 Okay, everyone. Welcome to Puppets in the Green Mountains, hence the dish I'm going to address. For those who don't know me, I'm Eric Bass, co-founder of Centro Compel to Do is to contextualize these performances opening the doors. And that can mean many different things, but it definitely includes opening the doors to anyone who has been locked outside in the world of injustice or exclusion. And so the shows in this festival all somehow address that coming in added from many different ways. What's contextualized are the lunchtime conversations. There was one today at noon. Tomorrow at noon, there'll be tomorrow's is your own theater adventure program by John Potter. And what that means for them as creators, what it means for us as an audience. Monday at 12 o'clock, Josh, and it's double from Taiwan. So a lot of interest in the way that the people in the trenches, people in the country for change in other ways besides the art, which brings me, which brings us to this afternoon. This is our, I don't remember these things anymore, so she's my memory. And the keynote address basically is perspective on this art form and its relationship to the system of changes that we can make. And the processes for doing that, Tracy Broyles is going to talk to you about. Let me present. If I have left any out in a name, I also apologize like to aid correct people here. I am aware of those very diseases here. Imagine opened doors for including myself have benefited to have come before us. Cultural erasure. They are not erased. It is my despite history and it is meant to attend because they were already elsewhere. A South African freedom song, a printmaker in the struggle by the South African Defense Forces in their lives in the struggle. Over the years that so many and I remember by my last visit embrace and more and entering events like for so long to create safe space and simply to be. So when Eric, one of worked in art, puppetry and support inclusive participation. And I have worked in justice and work towards experiences and reflections with you all are collaboratively, but to stand alone in that work. Well, to do my own work to work of experiential real time mind, which require some kind of order. Besides, you are all beautiful and inspiring and courageous work. What light can I shed on opening doors, which doors you're trying to open. Before I go further, I'd like to share a few important really just driven. Most of this is most breaking and likely these things inspired. We came to employing the negative or haphazardly remembered became a rep specific ways of working, many of which were taught to us or subtly adjusted by teachers in resistance movements. Through operating communities. They are not my way. They are not fixed to be consistent does not. And they are not rules, but ways and to them as well as offerings of any additional practices that may be or host community may have standing practices that are useful and should maybe habits that are no longer useful. The important thing is awareness, mindfulness, what I call for yourself as you need to. I know it's only 45 minutes or so, but still the restrooms which are left. If you need to take a call or step or want to come sit on the floor instead of a chair, please do so. Just mind the set using your hand or some other visible or audible indication. It's a little hard to see y'all so I'll put that to you to help. I'm able without losing my way. I'd love I may need help with that so I can keep the flow, but I certainly don't want to lose key to the moment and then diversion may reveal a new path. The keynote speech and not a workshop, but I'm not sure that that changes anything. Besides, I know some of us do better when we have something. So if any among you feel called to support me, and if that's not, that's okay. So because of transparency, it's important for us to honor self-care, to respect inquiry, keep awaiting for many creative collaborations and needs, at whatever level and whatever end modes of entry. So if somebody would keep a running little door, somebody's got a pen, someone's here in the room who would keep things in their own ways. The magical doodle. And I welcome anyone who wishes to share your illuminated manuals before we need a timekeeper today. Thirty. Thirty. Stopped talking. And then put them together with your professional timekeeper. Is there anybody like me at about six? So I know we're going to bring us into questions. And the motions are a temperature. But if somebody person keeps an eye on the space on the energy in the room, as you can probably express in flags when we might need to breathe, sing, dance. Today's short. I'd really, like I said, a doubt we will need that room is always welcome. Thank you. Is that random? What we call it. And they notice you're able as when you were in peace in terms of inclusion, someone may be someone may be getting off work late and arrive when they can. Keeper or host helps catch people up to speed so they can join. And there's more room over here and up. There's seats right here only because I don't want to block you out. And I might turn my back on you. The doorkeeper catches people up to speed so they will stop and rehash. They also make sure they're new or how to make themselves comfortable. Thank you. The doorkeeper