 This year in partnership with Art of Action and the University of South Florida, here we are in sunny Tampa, Florida. Tampa folks, please make some noise. We have an incredible panel of artists and a big panel of ink artists today, and we are right now live streaming on HowlRound. If you're not familiar with HowlRound, please check them out at HowlRound.org. It's an amazing archive of performances, conversations, articles, and this will also be archived in streaming live now. Before we begin with our amazing panel, I have a very special surprise guest artist who's going to introduce herself very fast and tell you what she's going to do right after the panel. I'm Sequoia. I'm with Hamel. Can you hear me? I'm Sequoia. I'm with Hamel Music. We're producing music. I also work with an organization called WifeWheel.org. I'll be singing you guys as soon as we get outside. I'll start with the other names at last. So that's just why I'm going to give you some entertainment and more in the end of the line. Thank you. It was a great, amazingly generous show up on Last Minute Notice to share her beautiful voice with you and right after this panel, I hope you'll join her outside for that. So, we are about to begin a plenary of a great reminder. Please silent cell phones if you have them. That is really a conversation. This is not a traditional panel, but more kind of like an opportunity to hear these amazing artists. Some of them are veterans themselves and some of them have projects and we're seeing a more extensive movement. Talk about their work. We're going to do very brief introductions just so you know who's here but those of you who are in the summit, you have full bios in your packets and you've been seeing out in a lot of these some clashes of their work and you can also check out on the way out. And I'm going to ask them to very briefly introduce themselves with name, organization, affiliation, where they're based, and of course their role. And if you are a veteran, please also identify your father as a veteran. Good afternoon. My name is Ramon Baca. I am a classically trained ballet dancer who joined the United States Marine Corps and served in the wrong role. Wrong. I'll tell you something more about their name. I run Exit 12 Dance Company which the work I'm interested in is looking at the military experience through the art of dance and theater and how human experience, specifically the experience of war, impacts individuals and the round of recovery. We're based in New York City and we've been doing this work since 2007. Hello everyone. My name is Liz Lerner. I'm a choreographer. Recently moved to Arizona where I'm an institute professor in the Alberta Institute for Design and the Arts. I'm here now because we've finished the project with Healing Wars. But there were members of my company for many years who had been veterans and we did project over years in the facilities where we worked alongside veterans including a shipyard. But I have to say that a lot of my interest is civilians in our contemporary America right now and what happens to where we are in the relationship of all that. Hi. I'm Linda Parris Bailey and I am with the department of theater. I'm a playwright. Some of you saw our work last night. My work as a playwright is to be a little more pleasant. I am not a veteran. I kind of describe myself as a person who is interested in peace and interested in the work that we can do in terms of healing. I think that's a little similar. Hello. Marisa Call. I am a veteran as a Marine Corps. Actually, we're on my own in the same unit. I'm also a playwright. I'm a veteran of Brown in the Thurian Department and I run three communications groups. It's a new program for one of our heroes called Veterans of Theatre Institute. And what we're hoping to do nationally is to be able to teach veterans how to work in place and how to work in technical theater behind the kind of scenes. So while we're working in Rhode Island right now we're getting ready to sign up for one or two weeks in San Diego at about 1.00 a.m. in HSU in the beginning of academic year. 17. 18. And that's it. Hi, everyone. My name is Saturday Murphy. Excuse me. I am a U.S. Army veteran. I am the director and instructor for a program called Veterans Creating for Community. I'm an artist as well. I teach all the types of creative activities and expressive arts with veterans in a particular program that are in recovery. So my healing part of those specific veterans is combining art, which is the healing tool to express and help through mental illness. Good. Mic check. Mic check. Nope. Can you hear that? All right. This one sounds like it's working. Hi, everyone. My name is Tel Castellanos. I'm an actor, writer, director. And my role here is as artistic director of the combat hippies. You're right. They're right away. They'll make a lot of noise. Which is a group of veterans that have gotten together and written about their life, service and post-service experience and we've created a theater piece based on spoken word which we're doing next steps of Sunday night. Good afternoon. My name is Makoto Horano. And I am a choreographer, dance maker, theater maker, veteran and artistic director of Team Sunshine Performance Corporation based out of Philadelphia as well as artistic director and co-founder of Kano and Horano. Yeah. The work that I'm interested in and have been making with companies, with my companies, they range from small pieces that, you know, solo pieces to 100 people volunteer community ensembles and so anything in between from one to 100. Yeah. I'm just trying to make sure. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Trotter-Jullier. And I am a singer, a part of the band of the War and Treaty. I also am a musician. Thank you. And I am a combat veteran who served in the United States Army. And I am just happy to be here tonight. You guys will be able to hear the War and Treaty. You will open the concert this evening. Thank you. So I will be stepping in and out of view to just prompt some questions and some areas of conversation. But first, I want to ask you all to please give a hand to this extraordinary group of artists. I am truly very, very honored to be able to put on my presenter hat with Art to Action and present these incredible artists in the R&R Festival. You saw it. You killed my cousin last night. You'll see the War and Treaty tonight. And you'll see you've heard a little bit of piano as you came in today from Mike. And you will be seeing folks in the Veterans Open Mike, Maurice, and come back with these and sorry for using a workshop. And the dancers are in the dance concert. So we encourage you to come see all the work and talk about it with us. So this is an ongoing conversation. So one of the things that we're interested in kind of beginning the conversation with is this relationship of artists, veterans, and collaborations. And for those who are both what navigating those multiple identities as we were talking about in an earlier panel, the intersection of those identities is like in creating additional collaborations or working within your own community or bridging communities. So there's a range of ways that people work. And if we could maybe start with talking about what those collaborations have been like, how you approach collaborations with the military community or if you are a veteran working with civilian communities, what that collaboration is like. So anyone can go ahead and jump in. You got the mic. I got the mic. The mic. I think first of all to be able to realize that as a veteran there's an artist beside each of us and to be able to connect with that with yourself first is extremely important so that you can present your craft as authentic and with as much integrity as you can. And then when you present that craft what happens is other veterans and people, period civilians of life will then gravitate to you and they want to know more and they want to know how and they want to know why and what you went through and it's exciting for them because you're the voice they've been looking for and I think that's important to recognize as an artist working with veterans or as an artist veteran. Thank you. So before we came out to this conference I was one of my dancers and I asked them what they thought Exit 12 is and the most wonderful thing happened. They started talking about how when we tour we connect with community everywhere we go and I'll give you an example of that. We created a we are presenting a ballet tomorrow night that was created in O'Rourke by 26 O'Rourke youth. We reset it. We were able