 I'm going to turn it off in my but standing by hello everyone and welcome to design meeting I'm going to hand it over to Portia to start us off with a land acknowledgement. So this is a digital land acknowledgement. It's used with permission from Adrian Wong of spiderweb show in Kingston Canada. She wrote the statement originally for the festival of living digital art. Since our activities are shared digitally to the internet, let's also take a moment to consider the legacy of colonization embedded within the technologies structures and ways of thinking we use every day. We are using equipment and high speed internet not available in many indigenous communities. Even the technologies that are central to much of the art we make leave significant carbon footprints contributing to the changing climates that disproportionately affect the indigenous peoples worldwide. We invite you to join us acknowledging all of this as well as our shared responsibility to make good of this time and for each of us to consider our roles in reconciliation, decolonization and allyship. Thank you Portia. Yeah and I'm just going to you know invite us all to like take this moment and all moments going forward to think about going beyond land acknowledgement which is a great step and a great protocol to start integrating into your own practice. But other ways that you can do that are to find out about paying land tax to your local tribe, go to programming by the indigenous peoples of your area and any area and you can like read work by awesome contemporary and native writers and writers of past watch all of the amazing content that is being streamed right now and also encourage the organizations that you're working at to if they're not already in the practice of doing a land acknowledgement and building a real relationship with the indigenous peoples of the land that their theater or other organization is on to do that. It's something that we as designers can do when we go into any organization. So I just want to take a moment before we really go into everything to just pause and acknowledge the events of the week where we find ourselves right now. We I am located located in Lenapehoking known in colonized terms as New York City and we just had massive flooding more so than we've seen in like 100 years. The hurricane from the aftermath of the hurricane that hit much of the south including a lot of devastation in New Orleans. There was a huge hurricane or a huge earthquake in Haiti. We're in the middle of intense clashes in Afghanistan. There is a very active attack on women's rights and reproductive rights in Texas. We are continuing to get news of graves being unearthed in residential schools all across Turtle Island and we're still in the middle of the COVID pandemic. So there's a lot going on right now and we are holding that in our bodies and we are coming to you in this moment to talk about theater and the continued work that we're doing inside of this industry. So we're holding all of these things together but that's a lot. So just wanted to like name those things and pause before we before we go on. So what we're going to do now, Portia and I are going to introduce ourselves and then we'll then we'll get going. You want to start us off Portia? No, but Kate is making me so I'll do it. I hate introductions, but okay fine. I'm Portia McEverin. I'm on the unsealed lands of the Montaille Lenape and Wappinger, colognely known as Connecticut. And do I have anything else? Let's hope not. You're good. Oh good. Over to Kate. We'll do Brevard and Rose in the check-in. But yeah, and I'm Kate Freer. As I said, I'm on Lenape Hooking, the stolen ancestral home lands of the Lenape peoples. And Portia and I are co-curators of the series Design in a Time of Reckoning, which this is the final day. Huzzah! Yes, back to you. I thought there was going to be more after final day. So we want to say thank you to all our awesome contributors from both the first week and now this the second week. Clint Ramos, Lindsay Jones, Sergei Mascani, Amber Wotley, look I got it, Calvin Anderson, Elsa Hiltner, and Genevieve Bellar. So we are gathering here on HarenTV for a design meeting to do a few things, primarily to discuss how to cultivate an embodied justice practice, specifically from the lens of designers. Portia and I thought what better way to do that than to invite some of our favorite other designer facilitator leaders working tirelessly for social justice for many years inside of this field. So what we're going to do today really is just offer some strategies for seeding change in the theater design field and the industry as a whole, kind of going beyond theory and really going into embodied practice and some strategies that we use in our own practice itself. So this is really about doing what you can do from wherever you are and all of us can engage in this work in different ways. And so we just wanted to provide you with a few examples of what is working for us and maybe that will spark some stuff for you in your practice to take forward. We're going to try to implement these things throughout the session called meta moments or pop-out moments. And this was a term that I first heard when going through the Aorta headwaters training. And what that really means is that when we are doing something that is potentially useful, that is maybe a teachable moment, we'll go through that and then we'll pop out and talk about it. For example, what I just did was setting the expectations for all of you who are either watching or participating in this about what we're going to be doing. And I find that actually setting the expectations in any session is really helpful because it either allows people to raise any red flags about what we're doing but also just to like gauge what their participation is going to be like. And with that, I am going to pass it over to Jesse for our check-in. Hello. So yeah, I'm going to start the check-ins. So I'd like everyone to introduce themselves with your name, pronoun, land acknowledgement and check-in as to whether or not your access needs are met. What discipline or disciplines you work in and how you are doing tonight. So I will go ahead and I'll start first. So my name is Jesse Portillo. My pronouns are he, him and his. I am joining this call from my office on the campus of Cal Poly Pomona, which is on the stolen land of the Tongva people. Currently my access needs are met and my discipline is lighting design. So tonight I am doing very well tonight. I'm happy to join this call because it represents the end of a very busy and very stressful week. One thing that I forgot to add for the check-in is also for everyone to share what your favorite check-in prompt is. And I'll be honest, mine is to ask people how they're doing because I think it's really important for people to be comfortable saying that there are other things on their mind or that they're distracted by events in their life or in the world. So yeah, that's what I have. So I will hand it over to Margaret and then Margaret if you want to hand it off as you go. Thank you, Jesse. Hi everybody. My name is Margaret Toomey. I use as she, her and they, them pronouns. I am zooming in from the land of the Lumbee Nation and Eno peoples and the Okanichi Band of the Seponi Nation in the colonial named Chapel Hill, North Carolina. My access needs, in terms of access needs are met, but I do want a name. I have a two-year-old and she might make an appearance. So just so nobody watching us is surprised. I know my fellow attendees are fully aware of my daughter. I'm a scenic and costume designer and to answer Jesse's question, I'm really glad to be in space with you all. I also have had a very hectic week and I'm in the process of moving. So it's nice to have this moment oddly enough of calm in this great big transition that we're in the process of doing as a family. And one of my favorite, one of my favorite prompts and this comes with a little bit of privilege when I say it, is to be able to place in the conversation much like pronouns to people naming their racial identity because I'm often in spaces that are mostly white and I think it's really important as a white person to name that and hold myself accountable in meetings to disrupt my white privilege because that is one of the biggest tools I have in these spaces. And I'm going to also just do a little language check and ask my team to not use the handoff because that's an ableist way of talking and just say I'm going to pass on to Alexis to introduce. Thank you Margaret. Hi everyone, I'm Alexis Cheney. I use she, her pronouns and I am zooming in from the ancestral and unceded lands