would lead a process without. I found this to be a sense of important in terms of this on my own. If I'm not going to block the intent. This is that you have to believe it does go beyond improv using I speak to do so as well, which I'm completely. And also process work really you try to get into the room that day. To again, this is so. But he sits outside. John, thank you. So and so he said that there can be. I have some set up. So right. This is for me. We've used. Anything else that some of the community. We snap and one of the value. There's a lot of experience there. And there's one snap and you know. I don't know why that reminds me. Yes. Yeah, I do a lot of work. Other side of that is. Someone inadvertently. Whether. Yes, something interesting that I've only just recently. Is somebody who's visually tracking the dialogue. But in a way that's not just representation. So my. As a visual thinker, it's been really nice to help me track conversation. Acknowledging different people's different. Go go past you. So. Thank you. The cultural organization who saw themselves as cultural workers. In exile. And aesthetics grew out of that particular. To decades, even centered. Then sharpened by the ideologies of black consciousness. Built upon the uprising that we call so it to in nineteen. And part of the nineteen eighties grassroots mobilization. Madeu itself existed. For some of our best members. At the hands of the south. Goes on. And. Of the liberation struggle. To build meaningful productive. And oppression. Tommy Manila, one of the. Art should compliment the active. Or liberating the country. Context she continues. Each member brought their own. In the soil of the community of the townships. Blossom blossomed in the posters. In the music. In the poetry that madeu produced. South African resistance. In particular. Has been. And. And played a pivotal role. Share with you all today. It seemed important that I look at my. Here. As far back as I can reach. Confidence. In the justice and fairness. People. And an aversion to all things exclusive. I was a child who formed clubs that everybody could be. I don't remember the specific events that. Standing in our kitchen bewildered confused and disoriented. Upended by some in general. But to someone other. Something I'd witnessed made no sense. And conjured revolt. Whatever it was. I am from south Louisiana. A rich place of festival. Parades culture on the outside. And by that I mean yes. Although it was in the 70s and 80s. So white children in fourth grade. Were on one side of the building. And black children. Fifth grade. I went to my. My old white and now. But no African American. Understands that there was anything. Rest of the school was African American. And we only. Petition. Which did not help. So. For the longest time my narrative. Was that I had very limited experience. But two forces in parallel challenged. In the libraries of self education. The civil rights movement. The struggle. Part time movement in South Africa. Opened. Oh really. Okay. Opened windows to my world. In particular cry the beloved country. By Alan Payton gave words to what I witnessed. Visible. But were not discussed or acknowledged. This South African novel. Humanly and vividly illustrated the system. Of their homes. To distance. Memberment of the familiar. The violent and methodical. And I read the book. The faces on the trains. I saw. The faces of those on the buses in. Matt and Rouge. Even at the register of the drug store. I had not consciously seen my world. Through this lens. But upon reading these novels. What had been unnamed. Greats however we stood side by side. Black and white calling for Mardi Gras beads. And joined. Realized the grownups were actually intoxicated. By the. The revelry. Now perhaps there was political satire in those. Now of Mardi Gras. But I didn't see it or record. Which is black and white rich and poor in this. Dancing and singing and dressing up in costumes. Of society. Of how. And to whom and with whom and where. This glory. With the ordinary rules suspended. And really. It seemed like there was a new. See. And then there's this funny balance. The quest to catch more throws and beads. Coupled with the odd and. Someone isn't catching anything. This generosity that flows as these beads. Worthless but worth more than. Standing next to you empty handed. Just for the sheer sake of sharing. So it should come as no surprise. In Charlottesville. When my rage against the world. Rude awakenings as we say. Later states. Learning that leaders like iron contra. Just a loss of faith in the American dream. And democracy. When I met bread and puppet. Something lifted and shifted. A marriage of passionate. To my roots. I skipped school for a week or more. And spent every moment they'd let me with them. Billions I hadn't met before. I was thrilled that there were other. A way to talk about all this on a scale. That approached the scale of suffering. That it was. Left town and we kept making puppets. And starting ourselves. Waiting abstract protests and criticism. Around the very downtown mall. In Charlottesville for hate. Coiled. With my shaved head flower dresses. Combat boots and the courage of my convictions. Had the incredible privilege. Together we crossed color lines. And I spent my 20 