 I was speaking with Kanaeza Shol, who is still in Egypt and could be here tonight. And this was about a year and a half ago. And she, as she is making her extraordinary and groundbreaking forays into experimental theater and performance, was talking about roots and how she, as a young black theater artist, noted the conspicuous absence of those like her in the popular discursive history about this work. And she said, where are your roots, Daniel? And I said, my roots are in the river. And I longed for that river for years before I founded it. And I first stepped foot into that river when I was 15 years old in Springfield, Massachusetts. And I was given an assignment from my first drama club experience to go find a long log, and I didn't even really know what that was. And I went to the section of plays, and I stood before it, and I didn't know, I didn't know, so I closed my eyes and I put my hand out, and I pulled a play down that was for color growth. And I opened the book, and I knew this work. I knew this world, and I got to one piece in particular, and I got, you know, when you get sweaty, and all the hair stands up on your back, and you're nervous, and your bones are shaking, and it said one thing I don't need is any more apologies. I got sorry to meet me at my front door. You can keep yours, right? And I scrambled through the library, and I saw the photograph of the woman who had delivered that monologue, the lady in blue. There she was. There, thank you, that's it. And I committed the cardinal sin. I ripped the photograph out of the library, and I brought it home, and I put it on my wall in my bedroom. Seven years later, I was in graduate school, and Aisha Rahman invited me to be a part of a workshop of her play, and she said, oh, my friend's coming up from New York to direct it. My friend Lori. And it wasn't until after we were working that I said, that's Lori Carlos, who used to be on my wall. The following summer I went to the National Black Theater Festival, and I walked out of the van in North Carolina, and the first person I saw was Lori Carlos, and she said to me, we've been waiting for you. I longed for the river, and my longing for the river brought me to the river. But the river existed all along. My longing for the river was proof of the river's existence. And so tonight is about that river, and it's about my roots in that river, and it may be about our roots in that river. Rhonda Ross, Stacy Robinson. Come on, you all. Welcome the river to the stage, y'all. Bonnie Farris. Robin McCarley. Jessica Hadidore. So let's go. Welcome everybody. Thank you. This is how we do. Robin, can you tell the story about mining? I came to New York in the mid-60s to go into theater, which was as vague as it was. And found myself at a performance called Walk Together Children by Vanya Burl. And I realized during her piece that this is what I came for, to stand and deliver things that felt right to me. And I remember that her last piece, I'm not sure it was her last piece, but that piece that felt like the last piece was W-E-B and Book of Tea. And what I loved about it was that it was about the range of our lives as African-American and American people. Stacy, do you have a question for Robin? I do. Robin, I wanted to know, it's a big one. What story or belief did you have to let go in order to be free? And how did you release it? I had to let go of the belief that I had to get better. I think I grew up with thinking that there was something less there. I realized later that I was just simply political. And Robbie, you have a piece of Stacy Robinson's performance, Quiet Frenzy, that you're going to share with us. We decided that we were going to give one another an excerpts of one another's work to do. Kaboom. Get the scarf. You know this, Doc. Long story short, I was in a car accident with my sister. She died. I survived. No, there's really not a whole lot more to tell. I don't have any memory of it. The actual crash was hot. The first heat of spring. A record breaker. A saddle. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, my sister and I. We put on tight, tight shorts, went to stroll. We spent hours walking in circles, holding hands. The people, they couldn't take their eyes off of us. We were looking too good. We were wasting no time. We were together. It was our day. I remember I felt fully alive. Even my skin was breathing. She kept holding me. She kept falling over because everything was funny. All day her tummy was tickling. When she was happy, her tummy would tick. We was moving as one, so my tummy was tickling. Not just the twin thing. You know as a twin, sometimes you hear the other's thoughts. But this was more deliberate as if she was directing herself into, out of me. It made me giggle. We were eating sun. Must have been because of, all of a sudden it was late dark. I was so stupid we were seven blocks away. Later, a cop told me there were a lot of DUIs that day because it was so pretty. People all over the city had been celebrating the surprise holiday. Anyway, who pulls up beside us but the off-shop boys? These guys we grew up with, they insisted on taking us home. Jude gave us the front seat because Bobo was real fat. There wasn't enough room for all