of the Tongva people. I am, and I am a costume designer theatrically but I've pivoted to film and TV where I'm more of a general costumer kind of person though I still consider myself designer. My access needs are met but I am calling from a semi-public workspace so it is possible I'll be interrupted or that my internet connection in the desert will drop. Hope it does that. My favorite check-in prompt, I honestly like when everyone goes around and talks about something great they just ate because I like food. I feel like food is universal and also there's obviously like privileges that come with what you're eating and where you're eating and how but it is, we do all eat so as opposed to like hobbies or activities that sometimes can be kind of like fraught and telling I find food to generally be a little, can be a little bit more like, okay, that's about it. And I love hearing about new recipes and restaurants to try so I will frequently just be taking notes when people are sharing that. I will now pass on to Kate. Thank you Alexis and again thank you for that offering Margaret what an awesome teachable moment. Hi everyone again, Kate Freer, she or her zooming in from Lenape Hoking the stolen ancestral homelands of the Lenape peoples. There's a loud car going by in the background I'm sure you heard that. My access needs are met though again in full transparency I have a fractured foot so I'm a little uncomfortable and you'll see me shifting around a lot and that is what is going on there. I am a multimedia artist, a filmmaker, an educator and an organizer and I am okay it's been a long week both with the series and starting teaching and myself in school and I'm really thrilled to be gathering with this group of people and talking about something I really care about with folks who are also fighting the good fight but also enjoy having a good time together. And one of my favorite check-in prompts which is just I think says something about me like saying this into groups to kind of complicate things is what is your relationship with time right now which has always has a very fascinating number of responses and with that over to you Portia. Oh what is my relationship's time? Sorry we were doing something. Patricia McEver and she or hers continuing to reside on the M.C. of Lance, the Monsella in Ape and Moppinger, a colony known as Connecticut. There was something else in this prompt oh my access needs are met and my eight-year-old may or may not pop in at some point we'll see. I'm a lighting designer how am I doing I'm feeling she's singing in the other room I don't know if you can hear it but I'm feeling very lighting designery this week I got my first plot in on Monday after 21 months so I'm feeling very like I remember how to do things right we'll see and my favorite check-in prompt that I usually use the first time when I'm with a group because I I don't know the level vulnerability yet is what is your favorite color and why because everyone is like oh it's a layup what is what is your favorite color and then question is why and folks are like oh I have to think I have to think about why is this my favorite color and I think that's it right so that's it yeah I'm wondering Jesse do you want thank you for leading our check-in I wonder if you wanted to talk about why you know why check-ins are important as a part of practice or what what the goal is yeah so I think you know it partly it's an up if people don't know each other it's an opportunity to learn about each other and um uh uh where people are at uh physically in the world um and uh um and and that question that Margaret had about uh naming the racial identity is uh that's there's fascinating potential in that um that that I'm that I'm thinking about and and yeah I and and and so when people don't know each other right it's just a great way um to get to know each other but I also think sort of that that other layer that's there about um how you're doing or or something about you right is is anything that gets below the the surface level introduction helps us to see each other as the deep and complicated humans that we all are and I think especially with so much communication happening over zoom it can be even more important uh in in that regard totally is there anything that anyone else wants to add about the the beauty of a check-in um I think in a design context that especially if it's a production meeting check-in it can be pretty isolating and you know depending on what the makeup of your team is if you have even been given a team um at all but yeah it feels very solo for all that we talk a lot about how collaborative this process is um I have a whole other set of feelings on that lie but the check-in is very frequently your only chance to say on a human sort of echoing Jesse on a human to human in person to person level to be like how are like what is the state of the union of like this person or like how can I with these people that I'm supposed to be making something with like when is an appropriate time to talk about like how what is outside of the space may be infecting my work on the inside um as opposed to you know because you can't always send that in an email necessarily nor should you yeah I just I wanted to add um and especially as we sort of segue into a deeper conversation um it removes the transactional nature of what I feel like can often be like very quick production meeting opportunities or or means because that relationship to time Kate talks about constantly being driven through the um kind of meeting a specific expectation of efficiency um and so I think that it's a really beautiful way to disrupt that and to to give us back our humanity um so yeah uh I want to shift us a little bit let's talk a little bit about um some of the ways that we are embodying this work and and our practice in the space um one of the things that we were talking about was um if anybody has something in particular um other than check ins to center our humanity um that any designer or you in particular um as your specific design field um can integrate in your process um that can make an immediate impact and we're talking about bringing justice into our work um and fighting this this against white supremacy um I'm going to start just so that you all have a second to think about that because I know sometimes you throw a really big question like that and you're like oh no don't don't call on me um the one thing that I've been doing for the last I don't know so some odd years at this point um again positioned as a white person um and as a scenic designer um a gender queer but but sort of female presenting scenic designer in a male dominated field um I often have to find find myself thinking well I deserve to be here because I'm part of an underrepresented group of people um in this field um and I constantly have to check that and so one of the ways that I've been doing that is is by immediately as soon as I get um a contract is to ask do I have an assistant if I don't have an assistant if I don't have a co-designer opportunity um what are your politics around adding money to that or taking my money and splitting it because there's no reason that I should be the single singular voice at the table um and so that is that is just like every single design I work at especially scenic design but also when I've done costume design work um and it's a way to disrupt that sort of quote unquote pipeline that exists with younger designers who may or may not get opportunities coming out of the educational field um that they're in is to just like bring them in the room and give them assistant if they want to be an assistant if they want to be a co-designer I'm open and I will just be there and we will we will be a team um and make sure that I am part of a of making the table bigger not just creating space at the table but literally making the table bigger so that people um designers of color black designers indigenous designers they're they're they're sitting with us um so I'm going to just leave it open I'm not going to actually call on anybody was anybody want to um go in and talk about that um I'll add this in and um I I first learned of this uh uh from Regina Garcia and it's the practice of um you know as a designer making sure that you uh advocate for or recommend introduce uh three new people uh every time you work on a production at a theater and um that that's the practice that that I have started to do um it's too early to see if uh there there's been any uh any success about that but I think um it's just another way of sort of humanizing um that there is a broader field of of talented and qualified uh people that um