 Hello everyone and welcome back or welcome if you are just joining us on HowlRound, my name is Andrea Assaf. I am the Artistic Director of Art to Action and proud to co-present the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation with Pangea World Theatre and so excited to be live streaming this incredible conversation we're about to have on HowlRound. If you are just joining us, we have just had a wonderful, amazing actually workshop and master class with Diane Roberts and it is my pleasure and honor to get to facilitate a conversation with Diane about her work and practice. I don't know if we have any opening slides to share with Diane's bio, but we can also drop that information in the chat if you're online. And I am just so excited to welcome Diane. Hello Diane, how are you feeling after your workshop? I feel pretty good actually. It was so lovely to spend time with folks in this work. I always discover. It was a beautiful process and I got to facilitate one of the small group conversations and we had a really deep and personal and meaningful conversation coming out of the process that you led us through. If you are not familiar, if you're watching on HowlRound and you're not familiar with Diane's work, we're going to give you a tiny little taste of it. A tiny, tiny taste by showing you a clip of Diane facilitating a workshop at the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation pre-COVID, of course, back in the summer of 2019. And if we can pull up the video and get that ready when I see it pop up, we'll just play you a little clip. But Diane Roberts has created a process and a project called Arrivals Legacy, which we'll be talking about today. And we will show the clip as soon as I get a word that it's ready. Let's see. If not, we'll just start the conversation and then we can. Oh, here it comes. Oh, great. Thank you, Kayla. So we're going to just jump ahead. Just jump ahead to the section with Diane leading. You can pause and act me for the rest of my life. We're going to skip through. Here we go. To be confirmed. To keep. You're seeing just the doors and windows. Quick images. Just the humanity in the room is going to change my bravery. There was a moment where I looked around the circle and I felt like I loved every single person in the circle and was learning from every single person in the circle. And that coupled with the fact that we are also different and we're from different cultures, different theater practices, different parts of the world felt very, very, very special to me. Okay, thank you so much for that clip so you can see it was just a tiny, tiny bit to wet your whistle and if you were in the masterclass that we just did in this digital space you got to experience it in these little boxes. As you were saying these little square frames to the extent that we can but it's so powerful when you're in the room. And so what we're doing is moving and singing together and exchanging and talking about our relationship to ancestors so Dan, I'd like to invite you to tell us a little bit about how did you come to this work how did you find the rivals legacy project and, you know, what, what, what brought you to it what was your process of creating it. Yeah, it started actually in 2003 in Montreal. I had been invited to be an artist in residence at Concordia University. And part of my, my job there was to teach the intro to acting class. And at the time I was, I knew that the program was quite diverse. Everybody who wanted to do theater in whatever form needed to take this class. So there were designers, etc, who were not in not used to performing. So I thought, well, what, what would I, what kind of an exercise could I offer people that I might have wanted to do when I was in theater school. And, and so I invited them to research their ancestor two or three generations away, and to embody a compelling moment in their ancestors life. And I thought, oh, this is just a three unit exercise that will teach them about character development, because they were, they were meant to do a deep research into this character, their ancestor, and to present them without speaking. So I asked for a compelling moment. And they could say up to three words and they could have three objects in the space. And this was an exercise about presence. How do you tell a story without the blah blah blah. So it just became a really profound exercise for the students they found that the ancestor they chose was an ancestor that they really needed in that moment. The research that they were doing through conversations with family members and also delving into archival materials was just like mind blowing for them that they could actually personalize a historic moment. And that their ancestor was part of this historic moment. And for students of color, or indigenous students who were going through the program. It really gave them a place to land their feet. And this was something that was really important to me. I found that artists of color, indigenous artists that would come out of theater schools, theater training programs would be very well trained would be able to. Stand well and deliver their monologues with truth and depth, but they worked in their own bodies. So I would often in my rehearsal or in my audition rooms I would often take them through some exercises to get them to stand in their own feet and to imagine that character in their own bodies. So, so that that training that I did in in the university theater program, I took to another another program which was cultural production workshop so I started working with artists who were more advanced in their craft. And, and then started delving more deeply into what this process really was. And that was about 18 years ago. Wow. So this is a long history of work 18 years. Yeah, when I took over the company, Urban Inc Productions in Vancouver, I started working with indigenous artists and racialized artists from across the country, researching this process and trying to figure out how we can source stories from our ancestors in a in a responsible and also deep and generative way. So, there's so much in what you've said already one of the things that you mentioned actually