 Hello anybody who has signed on for our conversation this evening, you are in the right place we're going to kick off in about 15 minutes right at seven o'clock. So thank you so much you can hang out we're just streaming out today so you won't be able to chat to us directly via zoom but if you're in jimeo or on facebook you should be able to chat or comment either below or to the side of this lovely slide. Take it by your message Dan that this means it's working. Hi again anybody who's joined us early on this lovely stream here um you're in the right place for our conversation this evening a new frameworks for performance will be starting in about 10 minutes at seven o'clock and if you need anything or you're interested in saying hello there's a lovely chat either to the side or below the vimeo video which you can access from the playwright center page or the howl around page you can also email us at questions at pwcenter.org if you have questions or um just want to say hello and hi again anybody who has hopped on early for our conversation this evening we are very excited to have you here we'll be starting in about eight minutes right at seven if you have any questions or need anything we're not all on zoom together this time we're streaming out via vimeo but you can find a comment section either to the side or right below your vimeo video hello everybody who's hopped on early to our live stream for tonight's conversation frameworks for performance we're so glad to have you here we'll be starting in about four minutes right at seven o'clock if you have questions i want to participate in the q and a or have any questions about how the the live stream is working if you're looking on vimeo whether that's linked from the playwright center page or the howl round page you'll see a section either to the side or underneath your video box that has a chat or a comment section all you have to do is put your name in and then you'll be able to comment there otherwise you're welcome to contact us via email questions at pwcenter.org will be the place to send the questions you have for our panelists this evening welcome everybody to our live stream artist conversation this evening we'll be getting started in about a minute so whether you are tuning in on the playwright center page the howl round page or right on vimeo we're so glad to have you here if you have uh want to participate in the q and a which will happen a little bit later on in the conversation or if you have questions about the live stream if you're on vimeo you'll see a chat section probably to the side of your video box or right underneath where you just need to enter your name and then you can chat there otherwise you can feel free to uh contact us via email questions at pwcenter.org is the address to use i'll be uh on that all evening um so feel free to send questions there as well i'm going to stop my lovely screen share right now and turn things over to hailey finn whenever you're ready oh hi julia how's going good how are you doing good good evening everyone i'm hailey finn i use she her pronouns and i'm the associate artistic director at playwright center and i'm really excited to welcome you to tonight's conversation new frameworks for performance now and beyond before we get started i just want to acknowledge that playwright center sits on the traditional land of the dakota and andesha nabe people and we offer our gratitude to this land for the privilege of gathering and sharing stories and conversations and for the work of native and indigenous activists past present and future who steward this land and challenge us to be partners rather than owners of it and for those of you outside of minnesota i hope someday you can come join us at playwright center and we can host you there but for the moment we're just so extremely grateful that we can gather in this way and connect with brilliant artists and new ideas it has been quite a year and there has been a lot of pain and a lot of loss but tonight i really want to center joy and for me personally what's given me a lot of joy this year is having inspiring conversations with artists particularly artists who are expanding their artistic practice and thinking about form in new ways challenging their very own notions of what theater can be and certainly we're all familiar with zoom performances at this point and though i'm very grateful for those that's not what we're going to be talking about tonight what we will be talking about are projects that are not conceived with the limitations of the pandemic in mind but rather work that is thinking expansively about audience inclusion new modes of collaboration and visceral immersive experiences projects that investigate audience agency interrogate notions of liveness and consider the possibility that theater can be a shared global experience i want to thank howl round for partnering with us on this conversation the discussion will be about 90 minutes um and i'm going to leave the last part of it for questions from you i imagine considering these amazing panelists there will be many many questions uh if you do have a question at that time you can send the questions to questions at pwcenter.org or if you're watching on vimeo either through howl round or through the playwright center website you can put your questions in the comments section all right so for the very good exciting part um i'm going to be introducing you to three incredible artists um and what's what i find so inspiring about these particular artists is that they're challenging how they're thinking about performance on a daily basis i want to welcome to the screen kandris jones heather raffo and tamela woodard oh my gosh we are so good to see you i feel so blessed to be in conversation with you this evening thank you thank you for being here um there is um hello hello hi maybe a little more lately i good to see you good to see you um i just um i just wanted to uh say i know you have their illustrious bios so i'm not going to go into full detail about their greatness so i'm just going to give you a little snapshot of their bios so we'll start with kandris kandris is a playwright poet and educator in a recipient of the many voices and Jerome fellowships at the playwright center she's the author of crack baby and flax yes cheers um and she currently is on commission with actors theater of louisville and she believes that in these times apparel story and art matters more than ever and i couldn't agree more so thank you kandris for being here um heather raffo is an award-winning playwright and actress whose work has been seen off broadway off west end in regional theaters and in film she's the author of the play nine parts of desire which has received numerous accolades a beautiful beautiful piece and her also standing piece nura which has premiered at the shakespeare theater before moving to abu dhabi and then at theaters across the country heather is also the recipient of the big night national residency and commission at the playwright center um yes heather cheering yes um and finally the amazing tamela woodard who is a co-artist director at working theater tamela has directed at theaters nationally internationally including w p theater baltimore center stage american conservatory theater classical theater of harlem the cleveland public theater among many many others her work has also been recognized with an off-broadway alliance award or lucille lortel nomination and tamela was also just appointed the chair of the yale school of drama acting department congratulations tamela thank you um so i i really just wanted to start by centering the work um because i found their work to be so inspiring and i'm wondering each of you could just talk a little bit about the projects that you've been working on this year and what you've been thinking about and um what's what's really interesting is all these projects are in various stages of development some of them are actually been premiered some of them that are going to premiere very soon and some of them that are like in earlier stages and i would love to start with tamela if you'd be willing to talk about your projects you've been very busy this year um american dreams and wait lists which i i do want to say is um little plug for is streaming right now on wptheatre.org so please check that out please do um it's been an amazing um it's been a year of like absolute tugging and pulling apart and um uh i i i think it takes this necessary you know i'll use the word violence um you know the violence of change um it takes that necessary violence of change um for us to actually think about our ability to transform um and actually um um feel the necessity of transformation and metamorphosis and evolution we've all been feeling it you know for a long time and then this was like just the thing kicked us in the button was like change or die you know and that's that's you know that's where we are so um i i i got i started the um uh i i got to produce something very early on called american dreams with the amazing leila buck uh it was a a piece that was a is a envisioned as a immersive and participatory piece in a theater and premiered at cleveland public um uh and it was really an amazing piece where an audience got to choose each night the winner of a game show called american dreams there were three hopeful um immigrants to the united states who were pitching themselves to an american audience and asking them to choose me and in pitching themselves to an american audience they were reflecting back the