uh are that exist outside of uh any theater you know producers or any individuals in that work there there are always more people and anything we can do to humanize that as opposed to saying well um here's a list of potential uh other other people I love that that's so cool Jesse um what a good idea it um I think that kind of relates to one of the things that I was thinking about um that you know I had I've had a practice uh for a long time that many of my other video designer community know about me is that I don't hire folks who mirror the dominant class um so I don't I don't hire as my assistants or associates or animators and this is just a policy that I've had for a very long time and mostly it's just because I don't believe that um that you know cis white men necessarily need my help getting um up in the world um and but beyond that I am very vocal about the fact that the folks that are my collaborators on my design team um are brilliant designers and really talented and I speak like I talk them up the entire process I introduce them to everybody I recommend them to the artistic directors um that's a big thing that just made me think of that thank you Jesse um and then the other thing that I would say about um something that is specific to my own practice is that I every single project that I take um before I officially sign on before I find out who the other designers on the team are if it is a uh you know standard like there's a there's a director a standard like you know everybody has typical positions um I'll have a conversation with the director and the first thing that we talk about the first question that I asked if they are not offering that back also is what is my way into the production with my specific social identity and location as a cis white queer woman um and like what is my way in um for example I'm working on uh vietcong um at jiva and uh Perone who is the director and I our first conversation was about that and you know uh that uh you know my way into that is that I am the granddaughter of refugees um who came to New York in 1942 um and that also I'm designing this as say American um who consumed um that content um at the same time that the author did um so that is like the the big way and also because I understand what um the implication of me as a white bodied individual is in a room that is telling the story of somebody else's lip experience so that is my policy would someone repeat what this prompt was since my internet connection put out I feel like I've been kind of understanding but just to clarify yeah Alexis um we were we were talking about if there was anything that um you as a designer or sort of designers as a whole um can integrate in your process uh that makes an immediate impact something that you don't necessarily have to rely on the hiring team per se or anybody else in the room what is what is something that that for you've done or that you you have a policy on or other things you're like I wish somebody would do this because I don't have the ability to do it hmm the first thing that jumps to mind for me is because I have not frequently been in the position to like hire assistants or just like as like arising whatever that means um designer but in terms of just where the hierarchy placement has been I have not always felt empowered enough to have these conversations but what I have done both in my personal life and in when I'm working as a designer I have made like a personal boundary about like what's the amount of like oppression I can tolerate um because you know as a living person like I will have to and when it's and it is that bar gets lower every year um especially in workplaces and so I just make a point of saying when something happens saying something and that's not something that I used to do and it is also counter to a lot of I think the social training that I was raised with and that a lot of um I'm speaking specifically of like the black experience but I imagine it's similar for children of a generation that broke a lot of barriers there is frequently a lot of instruction on how to kind of mind your p's and q's and keep your head down as you like not necessarily you should be grateful to be there but that you if you are going to be in a room that doesn't want you like try not to call attention to yourself by pointing out things like everyone being racist um and it's taken a lot of time to kind of un to both unlearn that well and also understand where that was coming from but what I has led me to is that if I have to work with you for on a team together there's certain stuff it was like you're not going to be able to say that around me you're not going to be able to do that around me I'm going to say something like regardless of and that's the the line is like this isn't about it like jeopardizing my career this is about every day I have to like wake up like trapped in this like flesh prison um and moving through the world in this the the way that I embody it and I'm not going there's certain things it was like I don't I'm not going to hear it I'm not going to do it and that yeah and just every space I go to and even if it's casual even if it's not met well I'm not necessarily getting up in people's faces but that is a line I'm drawn from myself to be if that's like if I'm on this project you're not going to be able to talk like that when I'm can hear you uh or and that's what it is um and it has for at least for me has gone really well because it prompts a lot of conversations and a lot of like oh I didn't know and it was like I know you didn't and like it's not about that but I am saying that like you're just not going to be able to stuff like that isn't going to fly anymore and that has honestly made um because I also I personally I don't always absolve myself of the education element of it but I have decided if it's a working environment if you didn't hire me to like facilitate and like teach of course on racism and anti-oppression then what is most important to me is that I'm not hearing excuse my language bullshit or you're not doing bullshit and you're not making bullshit comments um if you want to know why that's bad you can pay me more and I will be happy to um like would love to but that sort of the way the way that those two relate to each other and how I work and design I think it's made me a better designer in the sense of like it's made a lot of rooms less stressful for me um because it's like oh is someone going to say something it's like not anymore or if they do I won't hear it so anybody anybody else having any foreshad? I'll say that like for me learning how to apologize well right how to do a meaningful apology and I follow Mia Mingus's like this is how to do an apology and how to do it well um has made a huge impact on how I behave in spaces right um I think there's something you know people are often like well of course you never screw up because you've been working on this for so long and I'm like I screw up every day um if not every hour and sometimes more frequently um but it's it's learning how to take uh what other people are offering right in terms of both correction and critique and apologizing when my own internalized biases have come up um I did this this week where I was on zoom and I could not hear people and I was like you have to speak up I'm old and it was like oh um wow that was like ageism and ableism all together and one comment one comment that you did to this huge room so now you're going to apologize and you're going to explain why you're apologizing to all these people but it's that's not it has nothing to do with hiring I feel like other people said something to do with hiring oops yeah no that's really that's really great and I think when we think about that what it is that when we show up in a room um as an individual designer or potentially in collaboration with other people um there's a lot of different techniques that you're sort of tapping into given your positional power given your personal capacity um to do xyz um but I think one of the things like the reason that we were talking about this prompt and the reason that we're having these discussions today and all the articles is that um element of we have an opportunity to put ideas into the world and to um suggest that there are different ways that we can do it and one of those um ways that that's happening and I'm speaking to the two people who are in the field right now in education Kate and Jesse um very specifically in your in your work but also I know we all educate because we're in a room people are looking at us there's they're taking in what we're doing as designers so how um how are these kinds of