 Hello everybody. Welcome to this event. My name is Meena Natarajan and I am one of the co-artistic directors and the executive director of Penjia World Theatre. And I'm here to have a conversation with Muriel Borst-Turant today. And this is the first event, the first public event we are doing for our National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation. This program, this institute was created in 2012 to bring together people of directors of color, women directors, directors who are outside of the mainstream to exchange methodologies, to do peer exchanges, to mentor the next generation of directors. We found a lack of these in the field and so we really felt that we needed to create an institute in order to really nurture next generation directors as well as exchange with directors who we would not normally come in contact with. And so one of the things this institute has done has been to put us, to really exchange methodologies that you don't see, to decolonize, to really practice decolonization and practice and create intercultural work. So that's been one of the most exciting aspects of the institute and today I'm really welcoming you on behalf of two organizations that host this institute, Penjia World Theatre, that is in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the sacred traditional and contemporary lands of the Dakota people and Art2Action in Florida, which is in the lands of the Seminole people. So really welcome you and I am so thrilled and happy to welcome Muriel Morsterant today. She is a director who's come to the institute many times and you'll see her bio in your chat. She is a playwright, author, director. She's a cultural institution. She's an educator and human rights activist and she is, she really works on the decolonization of theater. She is deeply involved in native theater and she has studied an intern with spider woman theater. She belongs to a legacy theater in this country. She's a dear friend, a dear colleague. She comes from a really rich lineage of theater and she is from one of the premier theaters in this country and if colonization had not happened on Turtle Island, this would, spider woman theater would be the national theater of this country and as such she has also created her own theater company called Safe Harbour's New York City, Safe Harbour's Theater New York City and the company, both the company, both spider woman theater and Muriel Morsterant have been developing their own technique and practice and so we're really fortunate to have had Muriel come to multiple iterations of our national institute of directing and ensemble creation and I really welcome you Muriel today. Thank you so much for being here. You're really honor us with your presence. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So nice to hear that. Nice to be called an institution. You are really an institution and you really have influenced so many people in the way that you work and how you do your work because you are an inspiration to have a theater company that's existed for this long. Seriously, I consider you, for me, you are the national theater of this country. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I try not to think like that. It's taking a lot of work to, you know, trying to figure out how, you know, there's spider woman which is my mother's theater company and how do we work, you know, knowing that I interned from there and then taking that methodologies and technique that they are very responsible for and then going in another direction and how do we make ensemble, how do we make a theater, a repertory theater ensemble. And that was the, that was what my goal is. Right. So we're just going to, we're going to do a deep dive into all of that. But I wanted to start off by really asking you, you grew up in a home. So I'm really, you know, this is going to be just a casual conversation with the two of us. And I think people are really curious to know how you became, who you became. So, you know, you grew up in a home with theater everywhere around you. You, you know, you, you basically lived, breathed and created theater with your mother and your aunts from the, from the moment you were probably, you could think and speak. So I just wanted to kind of like speak about what that was like for you. Like what, what is it, like, what was that experience like? And what, what makes you who you are? Like how did that make you who you are today, which is like a dynamic artist, you know, a drama director, like how did that, those, those experiences in your life influence you? How did it influence me? Well, you know, my family are, well, first of all, I come from two, three, three generations of powwow people. And so all of us are performers. My grandfather were to powwows, I think that's my grandfather and my grandmother and we did the powwow circuit. And so I was already, so where we traditionally dance, people in Minneapolis know, you know, and my husband's family also performed. And before we were born, they did snake oil shows in Wild West shows. And so we kind of like did, like we did all the Thanksgiving shows, did all of those type of so-called educational shows. So we really started, you know, that's where I really started as a young dancer. Then from there, my mother's theater company, well, actually before then I went on tour with my mother. So with open theater. And I know a lot. And so a lot of the actors, I was the only child on, you know, maybe me and one other, but I was only young child on tour. So sometimes I see some fairly famous people and they'll say something to me like, carry you. And it was something I would say in Europe, right. And you know, so sometimes it was just, you know, so I had those relationships. And then there, and then of course, Spider Woman Theater exploded in my living room. So my mother didn't have a babysitter, you know, when I wasn't with my grandmother. So I was with my two aunts that time to a huge ensemble of women. So a lot of the exercises I do and stuff, I really learned when I was like eight years old. And I duplicated in a way. And then, you know, there's no, and I never ran exercise. So then there was that. And then I went into becoming a child actor and a child performer. And that was, I wanted to be, you know, as I would say, I want to be a neck and a cello on the Mickey Mouse. But it was one point that my mother said to me, it was interesting because I, you know, we were just, it's kind of going off subject. We're going, we're, me and her, we're looking at Britney Spears. I mean, it's something to watch. We're watching the life of Britney Spears. And my mother says, it says at dinner, you see, this is what