of us in the back. He wouldn't have been comfortable. They always treated us real gentle, like real ladies. We were in the front. She was on my lap. Kaboom! Not that I remember. I just remember losing breath. Seeing Nisi, my sister, everywhere, she was multiplied many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times. All around me was Nisi dancing, holding me, hugging me, cheek to cheek, tugging my ears, kissing my eyelids. Every part of her was singing the song we made of his kids. Angel, oh angel, my angel, oh angel. I was in bliss. I was erupting. Always little explosions of me. It was all of me was embraced by her. She kept singing, and I kept saying, Nisi, oh Nisi, my Nisi, isn't this the best day? You have a question for Stacy. Hi. My question is, how does not lose breath, does yourself? How does your spirit, your ancestry and your people play a role in your artistic process? Who are your people? They do play a role in the process. I see folks. I smell things. I hear things that are clearly not from me when I'm working. The more that I allow, the more they are present. I think some of them are my ancestral folks, but I also think that they are the ancestry of the work that I'm supposed to do. Or they may be, there's lots of my bloodline that I don't know. So it may be bloodline. I think that it's been a process for me to embrace their presence, allow their input completely, as completely as possible. That's the process for me to keep allowing them as completely. There's an excerpt from a new play that Jessica is working on, and we're going to have how the Davis and Maya Boateng read this excerpt. Is there a passage to reactions at the top? No. 10,000? 10,000? That's exactly what I said my library extends to every room, even the kitchen and bathroom. Nothing like poetry in the kitchen, I always say. Or when you were taking a shit first thing in the morning, I called it communing with God. Does the word shit offend you? The Filipinos are very gracious and refined. I can certainly curtail. I love cursing. Do you? You know I find it astonishing that you've never read or even God helped me heard of board games. Given the fact that you call your personal little library infinite, which is not only amusing but prescient, given the fact that I've read your poems right here, or shall we say the very least imagination and curiosity? Curiosity is essential for without it you can call yourself a writer and certainly not a poet. No matter how many twinkling metaphors you might string up like Christmas lights isn't daring or rigor or honesty behind those festive Christmas lights then it won't matter. You understand? Board games despite being blind. He's blind? Blind. Yes. But that did not stop the work. Though I'm not a fan of everything I believe you should soak it all up like a sponge even that quasi-mystical esoteric nonsense about tigers and female Chinese pirates. This is my theory and only my theory to me is missing at any time. The blind man can't help himself. He's a repressed fairy and probably a benign fascist to boot. His benign fascist and oxymoron. Board games is Argentine after all and like a lot of Latin men quite the long is boy, which I certainly don't mind. I adore but I've danced to the tango with gorgeous fairies from Buenos Aires and probably heard I'll try anything once. Fascism? No, no, no, no fascisms. Different. It's like a voyage you can't forget. It exists. You can't be timid and let that fucking cockroach get away. You! You're on site. You didn't use him. We have giant ones in the Philippines called Ippies, Necklin. They fly Ippies. Well, there you go. Flying fat. There's a dirty war going on in your mother country as we speak just like the one in Chile and Argentina. Of course, my theory about board games has been called nutty and incoherent but I'm too old to give a shit about those assholes in New York. A somewhat clunky translation by some Brit I've never heard of. Brits have no ear for the rhythms of Spanish but it's better than nothing. Bring the blind man back when you are done. Really? Close by whenever you want would you like a copy of my new translations of Lorca's poetry inscribed in Declan, I love Lorca most young people watch you don't end up imitating him too much Lorca's too Jessica, do you have a question or a miss by me? I do. I even wrote it down but I'm just gonna do what these other fabulous women have done. You know this comes from Daniel and I earlier this year went to see you in Richard Maxwell's dystopian cowboy extravaganza called Samara and we were blown away by the plane, the ensemble most of all they were blown away by you because it's a very challenging piece and you were singing you were doing poetic monologues it was very physical I mean everyone was rolling around on the floor and I'm wondering given your long and illustrious and adventurous career in the theater as a performer from Genese the Blacks to the recent very playful, good person of such one and then the Maxwell ladies what is it about these very different and very challenging works that entices you as a performer? I think I find it a little difficult to answer that question directly because you are speaking about my performance in two different planes