came up as part of our conversation in our breakout group, which was that you asked people to work with an ancestor, two or three generations away. And we thought that was interesting because clearly perhaps we're too close to our parents, or the recent memory of dealing with our parents and all of the love and challenges and perhaps loss of that. And so I'm curious about like how did you, how did you come to decide at least two or three generations in the past. Yeah, I think I mean that's the beginning place because people choose and at the right ancestor whether they're two or three generations away or not. But the idea was that they were distant enough that the person may not have known them. And they also could tap into a historic moment that people are not necessarily familiar with or haven't lived. So there was something about the seeking. There's something about time in that seeking, but I myself when I did the process for myself. I worked with my grandfather because my grandfather wasn't married to my grandmother when my father was born, and he died when my father was to so my father was to him. So for me the unknown that like my lineage stops at my grandfather and try to find more about him has been a journey. But it took me to the knowledge of my Garifuna history and heritage, which is I went to talk more about that but I also how do you work with the unknown how do you work like for those of us who are, you know, part of a diasporic community that is perhaps where there's loss of knowledge of where are people come from or how they got here or when. How do you, how do you approach the unknown in this work. I think we embrace it. We step into the unknown so people often say, Oh, I don't know enough about this ancestor. And I say, mm hmm. Okay. And I try to encourage people to go with what they don't know, instead of what they do know that the knowing is really useful like to having the knowledge and being able to source that knowledge is really useful but sometimes it can be a block to other deeper archives that are not accessible really through the more traditional ways of seeking knowledge like researching in the book or going to a library or going to an archive. And we know that for our peoples, the archive is a really binding place. We're interpreting those archives as well and and looking in the sort of hidden places where the stories might come out. Those that can be really challenging process but but I think the process is about our body knowledge and the memories that live in our bodies and trusting that wisdom that has been handed down through the generations. The way that science is now finally caught up with indigenous knowledge, you know, with epigenetics they're now saying, as if they've discovered it. Oh, yeah, you, you carry the genes and memories of your ancestors, but those stories have been in our cultures forever, you know how we pass on knowledge is is not just through the blah blah blah but it's how we carry in the gestures we have and that's I think what was has been so exciting about this process is is revealing and uncovering that fact that we can access the unknown things like my grandfather I I I could I could go into deep depression and say I can never connect I will never connect to who he actually was or I can go inside and say, Well, who he actually was is also in me. I wonder in what parts of my body or what parts of my being still carrying that that epigenetic knowledge, I guess, that's incredibly helpful way as I think artists to give ourselves permission. to go to go there and to search in that way you were starting to talk about your, your heritage as a Garifuna person and for folks who maybe don't know a lot about Garifuna culture and people, can you tell us a little bit about them. The Garifuna peoples were born in St. Vincent, and there's different origin stories that that cycle about how they were, they came to be there in indigenous peoples, part Arawak and part African. And so, one of the stories is Malian traders coming down the Gulf Stream met with indigenous folks and there was trade and and exchange and people made families and and such and so they were called the black caribs by the British. And so, and then, of course, there's the slave ships that started to come. And then was marooned on the island so that the moon story is also a part of the mythology that is the origin story of the Garifuna but nonetheless they were differentiated from the red or yellow caribs by British called the black caribs and and they were exiled. At the end of the 18th century because they were a warrior peoples, and they were a threat to the colonial regime. So they were exiled, most of them died off before they were. They were exiled just off the coast of St. Vincent and an island called Baliso, and then most of them died off because there was nothing on the island. No fresh water. And but those that survived were dumped in a row attending Honduras first and then they spread through the diaspora so they're mostly in Central America. But there's still communities that of people who stayed and went underground so there's a cultural reclamation happening right now in the Garifuna communities and traditions in the diaspora and home it's in St. Vincent. I actually met a Garifuna community in Belize in Belize. When traveling there some years ago. So yeah, there are there are communities spread around Central America. Thank you for that history that's that's really important for us to know, especially the way that you know, racism, racism and colonial systems of racial identification or segregation really, you know, create these histories of diaspora. So in so many ways, in addition to the slave trade itself then in so many ways throughout the Americas. So here's a topic I want to raise that you and I have had conversations about before. Because I often at you know at the Institute, you're one of the artists who is really strongly rooted in this practice of calling upon ancestors and connecting with ancestors to create your work to devise new work contemporary work. There are other artists who in in various ways artists of color in different communities and traditions that are doing that