my daughter wanted me to do. Britney Spears, you know, having it up, my mother would be like, embarrassing. You know, so, there's some point. So at one point, but I continued dancing and I started as a dancer first, and then I went to, and I studied. And at first I wasn't, I quit show business altogether. And I said to my mother when I was 18 that I was a Republican Catholic, uh, uh, Reaganite, and I was everything. And I've had was that upset the panel. You know, anyone less like a Republican candidate. And I knew that would upset, oh, and I was going to join the army. Of course you wouldn't. I'm sure you, everything you're good to upset a poor mother of yours. So I just put the army in and I wanted, then I, it took the police test. But can I copy New York? Oh my, I remember that story you told me. I'm sure you did that to annoy your mother. I'm really sure you did. Because I can't imagine anybody less like a police. All right. I just wanted to also ask you, like, what is your, you know, one of the things that really stands out for me about you is that you always, when you talk about your directing process and you always bring your teachers into the room with you, you know, whether it's your mom or whether it is other teachers. And, you know, and so I would love to know what that like, what that's because for me, that is a very decolonizing practice to really acknowledge stores, to bring your teachers into the room, to even bring your cultural practice into a room and acknowledge that as part of what made you who you are. And so I'm, so I really want to know what your philosophy is with regard to that and how you, who are your teachers and how you think about that. So my first teacher really, and I have to say this, my teachers were really spider the woman theater in the whole, including my mother, who I shadowed for a very long time. Right. But at one point I went away to school, I went, and I went and I studied at LIU. And that is where I got my degree. But during that time, I was in the theater program and John Frazier, who's now the Dean, he kind of took me under his wing, right. Because there are a lot of things, questions I had that, you know, that was still my mother, I had to find my own mentor, right. And the things I use that John talked about is almost similar to spider woman, but it was a little different. And I was able to take that, you know, take that tip, like watching him, how he looked on the perspective of a room when he's directing. And I watched that when I was shadowing, like, how do you watch all sides and how does it look when you take the notes from all sides. And I used to just watch and do that, you know. And so I kind of use that. And then when I studied acting, I was at HB. And a lot of exercises in HB from Udohagen, I felt were very, very useful, right. Emotionally what that means, how do you go in there and understand the acting. But the way I deal with directing, particularly for me, is I had great mentors. So, you know, I had spider woman, I had my mother, John Frazier, and then I had, you know, Udohagen HB. And then when I was studied with traditional leadership. And one of the people when I worked at UN was working in shadowing traditional leadership. So we had, you know, I was, no one knows this, but I was the Special Assistant Super North American Rep to Indigenous Forum. And I was also, but when I started there with American Indian Law Alliance, one of the things that I learned is that you don't, you have to start at a certain level and not really talk and really learning on your feet. And how does leadership work. Then I worked with, and then there were the chiefs of Anandaga who I worked with or Alliance. He just looking, listening to him and talking to him, how he dealt with different people. How do you do that diplomacy? What is diplomacy need traditionally? How do you collectively go? And then I became much as the chairman of North American Congress for Women of us America, chairwoman. And there I put those skills to test. And how do you direct the process? Everybody matter. How you have to have a hard line, you know. So it was really those type of things that when I direct now, I put all of those methodologies in. And sometimes when you have a class or when you're directing, let's say 10, maybe like you have a big cast, five, six people, Eve, and I'm trying to change the way we even look at how we change things administratively. Because we've always done this. And my husband at one point, you know, I remember we were going into it. The way I direct is everyone has something to say, right? Everyone has something to say. There's a way I still I take input and everything. But at the time, sometimes you forget that not everybody has been doing this a long time, right? So I did the first thing that, you know, that a teacher does is when our director, a Western director does, is when someone started to talk and I said, hey, okay, you know, and even though it's tough, right, the person clammed up and got released my son along now. But he clammed up and everything and my husband pulled me on the side and he said, I understand what you're saying. But if he doesn't understand that, what is the point of us doing this? Right? I said, well, if you're in regular theater school, that's what you would be told. He said, yeah, but he doesn't know that. And if we do, we have to talk about changing this paradigm that works for Native people. And when we start telling you not to speak, it won't speak at all, right? And so, you know, pulling him on the side and saying, look, I didn't mean, but this is the part of directing that I don't take input. Everybody, you know, things are really heightened right now. We're going into the theater, we're going into tech, you know, actors are real. And then it was understood. So, you know, even I learned lessons like how, how do I go about doing that? You know, and also, you know, I try to go off of not the colonized way of thinking where they say, you know, the playwrights is the ocean, which is God. And, you know, the captain is the director and everyone else. And I don't think of it that way. I think that the creator, I think it more as the creator of the play, right, if you're doing a regular play, is the creator of the play. So I kind of think of that like in a village type of way. And I was selected to run this village. So each part of these people here are planned that they have to report to me. And I have to listen to everything they have to say for it to run smoothly. But knowing that everybody has a great idea and everyone has a, has an idea on where this is going, right, and then taking their input, but understanding that everyone