to explore their transformations and their hope for the future but every time we take that ballet somewhere we open up the opportunity and specifically here at the University of South Florida we've opened that opportunity up to the dance department and invited them in for them to be part of the piece we travel with extra costumes and then not only we allow these artists in to partake in this choreography but we're able to share the stories of the individuals that we worked with names like Hadil Hawar these young students we worked with that gave themselves to this creative process and since then have become refugees themselves or warriors or journalists we get to keep their stories alive through this connection with community everywhere we go. I think for us everything is rooted in the story and the connections of stories and communities I'm not a veteran myself the impact of veterans I experience directly mostly through being a teenager during Vietnam so there is a kind of divide that occurred there that we want to make sure doesn't occur again that we as people we're working for peace we're also working with veterans with those stories that are hard to tell and have a direct impact on our communities and also that we are very very interested in those intergenerational stories and the silence that keeps us all as we say keeps us all hostage so that we want to bring up that silence and share within our communities well about let's see about eight years ago I was in undergrad called me getting ready to go into history and I wanted to be a lawyer and I wanted to be a GI Bill to come into play so I took a year off from school and I wanted to use up documents and ended up at New York University's veterans writing workshop which is something that's still on and I walked into the room and they were teaching poetry and at the time I quickly came to understand that beyond just being able to learn how to write a poem what was actually happening in the room was we were making friends so the other people in the room were veterans mostly were out in Afghanistan some folks had served in the first level and later they had served all the way back to Korea so we started developing a community and within that community of friends these are people who I still see pretty regularly in New York and other places but what that room was able to do for me is give me a way to think about and process the work when I first came back I had really thought about I didn't put it aside and I didn't think about it for about six years until I ended up in that room I'm in a position now where I can create that room for other veterans so what I learned at NYU I know it's very helpful for me to move forward in my own life and in terms of working collaborative with other veterans I want to make sure that we are able to through TCG and our partners be able to create that same space for as many people as possible so that's sort of what we're doing now adding on to that thinking about art for a minute art projects have enormously long arcs again something's cooking and some people are way past when they're done performing and the thing that's interesting is to think about all these entry points that people can have in relationship to a project just a little story from our work Healing Wars which will be excerpt from tonight we were in a residency actually in Tallahassee we were fairly far along in a project we've done this is a piece that people time travel to Iraq and we were doing a scene on a bench in which a mother is saying goodbye to her son before he goes off to the Civil War but one of the people that came into our rehearsal room to work with us is a mother who lost her son in Iraq so she watched and then we asked her if she would direct the dancers so she wasn't in it she wasn't going to be she was above it so the dancer begins and the woman playing the mother touches his son so it's nice to touch him on and the woman Meredith said no you can't touch him I didn't touch him if I had touched him I would never let him go because she wasn't in the night before he left and they believe state of touch this is another part of it as you make these connections we've stayed in touch she's trying to deal with this world she's working out and of course she forever changed the dancers they actually did end up touching in the scene but they were completely molecularly different and this mic is working now so is there anyone else who hasn't spoken out on the panel that wants to address this part of the conversation about collaboration or in having both artists and veterans in the program that I direct Veterans Creating for Community we're located in a a local art center and so the local art center is kind of the house of life where they come so they're coming from a different establishment they're not in a clinical environment and it really takes that sense of way this is not talk therapy this is a very specific recovery group I found in my experiences of them being integrated in with community and community people are there engaging with them and through there, not through their process but before and after class they're able to talk and mingle and we have people from the Vietnam era to current and you really can see through their art process mainly visual art the exercises that we do they're being expressed out into the community through their own voice through their own lens so even if it's abstracted in some kind of way this art speaks volumes just with the connection through color the connection through texture that's created movement that we utilize after we create the work so that's more of an expressive art modality but we'll look at it and just sit in nature with those pieces how does that make you feel, how does that make you move we may just stand there you don't have to participate some don't, some do but the effects of different things just being in different environments just communing with nature and me also being a veteran and going to the same facilities the connection that occurs I think that's very special with a veteran instructor someone that's been on this kind of path but is also there as an inspiration and so there's that kind of give I get as much as I get and it's a very magical thing that happens you can't really express but you can express all these different modalities that are so important and the engagement with society is very important and then nurturing and just showing up so I think all of you for being here and just showing up because when they just show up for class that brings vibes that they are here and that's check that off, that's the golden star for the day just because you got here today so thank you also I think the beautiful thing about the opportunity of working with us veterans is to get a chance to realize that we're all not one kind and what I mean by that is you have some veterans who have never experienced war at all I know we talk about war a lot because it is something that definitely needs to be addressed and we talk about the combat veteran and we talk about that but something we've been talking about today is not necessarily combat veterans but women veterans people who have gone through MST which is military sexual trauma PTSD and we often relate that with combat as well but what we have to realize is that number one, you have an opportunity to work with veterans number two, you have an opportunity to play veterans I think that before you can work with a veteran, before you can present your art form you have to be able to win that veteran and let that veteran know that to meet you are mine I care for you, I want to know what you have to say I want to hear what you went through I want you to know that and the last thing is our art forms, we get a chance to diffuse the veteran and what I mean by that is oftentimes we when we go through our things, we often tell the veteran you're safe, it's okay but that's a veteran especially as a combat veteran I think you got it confused it's not so much I'm wondering if I'm okay my first job was to pretend and serve and defend my country which means you my country is one person at a time so the first thing that's on my mind when I'm out of the military is when I encounter a civilian I want to know if you feel safe I want to know if you're okay I want to know if my family's okay and by me seeing that she feels safe enough and free enough to present your art form and you want to work with me that diffuses me a lot automatically so that's what I'm saying thank you so some threads I'll just pull out what I'm hearing is how much the work community is coming up this