something. And my days like. Going about town. Invading the art and music studios of my friends. Draw. And parade theater every so often. They're my. Teaching me how to stand up for myself. To challenge cat calling and man. A couple of years later. As quickly as I arrived. A journey a track of quest. I don't know what. And one. Communities and with communities of color. In Washington. No puppets no parades. I didn't even go home from already growing. Like. But instead used the form. Raids theater protest. Active authorship from that community. That I see of activist theater. It's a total over. On one path the art is made by artists. Often used to assert. Shirts conduct research conducted in community. Often intended to persuade. Educate. On another path the art is made by community members. Who may or may not identify. Organizers not interpreters. But facility. The work reflects the ahas. Of the community. Rather than the artist. To spiral queue works. Communities express positions with which we disagreed. Sort of a companion to the ACLU. But in the art world. Maddie Hart. The founder was ready to return to university. Specific work of giant. Puppetry and parade. This time. Softly being my first mantra. Which evolved over. With good intentions. Of an artist bull. Possibly even like my ancestors. Bringing. I'd certainly run into the rescue. To give voice or raise a ruckus. And as I mentioned. I'd exited. Ghosting today. And so I try to walk softly. So I've shared some of the basics. Self care roles. Assume positive intent. Why puppets? Why puppets? Last night I was watching Babylon. And I was reminded of one of the things I think about often. At the world. Learning by looking. Sometimes lost in reverie. In a very different way. In our bodies. In our minds. And I think we need this space and time. And look at it for a while. Without apology. Without questions. Without freedom. They cannot be invisible. Approaching and receding. And the melee of all the stimuli out there. They manage. Inspires. Excites. As a protector. Eric Garner. Which one. And which end of. Littany of lost life. Be so long. That this rally we brought three puppets. And we had three performances at the point of some. With a very large police presence. Beyond. In order not to block the view of the crowd. Remember. We didn't want to put the puppets in front. So we positioned ourselves behind the community and the police. As. Make her for the crowd. And they were big enough. And in witness to this suffering. When nothing seemed to pass to them. Like a receiving line at a funeral. And touched our shoulders. I'm going to take two more. Get. So. Puppets can transcend text based. Culture and experience in age. But this doesn't. Thousands. Brought a day of the dead parade to a. Was a large group of largely white. Artists who had some. No real roots in it. So when they brought the parade to a largely African. This was no soft. Understand why these giant skeletons. Were walking in there. One is. As artists. Doors are often open to us. When they might not otherwise be. Mindful of walking through those doors. Even upon. Who has now passed to the other side. Miss Austin believed in dialogue. Forgiveness and change. And she brought. And a rich education about cultural appropriation. And thoughtful entry. A secular holiday and festival made by the. It's a whole season. And you couldn't stop people who had if you tried. So I think I've probably shared about as much as. Any of us. The most essential practice comes from John O'Neill. The founder of the Free Southern Theater. And an organizing member of the. Story circle is more than we can go into right now. But the premises are most essential. Everyone has the right to tell that story. And then if we value that. Then we must also and most critically. Learn to listen. I'm going to remember that. Silence. I think that's helpful. But mostly about the. And so I thank you for listening to. Church Bishop Desmond Tutu. Distance art in South Africa. Of their truth inspire me. Says. There can be no. In the life of a people. Long ago for instance. On their livelihood. And help to ensure their survival. Painting was not entertainment. Nor were they. That dominion over their environment. To have. Nor. Inacted on the stage for the audience to see. Are the experiences of their day. Failures. The traumas. The world we live in together. And Maria. If you want to. Play the music soft. So in closing I invite you to join me in a roll call. Inspired us to do better. To a more just and joyous world. For all. With present a. But I'm actually going to pause. I can't do that and then take. The last thing. John right. Yeah. How a person feels. Yes. Similar. And they got this. Mass. And the whole thing. So. And I didn't want to. But then. When I. See. This is my boy. Yeah. There really was no art program. For. A number of years. So Spiral Q was a wonderful opportunity. For our students to get involved. In arts. In a hands on experience. With the rest of the curriculum. So as the students. Spiral Q. Has really. That the students. Have had an opportunity. How to work together as a team. To problem solve. And to collaborate. The kids are so enthusiastic. About. Spiral Q time. And that's what I mean when I say that Spiral Q. Is so. To. And I work with. For. Both