 talks here at the Segal Center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The church bells close to me just around 12 noon so it is time for the last talk this this week and we have with us two international theater artists and I look really forward to the conversation. It is Eva Mann from Switzerland and Washington of wonderful Nairobi Kenya and we will listen to them what they are doing and what they are thinking and what's up in those countries. It's important for us to know to learn to listen and to get an impact. We had Melati yesterday an artist from Indonesia. I thought it was just an important and great conversation about theater in Asia and her decision to go back from Europe, actually partly also in Germany to go back to solo in Indonesia, work with her community, create works, they are festivals and she's shifting her priorities which she started before Corona but she feels now it is the right move she did and on Wednesday we had a little bit Hayes, a French American or American French curator and artistic producer together with Wetzel Cooper from the Asia Society. We're talking about the importance of cultural exchange initiatives and all the complications that we experience now and what we have to worry about. Anne Catania, the great Anne Catania from the Lincoln Center Director's Lab, one of the institutions we really really respect also at Lincoln Center, told us about Washington and Eva that collaboration both were part of the director's lab where she for over decades now prints together artists thousands of them and has a network that is still going on and she talked about Washington and how complex and complicated the situation is at the moment in Kenya, in Nairobi and I know about the collaboration they are trying to collect to put together with Eva in Switzerland that met here in New York City so there's a strong New York connection. Let me tell you both a little bit about the artist Eva Mann from Switzerland. First of all, hi there Eva and Washington, thanks for joining and it's good to have you guys with us. Eva trained in London and Moscow in acting but she also has an MA in philosophy and German language at the University of Tübingen, a famous university in Germany and she directed in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, the US, amazing what she already did as a translator and writer. Her idea and her aim is to facilitate exchange of texts and also concepts for theater between theater cultures, countries and continents. She is in Switzerland at the moment where she has her company play these and she is the dedicated revisiting images of the female, a representation of the female in history, literary history and of course on the stage. Zinn Spiel like sense games, if one could say, she created an international she created an interactive documentary theater style and of course she was at and Katania's, Lincoln Center Director's Lab. Washington is a Nairobian director of what he says community theater, a little theme we also heard yesterday. He trained at St. John's Community Center and the Goodwin Arts Center Nairobi as a forum theater facilitator, director, actor but also scriptwriter. His forums theater plays have addressed topics of HIV AIDS, domestic violence and harassment of women. He has directed classical plays at the Allianz Francaise Nairobi and written and directed plays commissioned for the high school student drama festival and he's most talked about play the blunt features a transgender protagonist main actor and and he also site specific works on the streets and is inventing cures at least they also on the stage for Corona and for illnesses in society and of course he also went to the director's lab. So both of you welcome, welcome. Where are you and what time is it Washington? Let's start with you. Where are you? I'm in Nairobi right now Nairobi, Kenya. Yeah and it is 7 o'clock 5 p.m. Yeah it's at night now. It's night at 7 yeah we are 7 o'clock 5 p.m. Wow and Eva where are you in Switzerland I guess? No actually not. I'm near Stuttgart in Germany because I which is kind of the wrong place to be at the moment as an artist because it's possible to rehearse in Switzerland at the moment but it's not really possible to rehearse in Germany so it's kind of weird that I'm here trying to rehearse. It's 6 o'clock 5 in the afternoon here and so we'll still have daylight for a good two hours. So tell us how did you guys meet? So how about I start washing? It's okay it's okay yeah you can you can go. Yes so we both attended the director's lab in 2014 correct? Yeah. So after the first sort of general introduction where you sort of like within two hours you meet 70 amazing different artists from around from around the globe and then we decided all of us decided that we were going to go somewhere to some outdoors place to have drink and I found myself standing in front of the traffic light with Washington so he was the first person I started talking to and I think four hours later we were still talking so that's how our friendship and collaboration started. Washing do you remember it the same way? Yeah yeah I do and what I found amazing about Eva when she was actually interested on the kind of the work that I am doing with the community here in Nairobi and was like yes I think I love the kind of work that you are doing with those people in the community because most of my work was really addressing the issue of women and which also is part of her work so then from there we started collaborating. Yeah I remember that Washington was telling me that he had mostly worked sort of within a church setting because and Kenya churches are good venues to do theater but for his next forum theater play My Dress Is My Choice which was about sort of the rules that society throws at women concerning what they're supposed to wear that he sort of wanted to take that out of a church setting because doing it in a church setting would sort of mean yeah maybe the discussion would not be as true as you would like it to be but he really didn't know how to find a venue or anything and I'm sitting there and thinking my golly there must I mean there must be funds for this in the world this ticks all the boxes it's community-based it's educational it's really sort of grassroots work it's in the global south it features women's rights so I said well you know what I don't know anything about theater in Kenya but what I do know something about is writing funding applications so maybe this is the way I can help make this happen and so that's sort of what it started as and we did actually there's a foundation called USA for Africa and they gave us some money for the project and so then I this all of course took a lot longer than it sounds like now so I traveled to Kenya because I really wanted to be in that rehearsal