what excites me always is the text the word in the beginning of the word and once I have that excitement in a play that challenges my understanding of what it is to be a particular human being then I become involved and I don't know what that really answers your question the text beautiful segue speaking of text right I would ask Vining and Rhonda to read an excerpt of a play that they both were actually in production called Phoenix fabric gal yes ma'am, yes ma'am watch this here no thank you ma'am what's that there don't recall yes you do don't know at all yes you do I'd rather get going that morning what's that there gal fire they use how's that girl shouts and hints why is that he looked too wild his chin too high I don't recall he took too long what's all that they make a picture they smile and so pick them a nigger good hats and dresses he'll hand the doctor pick them a nigger pickles and pie send it to their family send it to their friends yes ma'am wishing was here hello hello yes ma'am what's that there that there shouts is not yes ma'am it is that burnt up me yes ma'am that blackened bone yes sir where's his face and all those birds that you held up waiting in the night climbing that tree what do you see my hands my own bare hands your hands are stained where's he go will bury the meat where's he go his precious bones they got his bones what about his soul his precious soul never you mind I'll make him back fashion his bones conjure his blood no gal catch the light catch the light the light of the land all answers in that night so I have a question for ma'am I so those of you who may not know Maya is one of the finest actors I've ever seen in my life and I knew that from the first time I met you when you were at Fordham and it's a thing that you just know that there's a particular gift that a person has it doesn't mean that everyone else isn't wonderful at what they do but there's some people that just have that extra thing and I think of that as a part of the call of the river and we've talked about this question of the call and response which is so key to our cultural tradition what called to you what drew you to performance and do you at this moment in our culture and politic feel that it is the most viable thing for you to be doing in response well Daniel thank you for that question I think what called to me was a responsibility that I didn't understand at the time I started performing very very young on I started off step dancing and I came from a place that was disenfranchised impoverished and it seemed like performance was the better option and so at the time what called to me was release and a search for a voice act hearing around me that being from where I was from it meant that you would end up a certain way but something about performing and acting and dancing allowed me to find my own so that's what initially called to me and now there is nothing else I would rather be doing there is nothing else looking at I'm talking so long but that question is a lot with such division and divide in our country right now I'm sure it's always been there but for me I feel it so strongly now in a way that I didn't before and it seems so stark and there's always a question of what do you do how do I help when it all seems so massive and so beyond you and what I have is my voice what I have is my mind and my creativity and my curiosity I don't have answers and I think that's the beauty in art right now because there are a lot of answers being thrown there are a lot of that aren't answers they're just individual truths so yeah there's nothing else I'd rather be doing and that's scary may we hear a bit of your piece Stacey will you read some of my up-watching work spinning and swimming and searching I've dismantled too many years attending towards quiet and silence and mouth seals so deep in the way I was brought up donning obedience like a king's robe squelching and choking on words I wish to say it somehow it seems I no longer know how to speak my truth it gets lost it gets scorched it gets me into a million places I'm trying to catch it all trying to learn what it feels like to finally breathe again I haven't heard the name and she's YAH name I was given at birth but YAH Muakwa Waten YAH from Yauda for born on Thursday on Muakwa for she that fights Waten for help that goes a long way name only given to babies' desons as a shanty queen mother's butchered by American blacks who generations scarred by the door of no return have no clue that my name brings you a little closer to home your home that place where they lied and told you you could never return to so they made no brainwashed you that drowned you in the Atlantic now we still afraid to swim of the water of the weight of the flow of the depth steadily surviving and trying to catch out catch our breath breath until another brother screams I can't breathe well did you have a question for Stacy you did that's right I have all kinds of questions I got all kinds of questions don't get me started so let's go to Jessica if you would read Helga Davis's a bird inside out eyes open turned in a woman smashed inside out eyes open turned in a friend a menace a question a battery dead a mess a wish a bit of money neatly folded tucked