values and the ideals that we hold dear and do not practice as americans and it was um a slow you know i like to say the play happens inside of the audience um that's actually where the play happens and so part of part of thinking about how it could exist here um was thinking that this is a place where the audience is inside of their own spaces their own american comforts their couches their living rooms their you know my refrigerator is right there full of whatever light beer you know they're they're inside of the things that they hold dear um mainly their possessions and their status and that they're looking at a person who is in another country in our world they were in another country who's asking to be able to be welcomed into the ability to gain those possessions and those status and to take part in this um ideological experiment called the american dream um uh we we didn't envision it for this space but when we started thinking about how to make something site specific for the space it was like hands down we're like we already have something yeah it's it's already a tv show we were just doing it in a theater and now it's a tv show a live tv show so our our big challenge was how to create a live television show experience for an audience um and we got an amazing team kate freer um and vidco to imagine basically they were the scenic designers of the space to imagine how to create an immersive participatory television studio that an audience could live vote see those votes tallied live and pick a different um winner every night um and it was it was really um it was one of those things where we went past innovation and we really really put our toe into like pure invention because there were no systems really available um for us and these guys frankenstein some beautiful new monster that was american dreams that's so beautiful to hear you talk about that i think what's also so exciting is that the form itself is so built into the content you know that that they're really working synergistically yeah i teach and one of the and i was teaching a class called the well teaching a class that was an intro was basically inviting all of our students to take hold of the of the fact that we were not going to be in class together that this was going to be the form of our storytelling and one of the things you know the core tenets was make sure the content in the form need each other that's great you know and that that is like that has to be the first like content and form have to be um like a really ideal marriage and that your job as an author is to author both of those things yeah that's beautiful especially as we're thinking about new forms what does that mean that challenges us to think in in new ways about that marriage so i love that and what about oh i feel like i've talked so long i can come but waitlist is is a beautiful concert film um that we made it would support it is um it is a it is a it's based on obit's metamorphosis the story of prochnian filimela two sisters who were devoted to each other one has a bad marriage and has to be rescued in the rescue the god actually observes from a distance but becomes gets closer and closer and and asks the question why do humans do this why do humans love so hard when it costs you so much and you know you will lose people and in the middle of the pandemic in the middle of the covid crisis where we all sustained such loss and this was such a it was a question that we all came around is why do we love when we know that we will lose and we watch the god who's really you know a human learn the value of loving loving hard and loving deep and it's all told through music and we created a concert film of it that um my guiding principle was uh uh point of attention and as a as a new filmmaker i needed somebody to help me understand why this could be feel like live theater and i had great advice from my cinematographer peggy who's like it only matters what you want us to see hmm and how you want us to see it right so that's what the camera should do i was like right taking that knowledge and figuring out how that um theatrical experience can exist yeah so it was choreography we call the camera choreo because we wanted the audience to feel like they were flying in moving through the space and you know really had a point of view that was in concert with the film with with the music with the way that the music moved through space shagall was our was our our fairy inspiration well i love that yeah yeah um well let's go into kandris because i want to talk a bit about your project you're working on a virtual reality play and um i know it's your first time um in this medium and i'm hoping that you could tell us a little bit about your project and how it was developing work in this new medium for you um first of all um temla i hate that i didn't see american dreams i don't think i found out about it until after it was over and i was like well that sucks but yeah i wanted to see it because it you know it it just sounded like okay this these people really got to have a handle on what exactly is needed at this time and i yeah i just hate that i missed it but i'm so glad that you guys did it um so um the project that i'm working on um is um started with a commission with actress theater louisville and um they're collaborating with a um well it's it's a company led by lauren ruffin um black woman who has all these aspirations for what br can be um for you know developing new audiences and so um actress actress theater of louisville of course approached me and said that they wanted to create something um under the moniker of black girl fix it and so i you know started dreaming up all these ideas and i came up with this narrative this currently entitled beyond the crossroads and it is being created with it is being created within the virtual reality space one would need an accurate well well we are using oculus headsets are creating in the world of oculus headsets my headset is somewhere over there if you know but um in short the content is a blues narrative and so i was thinking of brainstorming ways that i could connect my southernness my love for writing about the south and women of the south and thinking about how the the narratives are the type the type of narrative that i quite haven't created but i'm absolutely drawn to and for me it was the blues narrative and how black women fit in the world of blues lore and so i started thinking about you know of course the plays of august wilson but also my experiences and growing up in the rural south and um growing the blues festivals listening to blues all my life um so many people think that the blues is kind of hieroglyphic oh it's this thing that existed back then and no one makes music in the blues tradition anymore or it's not something that young people are attracted to but my nieces and nephews listen to the blues and there are young blues artists their age that they absolutely adore and they enjoy their songs and they want their autographs and all that so anyway um i wanted to create a narrative about a young woman who was trying to find her own voice within um the entire blues realm so at first the project has gone through quite a few changes at first i wrote an entire play that was a choose your own journey play and that had it was 70 something pages long had three endings and i think it was pretty dope um however what we found are what you know what we decided was because we wanted wanted it to fit in the world of um virtual reality is that those narratives are not very long um because if you are in a headset you can only spend so much time there so we actually cut it down to like 22 pages and it's still an immersive project it's still about a young woman named caprice um who is trying to find her voice and the audience helps to guide her um the audience is actually given a name they're part of the cast they're called the faithful audience and um they work with this ancient blue spirit Vera to help caprice along this journey and um this week um we we're we just bought performers on board maybe two weeks ago so everyone is still getting used to their technology but one thing that i really really like is how when i first started playing in the world of the oculus i got really excited at first i was like what is this and then i experienced it and got really excited and now it's really fun to watch others go through that same process and go from how are we going to do this to we really want to do this and this is dope and seeing themselves as avatars and things like that so yeah it's it's it's been it's been cool yeah it sounds like an amazing amazing project and again this idea of like how form is working i'm just curious to know for you kandris about what being in that VR world has done to like your writing like has that shifted how you write um as far as themes and content um just like temla was just saying you always want to explore and in my play writing i always explore how um content inform me like my play flex this shape like a four quarter basketball game a play that i just wrote a medusa thread which is also inspired by obvious metamorphosis um it follows the trajectory of getting a hairstyle so like consultation shampoo condition deep condition um in style and you know the reveal or whatever so i've always really thought about how form meets content one thing about um working in this particular realm or this particular um medium is that the world is so expansive so i get a chance to explore depth and have visually how how deep a world can be and i get to