bridge or reach across military, civilian this divide that often gets talked about and and these collaborations from the individual one-on-one to the hundred person ensemble and how each of these artists and approaches those collaborations differently I want to continue this conversation and remind panelists that you can talk to each other and ask each other questions as well I'm a student prompt but we also want to talk about we often as artists I think go to the beauty and there are also some challenges that are particularly specific to working with the military or institutions or veterans specifically and so I wanted to read that into the conversation if anyone wants to talk about some challenges you encounter or roadblocks and how you move to the roadblock or moved it or went over it or around it and so as we can all learn together how we approach this work anyone wants to jump in with that okay okay is this on? okay, so roadblocks I've definitely had some significant roadblocks because of the specific group that I work with they're in recovery because of I really can't go further into that but bringing them out into the community I do have a band with a nurse that comes along with them my group started out with about four in attendance this was a capstone of another woman and she was leaving the area and somehow it just came to me and I said yes, I would love to do this after I took over the program two and a half years ago it has grown a lot a lot a lot a lot and a lot of roadblocks that I had hit were our group is growing to hit we can allow this many people to come you're going to need additional nurses you're going to need additional men and so they wanted to cut the program in half and literally take half of the veterans and say we'll keep them over here and do some cracks with them and then we'll swap them out every week and I was like I'm not doing cracks we're not doing popsicles things and that's kind of how craft clinics and things in systems are working like that and so when you're meeting artisans that are doing these are really like this is it this is the nitty gritty of art world and really getting to those places that we are faced challenging with our own artistic creative processes but also wanting to expose that to other veterans and what eventually happened out of that is there were so much of the veterans that started removing themselves from that specific program because of what was happening that they kind of stood up and said no and so now we do have two bands coming we do have two nurses coming and that roadblock I just was sent fast and I just said I will not stop I will be there and I will show up every day when we are supposed to just like you guys will and I have always offered them outside of that system to always feel free even after you graduate of the program please continue coming your family members can come and a lot of them have can my wife come to this class? absolutely so remain that kicking that door open and knowing them that I am there and like you said I am going to be with you I care for you and the reason why I am here is very important to me so it does give other veterans especially for being out here that we didn't have this before I have had a lot of people that say I don't know what Joy feels like I know what it is but I don't know what that looks like anymore and so through different modalities that is very important and that is why we still remain into what we do so that is definitely a roadblock but also I have conquered moving forward and now I am looking at the other challenges and I am like that is okay things are growing things are changing and voices and numbers do make a difference I have a question back to you but to the group as well as far as working within a community with a community keeping keeping the community together and or slash sort of longevity for our time commitment yeah I face a lot of challenges within that so I am curious about it we don't know how we did it kind of things but I have questions about how or what you learned about how to do it in that realm of question back to you guys just an observation I will go back to the the program of NYU because that was been running since 2008-9 I think what was and the reason why that was has been so successful because of consistency so since 2008 I go there tomorrow if I wanted to I know that it is in the same room in the same building at the same time spot and it has been like that for almost a decade Saturday afternoon from 2 to 4 at the writing house in the room that will be running so consistency is I think I have seen other programs that were less consistent and I have heard the room looks within the groups so consistency is I think one of the key things that we need to think about I don't know about you but I have a life I have things I am responsible for so if the schedule changes every week I am going to not be there because I have children that have work I am responsible for so consistency I think is key an observation from my program in Rhode Island and all the years that I have been in these kinds of writing groups I have never had this happen until September October we were doing Ajax and one of the people who said to me afterwards I only read half the play I was a nurse in Vienna and it was just too much so I am just thinking thinking through how could one support this particular individual it is something I have been thinking about because I have been in and around this world for a long time and that was the first time that I have heard that I just had that with the mill and I continued that time so we started looking at strategies how did it switch back to plays in general all of the past so for us it is a particular kind of problem because we are a touring company and we rely on partnerships on solid communication partnerships the partnership with R2 Action has really held our part of the R2 Action project together because we are working consistently with the group and I can come in and out of that group but I know that that group is maintained by an artist who is here in a local community and that has worked because we always want to work deeply in the community and work with partners who are going to be there over the long haul and we are touring and we have not ever done a single performance we have always done and we are working to develop tools that we can leave in community and leave with people who are advocates and the other part of that is when you go into a community to identify those people who are advocates for what you are doing as an artist with the veterans community and we have been able to do that largely because of our links globally and their links with others but that is a lot of work and it requires a commitment to do that and to be that Going back to your question about challenges I think every Marine in the room gets that same kind of steely eye, one eyebrow gaze when the year of the world is a challenge because the first thing they think of is kicking down a door and it's fun but then I kind of go back to the artist I am and remember that one of the things I have been focusing on lately is listening and learning and so what I think I am going to present to you one of my challenges that I have been thinking about lately and if you are coming to the performance I would love for you to help us figure this out one of the things that I have been thinking about is human experience and how human experience is shared one of the things I have learned in our performances is that we have this wonderful way of impacting people and I wanted to change that experience for the audience in a way that is new and the thing I am thinking about is how to make it more than just an audience performer relationship and to bring them really into the experience that we are putting on stage and I have seen it happen but I think what I am asking you is how that can be replicated because I think that the experiences that we all share are very important not only to see but to feel but to feel on a very personal level so if you can help me with that that would be wonderful Does anyone on the panel want to address the question that Ramon just posed it could be an ongoing exploration for the next few days so I want to just a technical reminder everyone please hold the mic close to your mouth so that the camera picks up the sound but I am going to shift and continue on some of the things we have been talking about and I want to shift us a little bit to like in our very brief preparation conversation when we all had a few minutes together kind of bubbled up as an area that everyone