away a bit of money neatly folded tucked away a bit of money neatly folded tucked away a minute a name remembered a face remembered a window of opportunity a distraction that way that bitch that over there that time that shit on the back of your pants that one time pass me that time enough time for woman for one one who say thought ah left everything I knew behind thoughtless acts courageous ones every chance to change my mind on my way so much to see there I was standing at the crossroads and when I opened my eyes I was at the water I was at the water I poured myself into the mouth of the water my hopes and dreams boom into the mouth of the water cried and smiled myself to sleep into the mouth of the water died came alive into the mouth of the water then found that I was the water that I was the water that I was the water and the water was me this was a story a story about a woman about a woman that begins with a man in search of water and the water turns out was me was me this is a story about me it's always just so interesting to hear to hear the the um in my head in a completely different voice in a different rhythm in a different everything and so to hear it back in this way ok you already know that but still there's something about the word in the mouth of the other that illuminates reminds and points in the in a direction that can be different than the one you aimed it so this is really a beautiful thing thank you so much and thank you for what you did with my words I mean I think that's a pleasure I'm curious about music that influences you the music not just of the words that you listen to when I was reading your text all I could hear is music it feels very much like a kind of a bomb is it a piano solo or a horn solo it's interesting because as a young writer I used music to propel me in my writing to this day I listened to everything I listened to a lot of miles in the electric period and I listened to a lot of opera depending on what I'm writing and also a lot of Latin music but a song by women like Concha Luka so that puts me in a certain frame and the way the language flows and then of course you know there's all that sonron and art ensemble that was important as I was coming up as a writer and that showed me different rhythms and dissonance the importance of it and rock and roll always always always always always always were you all part of each other's communities also did you know that you yeah I like to collaborate with music and I had a band when I was younger and you know it taught me so much I didn't I was self-taught writer you know I mean just for reading and kind of listening to other writers so the music took it to another place but that's such a big thing because it means that if you're a writer you're a writer you don't have an excuse for not writing you can't say oh well I don't have a degree in that I haven't gone to and it's in you to do it's your work to do it's just I think it's so important that people hear that right because so often I think we need another kind of validation and permission to do what it is that is in us especially now I think that's pushed on other people and I used to teach them tell them you really don't need to be here ok there is one of many wonderful things that have happened recently and in the midst of all the craziness and one wonderful thing is that Robin McCauley is now back in New York full time and one of the great things can you give us a little news maybe about your piece coming up yes the pliers aren't out yet we said back in the day now it's all online I'm doing my recent work Sugar at Live Arts in February and so we're going to experience a little piece of that and Maya you will bring me falling down in somebody's living room in Prague desperate for food desperate for sugar sirens sirens in foreign cities grateful for fish sticks and soup sleeping only in dreams backstage wars horses pounding in dreams boats and drowning musicians my heart pumps hearing God no solution where is love angels call children fall guns everywhere forgive me Jesus people rush through alleyways call them at windows keys and couches and books broken pianos move in the night still I hear the trucks they come in a night who's in charge I swallow hard back in America the end of the century shipped in like the end of time in a famous working class city no longer black with the soot that helped people pay bills now full of unemployed people black and white down by the river asking me if my father had worked in the ovens in the war I said and poets sucked the outside cafes hoping for somebody to listen again a question for my spaceman, Helga Davis ask as I thought it an extraordinary person in this world could you say some ways that you have gotten to blue as an extraordinary person in this world one of the things that I've been practicing and it really is a practice for the last several years is saying yes just to say yes to whatever it is to say first yes biggest lesson I think that I've learned is to just say yes and then to continue to practice community like real community putting one's body in the line of fire putting one's life in the places where you want to see change for me it's not an accident that we are around this table