conversations and ways in which we're shifting the way design is happening how are you how is that showing up in your classroom or when you're thinking about being a teaching students or being a mentor with mentees um sort of open it up there like where where are we in that realm um okay so I think uh I want to start with uh in in the educational aspect there's that it's important to name this um contradictory aspect of the work of educators which is that the educational system in the United States was designed to oppress non-white people and there are so many points of evidence to that show how successful it was and on the other hand and right we also have this uh uh long-standing practice within the broader uh entertainment and live performance uh industry that has also tended to do the same thing and if we're an educator who's trying to introduce anti-racist practices in this we we have this um uh this conflict in that we're trying to get students to succeed in a system that is designed to oppress them and to prepare them to enter this industry so that they can dismantle the oppressive systems that they were required to master right and there there's so there's so much in that and and I think individuals um um are so likely to lose part of themselves in in attaining what so many people have defined as excellence so so that's something that I I wish I had more answers on uh and a better template for that so I just want to name that um but but then the the second thing that I want to say is I've been trying very intentionally to think about what the process for feedback to students should look like because you know there's so much so many educators are doing wonderful work in terms of decolonizing their their instructional materials decolonizing their courses uh incorporating anti-racist texts right but but I've heard a lot less dialogue in terms of what is an anti-racist um what does anti-racist grading look like and what are we doing right if if we change a play title and we still evaluate the work by this um uh oppressive system or rubric uh that that we were all or most of us if not all of us were trained under um and and I'm yeah I'm I'm active I'm actively working on that all of the time that's such a great point um and you know I've been thinking about this also this promised Margaret um as I mentioned I taught my um first class of the fall semester with my fabulous co-teacher Kelly Colburn we're teaching advanced projections at University of the Arts in Philadelphia um and I have been teaching introduction to projections there for the last three or four years um and I am very like community centered in my class we start everyone with a check-in um I'm very vocal about the fact that I um I'm working to dismantle the oppressive system um in my education and in my work as a designer and a big part of that is uh always um one um asking and inviting the students in my class to like embrace their identity to always like you know I ask them to choose the projects that they're working on and to um explain like why is it important to be doing this right now why do you as you as you as an individual want to do this work and every choice they make to be able to explain why you're putting something out there because because design is such a powerful tool hi Lucy um because design is such a powerful tool and it can um subconscious subconsciously influence an audience there's so much potential to be reinforcing really harmful stereotypes um but also there's this potential to like really revealing amazing truths and stories um and then I I was gonna start this new system of feedback this semester that I'm really excited about so you just reminded me of this is that um and it's very much taken from a the Boulay brothers show Dragula just saying if you're not watching it you should be where they start off um basically any sort of judging process by saying you know drag is an art form and that's totally subjective we are just going to be judging you on your execution of the tasks and hands and just like discussion that so that's where we're starting all of the feedback sessions and we do them as a full group so it's not just this hierarchical model of instructor is giving feedback to the students it's everybody's um you know discussing it all together um and we're also borrowing some from uh Liz Lerman's critical response process where if there's an opinion um you see consent before offering your opinion about something um and are really specific about um some of the questions that you're asking I'm gonna do like a small meta moment here to say um I you know you'll notice that I just named the source of a couple of the the tools that I'm using um I named the Boulay brothers and Liz Lerman um and then also Portia had uh named me and Mingus and so just like as a meta moment um we are all practicing sort of acknowledging the source of where this information coming is coming from because we are all you know coming from a long lineage of folks who are have been fighting this fight and so it's great to um put those names forward met a moment over this beautiful beautiful Kate um is there anything else anyone wants to to add to the education conversation before I shift us a little bit anything okay no one's leaning in so looking at nonverbal cues um in a space you're facilitating conversations helpful especially in zoom you can't really get the get the uh shift in a person's body or their like intake of breath as easily as you do in a real life um so when we think about uh the times in which we have um shown up in a space and had to disrupt things that are in place and happening um one of the ways one of the things that I think we've all probably experienced in our field even probably in life is that element of how language plays a huge role in um day to day microaggressions racism uh ableism all those things you named that Portia earlier in terms of just not acknowledging when you've made a made a mistake and you've said something that seems innocuous but ultimately has a really big impact and um I want to invite um Alexis um you had a uh a practice and activity that you've done and and had conversations um as a costume designer around that language piece the things that exist in the vernacular of the costume land that are really problematic and um would you like to to talk about that for with us Alexis I would um and just to give a bit of a roadmap of what I'm going to be doing I'm going to go through the exercise and I've asked my fellow panelists moderators didn't just realize I don't know what we're called our collective is um to come up with a few examples if you are watching this live or later please feel free to go through this exercise on your own or listen back to a recording um because it can prompt a lot of really great conversation but to begin looks like we might have we might have lost Alexis um issues with uh technology um I'm going to give us a little bit more information so we had Alexis's um stuff here in Portia Kate Jesse if you want to support as well as we wait for Alexis to get back online up oh there she is this is real life everyone this is how it is yeah yes you were on silence though still on silence oh hi forgot I'm in the desert that's that on that uh no apologies for the internet connection out here uh the language that we use in fittings in our workroom and design spaces can very frequently make other people feel unsafe and unsupported even if that's not what you were intending with it that's what it does and because of that there are ways in which even if you yourself may consider yourself an ally an advocate a supporter but through your everyday language through your jokes through your casual observations you are you can be perpetuating an oppressive system um in both in that space and in the world in large and that is it is both a huge thing to change and also a very small thing to change um is a thing with language because we all know I'm sure we can think of any number of casual slurs that we may have all used when we were younger that at the time seemed impossible to remove from our language but you were able to do that so um but it does take you do have to want to do it um sorry I thought the whole zoom dropped for a second and I almost made a face so here are I uh so sorry I keep I'm worried about my internet connection so to check in with everyone about how I'm feeling it's making me feel scattered so what I have found is that if you are more specific with your language in terms of how you're talking about clothing performers your equipment your space in yourself you are more accurate and more inclusive so often the offensive term that