ancestor work. And I'm a person who finds that work, particularly difficult for a number of reasons. One because I'm, you know, mixed race and heritage and white American on one side of my family and Arab American on another side and Lebanese specifically. And also because I'm queer and lots of communities historically have rejected queer folks and so calling upon my ancestors are connecting with my ancestors for me feels really difficult it feels like it invites these histories of definitely oppression of LGBTQ people and rejection from community but also I don't know what my white ancestors did on this land. And perhaps I'm afraid to know that right or to investigate that so so this is the question what do we do with those difficult ancestors that we are afraid to call into the room or maybe don't want to. How do you work with them. Well, I think you work with who you feel called to work with anyone given time. And, and I think that those difficult stories will come out when you're ready or when, when they're ready as well like there's it's a relationship where where I always speak about forging a relationship with our ancestors. So it's not that we have to take on the whole body of our ancestors now that we're opening these doors but I'm it's interesting I'm working on a project right now called the artist piece. And it's with my collaborator Jerry Trenton. And we've been. We didn't we started the work. It's a piece that's being created with five dancers contemporary dancers and they're also, they all took the ride this legacy workshop and their explorer. They explored their ancestors in different ways. And so, I think your question has sort of prompted or reminded me of a conversation we had yesterday, as we were working together and this idea of the art of peace and peace, like war and peace in our ancestry, and how we how we can reconcile our own sense of self as well with our ancestors who may not have approved of our lifestyle. So how do we call our ancestor into being in relationship with us when they may not have like that we may be at war. Basically in terms of how we choose to live our lives or how we are in the world how we, how we understand ourselves in the world and how they did. And so how do you sort of navigate those those that relationship. And I think the reason why I start with a gesture of joy. I always start with the gesture of joy in the work is that that is the bridging place. It doesn't matter who they are, or were, and who I am, or will be this bridging moment of joy is is inherited and that, and that's a place to start. And then we build on the complications and the layers of our relationship. But what what came up in the conversation was one of the artists was talking about how he felt that his lifestyle would have been judged by his grandmother, but that he in that moment of meeting her felt such an opening, such an opportunity to bridge, you know, to, to, I don't know, there's something, there's something about the melting away of some of those things that we think will be will keep us apart from each other. And the same thing happens in the workshop between people and in our small group that was really beautiful. When somebody talked about one of the participants talked about feeling that all of our ancestors are actually in dialogue with each other that we're all in the room and that she feels that my ancestors for ancestor and etc. You know so there's so there's the potential for reconciliation in a way that I think we can't talk about like we can't And we have to explore we have to embody and Yeah, yeah, that it's yeah that we have to embody and explore exactly and it's moment to moment like it's not okay reconciliation done we're done we're we've we've figured it out and now we're you know but but it's a process of unraveling oneself and one's own understanding was I guess of what that relationship could be and might be. You mentioned epigenetics and some people might talk about cellular memory, for example. Do you always work with do you always go for that place of memory or do you sometimes allow people to imagine an ancestor, because I appreciate the depth of research that's in your work I think that's really important and that that that personal connection to a historical moment that you were talking about I think is something that I love to see in in artistic work. But then I'm also curious about, do we get to choose our ancestors or do we get to imagine who they might have been and what's the responsibility of representation when we go to that imaginary place. Yeah, that's a really super great question. I mean I, I think it came up in the workshop today, this idea of permission, which comes up a lot in the in the process people think, Oh, I feel a trepidation around not telling or not honoring their ancestor by, you know, imagining these, these, these moments like you imagine them open and you, you put yourself in the shoes of your ancestor and imagine how they might have reacted in this particular moment. And much of it is, is using this imaginary space and, and letting your body as I said in the workshop letting your body open up the possibilities of there is, you know, in a way, and then, and then you do it with such openness and, and not, not, not needing to find the thing, but needing to find the many potential stories that that could exist in and around this person because we often think of oh my ancestor was very angry. She was a very angry woman. And so she did this and this and this and this. And so we think of it as this kind of solid frame of what this person was, but they were angry in this moment, but they were not angry in that moment. So, so there's all these different possibilities that we in our lives live, like I'm not always, you know, one thing. So, I love, I love that idea of the many potential stories. And it reminds me, I don't remember the writer's name right now but there's a TED talk about the danger of the single narrative. Yeah, it's just such a brilliant talk if you haven't watched it and you're out there you should like Google it immediately after this, the danger of the single narrative or single story. And so I love that idea of the how we're breaking