room and I thought to myself right so I'm going to go in there and I am going to keep quiet because the last thing that we need in a Nairobi in rehearsal room is the solitary European white person thinking they know how to do things oh hi there we've got a visitor right and then I really didn't know what a rehearsal room or that rehearsal room was like it's the most collaborative experience I ever witnessed I mean I come from an act I'm from a background East 15 sort of prides themselves on devising and collaborative work but yeah I would definitely say that these five actors in Washington and finally me as well we jointly created the play Washington how is how is it that like everybody is so used to sort of creating the adaptation together uh I think before maybe I I I answer that Eva I also remember when we discussed about how can we actually make this work for the first time and then we shared with Ann Gattania and then she accepted us again for the second time just to come and also have enough time to plan for this project which again also I believe it helped us so much because now we were able to meet again for the second time to ponder about the topic and also to try and engage some of our colleagues like like Maya Anderson who also actually helped us in the project she actually gave a voice so that at least we will be able to get some some funding for the for the project and uh yeah yeah so maybe now you can you can ask your question I was just trying to put uh to add some more of of what was it yeah yeah so that is quite it's a meeting in New York City brought together someone from Switzerland in Kenya and changed something something really happened um we know works of big foundation on great ones like the Sundance Foundation did great work in East Africa and also North Africa Arab world but here is a small united nation the gathering of artists young artists often before they become well known who get together in New York is something that actually makes a difference globally and we do not have enough here in New York City I feel it's often a bit isolated provincial just looking in the inside snowball of the American theater and I think um so something happened but also the interest between you guys that was real they were listening took took place um I would like to know before we go to the production how is the situation at the moment in Kenya in Nairobi how are you surviving what are you doing uh you're having a family I saw a kid um how how is it for theater artists well okay thank you for for that question yeah here still we are we are we are in a in a lockdown sort of like um and so many theater artists are really finding it hard to survive right now because there is no movement there's a lot of restriction of movement again about the the vaccine the COVID vaccine it has not reached to us as as an artist so it's really really hard like now for me what I'm doing right now so much is doing some sort of script writing uh so much because there's nothing much that I can do as far as theater is is concerned right now I just have to wait uh to stay indoors as I do some sort of script writing that's waiting for the government to open the economy and to open the country again script writing for television yeah yeah yeah so like I'm trying to come up with some ideas and also some facts about now the situation that we are in so that when the country is is open now I'll be able now to revisit the kind of the situation that we were in when we were fighting this pandemic is anybody in the theater community in uh uh in aerobics anybody have vaccinations out are there any do you know anyone who has been vaccinated in the theater community no I think the process of rolling out the vaccine here is kind of is kind of slow and uh those who have taken the job so far are the older people the people who are working in the health ministry and uh also the teachers also the teachers have gotten some job but does not reach to any artist at all so we are still waiting patiently and hopefully we believe that it will reach to us as an artist do you get any help any support as an artist uh no no in in we don't have uh that kind of arrangement with the government so it's just as we said that we just just have to survive if maybe you have a friend who maybe can help you on one or two at least you appreciate but I have had or some of my fellow artists who have even uh finding it harder in a way that you see uh where we live you need to you need to survive you need to pay your bills you need to eat but it's now becoming very hard some of them some of them are even being injected from their homes because now they cannot pay rent and they there's nothing more that they can do about it so it's really getting hard and and we are not getting help from our own government so it's it's really depressing some of them are even depressed with the situation because we don't know when will this end and how will we go back to our normal lives we have families who also depends on us but how are we going to take care of them if we are still in a lockdown and we are trying to fight for survival yeah lockdown means at seven o'clock you cannot go out or all day you cannot okay uh well some specific counties has been locked down where you you cannot move from one place to another you will you just rotate within the same area yeah and then there's a time limit the curfew time like now we the curfew time is has been put to 8 p.m so within after 8 p.m you are not supposed to be found outside you are supposed to be inside so the limitation of movements uh also has caused these problems because there are some artists there are freelance artists who would travel from one uh one county to another to do theater so they cannot do that because now the the the movement is restricted within is is within the same area where he or she lives so tell us that you talked Eva also talked about it about the community you work with and for tell us a bit about your community and the what do you do what are the theater place how does it look like your day your work if there's no locker how do you work in okay uh I work as I said I'm a forum theater facilitator where uh I always uh I dress some some important issues that really affect the community and uh the way the the the forum theater works it's it's it's really good because we are trying to find the solutions of our own problems and the solutions that the same same communities are giving at the same same ones that we implement like um for a scenario of let's say uh women harassment so we are trying to ponder what are the ways that can cause uh maybe men to to to to to do some and forgivable things to women and then when we find out from the same same people who are doing the same same things then we are trying to implement some uh some