on the panel has some passion about and I suspect there might be quite a range of opinions and approaches to this question which is of course always a question of creative process when you are talking with artists but specifically the relationship here we are at the National Summit on Arts and Health in the military so the relationship of creative process and the process that each of you use to this question of health and healing and what do we mean by healing maybe we don't all mean the same thing and whether or not in our process we put that as the goal or whether we put the goal as just making the best art that we can and healing is a thing that happens in that process of making the best art we can or when we need to pause because the healing process becomes paramount when actually working with real human beings so this is the question I want to ask each of you to address and call out Teo and ask him to begin he's been very thoughtful over there and think about this conversation about your creative process and this relationship to healing in your work and how you approach your work yes thank you for the shout out Andrea I like as you were posing that question I like I think the idea of creating the best possible work of art that we can and that healing happens in that process and that healing happens as a result of the final product I have been trying to take a mental note in reference to storytelling and challenges we that I use and which is required reading for these young artists because they're basically new to this process is that we are all healers right and that we are all artists and that the ultimate healer is the storyteller and the shaman, the griot and the shaman what is the role of a shaman in traditional societies or the griot is to travel to other worlds and come back with the elixir that heals our communities and that is exactly what we do in this creative process there's really no difference and healing is the foundation of that healing happens in that room in that rehearsal space in that creative space that's happening and that healing goes out and we need that rehearsal space and definitely or in hopes that it happens post-performance there's always the only show that I've agreed to do post-performance discussion because it's needed they want to process this piece this work and healing continues to happen in that and I guess what's really important for us in reference to challenges maybe going back a little bit is that we leave a residual effect in each community that it's not about coming and performing and balancing it's really about spreading that healing and the idea of this dichotomy or division of community and military we can't forget that our military came out of our community so we are actually there is no division there is only different experiences but I think that we at the foundation of all that is our humanity and our propensity to help and heal and love each other and that's the ultimate goal with the creative process so to I don't know how this is going to come out but I don't mean oppositional it might not but my thinking is my question is in the part where you're talking about artists being the healer, storyteller leader in some ways I'm just answering and so the way you said it you make it sound like you always know that so that's I think we all in different ways I don't know shit we don't know anything we don't know what we're doing and then the vibration between I totally know exactly what I'm doing and sometimes I think I totally know what I'm doing and sometimes I actually do sometimes I play I'm somewhere between all the time so maybe my question that I'm getting to is when do you some of you guys have outrageous resumes so when do you start stopping when answer to this question I agree that we in different groups in different ways it's like but if you hear a question in there when do you know that you don't know and when well I think the beautiful thing often times that we come across in art is when we realize we really just don't know and I think it starts a lot when you are a civilian dealing with veterans since we're talking about that in the creative process I think Liz, I think you gave a perfect example of that how you invited the soldier's mother to direct because you can speculate all day you can think and no matter how many times you've watched Full Metal Jacket or Savin' the Barbarian or any other movies or play the war video games you will never know unless you've been in that position and often times we found the biggest challenge is overthinking so what you did was you asked would you like to direct and some of the things that we think that it's okay like touching the curtain she's like no don't do that so I think that when we come across a time it's okay and just because you're a leader don't know that's okay it's not okay when you don't realize that other people may not I think that that is yeah I think the the only thing that voted this yesterday in the van right up here I told Drew one of the hit piece I said the only thing I know I don't know and that is true I start each project not knowing really other than you know I know how to create I know how to direct and I know how to create a dramatic structure but I really don't know where it's going well no I just to say that there are however a lot of rigors in not knowing that you do know and that you come to know over time in fact you might even invite in not knowing because of the risk the thrill the potential that without loving the people I'm with I'll never get through it I mean and that's where I think in a very small way the process may mirror the military process risk, purpose and love and the way those things recombine themselves but where I was thinking two things, three things I've often come growing up dancing saved my life, I don't know if it really saved my life but it saved the livingness in me and that never goes away whatever that was in the end that never goes away the second thing, there was a period when I was an hours from residence at Truman's hospital in Washington DC and I go there in the morning and then I come in the afternoon to work with my professional company and develop artistic development why was it therapy in the morning and not in the afternoon and what the only to mind is therapy if the people were working with are so-called damage what is that? so I think there's a huge spiral of things we can think about in there with our language because the implication is I'm well or not or you know things like that and I know people are thinking hard about that but there is in this piece Healing Wars we did get a tremendous amount of help from many many people throughout the veterans community and we were getting close to premiering it and a man who worked closely with us whose brother was a triple MVP came to me one day and he said okay Liz I want to know does anybody get healed in this piece? because if they don't I'm not coming I'm already healed well if you know and here is that thing I said well gee I don't know I hadn't actually asked myself that question and what did he mean so I did say there's a little bit of a rigor he'd be 24 hours but I had no way to think about this I don't know because he had really been engaged he'd come to rehearsals he was in at us and then to suddenly have that question posing so I came back from the next day and I said for me in that moment in time if you mean by healing that somebody gets over it and they're done and it's finished then no that's not happening but if you think healing is a verb that it's a partnership that it's an ongoing that we are all marked and that we become these people every day but yes in fact you'll see it right on stage but it took me the question and the realization I just wanted to do a comment on what you were saying as all of us being creative I know one process for me is like that is the process the non knowing the intuitive self the spirit self that comes through when you don't know it's like oh some juice is about to happen something's about to so allowing that kind of fluidity is where the creation I feel comes from and it somehow manifests itself I know it's your intuitive painting causes that I do healing and then it manifests healing comes out of that like you were talking about before like creating and I mean you could be an ugly mess but the energy is there and staying with the flow of energy once the energy stops it's like okay well there's nothing I'm not feeling anything here so I'm going to go into a different movement or a different space or something like that conceptually I'm talking