 I just thought yesterday, at that moment, when Jessica and Robbie were up here talking about Teenie Town, at that moment we were having a bit of a technical issue. So I thought this morning as we introduced Alyssa Solomon and Robbie for their conversation, we'd just go through these few slides so you could see them. And I want Robbie to call out, and Alyssa too, if you would like to, about this piece here. That's very early with the ban. A sedition on Solomon, we were called. A political ban. And we were doing a peace call. The history of the universe for those who were prepared for all we do, he'll kill me. This is when Jesse and our father-in-law were nuclear fans. And the name of the group, the name of this piece was hit in this title. But it was the long and technical history of the universe according to those who had to live it. So, why? I love it. You got it. Robbie! And that was part of the sedition. And all of those. Now, this was at dark. But we just were on tour. We were in residence before that. This was a solo performance. It's like my father-in-law was. It was a great sedition, an old sedition. And we put up a slide. Some slides. The first one was actually before the sedition. Jessica knows about the basement in Chinatown. No, we don't know. It was in Chinatown. Yes. And that was just an experiment to see. Breathe a land? That's at dark. That's Sally's brain. With genealogy. She wanted to be here. And that's just... Jessica, I know she's not here. Oh, okay. This is one of the first... This is the too late show. Oh, this is great. Yeah. There are no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I love these costumes. That's the same. And that's Teenie Town. And that's the little slideshow. Maybe I'll leave Teenie Town up. I love everything with little people and little girls. Yeah. So I guess we're on. I'm gonna get her some water. Okay. I'm Lisa Salomon and it's really a privilege to be here. I don't think... It's been incredibly moving and exciting and learning so much, thinking about so much. And there are a lot of threads I thought we could pick up from yesterday. I'd like to ask you about. But I'm gonna start... I have things planned, but just seeing those slides, I'm gonna start somewhere else than I planned because one of the things striking just about a few images in there is the physicality in your work. The use of your body, your movement, the expressiveness of it. And then I always notice how, you know, how erect your posture is and how calmly you look straight. You have this sort of wise posture that I admire that you kind of hold stage even in your stillness that way. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you think about using... Over the years, you've thought about using movement in your work and how you prepared to do that. Like, did you have any physical training? I've been accused of being a choreographer and a dancer and a singer, which I've had no training in any of those things. But when I worked with Chakin, Joseph Chakin, the director of this name, I've mentioned a few times that many of you may know or not that he was a signature figure in the experimental theater work in New York in the 60s and 70s or early in... But his work had to do with using the body. And they had done some... I was not a member of the Open Theater, which was the East Theater, but I came in to work in a play. Which one was it? A movie star. I asked the star in black and white by Adrian Kennedy that was mentioned yesterday. And I saw how the actors were working from kind of an internal sense of the body. And I thought, well, maybe I should try some of that. And it wasn't quite... I didn't know the language of the work, but Joe Chakin gave me a recording of Marion Anderson's singing opera. And he told me that I had sources. And I came back to rehearsal and started going from the inside of my body out. And I didn't realize that I was doing that until years later when this person, Tara Watkins, wrote about my work and she talked about my use of the body from the inside out. It's really hard to talk about how I work and what the training was and then how I began to do that. Chris and Lincoln, it was the voice work which had to do with the voice in the body. But for me, the language of the work strikes my imagination. So I think body and voice. How does that work? And so since then I've been experimenting with being present in the body while I'm working. I don't know if any of that makes sense. Yeah, it does. So when you're working on something, do you improvise physically? Yes. What does that look like? Well, it looks like some things that I teach. You know, I learn from teaching. And so I will ask students to imagine the insights of their bodies from what you know about the body. And so if you imagine the shapes of your organs or the structure of your body, you can begin to put breath and thought throughout your body. And when you're working with the material and the text, you can begin to connect the text to what you're saying. So, you know, that's just the strenuousness of it. And if I'm going to teach it, then I have to do it on my own. So that's how that process started. You know, shaping that process that was early on felt like I'm not sure what I'm doing. And later it started to be, well, this is a way of shaping words through the body. So in the slides we saw yesterday from Sugar, we saw that quite externalized in the slides with the blood cells, the beating heart, and so