guidelines that really will help us to live in harmony within ourselves um another thing what another thing that I do with the community I mentor young people in in in art in data art where uh I I I write scripts and the script that really uh they can relate with they can associate with very well then I train them I go with them the same process of of and uh I make them grow in I make them realize the talent that they have in them and mostly the the kids most of the kids that I mentor they come from the slums areas so they feel like okay I never knew that I can I can I can have this talent but because of what I give to them make them feel part of the society and that they can do something great instead of engaging to some illegal activities like maybe drug abuse so my theater keep them busy and also at the same time make them grow uh make them grow in their talent so your theater setting in the tradition of Augusto Gual and theater of the yeah that that yeah excuse me please yeah so it's in the tradition of Augusto Gual the great theater artist from Brazil and forum theater so you do collective performances in the church like people are on a circle and you play front or is it a stage or is it outside how does it look like uh some I do in the church setup um yeah I do in the some I do in the church setup some I do outside like in a community also that's community also where I invite them to come and join this they sit on on a circle just feel 50 to 100 and then we try to we try to go through a certain topic that's really affect the community so it is it is both way in in the church setting and also in the community setting so maybe in church setting we can try to do some bit of stage uh stage stage art but again but when I go to the community uh I have to do uh they have to sit in a circle and and we try the the the the the art when they are in in the circle Eva how do you know when you went there and why is it important to you to collaborate with Washington hmm so oh that's a whole bunch of questions in one okay maybe first um what I experienced so as I said before briefly this is uh it was an amazingly um collaborative rehearsal space I think this has to do with the fact that um a lot of uh Kenyan actors do something called set books so they sort of tour around a company of about 12 people with adaptations of classical literature that they create themselves and they tour around schools because maybe school kids would rather see a play if some classical novel than read it so it's a bit like sort of I don't know I guess the way people in Europe would say okay I didn't read the book but I saw the movie so I think they've got this really strong background in collaborative creation and sort of building on each other's work so that was something that I really appreciated um in the rehearsal room I was not actually there for the I was there for the dress rehearsal but I was not there for the actual performances of my dresses by choice but I saw well I saw footage from it and obviously washi told me about it and what I thought was really amazing there was that what the what the people found out was how important the role of the bystander was so the setup was two girls dressing up fancy to go to a party wasn't even sure if they were dressing up to like impress men or they just dressed up because they like dressing up and then there was three guys so sort of want to be cool guy then a religious guy and then a guy who just wants to hang out with the lads so the religious guy objects because religion um or tradition or a mixture of everything and the cool guy just wants these women to hit on him which they don't do and the undecided realized in the course of these form theater performances was that the pivotal person was the bystander it really depended on in this case him whether the situation escalated and like harassment took place or even violence took place or whether nothing at all happened and this is an outcome I personally did not foresee and that I thought was really really powerful because I think about 95 to 98 percent of the time all of us are in exactly that position involved and we think it's called a whole lot of power and I really set up kind of prove that no most of the power actually is with exactly that person because the people who are have really strong opinions are unlikely to change them but everybody else might influence whether they act on their not so helpful impulses and was it on the street was an outside a site specific work or was it in this community setting in the church where did it happen it happened in a community hall because this is one of the plays that washington said I really don't want to do this in a church setting because I might actually also want to talk about how religion and tradition is sometimes not so helpful in this conversation so this was in madara south or north hall so it's a social hall social hall thank you Washington um and that's um it's a community um center in madara madara is uh not very affluent um to put it mildly um area in uh Nairobi and the community hall holds I think about 200 people do you reckon yeah yeah we but uh we did like uh like four four to five shows which we addressed more than 200 people yeah and this was before corona obviously oh yeah yeah it was it was in 2016 yeah yeah that project uh washington were you able to do work now are you able to do work in the time last year did you do anything that yeah yes yes last last year from the beginning uh before corona because our first corona patient was reported as around end of march so I was able to work from january to that end of march that was last year um I was doing I was uh directing high school students preparing them for drama festivals where I did one of the plays that talks about the the the the the blunts the the transgender play and it's really it was um it was amazing yeah you're right you wrote the play with the students together about a transgender yeah yeah what I do what was probably yes what I did is getting their views because uh some of them were being affected and unknowingly you know this this student joined high school uh thinking that he is a boy only to find out that uh she's a girl she's she's attending a month of periods yeah so they were like they were getting hard time to cooperate with other students because she was in a in a boarding school a boys boarding school but now she's finding herself that she's she's a girl so it it's really it's really a tragedy and then uh when I get the story then I start writing I wanted this information to actually be known to to everybody so that the teachers should be aware of what other students are going through in in in in their lives and it was really amazing yeah um I'd like to just quickly jump in your sound we have problems here in your sound I