conceptually but that's just my own personal experience of the not knowing that's the power of like it's an open door because I have a plan or there's a plan set the plan can contain boundaries or walls or I'll stay so close to that plan that the life essence in the project may be lost in some part of life I think it's in in the practice of entering and exiting the community and you always enter any community as a student who are not an authority or anyone else's community so when we enter the veterans community we enter students and the the rigor I think particularly in the populations that we've been working with the veterans and the questions that we've been raising the veterans it demands honesty it demands a fundamental willingness to expose things about yourself as other people expose things about themselves and if you're not willing to go there then you know go home and I think that what we try to do in every situation is create that space for people to talk and you know this year you're always so wise and articulate about things you know it just always opens up for me practice and how we have to be respectful and we have to be willing to make change even in our case we started with a fundamental story but that story is shaped and reshaped and transformed by what we hear and what people share with us and that's deep those relationships are very deep and we have to respect that as well one more reason to run did you ever feel like you were going to say something really smart and it didn't sound so smart you tried to articulate so I'm going to tell you two of the things I'm thinking about and then just have that and work with that as best you can and I think I want to kind of riff off what you were talking about in not knowing we were approached by a theater in Northumberland Beretskamp Tweed, England and they called us up and they said we've heard about the work that you've been doing we are really interested in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and the theater director had been reading a book about the parallels between Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and World War I and also the UK right now from 2014 to 2018 has this big celebration with this honoring of World War I going on that's ending in 2018 and so the theater was thinking about a new Rite of Spring to approach it from the military and all of these things that the theater director was bringing together he's like, I want to bring in these UK military and these exoraki military there are artists that have moved to the area and some US military and we're going to take the Rite of Spring and we're going to shrink it down to two pianos and two violins and then you're going to bring your company and we're all going to do this and it's going to premiere in 2018 and I was like, that sounds awesome it just seems like a large deliverable what Liz said, the knowing is in the technique the knowing is the preparation and going to these rehearsals in these creative sessions with all of these individuals and all of this community that's coming together and relying on the tools and techniques that you've either derived, prepared or been trained in that starts the creative process it's not the creative process it's the creative process and if you bear with me for one more second I'll give you an example of that so we were doing a partnership with Lavella and Worry Writers out of Philadelphia Worry Writers is a veteran writing workshop and they bring veterans in to write about their experiences they don't have to be about war but they write about their experiences and we invited veterans in to do a collaboration and I don't want to say we tricked them into dancing they thought that they were going to come in and they were going to write about stuff and then the dancers would dance and that's kind of the way the relationship would be and so we went to the studio and I had all my techniques ready the things that we were going to do that day and one of the veterans, this veteran Everett he's a Vietnam veteran and I talk about it every all the time and I had the opportunity to talk about him in front of congress and say some of the things he said that the self-proclaimed really violence was he tells about his experience during the Vietnam War and the military had made him this machine for destruction and that's all he knew he knew how to destroy things and so when he came back he went into the hard labor because breaking bricks and concrete using jack cameras, that's how he got this person that the military created, that's how he sustained this person for years so we're in the studio, we have like two of the warrior writers there, we have five or six of my dancers I get a phone call from Everett Everett's like hey I'm a block away but I'm not coming I just don't feel comfortable with this I'm like Everett it's okay, we'll see you next time and I hung up the phone I got another phone call and he's like Everett, I'm outside the door but I'm not coming Everett it's totally fine and I completely understand that I want you to feel comfortable so why don't we just we'll see you next time Everett walked in about five minutes later and he said I'm not participating just gonna watch Everett, that's totally fine we started working and I asked Everett if we could use one of his pieces of writing and he said absolutely and I said well we're gonna have Jen read it and you're just gonna go over with Taylor and you're gonna do this exercise Taylor's open answers and I thought she was there but I think she's back there and one of the exercises is we pair people off and they do this thing where one person moves, the other person puts them into poses and Everett and Taylor were doing this exercise and we did the exercise, everything was fine Everett actually went through the whole rehearsal and he not performed, but he did some of this stuff with people reading his poetry and he was moving to it, it was wonderful but that's not why I'm telling you this I'm telling you this to share with you Everett's experiences he related them to me he said they were transformative because of one tiny moment during that mannequin exercise Taylor was moving his head and she just reached out with both of her hands and tilted his head this way and that and for Everett that took him back to when his little boy was two years old and he used to play with his father's face and I think a lot of things helped Everett a lot but I think it reminded him that one we can do so much by touching another person and two when we let our guard down and allow ourselves to be touched and moved we can truly be transformed he's so good with the microphone he's like hold the microphone up and he's like I got this I got this it's challenging to I know Everett I've known Everett for a long time that might be so long I would just say oh yeah thank you I know Everett too Everett to front but I know Everett at least when New York becomes the right workshop I've seen a change over the many years that I've known him in terms of not knowing with our program thinking programmatically, big picture we've put in place an entire we've talked about the theory of change we're going to go from taking people who are not necessarily theater makers and making them walk because that's an opportunity that might allow them to be theater makers with the ultimate goal of building demand for theater I think it's one of our impacts along the way to the ultimate outcome we've recognized as such although we've taken the time to create this it looks like a flow chart I know that once we actually hit the ground in North Carolina San Diego and then in Arizona all that work and all that preparation it I don't know how this is actually going to work out so you know one needs to trust the people that you're working with that's how I see it the people on the ground, the people in the community everyone understands the goal everyone's been briefed but I don't know I don't know the communities I don't live in Van Buren or in San Diego or in Arizona so just the trust with the people that are going to be in the room facilitating I really don't know I know what I know and I know how to plan the whole thing I don't know how to do strategy but then once you put the thing it's action trust it's a definite take a moment just to acknowledge as we're having this amazing conversation among practicing artists that in this room there are folks on quite a wide spectrum practicing artists professional therapists creative arts therapists thinkers and leaders who maybe aren't on the ground on a daily basis and so one of the things that I find