play with that um i get to play with not only dealt visually but with sound of course being a blues play we we're using music so you know i i'm and we're working with composers and i'm getting to you know communicate with them you know regarding okay what sounds do we want close what sounds do we want distance how how does a transition sound in this world and the idea of all the all the sounds surrounding the individuals who are in this world so um one you know in in how that does affect the in the overall content and how that content you know gives the audience a feel of being you know immersed within the world so yeah it's is really interesting thank you heather i'm gonna turn things over to you and your piece tomorrow will be sunday which you're developing and have been working on at the playwright center i'm wondering if you could talk a bit about your project yeah it's um i mean it and it's in its nutshell it's about migration and the global economy um but it's it but it's it's it's so broad that for the longest time it felt like it was hard to even talk about or hard to even find a narrative to say oh it's about this but essentially i'll say like how it came to be was that i had a lot of family in iraq at the start of the first iraq war and now they're kind of scattered all over the world so the refugee crisis as we like to call it was super personal but when i follow their trajectory it is about their personal stakes and their thresholds for leaving but everything when i would kind of boil down what's underneath this what's underneath this it became an economic factor and i kept looking at the way let's say we in america talked about migration and refugee issues and it was always like victim or enemy and i kept trying to like uncover uncover uncover i had kept coming down to economic factors and the more i looked at that the more i was involved in my personal life as we all are right and i was like i think i think i'm starting to see the world in every way through the lens of values and what what is value and who do we value and why do we value them this way and how do those values translate to economic factors but what what are those currencies and what are they really about and what if i follow these tributaries and currents and currencies and rivers where will i get in the end so i just started writing scenes that took place all over the map and i tried to really allow myself to have process instead of product i tried to be super vulnerable and brave and go i don't know i'm just gonna write some i'm just gonna write some things that are like in front of my face and until i write them i won't know what they even are um and what what i've come to which is actually where i started in the project which was me saying i want a new platform for my way of making theater i also want a new platform for the theater and those two things i couldn't name and i didn't even know how to get at other than to say oh i want a new platform right i had no idea what i meant by that i just knew that i was in pursuit of it so i figured process would eventually show me so by new platform what i meant was doing a play on stage was could be beautiful could be amazing but had so much about it that was deeply unsatisfying the route to getting it onto that stage could be full of gatekeepers and could be totally unsatisfying for for that reason but i'm talking even once right even once one cracks through and goes oh it's on the stage i'm like how how is it that this thing that i built to be in conversation with all these communities i built it in is now not in conversation with any of those communities and then my head would explode and i go well how did this happen right or how did i propose hey i built this and community over here and over here and have people go not a value not a value don't want that scary and i go how could you know what that's that's that's the goal that's the most exciting thing and so i was kept trying to put those things together also i i did have the good fortune of traveling a lot but then i'd be like i was just in a university classroom in rural pennsylvania and two days later i'm in a classroom in iraq and both sets of students are kind of asking me the same thing about each other how are they not shared audience they're shared audience for me they're both asking me the questions they're both talking about my play or process or theater but why are they not in the same space so this platform that i was thinking about that i couldn't name was like i'm middle eastern and i'm midwestern i'm new yorkian and i'm midwestern i do rural i do mainstage i've worked in the military and i've worked with eirbs like like how why is it everything about my life feels incommensable i don't belong anywhere the theater is supposed to be my home not sure i belong here like how how do i how do i create a platform to do this thing right but then i realized the platform might be in the making of it itself and then of course in the midst of my chaos and overwhelm of all of that covid happened and then we were forced onto new platforms and then i went oh well maybe maybe this is the answer maybe this is on its way to being the answer and no the answer isn't a zoom play but the answer at this moment is how to work globally how to write something about the way we in every part of us everywhere are affecting migration globally and how to show that butterfly process in these economic transactions that increasingly get more human so there is no protagonist let's say there is this multiplicity of narrative but now that i'm like digging into this platform i'm also really wondering quite excitingly about the multiplicity of of design the multiplicity of who makes it right so that it's not like i and one other person in some place in america say let's make this global play right and then ask people to do something like maybe this is this deconstructed process where it's it really is just thrown out and made in different parts of the world but made within community somehow that is maybe it's got multiple directors maybe it's got multiple i don't know what i'm asking for i see you see out of it i don't have the i don't have the language for it i'm just saying i think there's a way to actually make it that heightens what i'm trying to say as i'm trying to find this thing through the writing but at the moment it's following currencies so you can start with let's say currency of labor's currency of borders currency of education currency of oil but i mean where we're going where i've always gone in my work is what's the currency of loss right how do we get to a point of loss and then realize oh we're really all together in this often often in my world in my iraqi world it's like oh it takes all this loss to go aha we're we're in it together we're really connected we've lost so much right so i think that as much as i wouldn't wish loss on anyone i do think we're in a global moment of being able to connect in our hearts possibly in a way we never have before and so it it will hopefully follow heart in the midst of all this economic questioning and the final thing that it is is it's really unpacking the currency of empathy in the american theater which is something that i've always been aware of using and upset by that i love empathy believe me i love empathy i teach my kids empathy i believe in empathy but empathy in the american theater has just constantly otherized a lot of people it is completely otherized the arab american voice it is completely otherized middle easterners to just be like we can't empathize like all they wanted all the audience seems to want to do is come in and empathize and then walk away and go oh sick we cried we had a good cry now we're right and i think that this kind of provocation of saying what do you do with your empathy in the theater it's not a like on faith like this has to go somewhere so i'm kind of maybe i'm maybe i'm full swinging too far the other way of like i don't know if i want any empathy i might just want some facts right like real facts that don't involve empathy to just make us see value structures and go do we value humans whether we empathize with them or not do we value them now what so it's it's it right now it's living right there um a lot of it's written too much of it's written and there's probably like 10 more hours to be written and you know it's one of those things um well heather there's a lot in what you said that needs to be unpacked i don't know if we're even gonna have time to delve into all of this tonight but there's many hours of conversation i feel very fortunate that i've gotten to to be part of some of the process and see you through some of it and some of the questions that you've been asking um and what's sort of interesting is that this moment is how um in terms of platform maybe you're still finding that perfect marriage that tamela who's kind of fit on the other side of it is like well you found the perfect marriage maybe it seems like you're still kind of searching and chasing that perfect marriage of form um although in some of our conversations you've said that it might exist online in some form of an online platform with maybe live components etc so in a sort of hybridic model um which is fascinating and i know i'm so i've gotten a chance to spend some time with this project and i'm quite enamored with it as heather knows um and um yeah so we're going to talk about all this but one of the things that i think is so interesting is in many of the project that you guys have talked about there's been