is, everyone has a talent that the creator was given to you. And so I use those talents because my question is, if I don't use people's talents for what they're here for, and it's all about me, then why are we here? It's everybody, everybody has an important talent. Some people don't have talent for acting. Some people don't have talent for writing. Some, you know, and then you, they find themselves, you know, really what turns them on is lighting. What turns them on is being, you know, writing scripts, you know, helping, doing that. So you're, I'm finding that, you know, you don't, it's not one way, right? It's not one way. But there is a strictness to this. And I think a lot of times people, I hate the word organic, but you know, when you're working on this organic process, they think it's undisciplined. And it's extremely disciplined and extremely, you know, it's about native excellence in a way too. And I, I heard someone correct me at which I didn't like, said, you know, native, you know, that's a racist word. I said, well, we're talking about decolonizing spaces. And we're talking about this, then English is a colonized language, but excellence in our interpretations of our 500 languages and what that means to us, it means something else. And it means that do the gift that the creator put you on this work to do. And you do it's the best of your top of your abilities. And that means something to our culture. It does. And nor do I speak for everybody, but it does mean something. And so I do, I give people a chance after chance and during the training sessions during, you know, but after I've told someone to move four times, you know, and that's a traditional method, like, you know, one time I'm teaching you the second time I'm reminding you a third time is okay. I'm scared. By the fourth time, if I've said, move across the room, and you're still telling me why, then I'm going to be like, or I told you this four times, or I'm closing down this rehearsal, and I'm going to talk to you privately, like why, why didn't you take notes? I didn't take notes. Well, obviously you didn't. You know, so you don't shame the person, even though it takes all of my might at times, you know, to say, oh, you're sticking up my stage, get away, but you can't, you know, you have to say, okay, where are they at? And if you do have to scold someone, another thing my husband taught me is like, those are private things. People don't learn from public school. And it's because of, you know, the boarding school system and all of those westernized things, we do, I mean, you know, we as Native people, we automatically go somewhere when we're talked to a certain way, right? So I think part of, and I'm still, you know, trying to, we still try to figure it out, but really figuring it out, like, when everyone has to say matters, I'm going to make the final, but I'm going to make the final decision, right? And then it turns into when we're, and then we're on stage, it is different. What I like to do is I, what I enjoy doing is teaching the same time I'm directed. And sometimes that's difficult, you know, because I, I don't just put people and block them and figure out how to just block them so tight that they don't have to do anything. I want them to know, like, why are you moving across the stage, you know, and that is, that is the question between, you know, every mentor I've ever had, why are you doing this, you know, you know, and also sometimes it's, you know, so you have to, so those traditional methods I try to keep, I try, it's not a free flow. I think that's what people do. No, it's not a free flow. It's organic, yes, we're working off center and everything, but you have to write things down, if we're making a script, there is a, you know, it's not just, it's the beginning of memorization to write for actors. Like a lot of actors have a hard time. I always see they memorize something and they see the words in their head. And so I've taken techniques and like, how do you put that in your body? How do you put those words in your body, right? Especially if you're writing your own thing or I'm writing for somebody. When I'm writing for somebody, I say, okay, I give a gist and sometimes I use a lot of improvisations because I can't get, you know, we all can't get there and someone will come in and bring something in. I said, okay, let's split it. So we split it up and try to figure out what, you know, depending on the piece, depending on what it is. So I wanted to ask you a little bit to expound on this notion. You spoke a little bit about the notion of shadowing, you know, a couple of times you talked about yourself, you shadowing your mother. And also I noticed that when you've come to the Institute, you have Josephine shadow you, you know, and also you talk about other people, other mentees that you've had shadowing you. So what is like, what is the distinction, that distinction of shadowing, what does that exactly mean? It's really being my, you're not my assistant, you're kind of an assistant, you're kind of a mentee, you're kind of an intern, but you're working, I'm working and then I, and this has happened to me too on the political level that I was sitting there and you're getting this, you're getting that, you're doing all this stuff. And then finally, you know, you say, I don't understand what that means. And the person you're shadowing says, okay, this means that there, this is what's going to happen. And this is what this means. You know what I mean? And you say, oh, okay, so this wording means this, I'm doing this because of this, right? Or they have lunch with you. And trying to have somebody, you know, next to you who can assist you with the exercises, you know, when I'm not in the room, could you please figure out how, how this music is going to come through and I'll be back, right? And I let them do it. And then sometimes they come back and say, they are not listening to me and they don't want to do it. And you have to go in there, you say, okay, I'll show you how it's done with you. I want this music done this way, because I said I wanted to spend this way because technical people will argue with you when you're a woman of color. And you know, and so you see a lot of times, people of color who are shadowing you, right? And you're talking to tech people who are usually white, you know, and they try to talk over you and you're the director and you're saying, well, look, I'm saying this for a reason, why am I getting an argument here? You know, and that shocks them. They're like, oh, I've never heard, you know, so those things, how do you have to be stern when you're going to be stern? And that, you know, you're giving them