interesting in this conversation is how comfortable all of us are as artists about talking about what we don't know but often when we go into an institutional collaboration or something I don't know it's not a satisfying conversation well maybe don't tell them we're going to dance because then they won't come we know these things as part of our practice we know this and then understanding also this question of in this relationship between healing what is healing it's a really great question what do we believe it to be when we enter the work and how does it happen and what kind of context and environments it happens so I love what Liz said about why is it healing in the morning and in the afternoon when it's actually both all the time and this question that I think is really alive in the practice of these artists is the moment of making the art sometimes in a therapy environment the process really really is a focus especially in performing arts there may never be a performance moment outside of that therapy environment whereas with this work that public moment that performance moment that what happens when you step out of the studio onto the stage is a transformative moment in itself and so I'm wondering if anyone wants to share a little bit about that or in the case of the visual arts when you show the work to other people outside of the clinical environment for example so what is that moment transformative process of that moment of art making and how we have these conversations across disciplines and then a little bit we'll actually open it up and make this a full group conversation but I did want to make sure we get to that question as well as something that Marie said earlier about developing a theory of change I guess I'll start again you know it's such an awesome question when I'm employed this was back in 03 and I employed with 16th infantry first armored division in the army I had no clue where we were going they were like we're going to deploy into the green zone and green zone means no fighting like yay and then we were in the green zone they did not lie because the army doesn't lie we were there for about 20 minutes and then we went to Ramadi you're definitely going to fight there so and this is my first year I'm fresh out of basic before the military I only sang in church and I went home I really didn't want to be a singer I didn't want to be the next biggie smalls as you can see but I was so tapping my boots to touch ground I mean I'm talking about a fear that I had never felt before when we got there the NCOs introduced me to a captain and this captain explained to me that somewhere in the vicinity of where we were living there was a piano and this piano was said to belong to Saddam Hussein himself and he was like do you like music? I'm like yeah but I like my life more and I don't really want to get shot when I joined the army they told me I go to school but he said to me that why don't you just go because it was quite visible that I was the most terrified I went to the room with the piano and I was alone I had never touched a piano before in my life again this is 2003 but sitting in front of this piano that belonged to the person who's responsible for us being there in my life I'm sitting down and I began to write my fears out when I free the song that I came up with consisted of three notes it sounded like Mozart to me but whenever I would get terrified and feel loopy and really afraid I'd go back to that place and I'd get back on that piano and I realized something strange was happening something unique something wasn't where I'm looking for transformative was happening to my fears I started to forget where I was and I started to learn more chords and I started to hear more things and I started discover melodies within myself I started to trust myself then I got up enough confidence to let my battle buddy hear what I had come up with by this time I was only playing with my right hand I was like man that sounds like the most beautiful piece of crap I've ever heard because it's coming from you Trotter and then you know but then he'd say we'll play it again and before I knew it three soldiers would come in and hear me and ten and then before I knew it that captain who told me he was there in the first place he'd come in and now within the month I'm up to playing with both of my hands I'm playing full chords and then that captain goes out of the gate and he does not return he's killed and then I discover a new level of fear going through the rest of my tour without him and that transformed into a deeper connection with this instrument in front of and so I composed my first song and the soldiers so much that they asked the commander if they would allow me to perform the song in Iraq now that would mean that they would have to go and buy a keyboard and get it shipped from America to Iraq and who knows how long that's going to take or maybe they could get one brought in from Kuwait because Kuwait is just awesome sorry but something again unique happened as they did and they allowed me to to sing and I sang and played the song that I wrote for the captain and if you know anything about us soldiers whether you're Marine Navy or force army we love to try to keep our composure you know that tough persona you stand in formation and if you've ever been to a funeral service out in theater you're standing outside in 136 degree weather in all your full bell route and you're standing there and you're looking at a pair of boots with a weapon stuck in the middle of it with a helmet on top of the buttstock of a gun and you're looking at that dog tag and you're thinking to yourself oh that's what you think you're thinking but you don't shed a tear you keep your composure well that day I saw about 986 troops transformed they forgot composure which started to shed tears and they were holding each other up as I was singing, literally and I thought to myself man this is so not about me this is so it transformed so much that for the remainder of my time in Iraq the general said that will be that soldier's job he will go around he will write his own songs about troops who have perished he will learn about them and he will sing at the memorial service and I would then do that from 2003 and they only told me I would do it to 2004 but I would do it from 2003 all the way into the time I would exit the military any time we would go to the war in fact it was so transforming for me that I, the second time at my channel command they were so pleased with my performance as a soldier that they decided to give me a choice either you can go because y'all had so much little time left or you can stay back here in rear detachment you don't go to war, you stay back on your posts and work with families and that sort of thing and then they gave me 30 days of leave and I went home and think about it what? you mean I get to go to the states and think about where I want to go back to war or not? I don't know how to answer now but when I went home I remember sitting at the dinner table with family and friends and just feeling like man I missed my guys and they were going their way back to Iraq and I called back and I said you know am I going to be singing and doing the memorial thing again so do you want to I said if that is the case I definitely want to go back again guys I'll go back to what I said at the beginning if you stay pure and stay true and keep your art form authentic it is the highest form of transforming not just others but yourself that is the key the art form and songs you sing and the dance you dance if in your moments you don't find yourself weeping and thinking about this and really just excited about the change it's causing in your own life you cannot expect for it to transform someone else and I think that that is the thing and now I'm able to travel around the world and sing my songs as a veteran my wife and with my friend and I'm able to tell that story and I'm able to connect with so many of the great amazing people and we're all able to transform together so that's it another mic drop on it thank you I think we have 15 minutes left I would love to invite the artists on the plenary to continue this conversation about transformation and anything that I would like to say and also offer an opportunity in the last 15 minutes if there are questions burning in the audience if I could have a volunteer to help run unlike I will call for a volunteer or I'll do it myself oh thank you we have a volunteer as well and I'm going to pass it back to the plenary if you can hand me one of my phones please and remember you have to