on. And would you say that, you know, when you're thinking about the inside of your body as a piece of how you're bringing forth the performance, that it's even cellular like that? Yeah, I mean, those were... Yeah, amazing. And those were my actual heart because of that work that I had to, you know, get done on my own. And I'm here to take those pictures and make them into art. But I do think it's... Some, to me, the mystery of the work happens because you do the obvious. If you work with the body, then continue to investigate the body. If you're working with the language, continue to investigate everything that language can do. You know, and shape that. Emotional meaning is things that are articulate or not. And so that's just... And I think each performer makes up their own relationship to space, time, body, and language. There's a way in which I think... And I think you've used this word before talking about language and voice on stage. It feels orchestrated, you know? It's paced, it's modulated, it's... And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you came to that. I don't know if it's related to the work in the Sedition ensemble and working in jazz idioms with music. But how you've thought about language and vocalization in almost musical terms. Well, there's no theater to me without music. And whether, you know, instruments or what, language is music. Time is music. And so, and we all know that rhythm is theater. And working with band. I loved the band. I mean, down to one who's saying, when you arrive at the venue, you say, I'm with band. I'm with band. I'm with band. I'm with band. But, you know, I just had a luxury exploring all these things and talking about it in an uncomfortable way. It called that group a theater band. And that was some good tension between us because I'm not a musician and he wasn't a theater person. But I thought that helped what we created. And that was before, I'm sort of jumping all around in the order I had here. That was work before you kind of emerged with pieces about your own family history. So for people who weren't familiar with that, earlier works of the Sedition ensemble, can you describe a little bit of, like, the kinds of things you'd be talking about in those performances? Yeah. The earlier work was, again, about the political work, the Sedition work, and the pieces of the universe started off talking about that the universe started in 1968 with the murder of Fred Hampton. And we looked at that incident as a breaking open of the lessons on the violence of American imperialism. Because Fred Hampton was such a great teacher in terms of politics. We barely know him. Because he was killed at 21 by police and that's such a dramatic story. And why don't we even tell that story? I mean, it's an American drama I felt needed much more of our stories than, thank goodness, that has, you know, the continuous exchange always was there. How well did we know our stories? And so that image opened up a lot of language around telling those stories of racist imperialism. And using rhetoric, wanting to use rhetoric with the music and with the drama just making it more possible to have those stories in the air. Was that scripted or did you revise based on, like, a template? No, we scripted it. We got texts from newspapers from, you know, found texts and mainly found texts and improvisation in between. So that was the beginning of writing out of the polemic. Because I also knew that deep down you can't beat people up the head with politics. At least that's what everybody said. And so in the inside dialogue I was thinking, what about the real stories, the personal stories, and talking about war, I went back to my father and the first one that I did was a story with Bob Carroll who I'm sure nobody in this room knows. But Bob Carroll was a performance artist who did something called The Salmon Show. Yes. Okay. All right. And he asked me and Ed to do a show he was calling The Dirt Show. And my piece of dirt was the dirt on my feet from Georgia that built into San Juan Hill where my grandfather was in the 10th Calvary of Buffalo soldiers. And I thought, boy, everybody has a family story. You know, I'm real late on that. I'm an edifice. They all start a family story. But so, you know, I went from there to this huge image because, and now I do an exercise called what war were you born into? Because we got nothing starting today. So war became strong. And then I did my father and the wars. So let me ask you, use a question that you posed to colleagues yesterday about that. How did you step into a place where you needed to say something that hadn't been said? What enabled you to make that transition? I guess it's kind of what I just said. But for me personally, it was that I hadn't properly mourned my own attention when I had to, from the inside, tell that story. But I didn't want to indulge and tell all the business and all that. So I put it in the context of black men and war. It felt like I had to step into the light to tell that story. I think there's a line about the men in your family being in some kind of army or Navy or Air Force. The image of the uniform. The image of the uniform would be very important. Well, as many of us know, that was one of the survival jobs whether they survived or not for our families. And so in my family, we were ordinary people. In recent years, working middle class, working middle class people had to work. And often because of job and the situation