 Osium, ah, on women innovators in the arts. Just let me provide a little context again, especially for those of you that weren't here this morning. Too often, those who refer to themselves as cultural warriors or workers do not openly admit that the performing arts are fields fraught with the same gender discrimination, homophobia, misogyny, racism, sexism, that is a reflection of our larger society. These circumstances impact the creativity of women as do the internal forces. Author Claire Massoud identifies as, quote, worthy of the most serious examination, end quote. This discourse is directly related to questions of which artists are invisible and why, whose art gets produced, heard, and seen, how artists make their own opportunities to be accepted, validated, and welcomed in their various art worlds. Moreover, as Massoud declares, quote, women aren't supposed to want stuff, but there's no shame in appetite. There should be no shame in anger. There should be no shame in love. There should be no shame in wanting things, end quote. Indeed, all art makers, regardless of the domain, are driven by appetite, by wanting, by ambition, and by love. And it's our hope that such appetite, ambition, and love will fuel today's conversations and tomorrow's action for change. You'll notice inside your symposium booklets that there are selected quotations from women across a variety of contexts and disciplines. Additionally, there are two essays written by professors Laura Dahlp and Dorothy Rogers. We're hopeful that the quotations and essays in your booklets will inspire your thinking. Additionally, the last two pages of your booklet contain space for notes. Please jot down your ideas, your questions, your comments, and concerns as we'll leave ample time to discuss the issues raised by today's panelists. A kind thank you to our drumming invocation and our hip hop moves. A kind and warm thank you to Peak Performances and ACP at Montclair State University. A very kind thank you to Jed Wheeler for opening up the space for women across a year's worth of innovative performing arts practices, and of course for allowing us here today to have this important conversation. And thank you to all the women who have been present today and who will be present ever more tomorrow because of today. Please continue to rock your worlds. And with that context and those thank yous in place, allow me to introduce our co-curator of today's symposium, the amazing, fabulous Baraka Selle. I wish I could get up on the stage like Rockefeller did, but I don't think I could do that even when I was her age. Good afternoon, everyone. OK, I'm from Detroit. We talk loud, and I need for you to talk loud. Good afternoon, everyone. I also, even though Marissa has already thanked them, I also would like to add my thanks. Because even though we're having a conversation about women, we also know that it's important for us to have partners in every gender and every sector and every part of our conversations. And so I would just, because he's been very quiet and behind the scenes, I think it's important that you need to know the brainstormer behind this. And I'm going to ask him to stand, and that's Jed Wheeler. I also want to thank my partner in crime, Orissa. It's been such a joy to work with you and think with you and also Carrie Urbanek and Hannah Rolfs, Amy Estes, and all the staff at Peak Performances, and thank the staff here at the conference center. So I know some of you are here from this morning, but I'm going to, OK, do we still have to do that? All right, would you all check your phones? And I'm going to wait while you check your phones. And please make sure they're turned off. So we did this this morning, but I'm going to do it again because I feel like it's just that important because I made a faux pas in the earlier session. So I want to start with how many people here in the room are in their teens, OK? Would you raise your hands high so we can see you? Yes. How many folks here are in their 20s? How many folks here are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s? And I'm going to ask those who are in their 70s to stand. Stand up, stand up, stand up. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I still can't. 80s? Bravo. Thank you for being here. Such an honor to have the 70s and 80-year-old group here. The reason why I ask that is because, as I mentioned this morning, how many of you know the name Bernice Johnson Reagan? Oh, a good number of you, good. For those of you who do not, she's an artist, author, scholar, founder of the group Sweet Honey and the Rock, which you may know. She's also a MacArthur fellow, like our keynote speaker this morning, Carrie Mae Wiens. And she's also a former artist in residence here at Montclair State with peak performances. I always call upon her name and her wisdom because she taught me that to have truly an informative, meaningful, productive conversation, there needs to be at least, for those of you who were here this morning, how many generations in a room? Four. There need to be four generations in the room. So I always want to welcome the millennials, the middle-aged, those who call themselves elders, or as I call myself, evolved. And so thank you all for being here. And so now I have the pleasure and honor of bringing to our stage our wonderful panel. And I'm actually going to, of course, their bios are in your programs. But I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves because I believe that people should say who they are and how they want to be, whatever, identified, recognized, introduced. And so first of all, I'd like to welcome Stacey Klein to the stage. And then Allison Miller. I was about to make you a Klein. And then a woman whose work I've been following for many years and have had the honor of presenting her, both in performance and on other panels that I've presented, particularly at New Jersey Performing Arts Center, when Marissa said, women who rock, this is a woman who rocks. And her name is Rockefeller. The sound people to get us set up and hooked up. To do is to each give about a 10 minute presentation to talk about our topic this afternoon. Stacey, the hard-headed one, has already confessed that her presentation goes to 11 minutes instead of 10. So they will tell you a little bit about who they are and then talk to you about the thoughts that are on their mind. I'm going to start with Stacey. OK. I think I have to take this off. Oh, that's right. OK, go ahead. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Hi. I want to start today from today and then move backwards from where I am to how I got here to this moment in time. For the past seven months, I've been immersed in the world of Leonora Carrington, a painter, sculptor, writer, and profound contributor to the art and magic of the 20th century. She died five years ago in her 90s. I created the performance Leonora and Alejandro La Maga e el Maestro, inspired by her work with my ensemble and particularly Jennifer Johnson, who played Leonora. It premiered last weekend at the Casar. I wrote in my program note how it came to be that the performance was based on Leonora. After the US election and the misogyny that led up to it, I decided I could never again create a piece of theater without a female lead. On the other hand, I did not want to abandon the Latin American cycle I was creating based on Hodorowsky's writing and the experiences of my partner and co-artistic director Carlos Oriona in the Argentine military dictatorship of the 1980s. I sought out women artists of Latin America. And after a long search because they're extremely hidden, Leonora Carrington appeared. A British-born aristocrat, Carrington escaped from a Spanish asylum where she was incarcerated at the beginning of World War II and sought refuge in Mexico where she remained for 70 years. What we didn't know at the time was that Carrington and Hodorowsky knew each other and had worked together. Carrington as a mentor and Hodorowsky as her apprentice. Serendipity, or maybe it should be called magic, had a huge role in the process of creating this performance. We did not predict or even seek out that the story of Carrington's life and work would intersect so deeply with so many, many women, nor that we could openly create a work of magic, mysticism, pain, beauty, and very importantly, the unknown. We did not realize that it would be so singular to create a work with a female, perhaps crazy, perhaps not, artist in the lead, nor that almost all work on these subjects is about men. Think a brilliant mind or any movie you know about artists like Pollock. And more so unlike many of these film-worthy, brilliant men artists, Leonora never raped, abused, or used violence as a methodology. It never struck us that having a woman lead a man and a man apprentice to a woman as Leonora did to Alejandro would be so unique. Had I realized all these things, the magic and mystery probably would not have worked out as well. Or I would have been afraid to reveal them. We dove deeply into Leonora's writings about her time in the asylum and uncovered an artist who refused to capitulate herself to the torture she experienced in receiving regular injections of