elements of um how the audience participates like that seems to be a big question like how does the audience participate do they have agency in some way in the narrative um certainly in american dreams it seems like they were having some kind of agency but and also what does that mean what does that or maybe that was a false agency i don't know you know what does that mean do we feel that um that's something that you're interested in or you're chasing or you feel has value and to what end just i'm putting it out there as a question yeah for me all you know all my students know this because i say the same thing it's written right here which is all theaters participatory all of it is it's just a level of participation that is required or that is needed for the piece to actually like live and in this particular in american dreams level participation that was needed for the thing itself to lodge itself in you was for an audience to choose and choose and choose and choose and choose and then at some point go like oh shit why am i choosing what is it about this human that i find is more valuable even though i empathize with the other person you know i love heather that you're thinking about value and empathy because usually we try usually the theaters like empathy makes people see value and you're going like let's look at value first um and i'm just like that you know you're thinking about systems where someone has to you know put forward something i think of the arcade and i think of peep shows where you have to put money in to see the next thing or to move yourself forward like you have to invest in the experience moment by moment by moment and i'm thinking like i love this idea that we're asking an audience because it's what we need to do we can't all feel each other because some of us just can't but most people practice minute by minute assigning value to something am i going to say hello to that person on the street am i going to walk by yeah i can't hear heathers just talk to you guys feel free to unmute yourselves we don't have to you know like talking at you tamela you're brilliant you're always brilliant um um i'll say yeah agency that i'm considering in my piece is um is is twofold a the hypothesis that we've all been on the move since the beginning of time like migration is normal right and that we're all gonna be on the move because of climate change like we're all gonna be on the move because of climate change so those hypothesis of who thinks they're not moving yet who thinks they're safe right where are they centered and where do i like push and say look we're all on the move and then back to the agency of how does everything we do really affect the movement of people everywhere right so that everything we buy everything we touch really got touched by thousands of people and how how do i help the audience see that that chain that living supply chain that living human chain um and make them feel somehow in this play that almost everything they do it's room they walk through or what they watch or if they've clicked if it's online like how does every choice they make immediately impact i don't know how to do it it's just the questions of that that's where the agency would lie the questions are always at the heart of it i think um what about for you kandress in your piece the agency in my piece is very connected to what tamela said at first it's like when you go into a video game or an arcade or i thought about um if you've ever played super mario brothers and if the player doesn't move um or if you don't if you don't make the thing move then nothing happens it just you know it just sits there in the time or is out or whatever but you know just thinking about if i'm in the position like i said the cast the cast for me or the faithful audience that i've labeled in the piece is part of the cast for me and therefore they have to be present they have to be active in order in order for the story to move forward and um there is a point in which they have to make a call or judgment based on won't need um knowledge of everything that has happened in the play so this is what this is where you know actively the agency just really comes in they they actively have to you know play a tambourine or you know do something in order to make the narrative move forward so it's it's very simple um but at the same time i do think that if i am you know an audience member immersed in this narrative i am thinking about like how efforts because certain efforts have to be made it's you know physically how effort plays into making creating a desire outcome so yeah um one thing that we talked about earlier for me as far as agency you know just outside of the audience agency and you know i'm still thinking about that too is how the pandemic um well prior to the pandemic me and the other fellows from the playwright center last year were had conversations about how can we as artists in Heather you touched on this beautifully a moment ago how can we as artists how how can we expand the universe in which our stories are told so we're playwrights and we fell in love with theater that is my sacred space and we write hopefully to get a thing on to the main stage um i think of again i think about august real estate and the ground on which i stand and in which he said you know um we we don't we don't need colorblind casting we need some theaters and that was 30 years ago and we still need some we still need some theaters so you know the the thing about it is i think with the what the pandemic has forced us to do is think about where do our theaters exist um and the fact that you know um there are a lot of blurts out there who already have the our headsets who are already you know in these realms that we're creating but they don't see themselves there aren't there there aren't that many avatars there that are representative of people other than white people to be honest and there aren't that many narratives that are representative of narratives that fit outside the the white mainstream narrative it's you know it's it everything you know i think everything is kind of like reflective of you know the larger world that it fits in so um you know i just feel like you know creating content in this particular area um being the being given the chance to do that has allowed me as a playwright some agency in you know in rediscovering how our discovering new ways or a new platform the the teams that i'm working with we're already wondering what we can do next so that's okay yeah so i'm very excited about that so yeah it's you know you you we're talking about audience agency and that is very important to me um when i first um was introduced to the Oculus headset last year well i already knew i knew i already knew about vr or whatever but the idea of theater in that world i really did frown on it i was like oh so you're taking a thing that's already inaccessible and making it even more inaccessible but one refreshing thing or one surprising thing that i learned and i should know this because um you know part of the part of facebook extraordinary journey of the black nerds group um is that there is already an audience there that's craving content that's craving narrative that's craving stories that reflect our history our experiences and yeah that's beautiful um kandace thank you for sharing it and i think you bring up two really important points one is just about uh agency as it exists to the forum and how the audience is so integral to um the peace moving forward but then also agency as you're saying as an artist right and i think what's so exciting about all of your work is that you're um you're not wait you're you're not sitting back and waiting for someone else to tell you what theater is or trying to put it on a stage or knock on a door to get your piece done in a way you're really creating your own way of thinking about performance and putting that forward and so i'm very excited not just about this work but the work that you're gonna be moving forward to come um i also want to talk just a little bit about collaboration through this process because it's such a different kind so many of these are so different in terms of their processes than traditional process i'm curious to know what the collaborative process has been like and what you might learn from it oh man i have had the best collaborate i i really have i mean we're um not one yeah the you know content form but also who's in the room really matters and um every single you know both uh weightless and american dreams came out of the skills and the and the um incredible imagination of every single human on that team their ability to look past what has been and into a future and bring forward a future in in our present moment and you know i'm going to let you guys like say all your things but i'm going to say these people out loud lila blue coffee brown dan harris kate kilvane dan moses jasper paul like catherine fear yeenam peggy burlata david reynosa de gregory cune hilton day i'm going to say those folks out loud because they were authors catherine fear and vidco again and and ryan paterson and carrie macarthur and sam kuznetz and stacey derossier and colleen mc mc coftery and carolina arvaletta and the watson's and lori hennie and mike deal and nitsa and ryan and amanda and charie b tay who took the photos all those people invented something in order for either of those projects to happen and i'm telling you it would be different without one of them not there that's great i always think it's a very like spiritual thing to add