and so forth, a good job for a man was to be in the army. And let Karen speak yesterday and have another. So how did you find theater? What? How did it find you? What made you? Oh, I found it. And this is the true story. When I was at Howard University, a wonderful theater department. I was searching always for, you know, only matter what I wanted to do. And I walked, opened a big door on the campus and walked on to the stage. It was the stage door and they were bringing things in. And I walked on to the stage and Owen Dodson was out there directing Madea. And he said, who are you? And I said, I just walked in. It's like the perfect metaphor. And he said, well, can you act? And I said, yeah. And he said, well, we just lost the chorus leader so you're going to be it. And it was natural for me. So I felt like, and then that brings up the question of talent or study. And it's both of course. But I think that was, I felt when I walked on that stage or following, that's, this is where I belong. And I was, second year, I signed up for theater classes, Madea, my second major. And what was your first major? History. So, but I mean it's a great story. Because, that's how it happened. And Owen Dotson was somebody bringing the bell for Owen Dotson. He was a character. So one thing that came up, one of many things that came up yesterday that I wanted to go back to today was the idea of dreams. Carl read that beautiful passage from Sishu saying, we should write as we dream. And I know you've talked about being inspired by dreams of ancestors appearing in your dreams and instigating work for dreams. Can you talk a little bit about the role of those images? Yeah. The main one, the significant one for me, was, and I say in the script, came to me in a dream, was my great-great-grandmother, Sally. I always had an image of an auction block. I used to like it in performance to stand on a block. And for me, the block was, you know, the way you do polemic, talk to the people. But for me, every time standing up on a block on stage, all I could think of was the auction block. And in this dream, I heard her voice and I can still hear the sound of her voice. And she said, tell it, tell it, tell it, if you would be telling it, tell it, tell it. I woke up and started writing. And that was when I, you know, it was one of those things, after, Kennedy talks about place pouring out of her. And so she poured out, of course, I'm ashamed of it, but it poured out. Was it a surprise to you? Well, in the process, you're just doing it. And it was, you know, to me it was, I put it on the page. I thought of the shape of it, but it wasn't quite all there. But I didn't think of it as anything particularly special because it was given to me and I put it down. And it was only when I started to see it that I thought it was something quite worthwhile. Can we talk a little bit about the evolution of it? You mentioned yesterday that you had worked on Sally's Rape at first as a solo piece. And then Jeannie Hutchins came into it and, you know, it was still your piece that she was in. But the relationship on stage and the way, at least, as a white person in the audience, she's a kind of stand-in or triangulating figure. I think it's very important. And it's, you know, it's also that, I guess it was Sophocles who brought the second actor into, you know, more of a romantic community. Since you mentioned that, I guess, yes, I'll be in. So can you tell us a little bit about the process of development and at what point it became clear to you that having some dialogic action on the stage was going to be important for the piece? Well, in the piece, I was talking to a character named Jeannie. And I did it. I think I really did it twice so, and I don't think I took off my dress the first time. I said I would take off. You know how I, in the piece, I talk about the theatrics of the moment at this point, I would take off my dress. I'm talking to Jeannie, I said. And then I did it at a woman's, which I mentioned yesterday, a woman's theatre conference at NYU. And I did it. I took off my dress. And it just seems eight years old in the audience. Oh. And I did it so long. And at the end of it, when I walked out there, Glinda Dickerson, Sidney Mahon, just a whole crew of black women were just standing out embracing me. And they said, but who were you talking to? That was what I heard. All kinds of things were coming in my ear. But who were you talking to? And I thought I was talking to black women, but when I was doing the performance, Jeannie, to me, was a white woman. And how are we different? So, I saw Jeannie walking down the street. And I said, are you doing anything? No. And I said, I'm doing a piece, and I want you to be in it. And I'd seen her do the performance, a piece sitting silently along the stage. And I thought, I'd just talk to her on the stage. But when she got there, we'd have conversations. And then all of a sudden, so that was after that. And we'd have tea. So it starts. And I brought in Jessica once, and Lori once, to look at it. They said, go. It was me not to have the fight scene. Because it wasn't, to me, it's not a fight scene. It's not like who wins in this conversation. Jessica told me that. Lori told me not to have. Jessica, not to have. Jeannie take off her dress because we're different. And she has the choice in a way. Right. It was a very powerful moment that I remember also from, I guess probably 26 years ago. Yeah. Was it that you also