cardiazole and being told to control herself. Rather than stop creating a short time after she chronicled these experiences, she transformed them into a magic realism story called The Hearing Trumpet. This depicted old, wise women locked or thrown away by their families into an asylum. But rather than giving up their freedom, they went on a search of a mystical journey to the north, to the Arctic. Finally, 10 years later, she wrote an unabashedly mystical book called The Stone Door, delving into the unknown with a courage that fully captivated my lifelong search. Having lived in Leonora's world for these many months, I have learned that with each step I take in my art and my life, I must garner my own courage to survive, to speak usually through art, to continue creating, to form creative and loving partnerships, and to dare to confront the unknown and to share these questions with those who see my work and who exchange with me. Upon reflection, I am in awe that I never knew that courage was a daily, daily process. I spent my artistic life and indeed my entire adulthood fighting to gain back the rights I was raised with by my dear parents who did not understand I might face limits as a woman. Thus began a lifetime dichotomy between a world of imaginative journey, wonder, mystical yearnings, freedom in art, juxtaposed with a strong reality of doubt, struggle, limits, and just plain fighting. During college, I went to Poland and found, through the shattering of my collarbone during a training and subsequent need for the teacher to take me to the hospital, my mentor, Rana Moretzka, founding member and lead actor of Grotowski's laboratory theater. One of the greatest actors of the 20th century, Rana demonstrated through sacrificing the idea of family and an ordinary life, the courage to take her body and soul to the utmost spiritual realm. For this practice in the unknown, her reputation diminished. And to this day, I am still asked, when I name her, this great actor, if I also worked with Grotowski. When I went to get my PhD at Tufts after having created the first two women's theater festivals in the world in 1979 and 80 with partner Susie Chancey, I found myself in a school with no female teachers, no acting parts of interest for women, and no women playwrights or directors taught. I fought at my peril to teach endozaki shange. I decided to use my training in psychospiritual realms, learned in Poland to create a ritual performance called rites, a modernization of the baki set in a woman's bathroom in London. An all-woman performance in which I had the men in the audience sit upstairs as many versions of pentheus and the women downstairs led to the founding of double-edged theater. In the early days of the 1980s, double-edged was a feminist company. But after experiences with the women's community in Boston, in which I was told that I should not present the irrational in regard to women, nor the rape of women by the Catholic Church in a performance, I sought to abolish any labels for my ensemble. This opened a desire to understand my Kabbalistic roots in Eastern European Jewish mysticism. And double-edged spent many years back and forth to five countries of Central Europe. Upon returning to the US, I was encouraged to believe that Kabbalah and mysticism were not acceptable forms of exploring Jewish culture. If art is anarchy, which it must be to say the unsayable, then it must also be free of the constraints of any kind of dogma. At that point, I decided to move my ensemble to Western Mass, to a former dairy farm, where I could be free of being told who I was and how I should exhibit this knowledge. I wanted to work without having to conform or feel guilty or wonder how crazy I was. Serendipity took hold, or magic, and I and we landed in Ashfield, Massachusetts. We wanted to have a laboratory of work where we could be alone. And we ended up with a community and conditions which demanded we join them. From that year in 1994 until now, double-edged has become a backbone of a community in one of the poorest counties in Massachusetts. We have created three cycles of work and many indoor-outdoor performance spectacles. The work has been based on our dialogue with nature, our dialogue with other artists like Shagal, and on a given take with the unknown. For many years, I fought between my deep need to be accepted by making narrative performances like Quixote and The Odyssey and my even deeper need to create and paint my imaginative truth, which had nothing to do with the plot. Grand Parade was a perfect example of this dichotomy with a plot of the 20th century on the ground depicting one war after another as the 20th century was, and the possibility of another reality created above by women flying and loving. I came to understand that our American culture has been saturated with a need to control not only nature, the food systems, agriculture, barter, now existing only in the form of money and greed, but life, death, and, of course, art. We learned that it would take courage and real struggle to create a culture that accepted the unknown, that sought the spirit that was based in love and that challenged people with questions rather than giving answers. I believe this brings us full circle. We as a society have relinquished our capacity of imagination and creativity to the assembly line and to our smartphones. In my career of 40 or so years, I have been called Iron Lady by authoritarian producers shouting at me to listen to them as they tell me what to do in my performance. Been described by American Theater Magazine as a pale, petite, intense woman, that was when I was younger, told and written about repeatedly as someone who doesn't smile, or called a witch or a bitch, or too intense to get near. These are all only the minor insults. I wake up every day wondering if today is the day I will descend again into craziness, be violated or give up my soul for survival. Which woman do I know who believes with confidence they can ask men for work or ask for the same fees as their male counterparts? There is an institutional creation of inferiority in regard to women, but when I cannot sleep in the night or wake in dread that someone won't understand me, I cannot see the institution, but only my own fear. Then I force myself to go to work in the unknown. I seek the courage of my passion. I live in the natural world. I walk in the snow, I plant the seeds of art on my theater farm. The hurricanes are coming, we have made sure of that. The sick game of control is being lost. I must continue the radical act of imagination. We all must be citizens of the imagination. We must feel, we must hear, smell, taste, sing, dance, paint, our future with courage. Could you send that to my last boyfriend? I'm sorry, I think it was too loud. Yes, my turn, my go, peace. For those of you who don't understand hip hop, peace was how hip hop cultural members addressed each other at the beginning. So if I was gonna see you for the first time, peace, Lola, peace, Anthony, and they would say peace, right? It's the way we hung up the phone. All right, I'll talk to you later, peace, peace. If you only know hip hop in the commercial realm, you'll never hear that. Somehow there was a disconnect. And so I always begin, whether it's a conversation, a phone call, just seeing you down on the block or addressing a group of people, peace. And I'm really happy you guys sent it back to me, thank you. So my name is Roccafella, Beagle Roccafella. And it's a job description. I rocked the fellas. It's how I got the name. Hip hop is really efficient at giving its tribal members names based on what that person is displaying. And so when I first came out to dance, I was watching the fellas and they look good. They look really good, but they look tough and they look confident and they look like very skilled at something I couldn't do. And I think the rest of the world also was caught by surprise. Looking at them do their break dance. Something that was so complex, so dangerous and yet impressive. So I was growing up in Harlem, looking at them saying, I wanna be like that. And a lot of people saying, you can't do that. That's just for the boys. And I was like, but why? I climb trees, I like to jump over fences, what's up? And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, because you might get hurt. And I get it, I get it. Nowadays when people ask me why there's so few women who break dance, I'm like, well you take care of your daughter, right? Don't you? You don't really want her out on the street at night at 11 p.m. You don't want her hanging out in the alley or in a staircase, right? Hanging out with the boys, right? Cause something can happen. That thing, something can happen. It can happen to the boys too, but there's a different thing that can happen to the girls. And I know you all know what I'm talking about. And so I had to grow a little bit more in my knowledge of interacting with the guys in the hood and trial and error, lots of trial and error. Trying to figure out how is it that I can gain respect, but still be sociable and bubbly and friendly because if I was too stern then nobody wanted to hang out with me. And so I had to straddle and find out what was