very clear about our framing. But also is one that understands the use. Not just. But I think that as a space to help. Using. To create new puppets. And then also using. To. The way the kind of. And all of these social justice issues. From. We're both about. The. Right to information and what it means to live. There's no one else in Philadelphia. I see. Is just so meaningful to us. I didn't talk to you all about like accessible technologies. You know. Recycled. Foundational parts of our work. Because I'm so busy thinking about all of these other things. But. Let me open the floor to you all. I want to communicate causes. Or. Don't support. That feels like things are. So polarized both. Right and left. That seems incredible. That. To. So one of the really challenging ones. We there was a I got a call from the minister of. Baptist Church. Who was trying to raise awareness in this community about HIV. And. And their message was an abstinence-only message. That was really all they had room for. And as a community, as a group whose, our founding work was with Act Up Philly, for some of you who don't know, that's a pretty radical group that really, I mean, we were for needle exchange, harm reduction, I mean, it was, and so myself and another artist were on our way over to this church and I said, oh, by the way, we could get there and find out that we're helping them organize an abstinence rally. And she said, I think I might need to get out of the car. And I said, I know, that's why we're talking about this, but we also really profoundly believe that one of the most important thing, aside from hate speech, violence, and destruction, right, is that people have an opportunity to work through ideas and an artistic dialogue and a creative process. And thank heavens we did, because we got there. And we were ready to go and we were like, okay, we're gonna do this and how are we gonna put, honestly, put creative thinking only aside? And he said, okay, so I have to do this abstinence-only message, but I can't control what an outsider does. And my community is dying. And I said, okay. And so the next thing we knew, we actually got, like we did a little bit of work, but what we really did was we got, and they worked hand in hand with him and really helped to put some interventions where he could protect his stuff, right? And so we had to get in the car, we had to get all the way there, knowing that we didn't know what we were gonna do. So that's an example, I don't know if that's true. You talked a little bit about going into, in your walking stuff lately, talked about going into communities and how you now extricate yourself, but in a way that might yield more, like, leading sustainable practices. I'd be curious about what that model looks like in the stuff of practice, where you're not just coming in and going, yeah, let's do crazy car, see you later, good luck. Right, so I said that there's something, so we started doing two things. One is instead of like seeing opportunities, or seeing like cool spaces, or seeing a community who we thought might be in need, we started only, or promoted, like we let, like, until we worked in a community for five years, doing a process and making a parade in a festival every year. And the first year, they said, they just, we wanted to just celebrate what was rich about that community. And so we made giant papier-mache barbecue pits and a huge boom box and all this stuff. And by the, about the fourth year, they were like, we've got to start out. And then a few months after one of the events, we'd been doing a parade and we were parading through our neighborhood and the community had, like, I worked with the community to map the parade route, okay? And they were clear, this is the route we're taking. And we said, you're welcome to escort us, but we don't, you don't have to be here. And they said, well, we can't go there, that's dangerous. I said, the community has said we're going here. And so we went through this area, about six months later, there was sort of a rash of shootings. And the community organized a whole march, a whole vigil. They called us and we said, do you need anything? And they said, oh, we just need you to show up with us to help plan to get permits. They didn't need any of that. And that was for me, just like, oh, you know, they all don't go like that. And we try to talk about intentionality with that. And that whole, like when I say a deconstruct process in it, we use the process as a training, as being a training. And then we are in, like, how great that particular population decided that we were going to, like in terms of, we did need to have some long-term work, because it gets, it's hard to be an artist who goes into a community and leaves and goes into community and leaves, and then where do you see the long-term change? And so we did decide to make a commitment to our base community and our home geographic community. And that's been really, really rewarding. And we have kids now, well, we have grown people now coming and working with us as staff members who were children in a parade, like, and had a huge gap, or have had mothers come in and bring their children and say, so there's where a lot of the wealth and privilege is, so we weren't there very much. I now live in upstate, and am...