go on the block where she can't do it or she doesn't have to do it? She does when she blows down. One of the things about that show and really all of the others, I think was characterized well by Kim Woy yesterday when she said you're part of how you function in your work is that you look back at, it's not just the audience looking at you. You're looking back at the audience. You're engaging the audience in a very direct way. What do you see when you look at the audience? I see, I mean, this is what came to me and this is the truth. I see my mother. And by that I mean everyone looking at me are people that I wanted to explain to you. Because my mother and I, my mother was very smart and from that generation that covered up her smartness and I wanted to have these kinds of conversations and every once in a while she'd come out with something just on point. I wanted to have these kinds of conversations with her. They work about men in your family but I don't think you've ever heard of her. Well, salary, yeah, and that was also something that I thought about. But yeah. We've also talked about even from within work the kind of role of the audience after the show's over that you're making work that specifically is igniting something. It's not over. Look at the curtain calls. Something's supposed to continue. Something's opened up by the show. How uncomfortable can you make an audience and still keep them in it and create discomfort? I think that's what's necessary for the conversation to continue. Maybe a lot. Well, Cindy, I think, pointed out that I feed the people. I often have food and that's the way to keep people in the theater. And that trust the audience. Yes, I think if the audience is there, they will be there. And like we said, some people walk out but I don't think they, whatever they heard they have to carry with them. And process what it was that they walked out from. So that's fine. But I trust the audience to take it in like it or not. And to continue the conversation. If people actually do as people say they go and speak through it and walk out from an uninterested moment. But I trust the audience. It doesn't matter if they're trustworthy. It's just that I bring that part. Hopefully. Maybe that's part of, I'm not sure which is the chicken or the egg, but there's some, your vulnerability on stage can be very disarming for an audience I think in a productive way. But maybe you're able to present that because you trust them a priority. And I recognize it's a dangerous place up here to be vulnerable in front of people. But again as we talked about last night you walk into that. That's part of work. Stepping into that place where you're going to be vulnerable and it's never easy. But it's like diving into deep water which is an image I often use because I'm not a great swimmer. But I know that there's a lifeguard. What is the lifeguard on stage? Material. So you're going to play the material? An urgency of a material. How do you prepare yourself? I mean you said yesterday, you said it kind of was a joke but that nervousness was hell. How do you prepare yourself? The material is difficult and it's traumatic a lot of it. How do you prepare yourself to take that dive and then how do you recover each night? I remember Trezzana Beverly who did the first lady in red and the color girls would after a show she wouldn't see anybody she would go in her dressing room and recover which I also did but I would leave it but I'd left the stage I wouldn't leave that on the stage. If I ask the audience to talk to each other or as you say hope that they carry it with them then good. Have your own. Thanks about it. Which is a good thing. So that's, no to me there's the entrance the being and the exit. How do I prepare? I go back we know I'm so nervous and I try to remember and I teach this but you have to go to it each time I go to this kind of wellness mantra I know more about what I'm going to do than anybody else in the world. So let's talk about masks in a way that's true but the idea of masks came up yesterday a couple of times. Daniel talked about directing him and how you confronted him in a way that made him take his mask down and you talked about Teenytown and Jessica talked about the kind of mask of menstrual sea and I remember way back when the infamous Robert Broustine, August Wilson Bate and all and they were bumping their chests at each other and carrying on and who could be in this and who could be on stage and this voice came from the house that said, why don't we just go back to using masks in the theater? So I remembered that yesterday when this image of the mask came up a couple of times and again when sorry I forgot who said it but when the panel of artists who were talking about the distance between your real self, whatever that is and the stage self in autobiographical work that's a kind of mask to you like what is the mask for you and what's its importance? For me the mask is the act for me when I'm being the actor I'm telling this part of the story because as somebody else said yesterday that your story is not your whole story it is that focus that you're working with I mean, you know my father was not just about the wars you know and so I become the actor stepping into the space doing the actor's work and you know acting and writing are different and I thought a lot about this because when I first did my father in the war someone said to me I don't remember who but it was an artist a group of