gonna work. And so I didn't learn how to break dance when breaking was emerging. It took me a while. So I took the side, you know, the side, the back door. I learned all the other steps that came afterwards. So the uprocking, the cabbage patch, the wop, all these other social dances that allowed me access, but of course not the break dance cause who was teaching girls that at that time? Nobody. They didn't think we could even do pushups. So right, so I had to skip and wait. I had to skip the training. Meantime in my house, which is an Afro Puerto Rican house, there was a lot of percussion, a lot of parties. Somebody sweet 16, somebody's wedding, a lot of dance and musical instruments all around. So I was picking up on how is it that you recreate your identity on the weekends. Monday through Friday, you're hardworking two and three jobs, you raise your kids, church, right? Supermarket, school, that was my orbit. On the weekends, something else would happen. We would recreate ourselves. People that I thought weren't happy, all of a sudden big smiles. And so I was starting to learn how recreation really meant recreate yourself. So when it came down to now me encountering African American culture, Motown, Hip Hop as it was emerging, I saw the same thing. During recess in my grammar school when I was at middle school, everybody was, it was parochial school, everyone was very strict, trying to follow the rules, learn. But at recess or at lunchtime, we recreated ourselves. We became something else. And some were clowns, some were tough guys or tough girls. There were a lot of girls who could fight. Yeah. But they still had their lipstick on. They were still like, you know, edges and, you know. But they were like, don't mess with me. And so I was watching them too as I was growing up. But it was these similar moments of, ah, openness. I can try something. I can be confident. I can be dangerous. I can make you laugh. And these things were starting to become a blueprint for who I was gonna be, who I was gonna become later. And so as my parents started to see that I was choosing dance and not choosing being a teacher or doctoral lawyer, there was a really big tug of war in my house. Because I wanted to do what I felt with my calling and they were like, look, we didn't clean toilets and mop floors, so you can put your hair on the ground. We want you to be somebody. And so I always find it funny. That's teacher, lawyer, doctor, right? That's always the three choices that parents give you, like please be these things. And at this point in my life, when I talk to my dad, my mom already passed, I tell him, you know, I became a teacher, doctor, lawyer. You know that, right? Just in my own way, right? I'm a teacher, I didn't teach dance. Lawyer, I totally defend and try to go all out for my students and my dance. I'm always trying to say hip hop is positive, right? That's that lawyer in me, right? Trying to give you side debates, right? And I'm a doctor. I've gone through so many injuries with break dance. I know what can help you heal your knee, your neck, your elbow, your wrist, your back, right? I can actually be a nutritionist at this point in my life and tell you, you need to eat this supplement. You need to, right? So I've become those things after the fact, after honing on my craft. Now when you think of hip hop, you think male dominated and it's fine. That's fine with me at this point. It wasn't fine when I first came into it. I was very angry. I was angry that they wouldn't let me in the circles. I was angry that they didn't think I could keep up. I was angry. And so Rockefeller really was what I did. I jumped in and tried to say, I'm just as good. I'm better than y'all. Not you, y'all. And so fire was met with fire. And so that was the first, I'd say, seven to 10 years of my life was fire, feisty, fire. I want this. I deserve this. Let me in. I'm knocking down the door. It changed. It changed when I started to now see my husband's journey as a similar journey. He was also trying to knock the door down. He was trying to get access. He was and still is because the system isn't ours. We are still people of color trying to access things. And so then I redirected my anger away from the men in hip hop, the boys in hip hop, to the world and saying, hey, we are here. We need love and respect. We need access to that space. I'll fill out an application. I'll write a grant proposal. Give me access. And so I started to change from anger to this ambition, which also has appetite in it because why cannot be? Why can't I be at that table? What is so wrong about what I do? If anything, it's so right. It's right that I study, that I prepare. It's right that I'm trying, failing, and then succeeding. This is so right. And so as a woman in a male-dominated space, now I'm seeing the solidarity between me and my brothers and my husband and my male students because I have boys who now are like, teacher, help me. And now they're not like, well, you're a girl. You can't really do it. Now they're like, rock, help me. You set this up in my hood. Please, I need to write a resume. I need, you know, help me. And so I have changed away from being such an angry person to now being a person who understands that hip-hop was originally a platform for the brothers, the people of color, those guys that come together and feel like they're safe with each other. Testosterone and the battle in the competition, notwithstanding, there was still a brotherhood there. And so if I came, if I come in now, like rah, rah, rah, then I'm gonna be met with that as well. So I come in and I gotta meet you where you are with respect. I respect the brothers, I respect the architects. If anything, I'm trying to influence you to not see me as an object, not see me as a fool or somewhere you can just have sex with. And so I've changed, I've grown, and I embrace my womanhood 100%. And so this panel is awesome for me because I get to not only learn and listen to other women who've been on the same path, but also share how hip-hop, I can't romanticize it. It is a street art form. It is in a lot of ways misogynistic. However, if you happen to run into the underground artists, it's all love. It is all love. And there are only a few underground artists who make it to the radio, just a few maybe. And then maybe they don't get their contracts renewed and then they get reabsorbed into the community. But the underground hip-hop global community is about respect and love. I just wanna leave it there. I wanna say how honored I am and excited to be with you in this filming and filming generation. I really want to say that it brings the next generation to the fourth generation at least. Yeah, and I feel like because I'm only to say a little bit about what I am and what I do, I'm a musician by way of drumming. Started with, actually started with piano and then drumming and now I'm a composer and educator. And a lover of music, specifically jazz is my calling. So I think part of what, and I'm also an improviser, so I'm just gonna improvise right now. I wrote all this stuff on my computer and now I'm just gonna improvise. But talking about the generations, because jazz is all about the tradition and passing on, one of the most important things about being a jazz musician is passing on that tradition to the next generation. That's really the only way that America's music, which is jazz, stays palpable and relevant, is by passing it on to the younger generation and then hoping that they add their fire to that music and change it and have it evolve with what's happening socially, politically, and culturally in our state, in America. So I'm so grateful for that. I was thinking, as you were talking, Rockefeller, about your upbringing, I was thinking about my upbringing and I grew up in Washington, D.C. And I was surrounded by, because of jazz, I was normally around six, five, six generations all the time. And I'm really lucky because I come from a musical family on my mother's side. Most of the women in my family are musicians and many of them are professional musicians, mostly sacred music. I'm one of the first not to be playing sacred music, but grew up playing it. And because I got introduced to jazz at such a young age, I thought it was completely normal to hang out with 60, 70, 80-year-old men playing jazz. It was just totally normal to me. And my parents were really, I'm so eternally grateful to them because, from the time I could say a word, I was saying, drum, drum, I want a drum. And they never, it wasn't until way later in my life that I found out about some sexism that happened when I was younger and gender discrimination, but it wasn't until college that I really started to feel that what I was doing was seen as not normal because for me, nothing is more normal for me than to have my hands on a drum or my sticks in my hand and playing. For me, it's the most joy I feel in life is when I'm playing. So it wasn't until way later that I felt that discrimination. And so when I was young, the way I kind of got into drumming, well, I wanted to play drums, so the way I got into jazz was that my father was a recording engineer on the side. I come from a big family, so he had a job so he could