more artists into the room so thank you tamela for for offering them and we should all follow all their work as well it kind of is that goes back to heather and the tributaries of all the different um under that image stuck with me um what about either for you kandris or you heather just what the collaborative process has been like and heather you've talked about kind of envisioning a collaborative process that is potentially quite expansive i'll i mean i'll just say that the playwright center has just been hugely integral you've been hugely integral haley in that um when i talk about this piece it's not easy it's not easy for people to grasp it i have found that there's a even in 2020 even in 2021 when things are changing so much there's this show me the product will innovate in how we produce it but show me the product and i'm trying to show process it's not that i don't have like i have i have bones of product i have some product but it's like it's it all every tea isn't crossed yet on my product right and it's i will say that um there there wasn't another home for me and you made home for me like you you also picked me up when i was flat going i i think i i don't think this will ever work i'm not sure what to ever do anymore like you know what i mean so i think that that the what i'll say is that the to work in a place that is allowing process to happen and allowing us to ask the questions of process in the 2020 2021 arena is massive because you would say i mean i would think i would think that every every theater was on pause so everybody'd be asking the question right but but it's not that the playwright center was the place i could ask that and and keep picking up the pieces and having you help me relook at this so i would say that yes our collaborators are are integral to every phase but but our homes having a home changes everything i mean i i guess i speak i'm i'm constantly that's the nature of my life as a as a half per habsi person anyway i'm always like i don't belong anywhere but like to to have the playwright center be that grounding base and have me say i think i'm exploring this this week and probably like you're pulling your hair out hailey because i'm like i'm exploring this this week next week i'm going well i think i'm exploring this you know i but last week you said and we were gonna like and i know how frustrating that is but you just keep ground you just kept grounding the conversation and helping me go oh because i want to explore both at the same time and i didn't know how to name that right well it's been a joy i have to say heather it's been an absolute joy and i and i love process anyone who knows me just knows that i love process and conversation and interrogating ideas and um especially with brilliant thinkers like you so it's been a real joy thank you um let's move on to kandris because i know you you've talked a little bit to me about some of your collaborators and it sounds also just really exciting because they're people working in really different ways than maybe some people in the theater the collaborators in this process i i wish i had done a list like tamela i mean because every there's so much authorship in this process um from actors theater louisville to um national black theater gave me time and space to work to work on this project um of course crux creative as as well as um we have the the music composers rhythm science sound who are based in louisville um we have just an expansive amount of you know personalities and people working on this project who animate of course the animators who are you know bringing who are creating the worlds and the avatars you know but seeing how this one idea you know has sparked you know creativity in so many people from you know the from the authors to the administrators who are part of you know who are part of everything and it's it's just been like a really amazing process and you know as as as heaven was saying you know as play playwrights were used to collaboration you know we know when we are we hope that when we start a play eventually we're going to have a strong group of collaborators and when those collaborators come in it's always um just a thank i'm just always so thankful for every collaborator who steps in and when you see ideas just springing out of everyone's head and them forming new content on top of the content and you're like oh i imagine this world but shit like it is coming to life and just yeah it's it's just an amazing process that could not be done without people putting their hearts and minds and creative energy into the entire process i i'm very aware this is the largest team that i've ever worked with it's crazy um but you know everyone is an expert in their own you know in in in their own thing and also maybe you know like taking up slack you know where other people are you know just needing a little bit of help um so it's it's just very exciting to have this many people working on this one project and seeing what can come out of it am i julia told me i'm a little low am i still a little low oh i mean volume less i can hear you i mean you like because that's why i'm yeah no it's good to it's good to lean in because i hear you do hear you a little bit better when you lean in so thank you for that um thank you first of all thank you um i'm going to ask one last question and then we're going to turn it over to you all the audience um so i wanted to talk a little bit about the notion of liveness because um you know you're creating pieces some of which um are taking place in theater some of which are placing place online some of which are in a VR world some are in new platforms all together i'm curious about your thoughts about liveness how you chase that idea in your work even if it's not in a quote quote theater space anyone want to jump in with that well i'll i'll just talk about the experiencing liveness in this particular platform um there there was there was a uh a moment where i went into a particular experience um called traveling wild black and the the feeling that i had um being in the oculus head said and but also feeling as though because it was a prerecorded experience um about traveling as an african-american person in the united states and um some of it was set in a cafe and it's at one point you're standing in this animated world and then suddenly you're switched to a 3d capture with actual people and you feel like the people are beside you and at that time in january in minneapolis during the pandemic in which i hadn't set beside too much of anyone that absolute feeling of lying of liveness it was like catharsis it was it was really unbelievable um i do think that there are certain elements that we use all the time in entertainment in theater to give individuals to create distance or give individuals you know the the feeling that you are there i think that's like what the heart of or you know the the fascination with empathy is you know making people feel that they are there and many times you know you we rely on the performers to do it if a performer you know um does emotes or whatever well enough then the audience might be able to feel like they are in their shoes no matter how far away they are from from the stage or whatever but i do think that um whether it's you know in an oculus headset or you know through some other platform i think at this at this moment you know in 2020 2021 where we literally crave the um just being in the same space with other people i think our our attention is you know turning to how can we you know give somebody else joy like literally give somebody else joy even if that person is an actor on stage who usually gives us you know joy um how can we give you know that you know other thing the other person how how can we translate you know what we have in our own minds bodies and spirits to another person and how to do that you know without actually touching you know um so i i you know i feel like that's going to be a constant inspiration after this i don't think that inspiration is going to end because i don't think the virus is going to end too quickly but but also i don't think that necessity like we are that's like that's what's been in or being invented out of these necessities how to actually contact other people so yeah yeah it's really fascinating it's like a visceral experience yeah heather since again you know good writing on that i i i agree with you entirely kandris and i and i when i think about liveness too i'm thinking about what does it mean to be vulnerable with each other and what does it mean to be alive with each other and i think about i mean because just yes i've acted on stages and felt very alive and vulnerable to audiences but sometimes it's only to the extent that the audience wants to also be vulnerable back to you which can be powerful and amazing and often be very true but then there's just to compare for a second there's this there's a theater going audience that's so used to going to theater sometimes that they're not that vulnerable anymore they're not really opening and sharing and then i have this experience over 2020 where i'm caregiving for my mom i'm in michigan for eight months i mean maybe she's seen five plays in her life right and i'm zooming all these things for my work and my life and my industry and my stuff and she's just walking past well well now what's that right and it's like well she's just getting herself she's even know she's on screen you know she i'm making fun but the point is oftentimes she just finds herself sitting being completely vulnerable