we all fall back on to when you really dig into it is not helpful and isn't really saying anything at all it's like it's just hurtful and for what like you have not made the situation more clearer you have not provided a better direction for us to work in you you just said something and now here we are back at the start and everyone's hurt so uh please be more specific and to uh I'm just going to go through four sort of big categories obviously there is way more than this but just frequently a word that comes up is ethic or I would like it to look more African or Oriental etc to speak to what I just said what does it mean for something to be African given that it is an entire continent with many countries with a huge number of people and languages and cultures inside of it that is as a descriptor for something that you want visually that is a meaningless word to say oh I want it more African so in addition to being offensive so when you are when you hear terms like that or if you see things labeled like that taking the time to do your research to figure out what do I mean what country what people what tribe what area like all of that is going to make a better product in addition to not being wildly offensive the same like Oriental as a term in and of itself is the etymology of that term is racist but it also means nothing because if you were to literally look at the section of the world that that refers to like okay what half the world that's what you want this to look like what does that mean it means nothing and in terms of equipment this is something that I've encountered not personally a lot but using master and slave as a way to refer to equipment I think part of why this was brought up earlier and it's always shocking to me because that seems so obvious like why would you ever refer to something as a master and a slave if it was not quite literally that thing but people do but it is also something that if just think about what that relationship is that's not what you're talking about with your equipment that's not helpful where are what are the words and what are the ways in which your specificity is just going to be able to drill down to the point because if we are collaborating if we're telling stories if we're trying to be better communicators you need to be able to get your idea and your point across more clearly and these generalized terms are not doing that gender terminology is another one speaking specifically of clothing cloth doesn't have a gender pants have no sexual identity they are it is a textile that has been stitched together so our insistence on gendering it is well it has basis in what is culturally true there are so many times we rely on saying I want a women's shirt I want a men's shirt do you want you want what kind of shirt do you want because the gender of it isn't helping anyone and it's meaningless also depending on what you are talking about the cultural markers of gender are so fluid and changed even in our own lifetimes I know I have watched men go from wearing like jeans so baggy that two people could stand in them as like the definite sign of masculinity to skinny jeans being what shows you a man in between so that is also so you're like I want a pair of men's pants like you know what they look like do I do I know what men's pants look like do you know what men's pants look like men don't know what men's pants look like that's not helpful no one is again we are back where we started you're like so you want a pants great what is give me a color perhaps a cut especially for costumes we have so much and there's frequent conversations about how no one uses the specific terminology for the cuts of clothing but then we'll talk about men's pants women's pants stop being a hypocrite um and and when with that when you were talking about something that means masculine and feminine what I have found is that you we're straddling two words two worlds there is a world in which we want to be beyond the binary and have a better grasp of language but there's also the world that we exist in now and I don't think it's helpful if someone says like I want it to be more masculine to immediately be like I don't know what that means nothing is masculine you probably do know what they mean but that's the point to challenge to say okay masculine has met many things over the centuries it has met high heels and lace ruffles it has met crop tops it has meant boxy suits when you say masculine especially when we're talking about art and characters it's like what does masculinity mean for this person do we have better any better descriptions and it's one thing to talk about masculinity and femininity when it is like the character's gender expression that is I think that is something entirely different to say like this character expresses their femininity like this so when we talk about femininity for character x this is what we mean that's different I think you have clearly created a shorthand for a specific design conversation but to be in general say oh I would like this dress to look more feminine friend I don't know do you want shorter do you want longer because even as we're saying this do you want softer there's lots of associations with femininity and masculinity in terms of adjectives that there are fraught associations there I sort of rest on that when you're talking about describing things I would rather say I would like it softer rounder fluffier than to just say feminine as a shorthand because those things aren't inherently again softness does not have a gender identity it's just soft and for sound and lighting and Margaret if you want to yeah you know is that when we're using male and female to refer to connectors do you want to go into that sure yeah and and I want to just name this is just something I've I've experienced in my life that I'm not a sounder I think designer but I do want to name that you know for years we talk about the connectors being male and female in regards to whether or not well I know why but why why and there's just different ways we can talk about it I mean we can talk about the fact that this is the plug and the pin and this is the socket that it's going to plug into I mean there we have like you said specific specific ways in which we can actually be more clear when we're communicating with our collaborators and then our students our you know assistants etc specifically in that way it's like we do not need the gender language around the way this plugs into that right and I think it mentioned like in the documentation yeah if you're reading a manual for it I doubt that they're all using male and female so if that's your colloquial term and then you're looking up something and it's like well the receptacle you're like I don't know what that is which you very well may not what if everybody had been specific and clear from the get go then you would have the information you needed think about that um and the other one this is for in costumes when you are in a fitting that is a deeply deeply intimate space and body image and how you view the way you are embodied and what you look like is so complicated this is I think obviously I think the best way to approach fittings in that language there is to have a conversation with the person you're fitting about terminology but in general the things that I think are helpful to strike out or to just consider more or how calling something really big or really small and like much like the way that soft like round all of those can have associations with like femininity big and small in reference to bodies or garments can carry a lot of fat phobia um or just general weight related trauma so are there ways in which just saying like oh it needs to be big there was like let's talk about where we want the fullness where do we need it like to nip in where can we use fitted again specificity I think that's more helpful for everyone in the fitting because you'll know exactly fullness means something else and I want it bigger it's like what does that mean fullness okay I have an idea of what we're talking about there and and this is and I don't necessarily have suggestions for this but when things when garments are not fitting um I know there's lots of costume like conversations you've had about this the ways in which we can talk about how when something doesn't fit and making it clear that we're talking about the clothing and that it's an issue with the garment and not the body because if somebody is standing there and you're just very frequently talking to the draper the first hand the shop manager not the performer like holding this thing being like oh my god it's too small we're gonna have