make enough money to provide, but on the side, he loved to record musicians. So he built a home studio in our basement in the early 80s, and somehow it got known to all the jazz musicians. So a lot of jazz musicians would come to my house to make records. And everybody from Keter Betts, who played bass with Charlie Parker, to Etta Jones recorded a few albums there. Houston Person, who's from Montclair. All of these great jazz artists would perform in my house, and I didn't know what was going on, but I knew that I loved the sound and I would just sit on the staircase, probably from the time I was five and listen to these musicians and hang out. And then once I was able to start drumming, I finally got a teacher, and basically I just started playing with all of those people. Because jazz is a community, it's now often seen as an academic music, but it's not an academic music, it's a street music. And it's a community, and it's only taught through community. So yeah, and then I would just kept playing, and then my teacher, I had this crazy teacher who was just, you know, his name was Walter Solb, and he wasn't exactly a nice man, but he loved me, I loved him, he was a hard teacher, I'm used to hard teachers. My three teachers have been him, the great Lenny White, and the great Michael Carvin. And those three teachers really taught me that, no matter what I do, I need to stay focused straight ahead, they always say straight ahead, strive for tone, which is a big music, a jazz term, but really just keep your focus about what you wanna do in your life, and who you wanna be, and keep your determination. And follow that, follow your dream, and I know everybody here has heard all of those things, but I always keep those right really close to my heart, because no matter what happens, because things happen, we're women in every career, things are happening every day, discrimination, there's no way to avoid it, but through determination and keeping that, like I'm looking this way, because I'm pretending like my dream is over there, but just keeping that dream in focus, and that dream will shift, you know, the dream shifted for me, has shifted many times. I'm kinda going off when somewhere completely, not what I was gonna talk about, but you set it up, I was like, I'm just gonna go up with what she's talking about. Anyway, so, you know, fast forward, now, I was thinking, I'll just say a couple more things, but I was thinking about the words, anger, appetite, and ambition, and one of the things that I'm so thankful for, I'm thankful for my community, and the people that I'm surrounded by as a musician, because I do a lot of band leading, but I also have worked with a lot of incredible people, and a lot of incredible women, and all of those women have insatiable appetite, and insatiable ambition, artistic drive, creativity, curiosity, confidence, and that's so attractive to me as an artist to be surrounded by those people, because for me, this isn't a singular, being an artist and a musician, a dancer, a playwright, none of this stuff is singular. It's not, we're not alone in that. It only happens through community, and through this room too, you know, I was looking around and I was thinking, oh, I hope that everybody here has exchanged phone numbers or emails with a few other women today, and I hope we keep in touch, because I think that that's an important thing. I was, I thought that when I went to the bathroom, like I felt really engaged in here, and then I went over to the bathroom and I felt like we were just, I was passing women and we weren't looking at each other, and then we were in the bathroom and we weren't talking to each other, and I thought, that's so weird, because in here we were all just talking and conversing, but out there we acted like strangers, and I thought, you know, we should be talking to each other from the stalls in the bathroom. Anyway, you know, just a last couple things, like the anger, you know, I've had a lot of moments in my life, especially when I was younger, where I felt a lot of anger, because as musicians and as women band leaders, and I will just throw this in there as well, as a openly gay woman jazz drummer, strange, all those things together, sometimes that doesn't jive so well in the jazz world. Jazz world can be conservative, sometimes, but like, I have had moments where I've been really angry, you know, feeling underpaid, feeling like the offers that come to me from my band are not deserving that they should be more, and then I fall into this weird thing where I have to like, oh, am I only worth that much? You know, like, it's hard to stay confident and not let your insecurities pop out. Or times where, you know, I'm on tour with all men, and somehow within two days I become like the band mom, where all of the men are coming to me for their need to talk about their emotions, and they're, because they have a hard time talking to other men about their emotions, which I find to be really sad, and kind of a, must be a real trapped feeling from them, you know, must be really hard. Or feeling like constantly hitting barriers, you know, I've had those moments, but I now redirect that anger, that anger doesn't work so well for me and my creativity, so I've redirected that, and plus I get to hit this, which is like, totally, I mean, I get to let out all my anger on this thing. If I had a whole drum set, you would really see it come out, but. That's one of my questions. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of fun to drum with it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I just did that last week in Montana, actually. I remember the exact time I did that. But yeah, so, and then, you know, appetite, I have always had an insatiable appetite for many things, but for me, music is life, life is music, so it all kind of rolls together. And ambition, definitely, you cannot do what we do and be a woman in any of these careers without a lot of ambition. It takes a lot of work. You could have all the talent in the world, but if you don't have ambition, nothing will happen. Like, I cannot, I don't sit around and wait for my phone to ring. You can't, like, I've funded a lot of my own projects because I don't want, I don't want other people to tell me what to do, creatively, like record labels, and I have a label I work with, but I have an agreement with, it's basically this one guy, and I have an agreement with him that he lets me do exactly what I want, I pay for it up front, and he takes care of the rest, like all the other marketing and all of that stuff that comes, is involved in putting out an album. So, you know, those things, and the other, the last thing I wanted to just touch on is that, you know, as a musician, I was thinking about, in my career, and at this point I've been playing drums for 35 years, all of my situations where I have felt the most free and the most secure and open musical situations have been in environments with women, and with either all women bands or other women involved, or women collaborations. You know, I collaborate very frequently with Toshi Regan, is a big collaborator, Nona Hett, Camille A. Brown, I do a lot of stuff with choreographers, Michelle Dorrance, Ani DeFranco, Nona Hendrix, I'm working with this week and work with her a lot, so I am so eternally grateful for those situations, but the biggest thing I've noticed is, in those environments, I feel like my, I am able to be my whole self as an artist and my creativity is able to flourish, and I think that's because in those environments, being around another woman, it's just for some reason, or all women, I'm able to let go of all my insecurities, and actually, even realize, it wasn't until I was, actually, the exact example is at Michigan Women's Music Festival. This was a great all women's music festival that went for 40 years. It was one of my first times there that I had this enlightened experience where I was playing on stage, all women in the band, every single person in the 5,000 person audience was a woman, and I felt this stress, this heavy weight lifted off of me, and I felt completely free of insecurity, and I didn't even know how insecure I was. I walked through the world with this confidence, but I had these deep insecurities that have been ingrained into me since I was a little girl, so I felt this freedom, and I was like, what is this feeling? I can do anything musically I wanna do, and I don't second-guess myself, and it was such an incredible feeling, and I was like, oh, this is what guys must feel like all the time, and what? And so then I thought, well, wait, I'm gonna transfer this energy to my everyday life, and I'm not expanding this, I really think about that every day, like, wow, how can I walk into each situation and feel confident and value myself as a musician and artist, and know that I am damn good at what I do, and it's okay to think that. I think I'll leave it there, because that's something that has been a very slow process for me, and 35 years later, I feel like I'm getting a little closer to feeling like I can just be completely myself in the world and as a musician, and that hopefully I can transfer that to all of the young girls and boys that I