that those stereotypes of the single narratives that we're given by the legacy of colonialism. Right. And by exploring what are the many, many potential stories of this lineage this person this ancestor. That's very beautiful. Yeah, we often talk in the process we talk about catching story instead of making a story. So as witnesses like we, we, we, the idea of witnessing others, other journeys, others journeys is really important. So you're exploring your ancestor and I would be your witness, and I'm catching your story by notating what happens, what happens in your embodiment, you lifted your arm, and then I, I, I thought I smelled sulfur. And then this happened and then, and that, you know, so you're using your own as a witness you're using your own bodily sensations to imagine as well what is happening it's not just though you lifted your hand and I, and I didn't know what that was but lifted your hand and I felt a breeze go by and, and then somebody who's who's done the embodiment and say, Oh, that's so weird because I was standing on a ship in that moment and I remember the breeze going by so all these amazing magical things happen. That's so interesting how the witnessing becomes part of the storytelling right and then the story time becomes collective. Yeah, singular that's yeah. Yeah, extraordinary way to build an ensemble experience and process. Yeah, yeah. And that's when those stories, the stories interlock as well. And I always think about different planes happening at the same time so we are in our circle. We're preparing our vessels as I talked about in the workshop, we're preparing ourselves to receive the stories that are available to us but that we don't have the tools yet to catch and understand so we prepare ourselves for that. And we're preparing our ensemble to hold those stories and those spaces with each other. But then, at the same time are the on the insist ancestral plane, the ancestors are meeting each other for the first time, who may never have had the opportunity to meet that particular you know so they're also getting to know them, the themselves, and they're getting to know the descendants. And then there's the ancestors of the land and territory that we're working on that are also witnesses, and they're witnessing, you know what's happening with this so so there's this incredible sort of particularity multiple circles sort of interacting with each other. And as we open our receptors to that reality, then we can start to really get beyond some of the things that divide us in creative processes but also in other processes. Do you think that there's a danger of romanticizing like earlier you talked about war and how do we make peace and, you know, for some of us, war is a quite literal part of our history or our ancestors history. Sometimes our ancestors were in fact at war with each other, quite literally. And so, how, you know, do you think there's a, when we're, when we're seeking to make peace with those histories and the stories and each other in an ensemble. I imagine you probably work with very diverse multiracial multicultural ensembles. Do you. What happens, like, do you think there's a danger of romanticizing the reconciliation or do you do problematic things happen that you then have to stop and talk about, and say, you know, let's, let's have a real conversation about racism, for example. How does that work in the, when you're, when you're working with an ensemble over time. Yeah, there are things that come up and yes there is a danger of romanticizing but there's something about seeking the truth and seeking deeper that that keeps us away from that romantic ideal. One of the, one of the parts of the processes, we, we negotiate protocols. This is a really important part of the workshop where people bring in objects or, or, or, or ceremonial actions or speech or song to protect or to find a way to gather us together as an ensemble but also to protect us from malevolent ancestors or spirits that might enter the room. So everybody in every culture has has these traditional protocols that come into play. And then we as contemporary people have to reconcile or understand our relationship to some of those cultural protocols that we may have inherited but may not necessarily believe or, or adhere to. So there's negotiation that happens there. So I might have something in the space that might be troubling to me that I don't necessarily want to deal with like a religious object or text or whatever, but my ancestor, it was so important to them a rosary or something like that was really important to them. So how do I reconcile my ancestors need to have a rosary as one of the protocols but but my own you know, relationship to that. Yeah, so that has to be worked out and then within the space, how do we negotiate protocols that might be triggering for other people. A really great example is how to hold libation, which is often done with water or, or alcohol in African and African Caribbean cultures in the same space with sage and the smudge. How do we do that. And what what's been really exciting and extraordinary in this process is that, for the most part there has never, there has rarely been a point where we, we have not been able to negotiate the protocols and I'd love to give one specific example. The participants have given me permission to tell this story there was one participant who had her grandmother had come through Ellis Island and she was Jewish had come through Ellis Island. There was a Palestinian participant who was embodying the moment of the Nakhba when, yeah, these, the occupation. And both of them were highly politicized artists so they were trying to negotiate this reality. And there was one point where the one the Palestinian participant wanted to put her grandfather's picture on the altar. And the Jewish participant wanted to put a candle, but the only candle she could find to honor her ancestor said made in Israel on it. So, so there was discussion and of course being Canadian. There was a decision well no it's okay you can do it you can put the candle on. It's all right. I imagine these things go down differently in the US that they did in Canada. And I, and we had