to add this this and this like how does that person feel like we know we're talking about the garment but the for the person standing there and something that is uncomfortable like that association isn't always going to be there so is there a way to have the conversations we need and talk about what we need to do that is not sort of even if again we're impact we're intent doesn't matter that's not implicitly offering a critique of the body that is wearing the costume to something I say frequently when I'm in fittings and just with my performers is like listen I don't have to wear this costume like I just gotta design it like I don't have to wear it every night you need to feel comfortable in it you need to feel you need to put it on and feel like I have made your job easier like I'm gotta put that shirt on so at a certain point it is more important that you feel comfortable than like whatever I'm designing work because I don't have to wear it and if you don't feel comfortable in it it's not going to work helpful strategies for that I'd love to hear them another one would be I have encountered a lot of negative self-talk from performers who sort of come into the room already feeling away about their body and critiquing it before you can even say anything good or bad and the ways in which to because again you don't want to you're not here to start a fight you're not here to have something to be like oh my god I look so fat and like be like no you're not like love yourself like that's maybe like not fitting is it necessarily tend to have a conversation but ways in which if someone comes in clearly filled with a kind of self hope a defensive like self-hatred or self loathing that you can use that to either you're not going to change anyone's mind in like a 45 minute fitting but at least create a space where it's like hey this is not how we talk about our bodies or anyone else's bodies here and just maybe providing the for the first time in their lives of fitting space where it's like you're not going to hear horrible things about your body because even I think sometimes what performers don't think about is when they talk about that how we feel because of someone who swings in and out of plus size having a woman who is a sample size talk about how fat she is and then I'm there in the mirror being like well if you're fat then and then again not to say that they're to imply the negative associations of fat but as I deal with my own body image a lot of times that self-talk that is like defensive that they're protecting themselves it's like oh you're not considering how this is making everyone who is not putting these clothes on in the room feel so any strategies for dealing with those situations I think are helpful for all of us and the last thing I want to talk about is consent again like I said fittings are very intimate and it involves a lot of touching um of someone usually someone's naked body or bare body and I frequently encounter performers who are like oh you can do whatever you can touch me it's fine like I get it I'm an actor which is all very well and good but I try to create a space where it's like you have bodily autonomy in this room maybe nobody else on the production is giving you that maybe it's not happening in the rehearsal room maybe it's not happening in like the rest of your career before this point but when you come into this fitting space you are in charge of your body and like who gets to see it and who gets to touch it um and so thinking and having which is I think a good sort of a vice versa situation because I know we've all encountered situations where I've not been prepared to see someone completely disrobed when I come in and wasn't and was like oh I would have liked to have known that you were fully new not like I wasn't expecting that and that can so again that can go both ways I think sometimes we only think about like how is this person feeling and it was like well how are you feeling in the fitting because if somebody is making you uncomfortable how can you reestablish consent and how this is going to go I try to always ask before I touch someone every time I move my hand even if it's not necessarily an intimate place you don't know where people's triggers are like I for one I have like the back of my neck is one so whenever generally older men try to do that very camaraderie like hey friend or on the back of the neck I do a really fun melt wiggle panic to the ground um which you know it's not never fun for all of us but it's like oh this isn't typically a point of the body that people tend to think of a sensitive but it is for me and so with that I don't know how you feel about your arms your elbows your hips I want to let you know that I'm coming and if you don't feel comfortable with me being there we're going to figure out a way again the conversation is important because it's like I need to do my job I need to fit this but you also need to feel comfortable and not like everything that has happened that something has been done to you and not with you um and so with that if any of my fellow panelists have any examples that they encountered of this kind of language or if they're able to offer better examples or if there's something that I haven't brought up that you would like to discuss with the group um because I think having just the like I said language is such a small change but it can have a huge huge impact and it changes the way you see the world as well yeah I just I wanted to name one of the things that I often think about um is uh the language we have around um color because what it is in the western world in terms of how we determine what's what this color represents you know white is pure and and black is evil those things don't exist in the same way in um other cultures and so it's again that I kind of feel like this language conversation is about disrupting that shorthand around language that serves the dominant culture white supremacy in terms of like American Christian male all those things like we can't just assume everyone has that same knowledge and we can't just just and that and that goes for the audience too like when we're thinking about color choices of paint of our lighting we have to say like you know just because this is what I associate with this you know rosy gold color doesn't mean that that applies in the story for the audience etc so that's the thing that this makes me think of yeah and and with that right we we don't think about the cultural assumptions that we were raised with right because it's sort of innate to us and um you know how do we um how do we make work that is interesting and meaningful to an audience that is not us uh if we don't go if we don't go beyond that um but but then the uh the other thing I wanted to sort of say to to sort of build on what um Alexis was saying is um consent in terms of touching right and I will say like for the most part I'm not a hugger right and they're like there there's that's for so many people that's such a part of um uh uh their their way of communicating with people and um I'll say it you know like I really appreciate it if people ask me if the if the um if a hug is appropriate beforehand and also aren't offended in in the event that someone says no not no not now right um but but I think that uh there there's there's I guess I've become a lot more aware of it because of its absence um since the pandemic started you're living in bliss it's always touching you in some ways yeah yeah some of us are touched starved but people not wanting to hug you is 98 percent not about you and if the 2 percent that it is you should look into that you should think about that uh yeah I think um you know Alexis you brought up uh this terminology master and save which is like a huge thing in the video world and the sound and the lighting world um that I know that a lot of us um throughout the field have been working very hard to change and it is hard because it is inside of like the actual systems that we use um and there's been some huge wins because people have been talking about it um this big uh playback software named disguise um now has changed the terminology in their media server so that is no longer a same master and slave which is huge um and I'm really lucky to be in a community of video designers where we talk about these things very frequently we have this uh text chain and somebody actually was uh David Bengali um put it to us recently um we were celebrating this new change but also like the other ways in which those terms are used when it comes to footage there's a lot of the time when you're editing and creating content there's like the the like master