teach, which is a lot, I teach a lot, so I'll leave it there. Thank you. And I just have to say, this is totally tangent personal, but I would just like to thank my friend, John Hiltz, for inviting me to a performance where I first saw Allison Miller play and was mesmerized, thank you. So thank you, all of you, for sharing your personal stories, because it's without stories, how do we know where we are in the world and where we wanna be? I wanna broaden things just a little bit, if that's okay with all of you. So I think perhaps one of the aims of all art is to question and to transform our world. And if our world contains inequities and injustices, what do you believe your responsibility as an artist is to confront those inequities and injustices through your art making? That's for anybody, anybody, yeah, if you have a thought. Or if at all. Yeah. Well, I just spoke, but I do have a thought. Well, I think in all of us, just the fact that we're doing what we're doing is addressing those issues on a daily basis. And it is a big responsibility of art and art provokes change. And I feel honored to be able to be part of that. For me personally, as an artist, I feel like it's really important for me to present it in my own band. It's important for me to have diversity. So half my band is women, half my band is men. And then I also think it's important for me to teach as much as possible and pass on the tradition. And that's a big way to change the next generation. For instance, I mean, it's important to teach girls that it's so important, but it's equally important to teach boys because a lot of times I go into situations where I go to, like next week I'm in St. Louis for a week teaching in all the high schools around St. Louis and colleges. Most of those places I go, they're gonna see something new. They're gonna see a woman playing drums on a high level and they maybe have never seen that or only maybe they've seen one or two people, unfortunately. So by the end of that week, they're gonna be like, oh, I know this awesome kick-ass woman drummer and they'll have a whole new perception of what jazz drumming is and what it can be. And they might even have, some of these boys might even have a woman mentor, which is really great, you know? That's, I think that's one way to really change things. And to be open and talk about feminism and sexual harassment and discrimination, there's a great organization that just got started by this woman, Roxy Koss, a great saxophone player called Wejo. It's women in jazz organization and there are about 500 members. They're all women musicians, jazz professional jazz musicians and we have this great open discussion online going on. There are bimonthly meetings in New York and it's really great what's happening with that organization. Thanks. You know, when I first got into hip-hop, there was no mission. It was just, I wanna be amazing. Yeah, that's it. I think we all get into it like that. I wanna shine. I wanna be famous. I wanna make money, you know? It's not too later that things start to really come into perspective and I think that anytime I had a desire to do theater or to have a band or to make a film, people were like, what? You wanna do what? You can't do that. Or how are you gonna do that? Which sometimes came from my family. Like, what? No, just keep spinning on your head and I was like, I'm going to. I'm definitely gonna keep spinning on my head but now my appetite says I want this and each time I thought of some new idea, new thought, yes, I met with resistance but then I met other people who were like, yeah. I don't see why not because if you could spin on your head, you could definitely do a film. You could definitely do a theater play because that's hard. Spinning on your head is hard. Each time that I accomplished one of these things, people started to believe in hip hop just a little bit more because I did something good and so they were like, well if this chick is doing this stuff here and she's so great then whoever's coming after her, I gotta give them a chance too because I just had a good example and so then I had responsibility. Then all of a sudden it was like, oh, I'm like an ambassador and when I go somewhere, right, like when they tell you act right, don't tag up the toilet stalls, right? Because the next group that comes in, they may not even get in because you tagged up the bathroom stalls. So then all of a sudden it was like, I had to be serious and know what I was doing because I was affecting the people coming after me and depending on how that experience went for that producer, venue, school, whatever, then they would be a little more open minded about letting other groups come in and so that's to me how I started to shape shift and still bring the aura, the aura of hip hop to wherever I went. Thanks. Well I think it's safe to take the if out of whether there's inequity or not. Sure. Yeah. Start there. I think my community in rural Massachusetts taught me about transformation that culture and art need to be an everyday experience and not something you go to once a week, once a month, once a year, or a drag to an elementary school or anything like that. We don't transform, we don't change because we're not exposed to the most important things. That is to me, that is culture. That is creativity. That's what makes us human. So the lack of that is what makes us inhuman. So I think my way of transforming is to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to make sure that everybody that I work with and reach out to gets the experience of living a cultural life. So I had the wonderful opportunity to this past Sunday to see Stacey Klein's work here at Montclair State at the Cassar. And you know, I'm blessed to say I have traveled all over the world. I have presented artists from all over the world, you know, authors, playwrights, poets, composers, you know, hip-hop artists, dancers. And so forgive me for sounding jaded, but you know, I don't see a whole lot these days. I mean, especially after you do it for 30 years, you don't see a whole lot. I see a needle nodding your head. Like eventually you just get worn down because you also have to see like a bunch of just shit. I'm just gonna be very frank. And you get tired of just going to like, you know, Stacey said, people dragging you to shit. Oh, you gotta see this. And then you go see it. And then I'm trying to sneak out at the intermission. So I'm not saying lightly when I say not only was I mesmerized by Allison Miller, I have always been mesmerized by Rockefeller and now most recently by Stacey Klein. And I felt like her work, I'm sure she's heard this before. I said this to her when we met in the lobby. I'm sure her work is, you know, I felt it was autobiographical. I mean specifically autobiographical. To the extent of one of the early lines in the play was the, I don't know if you call her protagonist, but I'll say the lead character said, I'm a mystery. I'm as mysterious to myself as I am to anyone else. I'm as mysterious to myself as I am to anyone. I felt like I could have written that line. And then so the line was so profound to me, I was saying, oh, when I meet Stacey, I wanna tell her about this experience that I had about when I was many, many years ago dating a young man from South America, from Guyana, South America. And he broke up with me because he declared I was a witch. Yes, and he said he could not be that much in love unless I had put a spell on him and I was a witch. And like literally, excuse me, literally, like three minutes later, the protagonist says, I'm a witch. I was like, this is not happening. And the play just kept going like that until I just felt like this is my life story. So, but wait, I see you nodding your head because when I said this to Stacey in the lobby, she said, well, it's every woman's life. But I have to say, I have a question about that because I then went from like so many of the stories here growing up, little girl on a farm, you know, like I said to the earlier group, I used to be able to out ride out, hunt out, shoot at any man I know. I mean, my mother, like your mother, was not like a, oh, I had thought of this term early. I thought, oh, that's really good, Baraka. Was not a gender-specific Santa Claus. If I wanted a drum, I got a drum. If I wanted a six, if I wanted a Barbie, I got a Barbie. If I wanted a six-shooter toy, I got a six-shooter. And so I grew up on a 28-acre farm and my life was magical. And then I grew up and then people started telling me, you're a witch. People started calling me a bitch, which now I have an answer for. I'm like, it's Ms. Black Bitch. Gee, that's my answer to that. Own it, own it. Not a problem. So, but what I wanted to ask Stacey and the rest of the group is, but I don't have these kind of conversations with other women. No other women that I know, and I have some really amazing, wonderful, deep and long friendships with women, but we don't have conversations about being witches or being called witches. We don't have conversations about magic. We don't have conversations about the mystical and the mysterious. And so I'm wondering where are those, because there are sometimes, once again, John Hiltz will testify