to take a moment as a, as a group and say well, is this, is this a solution just to say no it'll be all right, or is there something that we can find if we sit in the discomfort of these two realities. And so what they ended up coming to was to cross out Israel on the candle and say palace and to write Palestine. And that, you know, it seems like a silly gesture because it was still made in Israel slash Palestine but it was, but but these. In that moment. The Palestinian participant said, yeah that actually is okay. That feels okay and the Jewish participant said yeah actually my ancestor would be more than fine about that and there was a moment of real truth. Right in that moment that one could not negotiate outside of that. Like what does it mean to sit in these difficult spaces and try to negotiate what what's right what's what feels right to, to me or to my ancestor, what is honoring of my ancestral line but also the ancestors that are also in the room. It reminds me of, you know, one of the artists that I consider one of my mentors is John O'Neill who passed away some few years ago but you know he one of the things I really learned from him is that people build solidarity when they're doing the work that we don't actually build solidarity, sitting around and talking about it, when we're doing something together and seeking truth and seeking resolution to a problem, seeking to accomplish something, or a goal that we hold together and so that's what this reminds me of is that in the doing in the making and the creating and the exploring and negotiating is where you know path becomes visible. That's right. And so I want to ask. I feel like I'm getting a, even more, you know, I've had the pleasure and honor of experiencing workshops with you. And I'm getting a sense of what a longer ensemble process would be like in the exploring, researching exploring and devising of work. How do you direct this process after you've found these ancestors and found these stories and negotiated protocols and made all this created these worlds right. What's the role of the director and do you do you direct the work yourself do you collaborate with other directors. It sounds like an enormous beautiful messy process. So then what happens. Yeah, it is a messy process and I think it can take what what's interesting is that when people come in. They come, they don't necessarily have a form or an idea that they that they want to explore they just know that they need to explore this particular ancestor. And then, and, and I think that's when it's most successful for people if they don't have these fixed ideas I want to write a play about so and so and so. But, but they're just trying to figure out how to find this deeper creative voice that would allow them to tap into more resonant sources. So that's, that's how that starts. And then when that when they come out the other side of the five day or 50 hour process. They come out with more knowledge about their ancestors and more knowledge about themselves. They come out with fragments of knowledge and potential pieces that could be developed in terms of, you know, pieces in terms of fragments of story or fragments of, or questions many questions. And then through unraveling that and it usually takes quite some time. Heather Hermond was my first partner in the work. And she developed her ancestral subject, who was Esther Brandow, who's a Jewish woman who came to Canada disguised as a Christian boy, and then without it and exiled ultimately. And so she's just finished her dissertation after having worked with me in 2004 or five or whatever. She just finished her dissertation or she lived a couple years ago she finished her dissertation on this ancestral subject so it takes a long time to kind of process through what you want to do with this work but she created an interdisciplinary work called ribcage the slide passage and that process of creation had to unravel itself. She spoke in the word artists, but wanted to work in the medium of theater and video projection but everything that was chosen to be part of this work was chosen because it was needed. It was needed for the telling of this particular aspect of the story. That's kind of how I work as a director is to unravel what what then these story fragments need to what home they need to find in order to find their fullest expression. And yeah, and many people go off and work on the pieces and work with other dramaters to develop the piece. And sometimes I come in to sort of stir up the pot a little bit more. It's a dramatur it's become a dramaturgical process for me and even in my other work the other directing work that I do this process of deep knowing of self becomes part of my process of of engaging with performers and and creators. So I don't know if that answered the question now that it really does is it in it this work seems to it go in so many like it can go in so many directions to reading in dramaturgy to you know ensemble building to creating a staged work that that is directed. You mentioned that you bring this process into your own directing work. Do you ever feel, do you ever feel like, I guess this is my question, do you always feel like you get to fully bring your process to a directing project or do you feel like there's some things you have to say, Okay, I have to direct. I just have to direct this, but this isn't my process and over here I'm going to do my process and then I may or may not direct that or how did how do those things meet our mix or not. I mean, I think the arrival process to me feels like a calling. It's my, it's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. I'm writing my PhD, I'm doing my PhD on what the hell is this process. Congratulations. Thank you. Get a book out of it. I hope we get a whole book. That's that's the work and then my directing hats or my directing work is also a major part like I feel most me when I'm in a studio working with artists and to realize a piece, but all of that bleeds in so it's hard for me to separate out. Of course I can't, you know, they're not going to be sourcing ancestors, etc, etc. If the pieces it's about something, you know, isn't about that kind of thing. I