encouragement too, but you want them to direct their own pieces too, right? You want them to go on to direct their own pieces. So when they're directing their own pieces, you don't shadow them, you're sitting there. And if they ask you, right, sometimes, you know, it gets touching too, because you don't want to come in as a director and just tell somebody what you think their piece needs, right? Because it's their vision. It's their vision when you're mentoring. And you've got to kind of just say, and then you pull them over. It makes sense if you do it this way. Sometimes if there's huge mistakes, you say, not mistakes, but the huge problems you see, they're having problems, you don't correct it there. And you just sit there and you say, okay, this is what I've seen. You want me, and then you kind of like go say, so this is the easiest way to do it. You pull this out, pull this out, take this there, and then that will work, you know. So that's what the idea, that that is the whole idea of shadowing. And I guess it's also like what you were saying, which is you observed very carefully what was happening, like from your time you were eight years old, you just looked and watched and learned from the watching. And so it's a form of mentorship really, which is so different. Yeah, which is so different because then it becomes, you know, especially because in our communities, we don't go to school for directing or, you know, we don't go to school for, I'm talking even from the vantage point of how I grew up in theater. Yeah, from, I know I'm from India, and we don't, we never had directing school. And so it was like, you, you learned by watching people do, do things or how people were in the room with you. But I did want to ask you a question about what it meant to do, you know, because you, you are also involved in power, you have been involved in, you know, traditional practice. And so what does it mean to actually uphold these traditional practices as well, as well as doing your work, which is very contemporary in New York City. So it's like this, just to be an urban Indian in New York City. And at the same time, holding on to the culture, holding on to your traditions, understanding where your work comes from, what elements inform your work from your own culture. And at the same time, you know, being in New York City is a brutal thing in some way. So it's like, how do you, how do you balance that? And how do you, so what does that mean for you? How do I balance it? Well, in New York City, you know, it's extremely difficult, right? I mean, there's different worlds here, you know, we have the theater world and you find all New Yorkers fight, right? So you find yourself as a native New Yorker, and I can, I can't just talk about any urban indigenous places. But as a native New Yorker, and as a native person, you are always the minority amongst the minority. So you have to go in there and you have to fight constantly. You're fighting with New York City, you're fighting with the funding money, you're fighting with New York, the New York counts stop fighting, but you're in there all the time, you're fighting with New York theater, you're fighting with equity, you're trying to figure out now, and then there's the theaters, and how do they acknowledge you? Why don't you have native programming? Why isn't that there? So I mean, that is a lot, and also trying to figure out like, I'm not here to, in the beginning, as I was saying that, you know, in, as a performer, you know, we did all the real, we did the shows, man. Like, I did, me and my husband did four shows a day in the Rainbow Room Thanksgiving Day, dancing, you know, in the big room, the small room, the intimate room, you know, and sitting there with the entertainment and going in the back and being, you know, and people making fun of you as you go through. I mean, it's really, you know, you're in your Indian outfit and you're doing that stuff. So I mean, that's, you know, that's a bad, that makes it difficult, right? Because again, the racism that is sometimes in New York, they don't think it's racism, you know, and everyone doesn't know that. They don't think it's racism that we're still doing the Thanksgiving Day parade. They don't think that's racism, you know, they don't think it's racism, you know, on the, to do a piece called, you know, about Angie Jackson. They don't think that's racism, right? And so you find yourself educating in the, in the strangest places, like, and what is being said to you, you know, we're going to change dialogue and we're going to change, you know, how people are, how many people have said things like, let's have a pow-wow? How many people have said to me, oh, you know, he's the last person on the totem pole? How many times, you know, and there's things like making you jump and cringe, and you don't even know what to, if this should be addressed now, right? How do you do that? When someone says, well, you know, being in meetings, we need to pipeline all this information through so we can extract I mean, it's like, what? So, you know, those are, you know, words that make you jump, you know, and if we, as Native people, have to change our paradigm of thinking, right? Not change our way of thinking, but if we have to be more honest when we go into outside communities other, other than our own, you know, but the problem is that we're constantly left to have a conversation. Generally, in Americans, generally, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, you know, we have the inauguration, you know, what, you know, we're not, you know, it's great that we have the inauguration, but, you know, we don't have Joey Harjo, right? So, you know, we, everything gets named, you know, when they mention Nindian, you're like, oh my god, you're clapping by yourself, like, you're so happy that you get named, you know, as someone mentioned, oh, we're on digital slaying, oh my god, you know, it's, you know, and so a lot of the times, you know, you're always staining your culture and there are things in our culture that we don't want to share with people and I don't think a lot of people understand that, so it takes a lot of arguments and not, it takes a lot of arguments, a lot of negotiators, a lot of negotiations because they're thinking, well, you know, you're middle class, you live in the city, you come from a legacy of theater, what do you have to complain about? And I think that is really a strange question when I come from second generation of boarding school survivors myself, right? Not my mother, my grandfather, my husband's grandmother survived boarding school, she left with 12 and she was the only one who survived and went back