not only because we know Daniel but because yours are the eyes the stories the songs that I hold that I gather with me when I sit and I have a friend who she has a son when he was first born before he would sleep at night she would say who loves you and he would actually fall asleep naming, trying to name all the people that he loved him and I do a very similar thing especially in these for me one of the hardest things to remember sometimes is that it doesn't matter the noise and the chaos that I am loved and held by people seen and unseen and so in the morning when I wake up I light a candle and I begin to name them then I say yes and then I say thank you and then I go as you can tell we we all considered a question and it was important that we didn't share that beforehand but I would begin now to ask you to consider a question that you might want to bring to this group of people as we continue there will be space for your questions Miss Vani I ask you to think of a question for me how does your gender affect your creative impulse particularly as the initiator of something that is not yet developed I was just in Cairo Canesa at one point I looked to her and I said you have been one of my great teachers even though I've only known her a short time because she's tall and she's long and she has to look like this to see the people and her mind she refuses to make it small to make anyone else comfortable so it gets to operate at a rev that allows her to do the work in real time and I said thank you for teaching me something about being in my body again so my answer for you has to do with I think on some level I make work to remember what it is to be embodied and I sometimes feel like I'm a little girl and a little boy hiding inside of a man waiting for the woman who is the goddess to arrive and it's a community in here and so when a piece is gestating at the very very very very beginning they run and tell me they're like come look come meet her and that's mother Dixon who you read come look that's Eleanor your mama being the biggest example of something they come from away and then they literally change my physiology as I work I gain weight, I lose weight I have aches and pains they change me and they bring their wounds and and they demand that I engage their wounds and then they bring their magic and they demand that I learn the spells and when I've done both there's a piece but it is absolutely gender is big and the work that I still have to do at 47 is to ask myself again and again when they go and when the little girl goes to play and the little boy goes to sleep and the goddess is gone into the dark side of the room what do I do and I don't know yet thank you thank you Maya do you have a question for Rhonda, Susan, and Ross oh I do where did you go my little girl Susan that's my mom's that's my mom's so wronged okay so I've been pondering the words success and failure so strongly I've been out of school two minutes and I'm like I'm failing at everything so I want to know from you are you a person who's artistry and career I highly admire and it looks like success to me I've often heard that you don't no one actually fails at anything right that you just don't produce the intended result you're just putting an opinion onto the thing and that it's just an illusion so I'm wondering you do you agree with that having handle failure how do you see success and if failure is an illusion and success also an illusion just how do you view those things I think that one can fail if their definition of success is finite if I need to get into that college to be successful then I can fail but I don't tend to think of it like that so to answer your question I don't know that I have my version of success and I do feel successful but it's a practice it's a daily deepening and Stacy mentioned it in her answer to me it's a daily releasing of me to let my ancestors let spirit flow through me and a momently ability to mine and go deeper and engage the wounds and engage the magic and be as big as I'm afraid to be and those kinds of things but it's a moment to moment thing and I can I can almost touch it now and miss it the next minute almost get it again but that practice the imagery of a river just came to me that river it's not finite like if I get there I've made it it's a moment to moment trying and hitting and missing and trying again and asking a different question and looking at it upside down so I feel successful when I practice that when I practice that as an artist when I practice that as a mother when I practice that as a friend and as a daughter and sometimes I get it and sometimes I don't and then I have to try it again and tweak it you know but because of that I don't have a big issue about age like I don't have a big like oh I'm 46 I was supposed to have done X, Y and Z because it's that moment to moment and it makes me want to wake up in the morning and try again one other tiny thought came about gender that I feel actually is connected to this idea that not being finite and Tanisha Christie is here another extraordinary performance artist and we shared another mentor Rebecca Rice and I wanted to again call, I'm missing Lori Carlos call her name and thinking about if you have