to this situation and giving given how many middle eastern women i've worked with across the world that are like we're reading we're reading your plays behind closed doors in secrets with our mothers because it's too right we can't do this in public how many people how many people are being genuinely vulnerable to what they're seeing on screen with grandmas and family members who wouldn't be going to the theater watching too and to me there's something so alive about that yeah i mean it goes beyond this notion of what we're talking about about increased audience right communities across the globe ticket prices are cheaper therefore it's more equitable like i'm talking like beyond all that it's the accidental person yeah yeah no i get you that's like yet another layer right or my friend who was in a colleague who was doing a reading of a play she was in a university production anyway she's like she invited her family from Nigeria who had never ever ever seen a play before so suddenly they're watching her university production five-year reunion of a play i wrote right during 2020 like the vulnerability and aliveness of that is just kind of why i'm alive like that that's why theater that's like no it's not a and i know we got on this conversation earlier sorry i'll circle around too to wait list because i i had the experience tamala of like this is live i know it's filmed of course it's filmed but it's live why is this why is this a live theater event for me more than it's a film for me and i don't know how to name it i have no vocabulary for that except that they felt vulnerable to me and i vulnerable to them in a way that it was like oh we're meeting and you're showing me the story but i'm not maybe i feel more manipulated in film like you're being i don't i don't know it was just it was so you put me with them and there i was i was watching live theater i think that's a great transition i'm curious to know tamala for you as you were creating that piece you know were you chasing the idea of liveness and like what what did that mean for you and how are you thinking about making it not a film but more theatrical i was not chasing the idea of liveness but but what heather said earlier a liveness a live and a liveness which was about and so we decided to do something that was super super hard which was one take and so we did four days of single takes and it was you know and so that our our cameras were moving it's me on the headset and i'm like you know uh camera one move move you go closer you know close up here and camera two get ready for this shot and you know so we were doing it so it was live caught for us we had like we were moving in concert with those storytellers on that stage and trying to feel them and feel the music and feel the day and feel where the wind was that was blowing the ribbon you know wherever that ribbon was you know choreographing you talked about the choreography it sounds like you were choreographing the filmmakers you know the the cinematographers even in their own movement yeah it was like um it was like dance improv it's like we knew what the concept was and we sort of knew the chapters of it but it would it would change as we as we went along and so i think heather thank you so much but i think it's like it was because all of us were like we knew we couldn't stop there was no let's do another take it was like the sun's going down so go you know um hopefully caught me like you know oh there she goes she's she's she's she's walking towards the camera awesome and so there was a real sense of um you know good panic you know you know good good to borrow from uh a source i shouldn't borrow from in this way but good trouble we were putting ourselves in harm's way for good like we were like we were in a place where um uh we were putting on the line the idea in order to be responsive to the moment and i think that is ultimately liveness when an actor gets on stage they rehearsed and that's the idea and when they come on stage that's the moment and that is that's really what i love so much about theater it's different it's um i tell you know that my my um cast i say hey those people here that were here yesterday they're not here today they don't know anything about yesterday so you can't come and be like i'm doing yesterday okay i'm like that'd be like i don't know what you're doing that was yesterday so that's that rehearsal room and you're like yeah that you do see someone doing yesterday and you're like oh that's so that's so not where we are right now yeah that's not it and i love that i love cantress that that i get to you know i'm the only you like when i put on a you know you know i i have had a small VR experience and just been like thrills that there is a universe made for me which is essentially what the theater is like we are constantly trying to tell the audience we made it for you it's for you tonight and that is the ultimate version of that thing it's for me right now yeah yeah that's beautiful um well now we're gonna move on to questions so it's for you all out there tonight um to hear from you and i have a couple of questions that are coming in so i'm gonna um send them to the the group we're gonna start with danie has a question how do you get your audience to participate with their imaginations do you allow for ambiguity in performance to invite them to fill in no uh i mean you don't allow no no no audiences get lost audiences get lost you have to be really clear about what you intend for them to do and really clear about the i feel in participatory things it's like one of the things that we had to do with america james was continually to hone the questions and the offerings and the invitations to the audience so that they never felt agitation about what am i supposed to do that's not the question what am i supposed to do is not the question it is shall i do this or this or this or this or this that's the question and then they feel like they own the space that they have a sense of ownership and then ownership is authorship um that they are responsible for the outcome and the outcome is not a sort of accident because they didn't know what they were freaking doing so i always say like the breadcrumbs have to be super clear now you know they just need to but their breadcrumbs are like oh i want to eat that breadcrumb i don't know why you know what i'm saying oh there's another breadcrum i want to eat that you know you make it irresistible um for people to move down some paths great and that's the hardest thing from one of the hardest things for me as a playwright when i'm first writing a play is avoiding the ambiguity um i i want the audience you know to feel as though um are to you know have space to think about you know why is this choice being made or why why are we going in this direction but um i'm loving everything that tamela just said especially in the um in the form that i'm creating in you know how you have there there's this phase of um going into a virtual experience a phase called onboarding in which you prepare the audience for what is about to come and you tell them the goal in the expectations in some way or another and some of it is just like sometimes you know a content creator might just give them instructions to read but to me that's kind of boring so i went about mine and you know in a more performance-based way but you know the the idea is that and i yeah this goes back to the you know question of agency the idea the idea is that the audience you know is not necessarily being led um you know you have you have a specific goal you have a specific narrative but the idea the idea is that they know what to do in this particular world so they won't you know get lost you know so yeah that yeah great um what about for you heather yeah i don't um i don't know what i think about the word ambiguity i think i think i'm always thinking about complexity and i'm always thinking about space to make decisions as an actor writing in space where the actor is going to pick up the material and see the four different meanings in one thing and have to navigate for at the same time and also make a decision about one so i think that complexity is where i'm at as writer and actor and a lot of actors will come to me go what did you mean by that and i'm like well what do you know where you at with it and they're like well it's this and this i'm like it is it is that and that but but i also like love temela saying everything she said because that's that's what we love directors for like i come in with my acting play right self and i've got all my stuff and i expect my director to be like great okay and and i'm like oh i love being told what to do let's just do we'll do what she says that's great i'm gonna go to the next question this is a question from veda i love tearing you all talk about your different ideas to this time i was wondering though what are you all of your ideas on how we can distinguish theater from film which is some of what you've started to talk about or even video games at this time is it purely about adding different participatory elements to it or are there other things we've talked a little bit about temela you've broached on this a bit but i'm wondering if there's anything else we can mind about what makes it different these video games versus theater as we're thinking about and film i'm gonna say all of its theater and then some of its film and some of its video games oh so that's the big umbrella is theater yeah and the bigger umbrella is storytelling yeah yeah that's great what about