home. So, I mean, it, you know, the historical trauma is really, really there and when you talk historical trauma to these two other groups, sometimes they don't want to hear it, right? Because they say, oh, we all have historical trauma, yeah, but I'm talking about my historical trauma, you know, or, you know, they sit or things are said to you like, well, that happens to everybody. Why do you only talk about Indians? Why only talk about Native America? And I always say, well, I was Czechoslovakian, I would probably talk about Czechoslovakians with that, but I'm not Czechoslovakian. So, I'm talking about my perspective as a Native person. So, there's that, you know, and culture was everything to us in a community and part of the community was sustaining, you know, our culture, you know, and, you know, the historical trauma and the anger that almost everyone in my house spoke the traditional language, except I don't, right? My mother, you know, so I mean, that means the government has done their job, right? And not understanding that anger that hurt, that is there with us right away. You know, we're one of the only people in the United States that has to prove who we are. We have to prove who we are. So, that is, that is the thing that's always had is constant education, constant education when you're living in New York, even on how we think about the other. You know, I mean, one of the a reviewer saw, don't be the Indians and said, well, you know, you know, you get there and they're not, you know, they're not really talking about what happened at Standing Rock. They're not, and you're like, well, what more do you want me to do? Yeah. So, you see this paradigm in general, you know, either or you're not, I've had a big, big discussion with a friend of mine like, what is experimental? What's experimental? And I keep on saying, us to do Ipsin with the cast of Native people is freaking experimental at this moment. You know, doing ghosts with honor, you know, in a Native household is experimental. You know, we have to be so strange and talk about the sun and the stars and dancing. You know what I mean? Why can't we be people? You know, because what happens is we get so dehumanized, we're so perfect, we get dehumanized, right? You know, and the other thing, why didn't the Indians fight? And my thing is like, you know, you had two world wars with white people. And no one says that, why you fight so much. We fight because we fight, we're human beings, we're people with 500 different cultures, different ways of looking at things. Yeah. And that's actually, it's also like, I always noticed how careful you are with other Native nations. When you come to Minneapolis, for example, and meet people from the Ojibwe nation or the Dakota nation, you are really, you know, there is just so much ceremony about how you approach the, how you enter that community, who you go to, to seek permission to even speak in that community. So I feel like that's something that I really see in you and your family, which is really that deep respect for other Native nations when you go. And also other Native practices and not to, I mean, I feel like some people could learn about cultural appropriation, just watching how you do your work with how you, how you encounter other Native nations. I mean, and I'm really talking about you and your family, because I feel like you are really careful about like, if you go somewhere, you don't just take that and come away. You don't just take a song and say, oh, I'm going to use that song. I'm going to use that story. I mean, so for me, that even that story about, why aren't you talking about Standing Rock? It's like, okay, so whose story is that to tell as well, you know, and so to really understand that aspect. So I would love you to speak a little bit about. Well, I believe for me, for me, and I always say this for me, I don't represent, you know, and I say this all the time, I'm not a grandmother, I'm not a chief, I'm not a council woman, and none of those things, you know, I'm just the Native person in this world trying to work at a theater, right, and trying to explain my point of view about how I would like my work to be seen, you know, and my voice to be heard. So one of the things that I find it necessary is, and I think we have to remember, you know, in our culture, and I don't think, I'm going to generalize this a bit, is that, you know, there are sacred songs and there are sacred dances, right, that aren't done for the public, that are only done for ceremony, that are only done that you can't share, you know, my husband was a songkeeper, and there were certain things, songs he sang, he did not sing in public for certain things, and there were songs he wrote, and there were songs that were given to him for permission. So I've always approached it that way, too, because sometimes people tell me stories, people tell me stories all the time, because they, you know, they just do, and I either, I say, oh, do I, can I use this story, and some people say this is where I stand, and I'll give you an example, my one friend, I have two examples, my one friend, we were talking about the UN, and I said, I said, oh, my God, this never stops, and she says, yep, Mariel, it's 500 years and counting, and something came in there, and I said, can I use that, because it's yours to have, you can have it, you can have it, so it came out to this piece called 500 years and counting, you know, from that, and then what also what I remember about sharing, because she gave it to me, she's like, you can have that, but one story I was looking for when I was writing these novels, I was looking for a short story about, you know, I was writing fantasy books at the time, and I was trying, I was looking for a, I found like, you know, stories about dragons, like, you know, without the native word dragon, I found shape, I couldn't find the vampire stories, right, couldn't find one, could not find one, so I finally go to Alaska, I had a residency at Alaska, and I get the story that this woman tells me, and I say to her, can I use the story, just so you can only tell the story where the snow is on the ground, to me, that was a big no, and I said, okay, because I realize that this is real, it's not fantasy, this is a belief system, right, and you have to respect that belief system, because I don't want those things showing up, because you do open realms as an artist, you do open those realms for the spiritual to come in when you're working, writing about things, you know, and I'm a true believer in that, I believe in those different worlds that, you know, where my clan comes from, what does that mean, you know, so I really, so I said, oh, how