work with hip hop theater right now so I'm, that's what I'm, that's the piece that I'm developing right now but there still is the opportunity to really work with who we are as vessels and to, and to unravel the stories that live inside and when I'm working with the playwright, oh Mary Newton when I'm working with him as a playwright I'm working also on that level of work. So, where is this character sourcing their truth and who is this character in Legba is Papa Legba who's a deity or a tenorisha in the Haitian tradition and European tradition Papa Legba is a character in the play so one has to like one has to grapple with the spiritual age of that. So, and I get attracted to plays that have that dimension that push between planes of existence and people seem to be attracted to, or you know, they want me when they're working on something that and trying to unravel these pieces that talk about spirit and body and you know. And I think also what you're saying is so important for artists of color. I was going to say in the Americas but probably anywhere in the world, given the, the vastness of the damage that colonialism has created globally, like just being able to welcome our full selves and in our bodies in our skin in our stories that you know maybe we're never told publicly in our family histories, just being able to come into the room and work from our bodies and who we are is such a gift and a breath of fresh air. If you've been trained in a, in a theater system that you know centers European or white American stories methodologies processes belief systems etc. So, in that, in that way, I see this like deeply personal and profound work that you're doing has also this incredible political contribution for for artists of color to bring them are full selves to creative work and therefore create new work that hasn't that we haven't seen yet, right, isn't the same work as when we're trying to fit into the boxes that the history of, you know, Western theater has created for us. Yeah, I think we're also always creating form, as well as content, we're trying to create new forms or to source new forms or not new old forms. And that's, I think, why this work came to be in me is I, I was always on this journey, even when I was in my undergrad in theater school, or especially maybe I should say especially. I was looking for well what is my process, you know, I, yeah, yeah, Peter Brooke, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. And I love Peter Brooke, but I get jealous, because he got to go to Nigeria he got to, you know, he got to play. And Grotowski got to play with African and Haitian songs and you know it's just. And so I. Yeah, I think we were regaining our traditions are root cultural traditions this is what I say in the process it's part of the process is to, to get in touch with that what are we cultural traditions that can take us into other ways of working that are not the sort of form against. Yeah and when I love about what you're saying is that it's, you know, kind of breaking this false dichotomy of traditional versus contemporary, you know the quote unquote traditional is very contemporary and it's always evolving and it's always being changed by the next generation of practitioners and artists and just because we are trying to source stories or materials or practices or aesthetics from from a history that you know has been often suppressed or not told. And that is feeding contemporary work and it's funny how it's like legitimized when it's, you know, by a white European artist or white American artists, and it's often not supported to the same extent when artists of color doing that very same experimental work. Right of looking at our histories and cultures and and creating contemporary work with it. I know just a few oh we're at time I'm getting the message I could talk to you all day Diane. I am so grateful to you for spending this time with us and offering your process even in this very tricky and challenging digital space, and having this conversation which just makes me want to know more about what you're doing next and how to learn from you in the future so can you tell folks before we sign off just a little bit about how do we find what you're up to next and stay connected with your work as it evolves. I'm actually just going to be launching a website probably in the next month or so called it's Diane Roberts dot me. I just think that's so fun. But I also have the arrivals legacy project website. That's that's up and you can reach me through that info at arrives legacy.com. And yeah, I wish that there was time to show a video of the project that I'm working on right now but maybe I'll leave it in the chat to her. Yeah, black and blue matters is a really important piece that is being done in Montreal and Ottawa, and that'll go up with black theater workshop next. Next year, and in spring. Send it to us we can put it in the chat to okay it's yeah. Yeah, we will post it I'm sure how around can post it on the website with the interview and we can share it out through our to action and Pangea channels as well we would love to see that important work and hope I hope to have the opportunity post pandemic to be in the room with you again, and creative process again at the National Institute for directing and ensemble creation when we are able to convene again which I know will be soon thank you so much Diane. Much love to you and many thanks to Lopa for co facilitating today. It was a joy. Thank you so much. Thank you always enjoy the talk to you thanks to how around, and I think we might have a couple of closing slides, yes. We hope you will join us next time for on May 15 as part of our monthly series Dora Arreola will do the next master class, and we hope you'll tune in or join us register for that. I want to thank our funders and of course Pangea and how around as well for hosting and live streaming this incredible conversation with Diane Roberts and also the master class that preceded it. So, look to how around for videos if you didn't catch all of it, you can tune in later. And thank you so much for joining us. See you next time may 15. Bye Diane. Bye thanks Andrea beautiful interview. Thank you.