roots a roots organization a group and someone said to me you can't play yourself and that's all I had to hear and I thought yes I am playing myself but playing myself is the acting work and I love that idea I love putting it that way that you're playing yourself you know a character is not the actor the actor becomes the character and so if I show up and enter the space to do the work then the character emerges so this work these pieces we're making of course were you know coming forth at a time where autobiographical performance art was emerging or becoming more of a recognized form and there's a lot of contexts in which we can place your work and understand it but that's certainly one of them and I wonder how you how you place yourself how you see your own work in the context of other performers of your generation or doing this kind of work because it was very different I remember once I was assigned to review a piece of yours I don't even remember which one it was along with a new piece by Spalding Gray oh yeah and it was a really it just made something so stark you know the difference between work that is has no choice but to engage being in the world and work where you can just sit behind a table with a microphone and a spotlight on you and assume that that's where you're always belong to tell your personal story removed from the world to an audience and yet that work you know I don't mean to caricature it too much and I'm certainly not saying this in any way to denigrate the work of Spalding Gray but just to point out a contrast of maybe maybe two poles of work that was happening at that time and like did you see yourself as part of the same same world that somebody like Spalding Gray was occupying or were you in some other corner of it or do you I mean everybody has legacies you know we have our feet in a lot of different places where our roots you know coming into us was that one of them for you? no I love that article thank you it was a little uncomfortable because it was soon after that yeah I liked his presence but I was not interested in that in doing that and I didn't know his work at the time no I wanted to say something I wanted I wanted you know with the term you know the personal bigger story personal story connected to something bigger and so I wanted to use my personal voice in order to address things relevant to the presence of black people in this world stories and how stories reflect political cultural issues did you have models for that in the theater? well sure coming from a legacy of black people who've done that in many different ways often but mainly poetry and maybe now in literature there is some attention to the world of poetry but I was fascinated with how little we knew this country so that was my main influence the oral culture the storytelling the kinds of stories that Dale was telling yesterday the dialogue the kitchen table story to me there's a world of music to draw on so you've made a whole technique out of that so what's the story circle exactly oh you were well briefly I think everybody heard enough but John O'Neill actually brought that forth at this time it's based on the thing that is and I'm not sure but which group has the source but Native American called passing the stick and Kevin uses this where people sit in the circle tell stories and then talk about what was said and you use it with students you use it in creative processes or what's its with students in creative in directing in teaching I mean with students but as the teaching mode and what does it open up for me well because people are encouraged to tell something personal and bigger it helps people talk about things that are hard to talk about so instead of did you have bad white people in your bail tell a story about tell a story about something surprised you about things that can be very difficult when I hear you ask that question think about what Cindy discussed yesterday is the particular difficulty of opening the conversation within white liberalism that for families that didn't have Klan members something that's dark which obviously needs to be discussed in Cindy's book really important intervention but when there isn't that particular history in the family maybe harder to get people to discuss to recognize to own participation in racist structures I wonder that story circle kind of prompt or performance itself gets underneath those questions this is it's such a I'm doing this because it's so hard to get hold of this business of how do you transform people's sense of race as injury to everyone and so usually for for many black people you know we and I'm sometimes the same just kind of done with it and it's a white people problem so let them figure it out and that may be where we are now because there's a 40 years or so there's a bit of change a bit of movement and right now there seems to be a bit of movement right now and I think artists make a difference because we're usually ahead of that a couple of steps ahead but I don't have the answer if I would but you've talked about the need to tell the untellable stories so what are the untellable stories right now in this horrendous moment the untellable stories are why didn't you tell your children why you live where you live hmm well I actually think that is are we out of time? well I think that's a really important place for us to continue thinking about we are out of time but I love the idea that we have to sit with them if that's okay thank you