do I do this, and so I just went back and I made up a story that had nothing to do with that, and nothing, but I knew it existed, right, it was enough, it was enough to know the story existed, right, and I said, okay, now I can, I can go off, you know what I mean, I took nothing from that story, was enough to say, oh, I can make something up, you know, because my thing that was a reaction to a short story, because I got really tired of all these vampire stories that came to our land, and there was no one here in vampires allowed to speak of the people's blood with no problem, and I used to say, aren't our Indian vampires upset, I mean, you know, it's a paranormal colonial, colonizers too, or vampires, colonizers too, aren't we upset as Indian vampires, you know, if someone else is coming here and drinking blood on your land, so I kind of went with that, that whole idea, so I do believe that you have to have permission, you know, you can't just extract from a community, and say, oh, they gave me that, well, what did they say, I mean, there's sometimes there's stories to tell, and there are stories to tell that are your stories, you have no problem telling your story, when someone else is telling your story, you say, hmm, you know, and that's always from the perspective I, you know, I tried to write from, I tried to direct from, I tried to create from. Okay, I just want to welcome the audience to also ask questions, please write it in the Facebook page or, you know, in the Howl Around page, please do ask your questions, we'll try to get them in for sure, but you know, and Muriel, I wanted to get back to the conversation about your directing technique, and like Sahar, you know, you call it, you would, you just refer to story weaving and started by Spider Woman Theater, and how do you take that technique, and I, you know, and I saw, you've kind of presented that at the Institute several times, and you also, you know, and it's always struck me how amazing that technique is for building something, you know, together as an ensemble, so I guess I'd love you to talk a little bit about the technique of story weaving, how you use it in a story, you know, even, for example, Pangea has presented your, please don't feed the Indians in Minneapolis, I think we premiered that show, and so how, and that show was amazing, I mean, it had ritual, it had stories, it had song, it had, you know, you kind of refer to the things that you talked about, which was like those, you know, the incidences that Native Americans get stuck in a certain stereotype, and so you turned around and made fun of that stereotype, and so I always like wonder how you create your work, when you actually use your technique, you know, in each of the episodes that you know, how do you create your work, what do you do, how do you start, where do you start, how's the seed, so I'm going to stop and have you answer that question. Okay, well, for me, well, first thing is I don't believe in the mistake, I think the mistake sometimes when you're developing can be brilliant, right, and I'm very interested in sometimes there's a mistake with someone, oh, I didn't mean to do that, oh, that was great, right, that was great, so let's go from there, right, um, for example, for Don't See the Indians Started as a reactionary piece, right, and then it really started with, it started with the one play, you know, Bloody Buddy and the Decepticons, it started with that and a reaction, and why didn't you still have a reaction to this, right? I don't always crack me up, your mother's story, your mother's reaction. Oh, no, I just don't know the story, but I even know, but it's, it's really the, where did we go from here, and so we went from there and then we, there was a song in there that bothered all of us, right, and then we just got in a room and there were six of us at the time who's beyond top now, and we just started talking about what that song means to us, what, how upsetting it was, it was one, two little three little Indians, right, and helps, even though, you know, and then from there we put the song away and then we got on our feet and we started to talk about, and we just told audition stories, all these different auditions, and why you don't say anything when someone says, okay, you know, if you're a custer at the last stand and you're surrounded by a bunch of Indians, you're like, if someone told me to sit at the acting class, right. So like, what is that reaction? What does that mean? So usually what I do is I do a lot of things with music. Music is always my first love, because they say all comedians are frustrated musicians, so I really start with, I start with music for me, and I start with all these different musics and I listen to it over and over again, and I figure out, and I learned that from Spider-Man too, is trying to figure out, you know, what is the music to this piece, right? What is the music to where everybody is at? So I had everybody bring in a piece of music, and then just a simple question, just a simple question, why? Why are we doing this? And from there, and then it turned into then someone said, one of the things that we had was being an Indian is hell. And I said, oh, that's interesting. And then I walked into Strand bookstore and I ran into a pop-up book of the Divine Comedy. And I said, this is how I got to do this play. It's got to be so absurd, it's hell, but what's the Indian, so then we started working on techniques on what is Indian hell? It's not a Christian hell, what is Indian hell to us, right? And then I went through all the different things, give me lust, give me sex, give me gluttony. What does that mean? And then from there, we started talking all these different stories. And then the one technique I learned from Spider-Man was doing machines. So we did these machines, give me a lust machine, give me a hell machine. Of all of these different things came the absurdity of the first thing that was developed was the audition that you saw on the play. I was the first thing that was really developed. And the second thing was the Indian show, where we do the fake Indian show that we all had to do. And from there, it was all these different acts. So it was originally like a four-hour play with two things that we had so much to say. And then we had to bring it down. Then we had, I brought a geometry again, Morgan, and then we talked about it, how to then put the music up the layers, and then we started. And then, while we had all these comedy pieces and these horrific stories that went with everything, I would just gather things from people and they'd say, could you say something about Catholicism and Indians? I said, oh, okay. Could