do you guys have different thoughts or agreeing thoughts yeah i i mean i just think the form of theater oh theater has been needing to adapt and grow and change so it's like thank god we're in this moment where we can right so i don't even know i don't even know what it is like we know what it is to sit in a theater and now we're experimenting with hybrid forms but i'm like where this could go is um is profound and endless and i think like even deciding it has a track like what that's a film or that's a video game track just feels so narrowing to me i'm like what what is the what is the possibility of what i can dream and do who can help me make that happen and how do i do everything i want at the same time as in how could it have a live element like a on-stage element and then you can go into an immersive web thing and they can speak to each other what if what if we did that what if we what if we were doing these scenes on stage but those scenes that could only happen across the world i don't know like i think it's i think the whole form we should be we should be so excited that we're in this moment yeah where the entire form is up for grabs and that we don't have to define it and that we might pull from video games and we might pull from film but if we're theater makers we're making theater if we call it theater it is theater for anybody to say it's not theater i said it's theater yeah that's one of those questions that you know um has been posed even before this moment um and the idea of you know i don't think i've ever been a purist about anything um it's a basketball but you know it is a very exciting time and you know i i feel like you know we we are talking about all the things that are that are being done in the now and it's so new and actually no it's not um immersed you know the the idea of immersive audiences and you know um having you know the the different ways in which theater in which theater exists um before now have been seen as novelty but somehow or right now um possibly turning into necessity i wonder how quickly we're going to turn and go right back to where we you know to the idea of you know this thing has to you know appear on the main stage you know just go back to what it was like prior to the pandemic um i think there are people who are aching to do that and that's fine but i just i just really truly believe that this conversation is is is not necessarily new it's continuation um and so i yeah the the thing about it is you know as far me as the playwright who who's always trying to break form um you know i'm not necessarily you know married to the idea of i have to put certain things into certain categories i mean the first piece of theater that i experienced was the bias theater so um you know it's for me it's never been that you know well or i've never i wasn't introduced into theater with the idea to the with the idea of this is a well-made play you know and it has to be a well-made play so you know it's yeah i just yeah just in agreement with tether and tamela is this is a conversation that's been going on this is not going to ever end it's just work right now because we can't experience theater in the way we traditionally think we you know are the the traditional ways in which we have been yeah i think what's interesting though is as you were saying kandris that it feels like there's more openness or maybe more interest or more um access to being able to create in these new ways um so i think that's part of what's exciting and it's inspiring people to think in new ways too um as with that sort of in mind um i'm wondering this is a question from um em gray what else you've seen or experienced that inspires you in terms of audience agency and involvement so have there been other pieces that have inspired you with that had audience agency can you say it again sure sorry um what else have you experienced other pieces that have inspired you in terms of the ideas of audience agency and involvement so yeah i will say that i don't this i don't think this is a well-known piece but a piece that's that was um done um that i've never seen performed actually that i've you know that i've only read it's very similar to the american dreams piece that tamela has worked on is called the attack of the moral fuzzies it is a game show piece and um it's it's just it's just a very short 10 minute thing and but it you know it's one of those pieces that um made me think of how audience participation um can really um yeah be you know how how audience participation in the agency can really affect um a piece what about it was inspired you what were they were just the thought of a game show being a play and how um and how like we've we've been saying like that a game show you know automatically calls for audience involvement audience participation it out of for whatever reason when you watch the price is right you you get joy and pain from watching someone go through the win and lose you know trajectory win or lose trajectory so you know i i feel like you know being present in you know in a space and having some effect on the way you know the the way that this narrative is going to end you know gives you a particular it can make you feel it's all about how it makes you feel it can make you you know it makes you feel responsible it also can make you feel in that response that feeling of responsibility can you know leads to other things so yeah myself i mean i i loved american dreams i love layla buck i love tamela woodard um but i'll also say about that what was so what was so inspiring was watching it with my husband and every moment we wanted to we were asked to make a decision we both chose different things so then it's like two people watching a show where you only get to click one way right throughout and every single time i'm like you know questions i think and he'd be which is always and the negotiation of that having to negotiate as a married couple was really intense through that show and really inspiring and really kind of changed the narrative for me and the other thing that i find um that that has inspired me um in my work is is sitting in meowulf in um in santa fe um and just loving that world and watching my kids like run into it my kids my kids went in it's like 20 minutes later i had to come out for something so it's an immersive world right it's not even theater it's an immersive way and my kid comes out with his face like he goes mom this is the best thing i've ever experienced in my life and then he was like back and it was just like he was so like alive and didn't know what to do but then i was watching my kids be that alive and endlessly sucked in while i was two well i just couldn't i couldn't stop exploring so that was the first time and then years a couple years later going back um and sitting in there while i was working on the migration play and just going god i want this for i want this for migration i want this for migration and climate i want every like i want a world that feels normal and then you open a door and it's like you walked through the refrigerator and now you're in the psychedelic backside of the refrigerator's world that is like endless rooms but that's how it feels to be in climate on the move with people from and i just i just keep imagining that that space even if even if what i end up building is only immersive on the web or if it's live on stage i don't know like i i'm so inspired by being in that kind of physical space created by artisans where rooms lead to other rooms and you literally feel like you're inside someone's head heart the underbelly of the universe and you see how the universe is connected to somebody's bedroom is connected to something else across the globe connectivity yeah i love me i will also and i we got to go there a year ago um me and my my partner and pop up under my janitor to give a storytelling workshop and i was like you people know how to tell a story you don't need us here and you know i have to say i left the same way going like this is what the theater should look like from now on people should walk in a room anytime they want an encounter story on their way to from one thing to the next and it's you know it's we taught we taught there was a question about ambiguity and the reason that space works so beautifully is because there's not one ounce of ambiguity that every one of every inch of each of those spaces is curated within an inch of its life in terms of the artist vision that they're dreaming wild shit and i'm in prox i'm in close proximity to it i touch it i get to touch it i sit in the chair that's like leaning like this or i climb that tree and i'm adding my own story to it and i and it is it is like a beautiful thing that recognizes that we're all storytellers that we're all all we need is an exciting event it's really gorgeous that's so interesting the distinction that you've just made there in terms of not ambiguity in terms of letting the audience in but it's really additive is what i'm hearing you saying that the experience is like i'm adding myself to this experience rather than i'm feeling a hole in some way i'm i'm translating it for my own particularness or you know that's that's and that's what we do when we go to a museum when we sit in front of a painting right we go what is this thing to me you know why why am i still standing here it means something to me yeah and then ultimately you're creating your own narrative which is partially your narrative and partially the work that you're responding to in some way yeah yeah um well we have time