or the source clip and then other things along with that and so we were suggesting that like the the master footage could be called primary footage um when there's like so many other ways to refer to something and that sort of specificity and like that um active exercise of just using just substituting other more specific terminology um another word that comes up all the time in uh group collaborations somebody will say come like let's pow out about this and every time I hear that word I'm just like oh my gosh I like I can't uh I cannot believe but it's it's that's the amazing thing and this is often how I bring that up in this space when somebody is using pow wow I say like gosh like language is so fascinating how things you know get um become instinctual um and you know for me who is someone that works and collaborates with a lot of Native American and indigenous artists to Turtle Island is that when that word is used it's really culturally specific and it's often not exact at all what people are talking about when they're saying let's pow wow um and so you know saying like let's gather let's have a group discussion um yeah that's and then I'll just say the other term that I just like absolutely hate is best practices um I feel as though this idea of best practice is like um reinforcing this like hierarchy like there is only one right way to do something um so in uh in uh USA 829 in our projections committee we're like working on common practices and then I also like know that like there's things that work right for me and there are so many ways to do anything but like this is the my preferred way to do it and it's definitely gonna be different for everybody else um that is inside of the field um that's what I'll offer do you have anything to offer I was just thinking about assume best intentions how I'm always like I don't know y'all why should I assume best intentions upon your part I don't know you um right that it's I know what's often used as a community agreement and but I'm often like uh or even if it's a room where I know people I'm like oh no I know some of you and I know not to assume best intentions on your part like I have learned and I took no um but then I I always feel a little shy being the person to be like I hate that community agreement could we could we change that that community agreement probably was put in there by some white people who don't want to be seen as the bad white people so I'm gonna take it on myself to call that out next time I'm in a group agreement list um I want to go back and we have a little bit more time and I wanted Kate you had a had a had an exercise slash thing that you've we've um wanted to talk about and it ties into um your best practices piece this kind of concept of hierarchies but there is this sort of like singular top down way in which decisions are made people um do things etc and you on a bigger scale organizationally have some stuff to talk about in regards to hierarchy and how we dream into a different way of that collaboration that Alexis says is a myth currently in our system thanks Margaret yeah I'm gonna screen share for a second um I'm gonna screen share this image that might look shockingly familiar to a lot of people it is an image of a standard a traditional hierarchy that exists inside of the theater industrial complex and it's very clear you know we've got the producer on the top you know and you can read the other things here um of a production manager and a director and then it flows from there about it's it's who holds the powerware and also like decision making um and it's even broken down into performance and design and technology like stacking those um in value order basically I don't necessarily agree with this um it looks very different in many spaces for example the fact that costume designer lighting designer scenic designer sound designer is all I'm one and then oh look projection is below which kind of cracks me up and it's connected to lighting and scenic I don't know what is that but then if you really look at uh the you know so so many conversations that I've had with fellow designers is that everybody has a different perception of the design hierarchy you know the way that I perceive it is could be very different and there's so many different factors inside there I tend to think that when it comes to design hierarchy scenic design is on the top and a lot of the things will like correspond actually to how much you get paid um and then you know maybe costume design would be underneath that however there's all of these in terms of pay but like in the union um but and also in recognition but also there's all these other wild things that impact costume like the fact that lots of times there's no wardrobe support or they're in a fully different space or it's like considered women's work and like all of these wild things that happen when it comes to like the hierarchy you know but and and then the it's also you consider like who's getting hired when right it's like when is somebody being brought into the process oftentimes um I like will be chatting with sound designers and everybody's lamenting about like why is sound the last one hired or why is projections the last one's hired um so just to say is that there's no like set actual hierarchy but there's a lot of perceptions and assumptions about hierarchy um so I'm going to stop screen sharing for a second so just to say that that diagram is very ugly um and it is not like it's not like based on something that everyone has agreed upon in this and I've probably said some things that are assumptions that I that might offend people and other people will you know have different assumptions about what the hierarchies are um and you know um so I do not subscribe to this hierarchy I think it is hooey it's something that I am fighting against in my own work um and so I wanted to introduce an exercise um that I um did with my uh dear collaborator Maria Kent um as a part of the team um has a uh devising within a democracy series and we hosted something called cultivating uh design um where we asked folks to instead imagine um what uh like if they could dream a collaborative structure what that would be like what that would look like how that would function um and so we we showed them this model of hierarchy um and then asked everybody to take five minutes um to dream up what um their collaborative structure would be and then we would all when we offered them when we gave them the prompt of imagine your dream collaborative structure we said you know this is not a test um and to like point out that like maybe there are other structures um or or systems um in art making or in your family or in activism and education and history and community that you feel safe or liberated and what can you borrow from those structures um in in this dreaming um and this is like an opportunity to again disrupt and reimagine power and hierarchies and what uh identifiers you would include inside of those systems um and so I um will show a very quick example and then um pass it over to my fellow facilitators to show um some of theirs if they have created some because I offered this prompt to everybody as we were preparing for this this time together uh hold please so I created three very quick drawings and these actually I did in real time in the session um so this is one um it's because uh I put a bunch of dots which represent people um and that everybody was in space and there were connections between um all the different people in all the different ways and so there was no there's no stack here it's just about relationships and connections and what people have to offer and it and it goes both ways I could even like put some arrows in here that had it going both ways um I also um drew this which is four overlapping circles in this very you know fun van diagram which is actually um the logo of my collective all my relations collective um and they sort of represent different areas of focus in our work and the different folks who are working there and show that you know there is individuality but then there's also a lot of overlap um and again the circle motif is a very powerful symbol um and I don't remember why I made this one but again is the idea that like it is one large circle and then people are um intersecting um in their circles um but they're also um in control of their own space as well um and so I will again stop screen sharing and I'll ask if any of my fellow facilitators um have any dream collaborative structures that they've hooked up that they would like to share with the the space we drew the same thing as you with the van diagrams so imagine that twice