to this, when I feel like I'm crazy. I mean, he's the beneficiary of some, and he just goes, oh, just ramble. Let it out. But I'm not just rambling. What I told him was I'm saving my sanity. That's what I'm really doing. And so I wanna know why women don't have those conversations with each other, if nobody else, let's save our sanity. Yeah. I want to say that I have worked with Jennifer Johnson, who played Leonora for over 25 years. And this performance process was the first time that we talked about all of these things. And not only that, but every time we would get to a new point. And we had the help of this incredible woman, Susan Aberth, who was, who wrote about Leonora and who brought the magic of Leonora to us. And she really gave us some courage there, not to relinquish ourselves, but every time we would start working with the magic, I am the scenes of unfolding the priestess, all of that. I would be like, I think I should tone this down or make it a little more palatable. I had so much shit for so many years doing this kind of thing during the women's cycle and beyond that, that I was really afraid. And then getting these women together, like Jennifer, like Susan, and then the real deep commitment of the men to the unfolding of this process and to supporting the unfolding of the process, which I didn't ever expect would happen, was really how this all came about. And even, and then I got used to that. And so I thought, oh, it'll be okay. And Jed's already signed the contract, so anyway, praise God for Jed. And then that actually was the part that he really liked and he didn't like the normal part so much. But in any case, I think that then we had an audience and every day women would come up to me and say that that was their life. And I really was shocked about that because I thought, well, I'm crazy, so that's my life, but that's nobody else's life. But it turns out that that is really, really not true. I mean, not to brag or boast, but I have a magical, mystical life. And I feel like sometimes I can't talk about it because either folks will think I'm crazy or folks will think I'm bragging or boasting, which often happens and I'm just like, so what kind of lives are other folks living? I mean, is all we can talk about is our jobs or our last boyfriend or the last man we had or the breakup or the, no, I wanna talk about the magical, mystical stuff. Well, not only that, we need to and we need to start getting some courage going about that because if we don't, then we're abandoning our earth and everything about it. So I don't think we have a choice anymore. It's interesting that you, you're talking this way, earlier this morning when Carrie Mae Weems was presenting her work and she was speaking towards the issues inherent in her work, I felt myself just getting very, very emotional and I kept saying to myself, don't cry. Don't cry. Stop it. And I was purposefully clenching my teeth so that I wouldn't be emotional and then my third self was saying, why aren't you crying? Why aren't you being emotional? You're in front of something that is moving you, be moved. And the fact that you raised this subject of being called a witch or a bitch or whatever and that Leonora is every woman's story is so amazing that I could have just had the same exact visceral thing happen to me and not want to share that with anybody because of fear, just being afraid that somebody would think that I was small. Well, as women we're told that being emotional is weak. Yes. When it's actually one of the beautiful qualities of being a woman. Yeah, yeah. And it should be celebrated, you know? I was just gonna add one thing. I feel like I kind of have these, because I play a lot in a lot of jazz in that community but then I also have this kind of activist, feminist, my immediate close family, chosen family is in Brooklyn where I live with my people, Toshi being one of those people. And I feel like we talk about the magical and mystical all the time. Yes, yes. So much so that when people from the outside of the community come in to that, which we're totally welcome in, yeah, we're welcoming. But sometimes people are like, what is going on here? Like they leave feeling a little woozy, you know? But this last summer, I'm part of this new project kind of, it's being billed as this all-star women's band jazz group called Artemis. And last summer we toured the jazz festival circuit in Europe and in that group is like, and it's multi-generational, it's great. It's Rene Rosnes who lives in Jersey, Rene Rosnes on piano, Anat Cohen who's Israeli on clarinet, Ingrid Jensen who's from Canada, it's a very international band. Cecile McLaurin-Salvant is singing in the group and she's the young 20s generation. And Melissa Aldana is a wonderful Chilean saxophone player and Noriko Ueda who's a great Japanese bass player. So we were touring and I do a lot of tours with all women and I was just like, yeah, this is gonna be so much fun. And it was jaw-dropping to watch the transformation of the women on that tour because almost, I was the only one that had ever done a tour with all women. And they were amazed at the mysticism and the witchiness of it that like, just like how much fun we were having a lot of fun on stage, because everybody's at such a high level, but the listening that was happening on stage was on such a deep level. And then as we got into the tour, we basically just spent all of our time together. Like we didn't go to our separate hotel rooms, we were like, okay, when are we meeting for dinner? And every dinner became like a five-hour event where we talked, we laughed, we cried, we talked about all of the sexist and like the atrocities that happened in the jazz world and sexual harassment. We shared experiences of harassment that we've every single one of us has dealt with. Yes. And it was incredible. And we all felt so witchy and magical by the end of that tour. It was awesome. Yes, yes. I've only been in a few all-women hip hop events. Yearly, it's one called Mama's Hip Hop Kitchen in the Bronx. Latere and Kathleen Adams are the ones who organized it. This year was the 11th one. That one I feel is like what you're saying. Like we all kind of come in, there's no egos. Because I've been a part of other women's hip hop events and we're catty, we're totally catty. And I'm this and I need my dressing room. But I've only been a part of a few. Mama's Hip Hop Kitchen is one that a female flavor is another one at the point in the Bronx where they have healing workshops as well, business-minded, entrepreneurial workshops. But there's very few. And sadly, in hip hop, we are pitted against each other. The few of us that remain or exist or are coming up, we are pitted. Someone wants to know who can take out Cardi B or who's better than Nikki or who's better than Rockefeller or whoever the DJ is, Keanna Parks or whatever. Who can scratch better? Who's better? And with every crew, there's always just one girl. There's always just one. Whether it's a rap group or a B-boy or beatbox group. And so I think that it takes courage, like she said. It takes courage for you to reach to that other young woman and say, hey, unless you're in the bathroom and you have your period and you're like, hey, do you have a pad? That's the only time. And it's like, oh, hey, yeah, girl. But then that's it. Once you come out the bathroom, it's like, ooh. Soldiers. And so, yeah. But- Do you think that's like a survival kind of thing or something that's- I think for us to acknowledge the roles that we play is to acknowledge that there's something wrong with hip-hop and we are so few. We don't wanna, I mean, I rock the boat all the time. But a lot of us don't want to rock the boat because we don't wanna jeopardize our position or the possibility of being on stage or whatever. You know, graffiti girls go through it as well. It's one graffiti girl coming out to bomb. She may have her wire cutters, but unless she's in with the right people- It's not just hip-hop. Let's be very careful. Right, right. I'm just kind of speaking for what we go through. And I think we don't want to tear down the guys. We know that the guys are having a hard time. We want to have one for ourselves. We wanna find one that we can keep that will be with us. And so we don't wanna ruin that. And so someone like me who's been vocal from the beginning saying, yo, I don't like this. You can't say that. Don't play that song when I'm here. People have outcast me like, oh, that's rock. Rock talk for life. Or don't invite rock. Don't give rock the mic. Oh my God, we're PSAs. Please, don't give rock a full of the mic. And so I don't get chosen for things. So the younger ones that are coming up are like, I don't wanna be like rock because nobody's booking her. She doesn't even leave New York City anymore. So I think that there's the courage that she would talk about to say to a younger woman, hey, are you okay? I didn't like how he just addressed you. Do you wanna sit and talk about it? And I'll do that. But I don't know that other girls or women in hip hop will do that for each other because that means they're associated with that troublemaker. And so you're a troublemaker because you're calling out bad behavior. And