get very close to this one if you do have a question please make it or anyone on the plenary who wants to address this question of transformation and change or period change just really quickly maybe it'll start some questions I think one of the most interesting things just speaking personally we've been doing this work since 2007 we've toured around the nation and we've been able to touch a lot of people with our work but one of the most impactful moments for me happened just last year when we were doing a question and answer after one of our performances and one of our massive dancers can you explain a profound moment for you and one of my dancers has been with me for a very very long time and has become a dear dear friend said the most interesting thing for me has been to see Ramon's transformation in all of this and to see struggle and then find meaning and purpose in the service of others through art back when I started my best friend from high school who was an army veteran donated money for us to start and I asked him years later I'm like why why are you so supportive of this and he said you know I'm not supportive of your cause I'm supportive of you and I thought that if I gave money to help you do this it would help you and so kind of when you talk about transformation I think transformation is sparked by others definitely is there anyone in the audience who would guess there is a question over here we'll send the microphone and the cameras might answer what are you comfortable with less a question than just to sort of get in on the conversation about healing since I think that's what we're about here right and I just sort of want to invite us to hold on to the idea that I think one of the things that makes us centrally important in this process is that as artists what we do through our art is we are accepting the human experience that's what's fundamental there we're not throwing any of that experience out and maybe this difference we might have semantically between healing and curing fixing, changing and so this notion of transformation about us through art what art helps us do in giving it guiding a veteran through this dealing with challenges is to attempt to build a different relationship with parts of themselves that aren't going right we're not going to get rid of any of these experiences we've had we're not going to get rid of this trauma it's not going anywhere but somehow we have to heal our relationship with those aspects of ourselves and so that creative process in a position where we can help take anybody through a creative process is a process ultimately a building a different relationship with challenging parts of yourself I think and that's why we do it all the time or I think and just kind of bouncing off what you said or finding a way to reinterpret our story what Joe Carson wrote about in terms of reframing the story and putting that experience in a different context and I think as I agree with Liz I also when we go into the workshop make it clear that we're not therapists we're artists and we're going through a story circle and that we're sharing stories and our intent is only to allow you to tell that story that you need to tell and it doesn't necessarily have to be a story about your veterans or military experience but that story that you need to tell and I think that in some ways there have been veterans who have shared things and this is what we hear from therapists in our work with them that they've never told a therapist in like five or six years and I think there is a different way of becoming trusted and perhaps a more level playing field in the work that we're doing and different expectation so I do make that differentiation and I think it's very useful if I could support what Linda is saying and join that by saying that and it's also important for me to acknowledge as an artist that I am not a therapist and that there is training that sometimes is needed that I don't have and that those partnerships are really really important and through that partnership we're allowed to be fully the artists in the space and also know that if there is a different skill set needed we have those partners in the room and in the space who can support that and offer those skills and that we can work together and I think that's one of the models part of the model that we're in some way proposing through our work and want to share we do have another audience question over here question and for mentioning everything bringing them into the space I work with warrior writers we do writing workshops around the country and one of the conversations that we've been having both in warrior writers and comment paper and a lot of other veteran artists circles is because we're talking about feeling this idea that sometimes veteran art is or veteran artists are seen as not taken seriously because it's therapeutic or therapy art and I was just wondering any of your experiences or thoughts on that I know it's something that is a struggle to have your art taken seriously but also recognize that it is therapeutic how do you sort of deal with those issues and address that kind of stuff well I think we discussed that when we were sitting at lunch often times when we talk about art and health it's like art or art and healing and I think that the first thing I do especially in fighting for the arts and funding and programs and that sort of thing is to realize that they are not separate they are one and the same and they end up intertwining often in the healing process so I believe that that's the first thing and understanding that there are not levels of healing it's all healing and healing isn't to be you don't put a period there I heal it is ongoing it is a process that is never ending and it is an illuminating process to be able to see and be able to experience I believe the gentleman said something about the human experience I think throughout all of this we are realizing that we are experiencing our own humanity all over again in the most short way possible so I think that is the first step in seeing your art form and our art forms take it seriously to realize that it is not a separation of the two that it all works together for the welfare and well-being of I would just offer for a minute a slightly other way of thinking about it which grew out of my long work with older people in the dance world and a lot of times I know many of you know you've seen me do this and my idea was like ok the work we do when we tour in places like the Kennedy Center is up here this is in response to your question and the stuff we do in the nursing homes and seniors that's done here this is our call away or people do this our work in communities that is the most essential why are we still performing in theaters they're white, they're old they're elitist, they're European stop actually it's a really question there are reasons not to for some of those very reasons what we found was more fruitful was this which is really easy to lift my hands requires actually a deep philosophical change you can spend your whole life trying to make that happen but you can live it starting right now in fact you probably already are and sometimes it is you know you make it a circle then they are the same things which is what you're talking about but sometimes it's really interesting to be on this big huge white spectrum and to spend a lot of time way out on some edge somewhere it's not exactly precise we could discuss more about what it's like and how we work and with that for me then I'm just amazed by the enormous amount of work that's happening as expressed in this room and beyond this room where people are occupying all kinds of places on that spectrum and it's strong and just say in the hierarchical order you know this is good and this is not good if you know it leads to laziness if you go this way everything has its good based on context, based on one of the expectations the needs, who's in the room what you're trying to say and that's when it gets so exciting it's also sustained we have two more questions I'm wondering if you can Maurice and then the question here and we have one more question here and if we have time we'll take it I get to travel and get to work but that's a little country and it's just something that I oftentimes walk away with thinking it's just how talented the community really is in Arizona, was out there in October of last year and we were doing writing workshops with the gamut show because we had a show that was lined up and the people who were showing up to the writing workshops some of these ones have never written