but I drew mine in red uh I had drawn something with uh everyone was sort of lateral to each other on this same plane but um I I'm not sharing because I favor the van diagram more hey you just you've solved it so I'm sorry I was like hey what does it feel like solving this problem you did it I'm gonna call the Pulitzer committee oh god uh Margaret of course I do you have a a collaborative model I tried to draw this thing with hands and like multiple hands holding each other right in terms of like holding each other up but I can't actually draw so I'm not going to show it to y'all because I realized when I looked at it that I was like what was this oh this was me trying to draw like hands um this was not a thing but it was something about like how how we're all simultaneously holding each other but I think the van diagram probably explains that better than like how many hands can I have in this picture in my mind's eye mine was also basically your that your multi-circle van diagram so yeah so you solved it Kate we're tech um but in all seriousness I think it's really important to talk about those hierarchies and and I think as designers or as people who are making sort of like creative decisions even if you're in collaboration with a co-designer or an assistant designer there are people that the structure has set up for you to be sort of at the top of to disseminate information and when we disrupt that and we talk about collaborations and lateral communication um that's when we we probably get some really I mean I can speak to very specific experiences of mine but and I'm sure you all too but I would say that that's when we get really fruitful and really like innovative ideas on on our stages on our screens yeah and I think you know the way that these uh hierarchies I think show up um or are are present uh in even our collaborative processes uh are reflected and I like I said before you know the order in which um design departments are called on to report in production meetings so a way to disrupt that is to change up the order of that um it's reflected in how much pay we get it is reflected in how much support we get um so to be able to sort of disrupt that is to um you know one thing is just talk with people you know talk with your collaborators talk with the your community about how much you're getting paid um what support is being offered how much different uh you know because that's that's a great way um to again then like come back to an institution and say hey like you've given this department a $20,000 budget and I know they're not using all of it and I'm getting a $3,000 budget and I'm like desperate to try to accomplish my task like what about sharing resources and if you're talking about this as a community then you can figure out that resource sharing in a really um you know a great way because we are after all hired to be creative problem solvers so if we are putting people and the the work of creating the art first and things second um then then you know I think that we can do amazing things especially in this moment that we're in where you know there's a lot of talk about embracing abundance but a lot of people and institutions are feeling a lot of scarcity and fear um so how do we how do we re-examine the way that we're thinking about resources and valuing each other and really um you know coming together to create something um as a team yeah I I want to tie this in and I'm going to give a little shout out to Portia and she's going to go ah don't do this but that I mean I think a lot about when you talk about the um compensation and where the resources are being spent in um organizations and on teams I mean looking at Portia's research over the last um three years wherever many six years that she's been doing it in terms of who is designing in our theaters what are what are their identities and the ways in which that sort of intersectional like investigation we can look at the res the heavily resourced heavily paid have like well paid divisions predominantly um people who identify as male um and then if you if we were to really dig into it and get even further into it we would probably we would definitely see a large amount of those men being white um so I just want to name that and you know shout out to Portia for all of her the work you've done in terms of bringing that slight because that I think when we think about shifting hierarchies and shifting away from and disrupting these these problematic structures that transparency either because we share that information with our collaborators and we say this is what I'm making this is what support I'm getting or somebody like Portia going in and digging into it and bringing it to light is what is going to shift um the conversation um with that is there any other piece of the discussion we want to have or shall we go ahead and move into speaking of Portia our closing that was a beautiful transition and also echoing the deep gratitude that I feel to Portia for the work that she has been doing in service at the field I know I'm not going to stop I'm sorry but very much echoing that um you know it's it's one thing to you know the thing that I find so funny about that work is that I like knew it was bad but I didn't know how bad um and so really seeing those numbers um was really affirming um and so I think that again the more that these conversations have the more that work that we're doing to bring to light many of these issues that are um you know keeping um keeping us away like a from having a field for all of equity and justice um the more that we actually speak about those as a community um this the closer we get to actually creating a more just and equitable uh field for designers for theater hopefully for the world um so with that I'm just going to uh say I'm going to start our close out and then head it over to Portia for our very our final exercise but I just wanted to name everything that we've done in this very short period of time it's been almost an hour and a half and we started out with a land acknowledgement uh we named the moment that we are in uh we went through introductions and checking in uh there were some meta moments uh there were some strategies um for actually um implementing change inside your own practice uh as a designer or just a theatrical um artist um or technician we spoke about education uh feedback loops language that we're using collaborative structures and hierarchy um and then I just named everything that we did back to sort of reinforce what it was which I am going to say this is a beautiful practice that I learned um in art equity facilitator training from Michael Robertson um which I found extremely useful not only for myself but in other spaces um that I am facilitating um because we did a lot uh and now I'm going to hand it over I'm going uh to ask Portia to lead us uh in uh our closing exercise I'm just going to say this though before I go in the closing exercise data is just the beginning step right it's a beginning step to show look there really is a problem it's what people do with that data that matters um so we're going to do three breaths in your own time in your own space I am not going to count for you I am not going to tell you to hold it for a certain amount of minutes or to not have breath for however many seconds I'm not going to do any of that it's whatever feels good to you whatever feels best for your body feel free to close your eyes or look off in the middle distance if that's better um the first breath is as always for you the second breath is for your communities your families and the third breath is for the community we're building right here in this room I love doing this and then wait watching for people's eyes to open because I'm pretty sure that's when they've done the three breaths it's a thing uh met a moment see you look another meta moment of like you can watch because people's eyes will open uh thank you everyone here thank you Jesse and Margaret and Alexis thank you Kate thank you our interpreters Steve and Pam from Trubiz ASL and Sean our captioner from the National Captioning Institute thank you HowlRound for having us thank you audience whenever you may be watching this whether you're watching us live or you're watching us sometime later thanks for coming along with us and hopefully we'll get to see y'all soon and look I'm three minutes early Kate so what do we do it's three minutes with the extra three minutes I think we can just say we're gifting back three minutes another another meta moment it is okay all we've done is give everyone that and one final gift you're welcome viewer hi everyone thank you bye thanks for coming