raising in the Sun, but recontextualized in support with the Hainsbury House to revisit it through Travis's eyes. So we go backwards and forwards. The next thing then is to produce the book of it as well, which contextualizes the whole thing. So it's not just a desktop, you know, oh, this was nice, but any student, et cetera, can open that book and understand how it was made, et cetera. So I thank you for the question. It should have been, but it's in them. And maybe that's the best book of all. That's the best play is them, and them going out and saying, you know what I did. Do you know what I did, where I was, and who I did it for? But you never know what else happens afterwards. And other plays, the other things. Others, there are other stories waiting. Other questions? We have one center aisle here. Okay, sorry. I just, I'm so moved in so many ways by this conversation and the absence of it and the importance of it. I'm curious about a couple of things. The first one is, I think Nikke, your comment about the importance of archiving. If it's not archived, it doesn't exist. And I know at work in communities, a lot of communities where there's not a lot of resources, but there is the insight to archive that story. What I'm curious about is what the networks are that are in place to sort of house those archives and how they become a network for exchange. And so I'm wondering about the strategies of taking those basement archives. Like my husband has huge archives of grassroots pieces that have happened for over 12 years, but they've been sitting in the basement. And I see other individuals, usually folks that are already kind of connected to universities have their archives in the universities. I'm just curious about where do you archive? How do you keep them sacred? And then that trickles into my second part of the question, which is, how do we, I'm curious what the panel thinks about continuing this type of dialogue in a pan-African setting? Because what happens when you continue the dialogue, but then it's not in those pan-African spaces? And what is, what is, what the impact of that in terms of taking it out of that sacred ritual space? And I know who you are, but just tell everyone else who you are. My name is Shea Cage. Thank you. All right, Nicky respond. Nicky? I think that's a really good question around the archives. When we worked on the project, we worked with the BNA Theater Department, we worked with the National Archives, we also worked with the National Theatre, and we also worked with individuals to understand how to archive, how to sort of leverage around your own families, attics, and all sorts of questions that one needs to ask. And what was really interesting, and on parallel, there was somebody in the United States that was doing a similar archive around photography that was coming from the African diaspora. So he was sort of going around the States and asking people to contribute photographs around a particular moment in time. And it was interesting because he also was on this journey of archive. I think the National Theatre did something recently with Asian artists to do a similar archive of their work, theatre work. I think it's a big question. I think it's about speaking to starting with the low-hanging group, the universities, the community spaces, but really ensuring that they understand how to ensure the archive isn't just sitting in the box somewhere, it gets used. You want people to use, you want people to respond to it. And I think even going in to speak to heritage and funders and different organizations that can help you pull together a network. But I think this is a really big conversation that as part of growing this conversation, we should be having. We should be thinking about, well, actually, how do we make sure that these archives are all linked to each other and we can support each other to find homes for these archives? Even if that home is a digital home, yeah? Sorry? If that home is also a digital home so that it can be accessed. And what's really interesting, and I was doing some work in the Gambia, West Africa, and I kind of did some research with them to see who's funding them. 80% of their work, their funds were coming in and it was around sort of like organizations like the British Library archiving their stuff and holding the archive. And I said to them, you can't have them holding your archive. You need to have some kind of control over it. But they said, well, we don't have the funds they're paying for the archive and they're housing it. And I said, well, we all know what happens. You know, no disrespect, but we know what happens with the British Museum in terms of when they hold the archive and then it becomes part of their archive and not ours. And so it's really important that the spaces that they're holding it up are safe spaces for that archive to be carefully investigated and managed. No, there are also within every country, I'm sure, some kind of archiving network. We also have, which I think is an important part, is the digitalization of what's happening. Even these discussions will be sent out live, beamed out, et cetera, et cetera. I think that one of, ironically, maybe one of my gut reactions is don't go to a theater first. Go to the museums, go to the archive galleries, go to the places that also work digitally because I think that digital space is also much, much more accessible. It's financially much more accessible. It's also much more accessible in terms of the global market. So I would certainly suggest that you looked digitally at how to do that. There's also the talent and the knowledge out there with much simpler systems of archiving, and it means so many more people can get access to it and it can remain sacred and it can remain in control as much as is possible. That would be my thing. I hold on with Nike as well. I mean, it's a much, much bigger conversation because it is about ownership, too. What happens to it? And it would be digitally obviously much more expansive in terms of what the content would be as well. Are there questions there? Yes. Thank you. Right down here. The last conversation actually triggered something else and I work for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Victoria. Thank you. And I work for the National Endowment for the Humanities. So the questions of preservation and archives are very important to me and I think the importance of maintaining, even if digitally, a platform and expanding access to archives also demands knowing how to make sure that the preservation processes migrate as the technology changes so that you don't lose the ability to read the information that you've kept and that's a huge question. Yes. But I had another question about ownership that had, and it's for anyone on the panel. How much do you think that ownership is tied to physical places and performance in those more permanent or ephemeral, but is that sort of anchoring in a physical place crucial to the kind of inclusivity and ownership that you all are trying to achieve? Yeah, well, okay. What are you doing? Right, sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Rikshtjartan, which is the national touring theater of Sweden, doesn't have a home. We talk constantly. We get rather a lot of state money and we are never in one place. So we are constantly looking to reevaluate what the space means. What's