everyone got one of the flyers and the inside there's this man I asked everyone about their influences and their people and so this is a tiny portion of that and we hope you'll add to this take this home and add to this but that we we're connected in a very particular way but some of the most extraordinary teachings happen because of the odd ways that we come together and the odd ways that we relate with one another and I'm working on a book that's kind of about what we're talking about and one of the things I remember is how often Rebecca Kathy Gagnon there were a number of people who were mentors to me would be talking to me they'd be like girl and it wasn't a slip I knew they saw me as their little sister as much as they saw me as their little brother and I knew they were indoctrinating me into this work with some of that in their spirit right so the question then becomes if we see one another and we see things in one another that are incongruous but loud to us maybe it's a really good thing to cultivate that we're going to do one thing and then we're going to come to you um Rhonda, will you read us? I will read you I love what you said Helga about no matter what's going on around the craziness that you can know that you're loved in your health and a lot of what I write about in my songs is that feeling of I have the ability to feel loved or I have the ability to control my own personal freedom mentally, emotionally, spiritually no matter what and so the song that I wrote is about that and I will give you hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm Give me a go, oh, make me smile and fill my heart with love. As time flew, a thought grew deep inside my head, a still, soft, one simple choice. This is what I'm saying. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. Had lights inside of you. Ain't nobody gonna seat your freedom. Your heart will lead you through. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Nobody's business if you do. Nobody's business if I do. Ain't nobody's business if I like to. Nobody's in the road to be this harder than I thought it would be. Now that I dance, I'm dancing to my enemy. This joy, this hope, this peace, I have. The world didn't give it to me. The world didn't give it to me. As time flew, a thought grew inside my head, a still, small, one simple choice. This is what I'm saying. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. Had lights inside of you. Ain't nobody gonna seat your freedom. Your heart will lead you through. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Nobody's business if you do. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. Had lights inside of you. Ain't nobody gonna seat your freedom. Your heart will lead you through. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Nobody's business if you do. Ain't nobody... Offer or things you'd like to receive. Can we, by the video, we said, Bynie, what do you need and what did you say earlier? My knees are back. Yes, yes. Any questions? Yes, I'm gonna give the mic just because we're live streaming. Thank you all so much for sharing and having this conversation. It's amazing. So, as I figure out my question, I'm not really sure how to work it. But, Daniel, you asked U.S. Maya about a calling. And then, I think Robbie, you talked about for it to be free, having to let go of this need to be better. And then, you talked about responsibility. So, I guess my question is, how can you tell the difference between a true calling and then a false sense of needing to be better and do better? And part of, for me, what's inspiring this question is because I'm an artist, I'm an actress. I teach and right now, I'm teaching in a juvenile detention center. And so, it's like, I go in there and I inspire these girls and I teach them to find their artistic voice. But then, afterwards, you're still in jail. You shouldn't be here. So, what am I doing about that? So, my question is, how do you know the difference between a true calling and a false sense of needing to be or be better? Oh, I can say is that if you're called, you feel it, you know it, and you can feel yourself blocking it, you can keep teaching them as well. People know what, no matter where they are, can call out things happening inside prisons and so forth in a theater company that originated inside. These are hard things to do, but the call is something that pulls one and you can feel yourself blocking it and so you need to keep taking the chains off. I'm curious in today's world, like today, in your individual performance art or art making, your creative practice, what role do you think the live performance or you individually have in correcting today? That's a tough word, correcting. Is that what you want to use in your question? Maybe that's too individual to me, but I guess in whatever way you think art can, should be pushing us forward socially, politically, in our narratives and the way we see people, how is that manifesting that for you today in Adam? Well, for me, I think each artist would have a different, maybe not an answer, but it would be interesting to hear from everyone and I don't know if I'm hearing your question right, but I think when I write, the artist I know and love and