you just do that a cheat? Said that to me. We really got to talk about, hope was visiting. So we got to talk about that. Okay. So then we talked about that. Then we talked about family dynamics. Right. And then how do we talk about the family dynamics of people who are on the road with each other related? And what are the secrets of a family? And then we went from secrets of a family and bringing on stories about what's the most horrific thing. Why is someone an alcoholic? We're gonna have an alcoholic in a play. I'm really tired of just the random native alcoholic. Right. I'm looking for a reason. Why? Why? You think the Indians wake up and say, oh, I just want to drink today? No. There's a reason behind this. Right. And so we came up with this horrific story about rape. And then the family dynamic and then there was a death in the family. And so in my family, so I wanted to put it into the play. And then I just, what really came was a lot of musical theater things. Right. These tropes of musical theaters and everything. So the Doctrine of Discovery, which is a six-page document we made into Terran Ellis. Terran Ellis. So and from there, my daughter who went to school for musical theater at AMDA, she started writing this song and it was based on a very Disney song. Right. It was based on poor unfortunate souls. Right. And we used that in the beginning. We could use this and then we went to a musician. We went to a play, a person who writes music. And then we started saying, well, what is, what is the, and then we went from there and we did that piece. Then we wanted to put traditional, like I wanted an orchestra and everything, but my husband kept saying, let's put it traditional stuff. How do we start out epic? The very beginning of Don't Be The Indian started with Bolero, Ravel's Bolero that going up and would distract everyone to my husband's eyes. You can't do Ravel's Bolero. It's driving everyone crazy. Because it was so, so then we just started using traditional music and how did we make, because our creation stories are epic. But how do we make it not one creation story, but all of these peoples, their own stories and how they came to life. So that's kind of, that is how, that is, that is the ongoing theme of how I do work. Thank you. That was beautiful, because I feel like one of the things that really came through for me, I mean, and you know, people are so moved by it. We had somebody who was very prominent in the American Indian movement, Mr. Clive Bellicorte, came and said after the play actually got up and he said, this play is the movement. And that really was beautiful. And so I guess for me also, I'm wondering, I mean, I appreciate how you actually led us through pieces of the play and told us how you created it. So you're actually a dramaturg as well as a director. You're also doing that at the same time. And I'm probably working with Morgan as well. Right. And, but I also wanted to ask you, like, what is, you know, one of the things I noticed, and I'm speaking about that particular play because I've seen that and also just like looking at technique from the point of view of that play, like everything happened in a circle. Everything was around. It wasn't, you know, there was even the stage, everything was organized around your time and place. The way you created that was also not Western time and place. It wasn't a linear piece. So I just, I mean, maybe for like, just about, but before my last question, we literally have only about seven minutes left for this, this portion of between you and me, but I just wanted you to speak a little bit made for two minutes about how that differs from your European theater. Like what is your work and how does your work, you know, come from a non-European, Eurocentric place? Well, it comes from a non Eurocentric play because I'm not, I'm not Eurocentric. That's basic. I'm native woman, you know, and the people I direct are native and they have a way of seeing things that we don't have to explain to each other, right? And I, some of those things came by accident, you know, was like, because that is our traditional form. A lot of things are in a circle. A lot of those things, those talking circles have a thing that, you know, and the whole idea sometimes between, you know, what this, that particular play was about was how our, our, our dances, our images are so distorted. So you have something that we have, we come from this beautiful culture with beautiful images. We have this, we have dances, we have songs, and we have this beautiful, really, and European culture comes and distorts it and makes it into something it's not, right? And believe it or not, I, you know, I, I know we don't like comparisons, but like a lot of the stuff, sometimes my big influences was Ingmar Bergman or Spike Lee, you know, films like, oh, oh, okay, you know, not in theater all the time, but you say, oh, oh, okay, this is how I can do this here, right? Yeah, no, I mean, I, I know you don't like it here. No, no, I think that we actually have influences. You can't help it. We are all, have been colonized and we have influences that are from everywhere. What I don't like is when people say, oh, that person, Muriel is the Ingmar Bergman of the United, you know, I don't like that kind of comparison. That's what I was talking about, or refer to us as we are the, the Western equivalent, you know, we have a Shakespeare of blah, blah, you know, and there's also things that have to remind me to, you know, like I was, you know, sometimes spiritually, we have to do things spiritually because you're yourself up in theater. And I think a theater space is a sacred place, you know, I really think of that. So, you know, you have to protect that sacred place, you have to put the boundaries up to sacred place, that it's also a safe place, right? That, you know, and that is part of it, you know, and sometimes people really delve in very, very, very deeply into their emotions and you have to sometimes stop, rehearsal and say, okay, you know, let's figure out how we can, you know, things happen, spiritual things happen, psychological things happen. So that is what I bring into it. I, you know, I only bring my own, I only do what I was taught spiritually to bring that into, I'm not teaching a practice, but we're, all of us in the room, we understand the practice. And, you know, and sometimes you have to have allies. I, you know, like, for example, this is what I felt was really cool that in the beginning of the play, Morgan was like, you know, Morgan, you know, she said, it could be a really good idea if, if Kevin made the circle from sand in the beginning, and I saw that was a good idea. So I brought