the concept? The idea, what is the raison d'et, really, in the stories that are happening? Personally speaking, I think that we are all feeling that the house is not necessarily the best space anymore. We are having to recontextualize our work. We're having to expand it out. Cinemas are becoming theaters. Streets are becoming education sites. People are no longer coming to these buildings as churches anymore or creativity. They are going elsewhere. So I think in that sense, one of our greatest challenges that we kind of meet at the Rikshtjartan because we have to tour 360 degrees of the... Yeah, 660 degrees. Oh, all over. You know what I'm talking about. Means that we have to reanalyze the space. And the space is a political arena. Let's not pretend it is a power. It's a position. It's a map. It's a power position. I have a house. I have money. And the money is put into that house. I charge tickets. I charge people. People have to come in. And I say this with full open heart. I sit in a theater myself. But I don't think we need them all the time. I'm sorry, because if it's a real thing about changing humanity, then it is not in a house. It never was. We need them. We need them. Don't get me wrong. But for me, it's got to be more than that. Otherwise, what was the point? If it's just this building, what was the point? Manuel. Sometimes when the people ask me what I do, I say, I work in a contradiction because I work in a city, in a theater program on a university, but the city hasn't theaters as a place. Yep. But always, we found a place where we can do something. But the better is always the people come to see us. This is the most important. When we finish each show, we think about the idea that was important, the idea for meeting, the idea to discussion or to stay together, to see something, to think about the life that's important always. When I went to Rai, I learned that we don't need a space physical. We need an idea. But I don't know, maybe because I'm coming from Africa, Africa, and other people are talking about being descendants of Africa, living some way. I mean, if you can figure what I'm saying. People are saying, oh, we are in a European country, but we are of African, but I'm like, I'm from Africa. I'm you. To say, we need to run away from these spaces, but we're saying we need those spaces. You get it. Why do I say so? I mean, we're going to have a conversation again with Gidion's play to say, we had instruments put in place by the government. We then doesn't allow you to speak freely outside those theater spaces. So like, Posa and iPods and censorship act. So if you then go ahead and say, oh, we don't need this space, it is OK. Import them to some government. We'll choose them because I think we speak freely and we think we own most of our staff or our rights or we can do whatever that we want in those spaces. I mean, just a point that I thought I'd need to share with you. You might say, oh, we need ideas. Yes, we have ideas. But if you go out there in the street, the police and the soldiers will come and beat the hell out of you. Yeah. No, it's an excellent point that you're making because it speaks to the idea that there's not one answer for everything because black isn't monolithic. So there's not one answer that's going to fix every single problem. That's the way we are. Exactly. If you come, I'll invite you to Zimbabwe. Come. I'll bring my house with me. Go ahead, just one more thing. No, no, it's just the question the lady brought up as well was, you know, it's also under the title, we have exiled migration and belonging. You know, where the house is, you're absolutely right and where it isn't, where it's needed and what have those houses become? So I think absolutely it's connected somehow. So I do want to add, I do want to add, I absolutely love the Rick's Theatre model. I just think it's smart. I think in terms of my approach, I'm very interested in taking that approach to the African Festival I'm doing. And in terms of what we're trying to shift on the continent, I think it's something to explore. I hear you, I hear you, Lloyd, about what you said about the spaces because I hear it from a number of African theatre and festival producers. They've talked about wanting that space. But I think in terms of like Nigeria, we have maybe one or two national theatre spaces and for us to sort of wait for that building to happen, we're not going to be getting the great plays and the great productions and really interesting, innovative approach to theatre making that you're seeing coming out of like Lagos in particular right now. And it's because they haven't got these spaces and they're really recognizing that it can be anywhere. And I really like the approach. I love the fact that you have to constantly reevaluate because I think sometimes with Africa, we look to sort of people who colonize us and say, well, we want it like that, but actually sometimes we, because we're still in that space of development, we can sort of jump ahead and avoid some of the mistakes that have been made and just take different approaches that are really working and that are driving new ideas and new ways of making work. And I just remember when a friend of mine went to, he went to the Congo and it's just after the sort of, it calmed down after the war and he was saying, he felt ashamed because all his cousins, the people in the market, everybody had a mobile phone and he never had a mobile phone but he was a freelancer working in New Jersey and people could never get hold of him until he got, he checked his answer machine and he said, you know, I'm going to Africa thinking that I'm going to be doing them a favor and they were teaching me a hell of a lot of things. And I think the things that we do in Africa that make us really innovative in our approach just because out of necessity comes invention and this is why I really like this rickstating approach. I think it's really interesting in terms of audiences, in terms of the perception of spaces and people feeling like they don't belong to certain spaces because, you know, this is not for people that look and behave like me. I think it's really interesting that a number of the big institutions across the UK are taking satellite spaces in different communities in order to get the work out and bring in the audiences because they know the audiences won't go to those big spaces. So I think this, I would love to hear us explore it more in terms of the way we make work within the African diaspora and how this can really fit into something bigger. You know, we've got the archives, we've got the critics, we've got the spaces. These are all really important to making work. Yeah, yeah. And so obviously we could go on and on and on with this conversation, but I want to encourage everyone, our panelists, with the exception of Nikke, we miss your spirit here, Nikke. We'll be available. Just tell me it's raining and I'll feel better. Okay. We'll be available afterwards and throughout the conference, so I encourage you to come up to them and continue the conversation on your own. So thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Good job. Nothing, nothing. We scared them. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Beautiful. And the translator. Yes, Olga. Olga. Olga. Olga. Olga. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. It's great.