a poll ever before in their lives and the work that was being created in 10 minutes was amazing so the work itself is good, I think passing it over the years is people just need the opportunity to sit down and think about the stuff in writing but the work as a writer the work is good we have a question on the side I'm a music therapist so I come to the table from a different side so I would be interested in hearing more about it we may not have time for this now but how you interact with creative arts therapists because music was an outlet for me it was a way to transform the way I do would do well so I fundamentally understand that concept but my job is to work with individuals who do need therapy and often I find that there's confusion from working with them and how is the artist different from the creative arts therapist so I would just love to hear more about how you distinguish between those two how you help the people you work with distinguish and make sure that all of these are meant because I think they'll have a role but that role sometimes at least from a patient perspective is often blurred and there's a lot of misunderstanding so I'll answer that the veterans I've worked with are from a specific group of veterans and also professional artists so what I do is I cater it to the needs of what they need creative activities that'll work within a certain kind of spectrum and so there's a lot of research of a certain type of skills of what we can do this but how do I do what I do or how can I teach something in a specific way so that they'll understand depending on spectrums and then also how it would benefit them but it's also benefiting me at the same time so we do things together as I'm creating they're creating and so we work together hand to hand but I'm very specific about some places can take you to really heavy spaces and you really do need you know I guess I've had two nurses with us so because I'm not a therapist I'm an artist and I'm just creating a container a safe container to express and so the circle of veterans that are in that container we all hold that container together so I'm just kind of a facilitator of that container holding space and so the hard stuff that I do with them is not very specific so with music I'm not sure you know finding different ways that you however you express yourself there's some things that we'll do where I'll just have everybody stand up and we'll look at each other in silence for two minutes so we can connect you know or certain kind of things but then we incorporate the artwork I don't know why we'll utilize that connection and I can use color so we may work color that day so just being very creative with it always you know just the trust trusting your instincts trusting your technical skills and you'll find that path but like I will do shows to you and if someone outside of that there's a huge veteran art show and I'll work with them one on one on specific pieces but everybody's going to have their own skill set so I do just broad general strengths on restaurants and then it works for everyone so we're going to take two more questions very quickly we're almost out of time so I'll ask that one person take each question I wanted to offer a suggestion actually because I come from the formal art therapy part of his table and it touches on something that Liz said so very beautifully in that there is no one that's more important than another everything touches people differently people respond to different approaches differently and where we can form partnerships that help us translate the value of arts and health and arts and mental health is when we work together to funders to sponsors to member that they not understand the value of creative process but maybe they understand numbers or maybe they understand statistics by working together we can create that dialogue where we can show statistics and we can show data and we can also show qualitative perspective of the value that arts therapy whether it's performing arts or clinical art therapy provides it's all part of the same circle and I love the fact that we're more collaborative and competitive because competition in this arena doesn't perform that was a beautiful comment thank you so much we have one more question in the back and while Mike is being taken back come forward please to remind everyone that as soon as this panel is over we're all going outside and we need to get over to the health center those who are in the summit at core of hi good afternoon my name is Yannis Rodriguez I'm a graduate student representing southwestern college at Santa Fe, Mexico I'm a graduate student at counseling for arts therapy I'm currently interviewing at the veterans our center at Santa Fe so I just wanted to really talk about the partnership that you guys have been talking about and keep mentioning arts and therapy I as an art therapist have to after I'm done with school go out into the world and make that partnership and so I want to really just get any comments about action plans, action steps that those of us that are in the audience can take because I as an art therapist right now have nine states that I can choose from where I can go and I can get licensed as an art therapy practitioner without jumping through a thousand hoops so nine states is not very many right and that's on behalf of art therapy and so this summit is really about that partnership between the military and the arts and unfortunately that can't really happen unless there are more art therapists in the world and there are more art therapists jumping through so many hoops, correct and so I really just wanted to comment on that plan of action and really being an advocate and speaking for your perspective discipline for example Karen Panzer, our second lady now was an advocate of art therapy so there's a great avenue that we can take and start making more noise right and get more states to certify our therapist and so I just wanted to mention that I also wanted to say that I'm only speaking on behalf of art therapy so if another discipline wants to comment as to what an action step would be so this is a great thank you, this is an excellent way to end I'm going to ask each artist to say one action step briefly and we'll close out one action step in partnerships in partnerships this is that question right and we'll end with a few recommendations I just want to say to give them a moment to think in exchange we'll continue throughout the weekend the practice based workshops throughout the weekend are exactly about these relationships and this cross-disciplinary conversation so one action step that you would want to leave us with might be from one sorry and we'll go around the circle and see Mike the best partnerships that I facilitated that started with friendships and the best partnerships that I've started have started with friendships wonderful friendships there's so much need out there that if you try partnering with someone and they schedule bingo during your workshop don't stay there find another one there are many many people out there I think about people in institutions and educational institutions in particular always start with those quote-unquote experts and people at the top and I urge you in partnerships to look at the people who've been doing the work in the community for the longest time I guess I'll agree with that and I'll go back to the notion of vital little noncon so when we were in the program to noncon I trust the people that we're working with and you know we figured out if they wanted to work with us they wanted to work with us so it was a yes-yes and I trust that they know how to run a workshop better than I do in the program we've actually spoken on the phone um so yeah so connections connections and we have been in touch in conversation but also I agree other local things like the Veteran Arts Center Tampa Bay networking connections and also your local or you know are there be associations too I don't know what kind of connections they have in details and open discussions that they will work with I would say look beyond duality and see the deeper common ground so right don't convince if you have to convince then you have to continue to convince it's been my experience so if you find yourself not like a big deal of things if you have to convince then it's probably not the right place intentional intentional partnerships so that is some wisdom from this amazing panel I want to thank our funders the Doors to Charitable Foundation especially the Florian Amherst Foundation the University of South Florida Power Rounds Thank you