for just one more thing so before we kind of close off i do want to just ask you about your upcoming either projects that might be exploring form in different ways or ideas that you have or impulses that you want to follow anything in that realm my company is producing a play by um uh called Missing Them that Reza Salazar is the is making his debut as a director of and he's joined by Anjali Choi from the city which is a brand new journalistic organization that's just going to kick ass you guys um it's called The City and um this project is called Missing Them and they have they have put out a call to all of New York City to all five boroughs to anyone who has lost someone to COVID-19 and they will write they will write their obituary a memorial writing honoring those people and that's thousands and thousands and thousands and they've completed a several thousand already um this project is both putting those things on a stage but those joyful writings that celebrate the lives that of the people we've lost and asking a community to come in the second half and put their own stories on stage and i'm so excited about the fact that we are transferring the tools of theater making directly into the hands of the audience and saying to them that they are storytellers too and that their stories matter so that's May 8th and 9th come and see Reza Salazar's debut. Okay good good more things. Okay good 9th and how do we access that how would we how would we get working theater.org. Yeah um what about for you canjus any any impulses or thoughts? Well not not impulses yet because i'm so in the middle of process with um with the current thing that i'm doing as well as another play i'm trying to workshop with the playwright center leaving teaching. Also you might want to talk about that because that talks about that is exploring form in a different way. Oh yeah um well i will talk about how um with leaving teaching um people's life theater commission a part of it and um we created the only fans account um for the main character to live you know to kind of exist in living because she has an only fans account and she's a teacher and that's how that's one of her side hustles um and the um the dp for that project he was so so generous um with the only fans account and i had written into the script where there was a live chat on the only fans account so that was you know an inter a really really interesting fun thing to watch um but yeah i'm just kind of playing with the idea of um it's the sister play to the play a medusa three which both plays are about sex sexuality well a medusa three it is about sexual assault in this play it's about sexual freedom um but the idea of exploring one's own sexuality and what to do with one's own sexuality the main character she she was inspired by um someone that i read about here well that i read about while teaching in little rock i can saw a teacher who was arrested for um in the act of um prostitution but um i created this other character out of this who um is a virgin and a teacher and it's exploring selling her virginity in bit and all of that but why did i start talking about this projects that's what we're talking about upcoming projects and what we're working on and so that's that's the other thing that i'm working on right now um but you know just as far as things to explore i would say definitely you know go to the actress theater louisville site i know that um right now i think um the um rome romeo julie romeo romeo and julie juliet 2021 is streaming through actress theater louisville until like sometime next week i know it ends in an early date in may and that's um an excellent thing to look at um and your project i want to uh make sure that we plug your project which is going to be uh the end of may right premiere hopefully at the end of may we're still very much yeah we're still very much in process but the the final product should be finished by the end of may and therefore will be streaming in june so okay so we'll all look out for actress theater louisville um to see kandace's project in june and it's just actress theater louisville has like they did thing they built like a really really great platform they went there and just you know a lot of great shows so yeah fantastic i'm going to call it another um one of the playwright center writers which is ify's goodwin who also has a piece yeah online festival so yeah he's a lot going on um he he the the piece um that he's creating with actress theater louisville is um entitled the ily summit so that is going to live um in on on the desktop i can't recall exactly what platform they're using for his but i do think they're gonna do he they're also going to take a part of his project and put it in the in the vr world what the majority of his project project you know will be um um available via desktop and my project again will be available via desktop if you have vr chat that's an app you can download um it's readily available on pc then you know my project will be free to watch and um you know and vr chat is is free to access so it's just it's just like downloading zoom and finding you know the the world or the title of my project going to it and you know experience it that's what we're playing anyway great we are going to look out for that for sure heather what about for you i know you've got your piece that you're going to do a showing of a part of it in june at the playwright center um wondering if there's anything else on your mind or any other impulses that you have that you're chasing at this moment i've been thinking i mean when i think about form with the migration play i am i as you know hailey i've been thinking about kind of narrowing the big vision in order to articulate something for a sharing right but i'm also thinking about it i'm also thinking about it beyond beyond its big vision that i have in a sort of cyclical nature of saying okay i mean migration is with us forever more forever i mean we're like i said we're all gonna be on the move and so it's it's kind of like how do you write a play where you don't really want to end it so how do i make sure the cyclical nature is in there so that it's less than i'm rewriting it but more that it can adapt as we're all adapting because it's kind of like a susan lorry parks 365 like it's it's built of parts but my form that i'm imagining because it's built in this in a seasonal as in summer fall winter or something like that we get a such a sense of cycle that it's less about oh did i rewrite something but that you just pull one season out and put another one in right so that it could be ongoing and another reason for that that reason my head's thinking about that is is a the adaptation adapting to migration itself but also adapting to where the theater is going i mean i know that pre pandemic my big misery with the american theater was if you weren't in the pipeline it didn't matter how timely your show was theaters couldn't do anything fast enough they couldn't actually speak to them because you weren't in the pipeline and i'm like well how do we speak to the times how does something live and continue to live in the times right because because i think the times will only be changing ever faster and ever faster so whatever this thing is that i'm trying to build i'm thinking about that cyclical nature and the other four the way other way i'm playing with form is i'm thinking a lot about pedagogy and how how i can create seasons where it's teachable meaning how do i take something that i've built but then go into pockets universities where i'm always asked come do workshops come do thing you know i'm always working it but how do you how does one arrive in a place like i said in rural pennsylvania and in a university in iraq or cairo within a month of each other and work with them on a pedagogy of their own personal connections to migration everywhere and then see if i can launch that into how this piece moves right i don't i don't know yet but those are the ways i'm considering what's the form of this yes it's a play yes it's like meow wolf maybe it's an immersive platform but but how does it grow how does it how does it become more as it continues to cycle and live yeah and to take that sort of full circle i think it goes back to that idea of aliveness that we're talking about before you know what if it was an organic piece that was constantly alive and constantly living and moving and changing what does that mean in terms of form so that's fascinating there's so much food for thought here you three are extremely inspirational i'm so excited to experience all your pieces and your work moving forward we're going to wrap up for this evening so i want to also thank the audience thank you for tuning in and for joining us and for being part of this conversation um thank you tamala kandris heather and may everyone be inspired to create work moving forward you guys thank you heather and kandris you've like fed me fed i like i'm i'm so like nourished by you and i feel like wow yes i'm that they're remarkable people creating remarkable shit world that i can't wait i can't wait i'll be first in line even if i have to buy the dog on oculus i can't wait it's so true i so true i i felt uh as soon as i mean when i knew i was gonna have this conversation i just really felt so lucky to be in the free of you um so thank tamala it's the perfect word nourish we'll have a wonderful evening all of you and all of you and um may we have more work in the future you're amazing thank you so much hailey thank you you're amazing thank you