so now you're saying that hip hop, there's something wrong with hip hop. And hip hop is our only meal ticket. And so what are you doing? You're dismantling the house that says we're a guest. It's hard. It's hard. So I want, we're actually gonna open this up so that all of you can join us in this conversation. But often people say, and I'm once again, for those of you who were here earlier, repeating myself, but I just wanna say, so many folks say, well, we have these conversations. We've been having these conversations for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And I've heard it all before and I spoke about how I was at a conference in New York and somebody said that, a male said that. And a young 20 year old, 19, 20 year old young woman stood up and said, excuse me, I haven't heard these conversations before. And so we need to remember that it's important to hear the voices of the 60s, 70s, 80 year olds in the room. And talking about what we can do, having a conversation, if it's meaningful, if it's productive, if it's intelligent, is an action. It's not just talking. I was asked to, to, at a conference of people who do what all, what some of us on the stage do, it's called presenting. We have a conference annual conference, it's called the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. And I was asked to give, to let myself be signed up for 15 minute intervals for people to just come and talk to me. I was like, who wants to do that? And actually my sessions were the first to fill up. And one of the women that came to me was a black theater playwright. Her name is Trey Anthony. And she has written a book. It's called Black Girl in Love with Herself. And she gave me this. And I was, it kind of in between the sessions, I started reading it. I was so moved that the other sessions that came after her, I started reading this and every single person, every single woman I read this to, burst into tears. And I was like, whoa. And this goes back to the conversations we're not having. And it just speaks to what everyone has just said if you don't mind my reading a little bit of it. If I was a black girl in love with myself, I would smile at all black girls, regardless of their response to me. I would view them as allies and not my competition. I would cheer their victories as if they were my own. I would connect amazing black women with each other. I would offer to babysit their kids. I would have potluck dinners and sister brunches. I would write empowering and loving messages on their Facebook. I would buy them this book. I would send them black girl flowers. I would send myself some flowers. If I was a black girl in love with myself, I would examine the myth of the strong black woman and I would cry often. I would give myself permission to cry in my car at a sad song. I would cry big public ugly cries, allow my tears to flow down my beautiful brown face, cry because I'm hurt, cry because I feel joy, cry because I'm angry. If I was a black girl in love with myself, I would have many conversations with God, the universe, in my bed, in the shower, at my desk. I would thank God for everything I have been given. I would ask God to show me a path. I would trust that everything in my life is in divine and perfect order and that God has a bigger plan for me than I could even imagine. I would dream beyond my circumstance. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I like that. So do we wanna open it up to, before we open it up, is the class for the creative thinking class still here? Okay, raise your hand. No, I want you to actually stand up so we can see you. There's a creative, because I'm all into now, creative thinking. Okay, excellent. Thank you first of all for being here. So I just wanna say this, people are always asking me, what's the action plan? What's the action plan? After we have this conversation, what are we gonna do for action? And I'm saying, no, before there's an action plan, what's the strategy? What are you doing? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish? And so I would make it incumbent upon the creative thinkers in the room to think about strategies about eliminating shame. I mean, yes, ameliorating shame. So I don't know how, I don't necessarily know how to do that, but I know some people who have written some very profound books about it. One of them, which I want the creative thinkers to write down and acquire is called Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. She's a research professor at the University of Houston. And so I want you to not only order it, read it and think about it as a way, as a possible tool for strategy. Also another book I want you to put on your reading list, creative thinkers, and everybody. If you don't have this in your library, you need to get it. And this is for everybody, yearning. Oh my goodness. Yearning, race, gender, and cultural politics by Bell Hooks. And if you don't know who Bell Hooks is, you better leave this room and go do some research. Yearning, I'm sorry. Race, gender, and cultural politics by Bell Hooks. I keep interrupting you. We had two people who were standing at the mic. We did. Marissa, when we finished, if those people are still in the room, we would like to offer them first option at the mic. We have a mic here and a mic here. Oh, yay. Thanks for being so thoughtful. I have a question. First of all, comment for Rockefeller. I just love your work. Fantastic. But I wonder, since we're talking about the multi-generational aspects of a really important conversation, are there any hip-hop breakdancers in their 50s and 60s? There are a few. We've been putting out a word. So I'm 46, my husband's 50. And so we've been putting out on social media, who else is on the fifth floor? Who's on the fourth floor? And we've gotten some responses across the planet. And there are a few who were there in the beginning, gave up a little bit in between, and are trying to pick it up again. And they're women who are, who do we, that's what I meant to say. They're women. Men. Men. But they're not, because the art form has been around for a while. They're just wondering, is it the physicality of it that kind of makes people age out, or just has not been embraced by women? It's considered youth culture. So even someone like me isn't invited to Red Bull BC One events, because they're like, you're not it anymore. And so that eliminates a lot of people. And unless you're like me, and you can find other ways to exist and continue to love what you do, people drop out and work for fabrics, or do other things. The women that exist are my age. So they're 46, they're 48. The originators like Hanifa from London, Karima from France, Baby Love from New York City who was in the Beat Street. I don't know if you guys remember Beat Street. They're still around, but they're not really breaking. But they will make an appearance, they'll come to a panel, or they'll judge a contest, you know, be a featured guest. But women, you know. But there are men. I mean, let me just say this. I mentioned that I had the honor of presenting Rockefeller. That was at an event that I did at New Jersey Performing Arts Center, an international hip hop festival. And Renny Harris actually curated a whole evening of honoring hip hop break dancers. And so I'm unfortunately, off the top of my head, I can't remember some of the names, but yes, you just need to go online. You may want to start with looking up Renny Harris. Are you with him? Oh yes, so he has done a whole program of bringing together, honoring the hip hop break dancers, yes. Thank you, thank you. In their 50s and 60s, yes. So we have time for one last question. Oh, wow. Oops. What a great day. It's like a little party. Go ahead. Oh, do you have time? Yeah. Okay, is this on? My name is Lisa, and I am partners with Marissa, and we both teach music education at the college here. This morning I had a prospective student come in to talk about wanting to be a music teacher in the master's program. And I asked her about her background, and she said, well most of her background in undergraduate was in music education. And I said, why are you here? And she said, I couldn't finish it. I said, why? She said, because I'm a drummer. I said, Allison, so she said my teacher said girls can't drum. And I had to drop out of the music ed program and find another way to graduate. How do I help that kind of damage at this point? At this point. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I've had a lot of people come to me over the years and say, I was told that girls don't drum. I can't drum. What I always say is, you have two hands, you have two feet, of course you can drum. And women are the best drummers because we're nurturing people. I find that all the women drummers I know, the professional drummers are so musical and dynamic and emotional when they play. They have all those elements. So I guess all you can do is just be as supportive as possible and try to maybe connect her with, I'll give you my email, grass root style. I always collect emails. I give so many young, I do a lot of college clinics and I give all of the girls, the young women drummers my number, I just say, text me. Anytime you have a question, something came up and you feel really crappy about something happened to you, text me, let's talk about it. Cause that's the only way, coming back to this thing of women need to talk to each other, we need to support each other and nurture each other. So are you gonna see her again? I'm gonna give you my number. Seriously, I mean, maybe she'll call me and we could talk cause she should be drumming. Yeah, Lane Redman, incredible woman. Yes, it's a great, when women were drummers, Lane Redman, incredible woman. And go, to just go online because there's all kinds of, especially in New York, women drumming circles and yeah. You know, there's a problem, I know we're out of time, but there's this magazine called Modern Drummer and it's based in New Jersey actually. And it's like, it's like the Quran for drummers. You know, it's like, whatever your religion is, it is the thing. And my mom got me a subscription when I was eight and I, you know, it's like, I still get it. She still sends, you know, it's like our thing. She still sends it to me. But I, you know, I've done a lot of work with them over the years and I just, I was talking to one of the editors and he said, you know, unfortunately, the one time we had in the last five years that we had two women on the cover, which was, were two kick-ass female women drummers, Kim Thompson and Nikki Gillespie, who they both played with Beyonce, the one time we had them on it was our lowest selling month ever. And there's this problem. That's, see, that's another, it's an economic, economic problem as well for a lot of these companies. It's like, their readers are mostly men and men gravitate towards, or boys, and boys gravitate, unfortunately, towards men that look like what they think they're gonna look like or, you know, they're heroes. So you never see women in these magazines and that was a problem when I was a kid. You know, I was like, where are the other women? I know there are women out there, you know, and that's probably something this person has confronted of like, well, where are the women? Why am I turning, why can't I see women drummers? And but there are thousands of us out there. It's just that the media doesn't make money off of us, you know, and so they don't give us any play. You know, I mean, it's the same all around, you know, it's unfortunate. I'm sorry. Is there, is there time for me to say something? No, class, sorry. One last, last, last, don't everybody else come up to the mic? My name's Adriana, I'm 22 from the creative thinking class, actually. Great. And it's great to be here and hear all you women just like, be so proud of your accomplishments because I feel like there's such a disconnect in terms of sisterhood and I think that goes back to your advice with the student, just feeling like there's women that support you because I don't know what it is, but I read something very interesting once and it was like women are more likely to vote for men in politics than women. So it's almost as if women are not supporting each other. And so I just like, I wanna know why that is because I'm 22 and I finally feel like now I have a sisterhood, like now I can support women and they can support me, but like when I was younger, that's not, that's not the environment you grow up in. You kind of grow up in this like competitive thing of like, who's prettier, who's smarter, who can get the cutest boy, like that's really what it comes down to. Yeah. You guys know it's true. Yes, it is true. And I definitely feel like it stems from a place of like, men have always been the center of like a woman's life or like that's how we're kind of like race. If you, I also watched the documentary recently, Mr. Presentation, and it was talking about the fact that like in movies, like if there's a movie about a woman's life, typically it's around like her trying to get a guy, not really her being an individual or an intellectual or having all these interests. And you know, as women, we know that we're individuals and we all have hobbies and we're all capable of so many different opinions. And I don't know, sometimes I just feel like it's very crushing to be a young girl in this environment where like you're continuously told that if you're a woman with thoughts, if you're talkative, if you're intelligent, if you're ambitious and driven, then men won't like you. And like you're not, then you're not worthy of a certain amount of, I don't know of I guess attention or you know, like we're not represented as people. And we see that in our media, like women are not people, women are just pretty little things that stand in the corner. And so I just want to open up that discussion of like, how do you guys deal with that disconnect and sisterhood or like even in your field or like being surrounded by so much, I guess like object, like being objectified so much as women or. Yeah, that's a whole conference. And so let me just say this because we are indeed out of time. Kerry may said something earlier and you were probably here for the early morning session. And she said, she's a socialist. And she said, that's not to in any way denigrate the people in the room who are capitalist. We do not understand capitalist society. Capitalist society is all about commodification. Everything in it is about what you can sell. Going back to what? And competition. Yes, competition and what you can sell. It's all about the commodity. It's all about the product. It's all about what you can buy and sell. And so going back to Rockefeller's point, if you're in a situation where you're the product of what can be bought and sold, then it's all about how do I make myself prettier? How do I make myself better? How do I put her down so that I can make myself look good? Cause I'm trying to get bought. I'm trying to get bought and sold. I'm trying to be on the market. I'm trying to get myself out there. I want to be on the cover of the magazine. I want to be on the cover of the magazine that sells. And so it's not just women against women. The whole culture, the whole insidious culture is based on I get mine, you get yours, and every man and woman for themselves. It's so dangerous though, because when you do that to somebody, I feel like you're telling men that like, it's so much easier to abuse someone that you don't see as you're equal, that you then see as a thing. And then you have young boys and not just young boys, but women growing up, assuming that being an object is just common. Like it's court, like it's synonymous with being female, like you're just a thing. And that, I feel like that's why, I mean, it's so great that finally we're having all these like conversations about rape. Because like, we've been on this earth for thousands of years and I'm sure women have been getting raped since the beginning of time. And it's incredible, it's 2018. And finally, someone gives a damn that women have suffered so much. And then like, when you think about like the double, the double oppression in terms of like women of color, and now you're suffering through not just racism, but also like being female. And like, it's so much. Like honestly, I love women. I love women so much because I feel like we're so strong. And we've all gone through so much, like every generation. Then the answer is to do what I just read. Every time I see a woman who looks really nice on the street, I stop her and say, God, sister, you look fabulous today. I don't know who you are, but you are carrying it and wearing it. Yes. I see couples, especially African American couples, cause they don't usually get reinforced like that. And I tell them, God, you make such a beautiful couple. It's so great to see black men and black women together. Once we start doing that and then make your children do that, make your children stop somebody on the playground and say, wow, that's a cute dress today, rather than so-and-so, mommy, this person had on a cute dress and I don't have that cute dress. No, tell your child to tell that other child how nice they look, how pretty they look. Mm-mm, we can stop all of this, but it takes, you know, Stacey and her wisdom said it. It takes the courage for you to start it and then you have to pass it along. You can't wait for somebody else. You can't wait for politicians to fix it. You can't wait for somebody to vote it right. You can't wait for somebody to legislate it. It starts right here. That's all. And you're starting that. Thank you. Unfortunately, we do have to stop. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Can we give another round of applause to our fabulous panel? Thank you. Can they read that? I don't know the answer to this. On the program, do you guys have like our Instagram or emails or anything? The brochure or whatever, the pamphlet? No. Okay, well, if you're on Instagram, it's begirlrockapholla, that's Rockapholla with a K. I don't know if you wanna give your email or whatever, you can, we can continue this online. Yes. Begirlrockapholla, that's my Instagram. I'm Ali Boom Boom. Everything is Ali Boom Boom. There it is. And your email or website? It's on the program. There it is. Okay. All right, look forward to interacting with you. Thank you everyone for being here. Thank you.