don't know washington do you hear Eva clearly um maybe could you sign out and sign in again could you try that um maybe uh see uh or if you can can write a message to Eva to sign out and in again um or yeah turn off the camera um and washington um did you um then did you tour that play also in uh like the classical plays the drenched play you were able to perform in different high school so in different yeah I've yeah I have been doing that but you see uh doing uh doing it in different high school but again different plays it's not the one because at the end of the day they will come for a competition so if I write a play let's say the blunt play for a particular school I have to write again another play totally different with the other ones so that when they come for a competition they have totally different plays and different characters because they are competing and they are also other directors who are doing the same with other yes so there has to be uh it has to be an original play and this is the way how how interesting and um and it's also heartbreaking um you are part of the theater community of our global theater community your work is important your work about women's roles about transgender roles about racism and homophobia and yet you don't have enough to eat there's no no support there's no vaccination out there and and um if you would live by chance in England France Germany US you could work in big theaters you would people you would be an assistant director then do your own plays but you happen to be there and um and um and it's uh the difficulties the the the circumstances are so complicated and I hope um that there is a way like Eva showed us you know that the world community theater community can reach out and help and also see that your suffering and your work is always suffering but it's also our work and what we also can learn because what you do seems to be working to be in community centers to create plays you write the plays and also where you perform them also in some kind of a competition which gives us a sportive connection um after march have you then been mostly in your home or were you able to to do a new to do new no after march last year i've not been able to work because of the situation yeah so we it has been very tough all the the the the government banned all the social gathering and including theater and so it has been very tough for us as theater artists here because now we don't have work you don't have work what does the collaboration with Eva mean to you or to have to New York what is it what does it mean to you has it changed your way to do theater yes yes Eva she has been very supportive in my life since I met her way back in 2014 and now we have collaborated uh now this we have collaborated for the two projects the last one I was in Switzerland that was way back in 2019 where we did uh that uh that documentary theater play together with her we created this we did it and then we we stage it which it was really amazing and also the experience that I got from her is is really over is really amazing yeah Eva maybe tell us a bit about the documentary play you worked on together okay I'll do this with my camera off so hopefully you will hear me better yeah right so after after my dress is my choice I then thought well you know an international collaboration only really is an international collaboration of both artists travel both places I mean this is where the world is so crazy I mean if I want to go to Kenya I am buy an airline ticket and pay 60 bucks for a visa that I will definitely get and bang I'm in Kenya um whereas if Washington wants to travel to the Schengen area this is not even just Switzerland I mean the amounts of times you travel to the embassy the amount of personal information he had to reveal the amount of times he was just snub not let in by the person at the door I mean at the door of the embassy basically about until three days before Washi flew over to Switzerland we didn't know whether this would happen because the Swiss immigration authority was not allowing him to come in to travel and I mean I think I spent about a month basically on the phone to people and finally I thought okay the only thing that we can still do is I called um basically the state department that had given us money for the project and said listen so you've given us money to do this play favorite fear and at the same time there's somebody else who works for the self same cantaloupe government that is stopping the artist from coming in is there anything you can do and then the cultural director of the canton so of the state as it were um I guess sent out a very powerful email and two hours later Washington had green light to come here so um yeah anyway that then also became part of our play because the play favorite fear was about the question why we um associate things that we do not know with negative emotions so why do very many people perceive the unknown as potentially threatening I mean they could also perceive it as potentially an opportunity so on the one hand this was this had the story of a biracial couple that were trying to figure out how to live together and where to live together then we also had a lot of documentary footing from people um blowing up a balloon until it burst and then talking about things that made them afraid people in Kenya and people here and we worked with a video artist Monika Reissteiner who sort of incorporated these videos into our set and then we also had an amount of experimental setups where we invited the audience to feel what the characters were feeling so for example when we were talking about fear of the unknown we teamed up audience members who didn't know each other had the one person be blindfolded and the other person um guide them through the space only by sound and then switch and then sort of discuss what did this do to us and why did your time in uh Nairobi change how you look at theater how you work? Yes I think what it it enforced something that I I think I already knew and that is that for me personally if a play is not trying to change either the discussion around a certain topic or the people who are collaborating in it then perhaps I should not be part of this play I'm not saying it should not exist I mean the beauty of theater is they're just so many different things but whilst I do not believe that theater should be didactic I I think personally I have quite old-fashioned views and that I think it should have an educational aspect and that it invites us to envision worlds that are different from the one that we immediately live in and I think that's something that Washington's work does very very much and that sort of woke up something or enforced something within me. So you said you worked for over a month it was madly complicated to get him to Switzerland which we all think Europe should be easier um why is it so important to you and why do you think do you think everybody should do should collaborate but what is the what is the significance of you of that um engagement that extraordinary engagement you showed? Well very fundamentally um we had agreed to do um this play together we'd invested a lot of time and energy and imagination and whatnot so of course I'm going to do everything that I possibly can to make it happen and on the other hand it just really really enraged me uh I think a lot of what I was doing I was actually doing out of anger thinking how dare you I mean to I don't know to whatever bureaucrats were blocking this process how dare you have this assumption that um a black unmarried man's only objective is to pretend to be a theater artist in order to get himself into the Schengen area. I mean for example um so our play took place right before Easter so I so Washington filed for a visa that would allow him to stay a couple days after the closing night and I thought um I've seen a whole lot of Kenyan culture so I think this would be a nice opportunity for Washington then after all the work to also maybe see something of Switzerland no his his the duration of his visa was shortened he actually had to leave the morning after the last show and that's just that's just shameful that's just wrong and I don't think I can I don't think I can in one big go change the way the Swiss um office of migration works but I can at least give them a very very hard time trying to do what they think is their job. Yeah yeah I mean also in the US it's becoming increasingly complicated especially under the Trump regime of course international exchange visas paying international artists for us also at the Segal Center it's manningly complex within the structure of ours but also the American one actually one fields it's intentionally um often American artists if they apply for funding you list one international collaborator you will not get the funding because they say this is just for US artists meanwhile in music in world music people listen to musicians from around the world I influence they want to play together nobody would question that and say you know you can't play if you play with a musician from Kenya and and I think the isolation the nationalism of nations at the moment is something that perhaps contributed to complex problems we do experience in society and extinct theater artists and that's why I want to applaud you also highlight that case that both of you instead of just writing a play in Switzerland with a Swiss playwright and Swiss actors you said no I'm going to get Washington over we create something it's kind of a documentary theater cell real theater theater of the real as Carol Martin would say you you did something and you created something and I think it's an important model also coming out of an encounter of an engagement of kind of a seminar school workshop setting and so little actually often has consequences so something is working and do you feel both of you at your time now in Switzerland in Kenya turn this lockdown this year of global closure in a way and confinement do you feel something has changed in your thinking about theater and performance do you when you go back let's say in a year from now or maybe two who knows you know you go back do you feel the moment has changed your thinking your work your your your vision for theater Washington maybe you start oh yeah okay thank you thank you very much for that question yes yeah I will say yes because like I know now this this corona has brought a lot of fear in people even if it will go maybe in one or two years we will not get more audience in a in a theater platform the way it was before the corona so I think that is my fear yeah that is what I fear and that is what I know will change the amount of people coming to see our work I think it will reduce yeah I think am I fine now maybe take this yeah yeah just the voice might be better I'm just going to be a photo again fine um I think from yes I share Washington's concern about audience capacity but I think for me it was um something else as well and that is that I noticed how it felt like we were very dispensable as artists and that felt very painful I felt that except for a small a small loyal loyal following we were not really missed now that this might these might be my inner demons speaking I don't know but I I then thought okay if um we are in fact only the ornament of a societal discourse and we are not part of its very fabric then obviously we or I should say I am doing something wrong and henceforth I need to I need to work differently I need to find different platforms I need to find different forms of collaboration so that what I do is no longer just fun and entertainment and dispensable but the somehow whatever I do henceforth can help perhaps in my ideal world mend this enormous um gulf that has opened up within our society where everybody sort of radically in their corner and they're putting everybody else in the corner and less than ever before are people speaking to other people who have different opinions and I guess I have no idea yet how exactly I'm going to do it um I mean I have a couple but they're not really implemented yet but I think this has it's reminded me that for me theater must in some way be political or I can't quite understand why it is so it has to be a clear activism and political activism behind it as a message well I mean activism doesn't need to be throwing a slogan at people but maybe just in the form that one works together it needs to foster um dialogue or it needs to be at once again I'm only speaking for myself I'm not setting up rules for anyone else but I'm thinking that um yes obviously I didn't realize how much I was in an ivory tower how much I was in a bubble and I need to make more efforts to go outside that bubble I thought I was doing that by doing a lot of community theater but clearly not enough Washington um if I talked about you know that within society fractions are becoming larger bigger and they don't seem to be bridges anymore and um how was it for you your place what h.i.b.a it's your place about transgender the right to dress for a woman or a man or a woman yet most of them are Muslim you know and that should be a personal choice and not you know provoke such of radical reactions how how was it received in the community was it a message that was welcome did you encounter protests um what was the impact yeah uh at first I was having some of the challenges because uh people have different kind of views but as I continue with the with the process like for example if I use the people living in the HIV here there is a lot of stigmatization for those people who who are HIV positive so uh me giving them giving that platform really helped some of them because I uh to my view it it I reduced the the kind of the is stigmatization that was going around and uh even though I was there was some of the uh audience that felt like no I don't feel that this kind of thing can be brought uh into a platform like this because uh they some feel that they're not free to to to to as in to talk about it but at the end of the performance they feel okay it's not something bad it's something that you can live with and it's something that uh it's just like any other disease so uh yes there have been some little challenges but I think the achievement uh has been great yeah because even the the one for transgender there was a lot of talk people are like no or this thing I don't think if it is real I don't think if it is in in in in our in our school setup but as the time goes by they feel okay it's true it is happening and uh how can we deal with it so that's to me has been uh I feel like there's something that has there's an impact that I have put in the society that I've created in the society that that make me feel at peace yeah and also a great story I am sure any filmmaker maybe one day you make a film out of it of an old boy school in in in Kenya and one boy says no actually I am a girl how what happens how do people react parents teachers yeah other students think is an incredibly important significant subject that is very controversial also in the US and what you do is you know being part of a global dialogue and it's you know it's hard to listen to even you know to understand the complexities of under which you produce work or you cannot produce even the work you cannot normally even produce anyway because there's no no support Washington how did you learn about the do you know about American artists for some are you influenced by uh by European artists America or is it comes that come out of a Kenyan African background who influences you uh I think uh when I started to do theater there's uh one of uh one of my mentor here in Kenya is called sir Ellis Otieno he is the one who influenced me he saw the kind of work that I was doing in church and then uh but then he called me at that time he was doing some of the directing work at a Leon's Fonse he called me and he talks to me he told me that are you sure you're the one who wrote this kind of a play and you are the one who directed it and I was like yeah that's one of my plays and then he told me that there's something great in you and I could like to mentor you to to to welcome you in this kind of in in in this industry and then I accepted and then he started moving with me step by step now that's where I found myself even uh the the the the lab the director's love I learned through him he was actually was the one who was supposed to come uh he was supposed to apply but uh at that time he was really very busy and then he called me and he told me that there's a there's a there's an application here for the director's lab kindly can you try your luck maybe they can accept you and then he forwarded the same email and then I applied for the director's love and likely enough I got the chance to meet other fellow directors also again inspired me more and I'm now here I am but on the other hand it means you know that so much theater happens in Europe happens in the US and it doesn't have an influence it doesn't have it doesn't get noticed you are you know working with local artists and something like Eva's work and the director's lab opens up something and creates a first crack and opening and I think this is so important and significant um what also Africa experiences what it goes through as you say the eight crisis is still very much present 400 000 people if I have my number so I die each year of malaria in Africa it's the more men have died of corona this year in the United States or close to the numbers um there is not even enough money for vaccinations against measles and so it is all complicated situation I think theater has to help also it's a symbolic space an imaginary space and a real space as we always say to represent interest that Eva says this is important what Washington does I want to support him and Washington says this is interesting what Eva does or what they and Catine does in New York I would like to learn more and to take part in that I think it is missing um systems are too close perhaps on all the sides and I think corona is a time that reminds us that we need to learn from each other listen to each other and also collaborate in sorry to hear how complicated it is to get a visa to work as an artist in Switzerland I did not know and but you got it done so congratulations um um for that Eva how is the situation in Switzerland at the moment in corona time um so uh as of last Monday things have started opening up again so we're now free to assemble up to 50 people outdoors up no excuse me up to 50 people indoors keeping distance masks et cetera or up to a hundred people outdoors some people fear that this is really premature that our numbers are not anywhere near what they should be I don't know maybe maybe our federal council is optimistic maybe we are too influenced by the economy uh maybe granting people more freedom will make them more compliant to rules I do not know I feel happy for everybody who can now start working again I feel happy that I can be with in a rehearsal room again I also feel worried because if we've just bought ourselves one month of potential normality at the cost of many hundreds of lives that would be a very bad thing I don't yeah it's fragile it's very funny at the same time Germany is just enforcing more rules and more rules and more rules so it seems like working between switzerland and germany you sort of think these people are in two separate worlds the swiss thing everything is going to be fine really soon and the german seem to think that we're heading for um catastrophe so maybe I should set up my base in the middle of lake constance what is the mood in swiss theater community or perhaps also the german one what do uh what are the people thinking about is there's something where you feel um there's something noteworthy something to report to us what are people thinking about what are they doing what's interesting uh I think what is interesting on a psychological um level is that even though we are one of the industries most affected by the lockdown etc I think everybody is very much in solidarity I I don't think I've heard from a single theater artist that they think this is all nonsense this should stop or the whole sort of movement of people who deny the existence of COVID or the think that the measures against COVID are overdone I don't think I've met a single person from the theater community that takes that way um so that's I think one thing and the other thing is I think that we're more and more people are exploring really small formats also exploring ways in which audience is not in the sort of traditional configuration of let's have a big room full of people but I think I will see a lot of these thoughts that at the moment I'm only just hearing hopefully in the next couple of months when what people have been brooding over for a year comes to fruition so the big theaters are all closed in switzerland the opera houses the state theaters well they reopened as of last monday so they're doing they're doing large-scale work but for a very very limited audience like a hundred people where there normally would be a thousand and fifty people in say the opera house of xeric that holds about a thousand fifty people in the xiao xin house there's been a lot of streaming there have been a lot of digital formats that have been happening but what I think is what gives me what gives me hope is to think that well actually there's been a whole bunch of artists that have carried on rehearsing throughout this but at the same time it also points out yes these are all the people who are in state-funded theaters everybody who's doing more fringe work has probably not been able to rehearse so there's there's just a double standard I guess you could say yeah and it's perhaps like in business companies that are already big they will get bigger they take over the spaces and the smaller ones will disappear or even have a little foot smaller foot point if they survive at all and so it's a it's a big reason for concern washington are you in contact with theater artists in west africa east africa so what do you hear what is the mood and or is it is that a canyon experience it's more isolated I think can you experience is more isolated yeah because but generally it's not easy here in africa especially for theater artists yeah so we are we are all struggling yeah we are all struggling there is the theater uh places are still closed even in our neighboring countries that is Uganda Tanzania they are closed there is no uh social gathering so making theater at this time right now really is very hard in in africa in most of the african countries yeah it already is hard normal circumstances and um and I know most probably there is not a national drama school right or is there a school a university where people are trained in uh myrobi how does it work you said it was a mentorship you know someone took you in and put it but are there programs theater programs uh are not really uh the the universities that are offering training uh they are doing film filming production training yes yeah but not theater yeah yeah at all yeah just also shows how significant such initiatives like the directors lab is or any international collaboration and they are great artists um in in all around the world but also of course in africa and and they we have more often more more time more resources more experiences and that's why artists can explore make mistakes make more mistakes and then you know go on but it is not as easy and and I think we have to do a better job I don't know um foundations whatever who could help out um african theater artists to to support them in a time where it is about um survival we had talks also with theater artists in chile uh in brazil and they said they are hungry they are hungry they cannot find enough food they cannot it's about survival it's not about making art anymore and um and um wish there would be a way uh that then international community also reaches out at foundations in case anybody listens out they're supporting the work of washington which i think is groundbreaking what he does and uh in his structure how it is organized so contemporary but it is co-written co-produced ensemble work on streets and forum halls and and then produced and showed in different countries even different continents uh the collaborations continue so i think it's in the model on a very small scale and um and they are not famous names involved but i think these are real exchanges that in a small way but then contributing to a big way of change is something that is a real a model to to look up to and i would encourage everybody also in the us and in europe you know find partners collaborate visit travel together even so at the moment it's not possible but because we miss it because we might understand um how much more important it is maybe both of you um what projects are you working on or what are you thinking about what you would like to do when this time of corona is over and the time after corona as we say tac when it's going to start what are you maybe i will maybe i will allow Eva to go first yes and you can and you can fill in the gaps right um so washington and i uh so initially we had planned to take favorite fear to kenya and to do it in kenya and then covid happened so this clearly is not happening so we're either thinking of doing that because it's so audience interactive or then sort of a kenyan version of it which could um which very much sort of focuses on um the the character that we had in favorite fear her name is barbara um the white woman who's with the koko the kenyan luo man and sort of what happens when she travels to kenya and i think that would be sort of after myself having been in kenya twice i think this would be really interesting because i think there's a lot of i don't know it's just it's it's crazy how not only institutionalized racism is but how it's sort of how pervasive it is in our thinking and talking from a personal point of view here how often one catches oneself sort of falling into traps that one didn't even really know existed or sort of joining into narrative that one then sort of realizes hang in there why am i repeating this nonsense that i have absolutely no empirical proof for i think it sort of starts at those ideas of i don't know um so okay um hang in there let me let me uh do you know what i i tried to say two things and i lost my train of thought why don't i now pass it over to washington yeah no you can come back all right okay that it all makes sense yeah uh yeah that's what we we are just hoping that uh when things return back to normal it's also good to for kenyans also to see the uh to see the the the the swiss version of the project because uh the swiss people saw the the the kenyan version in the project that's the the favorite fear so our our we we we are still brainstorming it uh how are we going to bring it here in kenya also after the after the covid and how will they embrace uh the idea and the and the performance yeah so that is what we are really working on and what are your individual projects do you have also independent projects you work on now new projects um not much uh i'm working on some just doing some scripts right now that uh will again be able to uh help my my my my my students uh in in terms of mentorship yeah that's what i'm working on so far mm-hmm keva you there are two things that i'm that sort of currently are at the forefront um the one is something that we've worked on before corona so this would be with zinshpil which by the way it also features another um former directors lab member robert salzer um so we've created this interactive dinner so this this has nothing to do with any actors being present they're just participants and they get a textbook and they sort of have dinner together while following this textbook and start after they get to know each other start engaging in more political questions and questions that concern how we build society together um and the idea there is to get people talking outside their bubble so that's something that hopefully will resume pretty quickly now that um small gatherings are possible again and then there's a project that i'm working with um with a colleague a two person play that we want to which has a lot to do with death and with grieving and that we don't want to perform in traditional theater spaces we are talking to churches we want to do it in um so here we have the special kind of chapel next to a church where the dead are usually put before they're buried so in such places in morgues at cemeteries places where people go to grieve um and use this play as uh an invitation to engage with the topic either for people who are actually grieving and need um fictitious characters to perhaps give words and the voice to what they're feeling or then for people who are not currently in this situation because one thing that we've noticed a lot in this last year is death is the big taboo and it's probably not very helpful that it's the big taboo so if we can get more people talking about the fact that we are finite and fragile it would probably be a good idea yeah that's that is true as someone said all important and great stories about death or love and um yes and um you know this is something we need to hear and and thank you both really um for joining um i think um it's also a big reminder for the big theater culture of the big theater communities you know most probably washington does not know about susan lorry parks or uh civil uh tourists uh about um so many other brandon jacob drinks it's so little communication between the worlds it's so important we have so much to learn from each other and um and i think um this is a project you know that is a great model on a very small scale but it also shows something is really possible and we hope that after this time you know project like this will flourish independently small community oriented a project and i do also believe this is a future everybody talks about how will theater look like when we go back or not i think perhaps it will be many many projects like the one um we talked about today if i did you wanted to say something or uh yes um that was just one annotation to what you said so as you stated very correctly a whole lot of big european names or american names might not be known in kenya but maybe we should also be asking the opposite question how how much do we know about east african playwrights how much do we know about east african tradition this was very funny because washington started asking me you know our big authors so so and so and i then to my shame have to say that i didn't know a single one of them that has slightly changed in the meantime but i would just also like to encourage um people from europe from the states uh also take that step to cross um those various oceans between us there's there's a lot worth reading and discovering and we all have to listen to each other learn from each other i think the sundance project was so great the east africa project we were part of it and presented work in new york it has been one of the most significant programs we ever did and um and i think this is a very good reminder and you are absolutely right um about this um thank you again for for joining this concludes this week's seagull talks next week we will have two days of a conference i think what we uh also um helped to uh put together but they run the student run conference at the graduate center cuny and they will focus on negotiating the cotidia performing the everyday that kind of uh idea of the theater of the real the experts of the every day as a remedy protocol says stefan kenny will join the conversation as well as kathya afara from NYU apu dhabi and many many other student papers will be read i think it's important and interesting to look at i think it's at the forefront of contemporary thinking about theater and performance and this is a uh a research by the next generation of theater scholars and what they feel and think is of significance and i think um it is a it's important important topic and then on friday we have john malillo with us one of the most experienced curators and present us of work we are close to the avant garde the traditional avant garde the experimental avant garde globally at the brooklyn academy of music and um and we want to hear about his with her thoughts are he just let go of that work he was over 25 years of steering that big ocean steamer and um and now the time of corona his expertise he's still continuing to work of course it will be of of interest to us but thank you both again if uh and uh washington i hope i was able to give a good representation you know of your work it is really important and could keep on doing that and everybody who listens i think this is things like this is actually what um a theater also of a future of a 21st century will look like individual artists creating connections in workshops in a place that's another country and then creating doing something influencing each other that uh and um whatever that will end we will grow out of there so um thank you and have a great weekend and thank you thank you very much and i hope also in europe it will get warmer slowly i think it's very cold we are experiencing the first days of spring in new york so four or five degrees it was cold yesterday but um the uh as someone said you can cut the flowers but spring is coming so good luck and um thank you all again and thanks to howlround for hosting us again for the great sea to be with us and um and of course to our listeners for taking the time to listen in the time we're now so much is out there we started in march last year that we wanted the first to do that but it means a lot to us and also really means a lot to eva and washington to know that people are listening that they're interested and supportive and if anyone is listening who supports us project call us up call eva washington and um and let's put some resources to such exchanges thank you bye bye thank you very much take care