respect do the work because as Robbie says, it's calling you and it's the way you engage with the world. And whether that changes anything, you know, I don't know. All I know is I write a scene that feels true to me, that there is a truth in the fiction I create. There is some kind of, maybe you're striving for some kind of honesty that is like a mirror that you hold up through the world, you know, and whoever's ready to receive it will receive it. Now, I don't know if Donald Trump gives a shit because he's a moron, you know, and he does not respond to this stuff, so I really feel powerless to change that terror we live with. Okay, I can only do what I can do and I think oftentimes all we can hope for is that we might surprise someone who's not one of the converted, you know, maybe someone who accidentally walked into the nightclub or the theater or the performance space or the mid cave installation and happened upon Helga handing out a gun, you know, as part of her performance and you see that metaphor of this beautiful art and this beautiful woman, you know, offering a gun to the audience. Yeah, it's a poem to me. It's not the answer that's going to change all this brutality and chaos and terror because I think that's the world. That's human. You know, we're terrible to each other but I think some of us artists were interested in holding up that mirror and just maybe people look at what's in that mirror and say, I understand a little bit about what I do or what my fellow human beings do. You know, it's a kind of way of achieving some kind of embrace of even the terror. So I don't know if I'm answering your question but I don't feel that I have that kind of power to hold the mirror on. I want to. I think I started out wanting to change the world. You did. Well, I found, like Jessica, what does the work and hopefully it affects people and because you want to change the world, that's part of your voice. And if I can chime in, most of the songs that I write help me to untangle whatever it is I'm in and usually what I, at least, well, I was going to say recently but for some time, I've been untangling my feelings of powerlessness because I can't change a shooter on the 32nd floor. I have absolutely no power for that. I cannot change the Trump or any of that. I cannot change Puerto Rico. I can't change any of that right now. But I do have power. Power over something. It's over myself but it's over how I see it or how I view it or how I align with it or don't align with it or how I speak about it or how I allow, do I digest it? Do I not digest it? I have, there's a power in that and most of my songs are kind of looking at where do I have power? I'm raising a boy. I have power in that. I have relationships. There's power in that. This is powerful what we've done tonight. So I'm looking always for where do I have power and how can I then use that as hopefully a force for at least my opinion of good outside of myself? Just to add to that, I think don't be fooled by this idea of saying yes. That it's some kind of feel good embrace everybody and everything kind of thing. It is not that. It is also about expanding our ability to hold complexity. That's what's saying yes is for me. So that it can take a porcelain gun in the middle of a performance and point it at someone while I'm in a gown singing an aria. It's saying yes to many, many, many things including acknowledging that I have a killer in me. And that unless that killer is allowed to speak to cry to mourn that no one will sleep because she's in me. So it is also about saying yes to the things in ourselves in the way that we heard that we enjoy her in because there is that too. And remembering that I'm not interested in changing anyone because I don't want you to try and change me. I'm clear about that. So what I can to be closer to you and what I hope you would do in order to be closer to me is to expand your idea of what it is to be close to me and what you are willing to tolerate from me in order to see me. And if we're not doing that we're not really talking about anything but we are only talking. So we're going to wrap and in conclusion and in response to your question as well I think it must have been about seven years ago and I saw you as I often do I'll pass you on the street randomly, not randomly. And you came up to me and you grabbed me by my wrist and you said life is motion. Life is motion, life is motion. And then you moved on. And that's how our conversation started. We wrote a song about it it's probably his favorite song when we sing in the show but I think that idea and this idea of the river that we started with that one of the things that the mechanism that the moment we're in comes out of depends upon is paralysis. And so motion is the means to a process that may lead you to the questions that you need but you gotta move. And I want to thank all of you for moving us so deeply today and back at the beginning again right on time there she is for moving us and thank you, thank you, thank you to Prelude and to Andrew and to everyone for inviting us here what an honor to be with you and we're gonna clear for the next performance but I'm sure we can gather in the lobby if you wanna have remarks with folks. Thank you.