Kevin, he said, I can't do that, because it answers traditional methodologies, because that really is like a no-no. And with, for him, right, and I told her and she didn't argue with me, she didn't say, watch, okay. And later on, I asked her, who am I to argue with someone said, who might argue with someone's belief system? And I think if we have more people in theaters and dramaturgs and directors and playwrights and people who want to help, you know, work with native theater producers, you know, the tech people, you know, that say, oh, okay, you know, we need five minutes, we feel something's going on here, we need to talk about it. I have to step down. I need to go to the union right now, if this is the problem for us to smudge up this room. Right. You know, that is, you know, so that is a lot of the things that you have, because it's my religious right. And if we had more people like that who are understanding our religious right, you know, as native people, then I think it would be easier transitions, you know, when we say close, things are closed to non-Indians. What do you want me to say? This is only close to family. Some people, you know, very respectful, non-native say, oh, can I, I'm going to go in and, you know, I would have to tell them no, they can stay. You know what I'm saying? So I think that is important. Yeah. So I guess we just have time for one last question. Okay. And, you know, I have a bunch of questions that people have asked from the audience. But Laurie McCants asks, how are you working through this pandemic? What are you experiencing? And what are you learning that you can pass on to us? So I guess what you're learning during this pandemic. And in a sense, it's like, you know, you had spoken about theater as a sacred flame. And so I'm also like, what is our, how do we steward this time is something that I would also add on to that question. Like, how do we, like, what can, what can we pass on? Okay, how can we steward this time as BIPOC and Indigenous folks creating theater? What do I, I think what I'm understanding is there's different ways of doing things, even more so, you know, like today was a very learning, it's always always a learning experience, right? Doing a master class with four zooms and breaking up, you know, breaking it up. And what does that mean? And how do you do that on? So it's a different medium than, than the stage. So, you know, that is, you know, take, there's a new medium of opportunity to come this way. Take it, you know, radio might be podcast, not radio podcast might be the best way for now, until we can come together, you know, you know, figure out different ways to do zoom. Zoom live doesn't always work, so then you make many movies. But then what is that, is that the next layer when we go to stage, you know, think of those layers, think about those, the different things that you can learn in a pandemic and also being by yourself, you know, you have to really be careful, right? You have to really be careful when you're by yourself. And that is the one thing, you know, you don't want to hit on something like, you know, writing for me was writing, writing, writing something so close, but then letting it go, right? But I think it's important during this pandemic that there's going to be a lot of stories. There can be a lot of stories that come out of this, you know, and, you know, just keep on doing it, keep on, you know, having these new meetings, having master class, talking to people as much as you can, you know, because theater is part of community, too. Even if you have to meet six feet apart, I mean, I'm very interested in what we're going to do afterwards. Theater is very important now with our environment, right? Because that's the one thing we're stuck in our houses, but environment, environment to work is very important now. Because the environment is crying out, right? This is what has happened. This is the pandemic. This is what happened. So think about that. Think about those stories that are coming to you during this solitude. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, Miriam. That's beautiful. And you've given us so much to think about and said so much. I mean, I'm sure there people can look at this interview later and can delve into many of the things that you've said. I appreciate so much. You're saying yes to, you know, doing these questions and it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. You too. Are we done? We're done, Miriam. We are closing right now. So I appreciate your presence. Thank you very, very much. And I just want to also thank the team, both at Pangea World Theater, Art to Action, with Kayla, Annalisa, Cedo, and Suzanne Cross from Pangea, and Tanya from Art to Action, and also Athea from HowlAround. Thank you so much for doing this with us. I really, really appreciate the technical support and the Zoom support that we've had. It's been such a pleasure having this hour. I think, you know, Muriel and I usually have conversations that go for like two hours. It never stops. So it's been kind of like really truncated, do it for an hour, but I think we packed a lot in there. So I appreciate that very much. Thank you on behalf of Art to Action, Pangea World Theater. And also, do we really, really want to thank our funders. We can roll the slides and close out right now. That'd be wonderful. And also just want to let you know a couple of upcoming events that there are. Next month, we're doing something on 9th March. It's at 5 p.m. CST, 6 p.m. EST, and 3 p.m. PST. And we're talking to Asian American directors. It's part of our consortium of Asian American theaters and artists. And it's part of a virtual series. And both are members of Art to Action and Pangea are part of the board of Cata. And we're also doing a masterclass with Nobukomiomoto on the 20th of March. So we would love to have you join us for both of those things. We also really want to thank our funders for having this be available to you. And just want to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris D. Fondation, who are funders right now. But we always love to thank everybody who funded us in the past, including Sir Nalfa's People's Fund, National Endowment, and Nathan Cummings Foundation. Thank you to Haloran for live streaming. We really, really appreciate it. Please support both of our theaters. Pangea is 25 years old. Art to Action is 10 years old. And we please support us if you can. Thank you so much. And again, it's been amazing talking to Muriel Tarek, Boris Tarend. Please watch out for her work in New York City and everywhere else. She is somebody worth following. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes.