 back everybody here on Segal Talks at the Martini Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center CUNY in New York City in Manhattan at the City University and it's another day in in New York and another day on planet Earth and we still are and somehow it feels like we're getting even deeper and deeper into the Underwood into the swamp of the COVID crisis after it looked like for a while there might have been sunlight again over 60,000 infections yesterday I think five days out of the last eight were records that have never been numbers have never been so high even since it started in March and especially in April the idea was to have it under 20,000 but it didn't work out it looks like most probably will be going up to 100,000 CDC says that and the World Health Organization that Trump foolishly left in the time of the greatest health crisis perhaps in the history of the United States like what he thought it was right to leave the World Health Organization yesterday said that the virus is airborne and if you spend many many hours in a small room without ventilation it is no longer just coughing and drops and I have your particles of this protein it is in the air and of course this is a terrible terrible news looks like many many more people already had it because of that it's no fact City MD did test in all of New York City and it turned out that in that neighborhood that actually is called Corona in Queens actually 68% of everybody they tested there had the virus had antibodies in incredibly high number normally it's five six percent and one doesn't really know how that happened perhaps this immigrant community will be hit less in the next the second and third waves and the other neighborhoods now will will come after this it is clear now that Latino and African American minority groups are hit three times harder they are likely to die twice as as much as white people so there is the encrypt of access to health care work situations and and and living conditions that puts these groups at a risk and the other ones who are working in the health care system or bringing things deliver things help us and I think it is exposing as Richard said this crisis everything that's wrong we see the structure it's a Fukushima like great catastrophes we are inside a disaster movie actually we are living it and we see the movies open what is happening and everything that's wrong and everything that's bad is worse and and it's time that we all have to think what can we do different what can be done differently and we talked for now 14 weeks with artists all around the world to think about what does art what role does it play but ever should play a role isn't it now we at home of course are close to art we read we listen to music we watch films we watch recordings of plays and it's without questions something that sustains us and our soul and keeps our motors warm but still what is happening to artists who are completely out of work especially in New York City where there's no very little help until the end of the year there's nothing for musicians artists that Metropolitan Opera hasn't paid its staff since March the artist if we understand right so it's a it's a shocking time and we live in and and in these days we go back to listen to artists who have been on the right side of justice on the right side of history of social progress on the right side of the complex struggle for freedom and it's good to remember that there were times in the century in the last century where struggles were prominent and uncertain what would happen there was social unrest on the streets one of those times of course was also in the 60s a time that was so significant that was kind of the birth of what we think about New York art and of the center of contribution it made to the world and in the middle of this was our guest today the great John Goethe Thanitalie who wrote a play at this time next to many many others it is the explosive 1960s anti-Vietnam play America Hurrah it was a significant work if I remember right even Bob Wilson was involved with some scenery is very very early on then he did the serpent was the great open theater the significant opens theater the Tibetan book of the dead or how not to do it again I think we have this we did a reading also at the Segal Center when he came and we did a retrospective on his work and on his life and many many other things he did significant check off translations and and many others tea with demons a game of transformation but most significantly he's also in a way an artist that defined the role of the artist in a different way and said the way you live is so strongly connected to the make art you make and he created shantigar and the shantigar foundation for creativity meditation and engagement with nature and it's located in western Massachusetts on the mountain side where he's now living for 50 years which is a very long time and maybe he found early on answers that for questions we are all having now if I understand why he flat Belgium World War two away from a family that were persecuted happily because of fascist Europe so Jean Claude welcome to seagull talks I apologize for having talked a little bit it's all about listening here so where are you now I guess and are you I am it shantigar I'm very lucky to be in a beautiful beautiful place at the moment you talked about the 60s and you also talked to you touched on World War two and I think there was a great connection I think that I fled with my family I was four years old some of us got out some of us didn't but I think that the terror that was engendered in that time is still in me I feel that it gave a perspective it gave it an ability to sound a warning bell with America Hurrah in the 60s I think all of us that came to the 60s to the theater of the 60s were trying to reveal the lies that we had been told we were trying to pull down the facade to find a vocabulary a theater vocabulary that would express our feelings rather than simply be psychological realism which is what it was on Broadway at that time so I think theater at that time in the 60s was a warning bell it was also then that I began coming up here to the West to Western Massachusetts to shantigar shantigar means peaceful home the farm here it's a mountainside farm incredibly beautiful the open theater came up here we were nourished by the trees so to speak the fields the mountain and we improvised a lot here I wrote plays based on those improvisations the actors improvised plays for instance they improvised dars day Rock Hudson movies which were the facade which was the America that we had been raised in the pretty facade of the 50s and I wrote I wrote a play called I'm really here which starred Joyce Aaron about Dara's day and her this ease of actually being here and almost like being it felt almost like being but it wasn't quite something was definitely out of sync in the 60s we wanted to get that across it didn't get any better after the 60s I think that what's happening to us now this major major change is comically driven we created a culture of or we we lived in a culture of greed I think that culture consumerism I think our standards have not been truthful or high in the 70s my Tibetan Buddhist teacher came up here Trigem Trangpa Rinpoche he too was an immigrant he was an immigrant from Tibet we had a light from Tibet which we could see with but in somehow we didn't we didn't make it we didn't see enough and that's led us to where we are now which we now have to deal with and yes I think the big big question that's been interesting me is what do we do to maintain that which is the most precious in the theater human contact what do we do to maintain the vitality of audience being in the same place in the same space in the same presence as the acting on the stage so we're wrestling with that I don't think we should easily accept zoom for instance without noticing it's important what the background is there's a certain intimacy with zoom because you see people in their homes so we're trying to figure out how we can bring people to the natural place which is like which is Shantigarh it's traditional that the four five elements earth, air, fire, water, space that those should be our teachers because we're made up of those when you come to the country when you engage with nature as we discovered with the open theater and as young urban people that have been coming up here more recently have discovered you're nourished it's a way of coming home Shantigarh means peaceful home but what do you do when you can't come up here when there's all this fear completely justified fear we can't we can't do it we have to do it some other way we've fallen back a step in the Kali Yuga the the the fallen age if you like but there are ways I think that theater and especially acting can evolve I spent there were like two stream like there were two streams in my life the theater stream and the meditation stream they're united a bit by nature so at this point I think theater and acting in particular belongs to everyone not just to professional actors that division between there's the audience passive paying and there's the acting paid professionals I think we can go back now to a more a circle the way it was at least figuratively in ancient Greece the entire community sitting in a circle and anyone can step out into the middle space using a metaphor Peter Brooks anyone can step into the middle space and embody a question I think now when we have to demonstrate from our homes who we are when intimacy is not come cheaply intimacy is I'm here in my home I can show you meditatively slowly how I brew a cup of tea how I think about my ancestors and have pictures of them on the wall the smallest things the activities at home can now be communicated in a kind of ceremony I don't I just make any sense Frank I'm not sure yeah yeah yeah well I'm showing you in the sense that theater shows I'm showing you my most slow focused self reaching for a glass I remember when trunk per impeture used to give lectures in Boulder Colorado the most striking well there were a couple of very striking things aside from the things that he said but one was that he would always keep people waiting for a very long time that was very striking this was a Tibetan llama who had come from Tibet but it usually in the middle of it he would reach for a glass of water or whatever he had there to refresh himself he would reach for it very very very very very slowly as slowly as he possibly could we just watched I'm not gonna do the whole thing but it was extraordinary to watch a balanced person which he was his balance this could be but he also was imbalanced do that action mindfully that too is theater I went to see many years in 1971 I was in India the mother who was a she was the consort of Shri Aurobindo a Jewish lady born in France she was at that time in her 90s she was making a public appearance on a balcony people gathered for the whole day this was in Pondicherry in India small town eventually this extremely old lady extremely old lady in a shimmering green sorry came very very very slowly out to the balcony she hooked what what what what might look like claws she hooked her claws over the balcony railing she looked very very very very very very very very slowly to one side and then very very very very very very very very very slowly to the other and she looked at us she unhooked her hands she walked slowly away everyone was completely mesmerized she made this kind of public appearance three or four times a year but what was so wonderful about it she was present she was here and when we're present and we're here that's it there's not much else you know so that's theater as well was she an actress was she a paid professional actress no but none of us are it kind of requires us to go really really really deeply into the belly being centered there we move I had a wonderful friend Emily Conrad who founded a way of moving called continual moving continual movement where you activate the body through the breathing and eventually with your eyes closed you simply let the body spontaneously do what it needs to do express what it needs to express if some of us begin to do that from our homes in in in in programs and so forth we will know each other intimately we will know each other in ways that we don't know each other now in ways which are simply facades now and we'll live in we'll live in more truth these are things that preoccupy me have I gone too far field Frank tell me you know you have a life in theater a lot of experience and you found answers or solutions or you know I have not found any answers or solutions at all but I but one can make the questions more profound and one can express the questions yeah well so what is the idea to say you were successful you worked in New York you did this anti Vietnam play which you find also it's time but does that not gonna stay in the city I go outside well to begin with that that play which was three short plays the first one America Hurrah was actually three short plays the first one was called interview which was based on an exercise I'd seen them do in the open theater that one talked spoke of the emptiness the impersonality of riding the subway of applying for a job in New York it was hollow it was lonely it was automated the next one talked about television and how we exchanged our personal identities with what was on the screen and and we're eventually invaded by the screen image which is interesting in terms of today and the computer we the computer is now dangerously to be confused with the self and it's dangerous to confuse the computer with the self and yet it's our way of communicating so and then the third one was called motel it was for three dolls that's the one Bob Wilson made the big dolls for there were there was a motel keeper doll she was all gray life-size and there was two a man and a woman doll who came in and rented the motel room and eventually the man and the woman doll were not from being rather conventional began writing graffiti on the walls began destroying the motel and eventually destroyed the motel keeper Carrie destroyed the doll that was the motel keeper it was shocking it was it was something I don't know where I got that but I didn't decide to do right that it didn't come from my head it came from a need to express anger I think and from having read Gordon Craig and October and all of that it it was it was it was a scream of rage really that needed to get out of me and it was also in a way about the Vietnam War again about facade versus truth in America everything was apple pie beautiful Darce day was happy Rock Hudson pretended to be heterosexual everything was cool in a Darce day Rock Hudson world but behind that we were throwing bombs we were and we were we were fighting for what in Vietnam we were we were we were and so we were aggressive and so of course those of us who are feeling that demonstrated against it I've forgotten your question what was it Frank the idea what what to what to do you know and and and that which I think lots of artists also now are thinking what do I do at my home and also go from here well my if I may say in a sense my home is my theater as myself is my theater I think that we all in some way those of us that are artists have to think that I think if we're creating something it has to be created from our own depths if we're performing something we're performing it with the truth of being at home of being who we are the age we are I'm monstrously old at this point which is astonishing to me but we face these things we work with what we have we work from our homes from ourselves from our bellies from a more and more truthful place that engenders performances which may be very simple like performing a tea ceremony but which communicate because they connect from a deep place in you to a deep place in somebody else and what a luxury to be able to do it from home I mean in a sense that's really I'm being flipped but it is luxurious I in terms of content I think we have to I mean we we can't go through the hour without saying black lives matter black lives matter yeah I think we understand now I understand now that I didn't know what was happening I didn't I there is a realm of of knowledge and wisdom and compassion which is available to us now through all of this terrible suffering and we all share it so we can't pretend it didn't happen I don't think that we preach in our work I don't think that helps anything to preach but to say I am vulnerable in this way I vibrate to the harm that I see being done to another human being I mean if somebody's knee is on somebody's neck and the person says I can't breathe how can we live in a place like that how can we live how can we live in a world where we don't acknowledge that that has to do with our hearts so were you were you asking about content Frank what what what what shall we do maybe also to ask how do you experience this time is this time of corona any different for you in shantigarh and you're totally different I I was well personally I was fine until I was 82 which was two years ago and then I had heart surgery and I went through a whole lot of allopathic drugs which I had refused before and so I'm kind of in a weakened state very odd for me I'm used to being Superman wandering around my heels here dragging branches from my and I still do that but but it's quite different at the same time you leave the house you go into town small villages New England they're empty it it feels like the time of my old age and the time when I am thinking about dying and what how how I can possibly do it without being in a state of terror which I flirt with at the same time it seems like the world has changed it's as if we were in a in a place that one could never have imagined before we believe that we certainly privileged people people who had were artists people who could at least practice that art that or and maybe everybody that the world would continue as it was it it couldn't when I was born there were two and a half billion people on the planet now I think there's seven and a half billion people not more so there are people who are exploiting that and it's not fair it's not right we can't live that way we can't live that way in our small gestures we can't live that way in our art we have to come from that awkward central place in the belly and let come out what comes out yeah so is is shantigar then closing its gate at the moment? oh absolutely not shantigar peaceful home thank you for asking shantigar peaceful home it's so beautiful here it's so incredibly beautiful it's the height of summer the peonies are just passes the roses are just passed the day lilies are out the sun is so warm it's like Bali like we we've two or three people who are living here can step outside and be in a visual paradise that is what we were offering urban young artists among others they could come up here they did come up here last year for instance and they they would they would drink as if from a well they they it's as if I was amazing to watch people would come up here to take workshops we gave a lot of workshops in in in theater and in theater and healing and combining different disciplines and meditation and theater and so forth but people would come up here just to retreat young theater people would come up here and they would drink it up Michael Schreiber who you met before has been bringing these people up here many students from LaGuardia came up they came here the world's kind of fell into fell into place well what what can you do now that you can't invite easily workshops or young people to do retreats or anyone to do retreats it's one thing you of course you can film stuff and you can make videos you can make podcasts it's extremely important but the big question is always how do you maintain that contact the contact with nature and it's a traditional question in in in Buddhism certainly in shamanistic Buddhism the as I touched on at the beginning the elements earth air fire space water are personified also that we're made of them so it's not only that they're outside so when you come to the country you recognize a vibration in yourself that was that's in the trees around you in the fields around you in the grass around you in the flowers around you it's also it's it's it's you you feel that well there are other ways of making contact with that there are meditative ways of making contact with that and that connects to what I was saying before about moving for instance in continual movement about making showing some action some action of a remembered place an action of making tea that showing that how you can do it mindfully from your center is also a performance by cultivating it in a sense in a vertical direction you you you go inside to find these basic elements that we're all made of and you demonstrate to the world how it is you have to do that otherwise otherwise we'll just be screens jane wrote a play called screens screens we don't want to just be screens no want to want to be in nature our nature yeah so in a way you occupy these two two field one of those you know that as you said that's kind of angry play that delta of this in some way with vietnam with the facade with the lies and not the truth on the other hand you're close to the idea of the nature of tinbatu bali as you mentioned meditation well thank you for that way it was a journey well they tell us in buddhism and I completely believe it they were already buddhas we don't have to strive at it we're all we're already vibration we are made of vibrations of of the universe right we I mean it sounds cuckoo to say it that way but we are and so we are already perfect where we've got all these blocks we've got we we have I think that the leadership that we have is a manifestation of some inner psychological need which has to be acknowledged in order to let it go it's what's astonishing to me is that we could possibly have manifested the leader that we have or the the leaders or how is that even possible except that we needed someone or we need we when I say we I mean the people the electorate and somewhat collectively we need to be abused for instance or we so let's get rid of that need let's be ourselves and that includes pleasure we have a right to enjoy our lives on this earth to enjoy the trees we have a right to that everybody has a right to that otherwise what's the point so it's it's it's not one or the other there's the subduity of nature and the truth and all of that and then there's the horrors of of of of of war and of tyranny and all of that it's that one screens the other I believe basically we all want to be free and have joy in each other on this earth I really do and so let's care down what barriers there are to that so do you watch contemporary theater what's shown in New York or downtown do you go and watch well I had to play on last last spring yeah I'll call the fat lady sings um and I really liked it it uh it starred Lauren Flanagan who is an opera singer it uh it was very much about these themes it was about a family that was very uh like and certainly in its archetypal ways the family that's occupying the White House or maybe more like a family that would have elected them and the pain that they were going through and how they were imposed upon and the title comes from the mother who doesn't say much she she's really very much put upon during the entirety of the play as her children are raped by their father and I mean just it's just horrible and at the end she sings the fat lady sings it you know the expression it isn't over until the fat lady sings well it isn't over until the fat lady sings so yeah so so I yes I do so that's of course I went to see my own play um I had to I had just gotten out of cardiac surgery but I went down to see it really well done the actor I liked it a lot um yes occasionally I've been down but now now it's all what are we going to do now seems to me is the is the big question and what are young people going to do now as I say I think it's going to take a completely different form um looking differently about that prank you think the theater is going to stay as it is I am that would be my question to you I don't think it will be the same at from from especially I think the highly commercial landscape in New York at the moment everything is closed that's what's normally people perceive of theater which is all about money and Broadway and others and but um from your experience from your work what you have seen what are forms you think could work what what do you see we need now from your what would you would like to see what is it well I think that's what I've been trying to say it's not that one it's not that a playwright would intellectually decide I'm going to write a play about such and such but rather that that playwright works on herself or himself and allows a dream to emanate not a dream in the sense of I want something but allows something which is vibrant and personal to come out to write it down or to speak it or to perform it with all the passion in the world whether you're a professional writer or actor or whether you're someone who wants to do that we have to redefine what it is to be alive what and part of being alive is being creative part of being creative is to be disciplined so this creative discipline of theater of sculpture of art making in every way is absolutely essential we have to acknowledge the mystery we don't know we know nothing I we but we keep trying we keep allowing ourselves to be to be the vessels to be the communicators of what we feel so there's been a great I talked about the Holocaust at the beginning and those of us who were fortunate enough to escape there's been a lot about that recently I don't think there's been any event since the Holocaust that's been as major as the covid's crisis all of our lives are in the balance as you mentioned at the beginning the disadvantage the poor the black the native americans are far more at risk than the others it's it's as if we were taking an x-ray of the society and covid's was some kind of skeletal horror revelation but it's it's if so you say okay we don't want that what do we want we want the we want the trees that are growing from the belly so to speak we want the trees that are beautiful we want to we want to express what is simple and good or we can express what's horrible it's it's letting the dream come up finding a disciplined way of performing and performing it or writing it whatever your form of art is yeah I it I've always thought that it would be more it's more interesting to speak from the point of view of a creator than a critic people would often ask me what do you think this and that and the other I have opinions like everybody else has opinions but the real question is how do you actually how do you actually inhabit that what is your route to your very center and then how do you let it out we're so embarrassed a lot of the time we're so or we're proud or we feel that we can't do something because we were told as young people that we couldn't or that we're handicapped one way or another to go deeply in to leave space to allow what is down there to emerge is the creative process it's also the the route of the breath so there are there are practices now of all kinds meditative in theater which are available to everybody and hopefully will be used tell us a bit about these practices which you found or you would say this I think you should as a young artist this is what you should do to connect to that well I wouldn't yeah I wouldn't I wouldn't tell anybody this is what you should do yeah but I collected a number of meditative theater theatrical exercises in a book called tea with demons games of transformation they're basically games meditation if you like it's again tell us well I have one which is called which is called the vertical gesture it's it's on youtube I think but it's it should be done standing up and I don't want to mess up the microphone but you you very very slowly eyes closed lower your hand pushing the energy down into the belly allowing it to be in the belly pass the heart throat until you center yourself in your belly if it doesn't work do it again but that's a very powerful tool is that a theatrical tool because it's a person standing up normally and doing it is it a meditative tool who cares what the label is but I think it's both theatrical and meditative so that's one thing when you stand up then just perform to give of yourself you would do that gesture first when you feel centered in your belly then you look at everybody in this case you can't see anybody because we're all on screens I can see you Frank I can see the screen but I look at my environment I simply look that allows me to speak for and to everyone it's a little like that to Leonardo famous Leonardo drawing of the man with his hands out so you have the vertical gesture then you have the horizontal gesture then in in a workshop that I might give you go into movement with your eyes closed but it's related to the continual movement that I was talking before about before you begin to move just not in a deliberate no planned way no choreographed way but you allow your body to be the author of these movements you do what movements aren't necessary you eventually allow your body to initiate what you're going to talk talk about perform and usually I ask people to allow an incident to arise spontaneously something from childhood a moment and then to speak for their senses I see this I'm there it's simple so you become a vehicle rather than a controlling intellect who's imposing something on material I'm giving you a very rushed and idea of what of the work that might do the workshop it's important to say these are things we also can do now on that yes it's now possible for people to do that we've given it we gave a workshop here the other day on on the moving body in which two very skilled teachers demonstrated then you can go to people's home people can try it can do it I think we have to get very creative with zoom or whatever the media are so that not only do we that we don't keep it two-dimensional so that there's ways that we enter into people's homes and into people's hearts I saw a performance of a concert performance in which individual artists would perform from their homes was very very moving someone in a sense playing her piano from her home you feel transported in a way that is not quite the same as if they're doing it in a concert hall yeah no I think this is it is a significant you know to be reminded that in a way as you say theater starts and then whether it's theater or meditation and this is something we are as our generations minds and the younger ones are more and more understanding that there is a very deep and significant connection which you saw early on and you also practice so how does your day look like do you write do you do meditation how is it structured what how how is the day for you me well it's very different now that I'm dealing with with with illness and so forth which I never intended to deal with before so ideally I go out in the woods that for me is the most important thing when I go up into the woods and I drag branches around I put them into great big piles I've been doing that in my woods for about 25 years I can get all my frustrations out I can just keep dragging branches and obsessing about this and obsessing about that and obsessing about that in the meanwhile they're these beautiful beautiful woods and I'm what am I creating I'm creating space there's less distance between this spot and that spot I'm not there's no purpose to it except to make space I sometimes I challenge myself not to pick up anything just to walk the path sometimes I lead people on a meditation walk down the path very very very slowly paying attention to how your foot falls heel toe heel toe which is at the same time you're paying attention to your breathing without breathing in any special way your eyes are half open half closed so that you're not grabbing with the eyes but you're allowing the flow to come between you and the world that you see we were doing that once I was at the head of the line there was a fox that came around the corner he or she actually rounded the path of facing us saw us and went away it's amazing to have this contact with the wildlife this morning there was a large rabbit by the front porch what a privilege what an incredible privilege so my day is like that I'm sure everybody's day is different but you find your disciplines you find your meditation you do I have friends we have a meditation room here I have a friend who's very here who's very very disciplined goes to have meditated a particular hour every day meditates for a while goes upstairs does exercises I do that sometimes and sometimes I'm not good enough I mean I'm not disciplined enough to do it recently but I've been very disciplined in my life and also very disciplined in terms of what I've eaten I've been on weird diets I've been in a privileged enough position to be able to do that then kept me radiantly healthy you know like that right do you find time to write in this time of corona is that possible yes it is possible I do write I would like to be writing more I want to be writing about my family and the exodus which I touched on before I've I've I now begin to understand how to order my memoirs if you like there's um we were crossing the ocean I was four years old we had escaped barely the onslaughts of hitler I had acted up rather the way a child might nobody could tell me oh we're fleeing we're fleeing for our lives we people want to kill us my mother came to say good night to me when we were on the boat she said mommy loves you very much but if you're not a good boy mommy will have to love you less that to me encapsulates something which is I've had to fight for the rest of my life what did she mean to be a good boy what did that mean I don't know that she knew what it meant she had managed to get me out of there my father had managed to get us out of Europe my grandparents I mean it was an incredible thing that they did but it left it left a gap in knowing how to how to be and how to behave I think I'm not the only one I know I'm not so I'm wanting to explore that that's very interesting to me at this point there are many many letters from my family some of some have written by people who survived some written by people who did not survive I think the time of covid's is like that in a way when you listed how many people had it you said 68 in corona queens or something like that it's I mean imagine talking about that in the world we lived in even only six months ago we're we're now living the consequence of how we thought of the patterns of our thinking and the patterns of our feeling so what we have to do I think is go deeper and come up with material which is more deep than the usual patterns yeah and we have to and we have to change things I have a friend who is here at shantigar rand engel who is researching ways in which the police might be defunded ways in which it would not ways in which it might actually happen some of us go out and protest some of us try to make it happen we each have our skills but we have to work together to have it happen with discipline and they these are meditative tasks they are not different from meditation they're not different from theater in a certain sense I talk a lot this is uh this is uh it's truly uh it's truly uh uh significance what you say about I know that I think kanto once said that when he did his early work you know it's like you say you have a corpse of that person in the room and you have to have the same level of awareness yes work yes around us um you mentioned it you know so you said I'm afraid of of course you know how do I deal with that and we all are getting getting older and you did also that play in the Tibetan book of the death what is your what is your take what's your take on that what is your take on being so close um shake can kill us I mean we had Taylor Mack here on the great artist and now I have friends who survived the eights but a can shake the wrong one can kill them and they did he said I have friends they didn't survive it right well I'm going I'm going to attach to what you I'm going to comment on what you said to begin with we need to go deeper in ourselves reintegrate from a deeper place and express from a different place it's not like we are our old selves and simply repattern what that's important too but what we what the way we see the world but we go to a deeper and I think if it always in vertical and horizontal turns we go to a deeper place vertically we are we we we see the cruelty of the world more we are angered at it more we we we don't we don't yet have the name for how we're going to be we're going to change we're changing and then from that change place presumably from a deeper place we discover how to how to be art in the world how to be artists in the world how to be protesters in the world all of that is integrated and I don't think it's terribly different I mean one thing from another hello tell us about that the play the Tibetan book of that why did you do that and what did you find when you did it well I did I wrote the Tibetan book of the of the dead I didn't write the Tibetan book of the dead I made a play of the Tibetan book of the day which I which I and the subtitle was or how not to do it again the idea is that we're as I said before we're all enlightened beings we the idea of the Tibetan book of the days don't make the same mistakes you've made before you'll be reborn into a life quite similar or even worse than the one you've got now I wanted to create something that could be read aloud to the dying or to oneself if somebody you knew was dying the the profound and deep works that have been written about the Tibetan book of the dead are usually commentary my teacher churgyam trogpa wrote a book on of it commentary along with francesca free mantle so gal Rinpoche wrote another book but it's commentary it's a big text as if it were some academic exploration ground but I wanted something that was more like poetry we I so I also want to to demonstrate that it was for real people I'm struggling with that now but I thought maybe I would dodge the bullet maybe I was immortal maybe I was so healthy I'd get away with it all so clearly I'm not nor is anyone so I wanted to explore that transition the possibility of a transition what it was like it's also the Tibetan book of the dead it's it's a book for the living and the dying because as I spoke about before we are made of the very elements that surround us we are earth air fire water so forth so how do we get through this I'm glad you asked me because I think I have been shying away from seeing that in terms of my current situation what will it be like it will be what it will be but I have to keep my equanimity just as I have to in life I haven't been very good at that recently but I have to keep my equanimity see what happens and the the Tibetan book of the dead is usually traditionally read aloud in Tibet it was read aloud by what's called a spiritual friend but basically it's the word friend which matters somebody keeps saying to you it's okay it's okay just breathe just go through it if you see something terrible it's because you're projecting something terrible on it it's okay just keep going so it says that but in a very very profound way so I worked on it with my friend Didi Goldenhar who was helping me we refined it it was like taking those thick texts and getting down to the essence of it like carrying a horse if you will that's what my hands are doing they're carrying a horse and then we got it down to I got it down to some poetry if you like and then I translated it into French and then back from French into English to get rid of all the extraneous stuff to have it be really simple and profound so that's that and so it was a play first it was done at Lamama I always think that Ellen Stewart at Lamama and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche were more than my mentors they're both my teachers the meditation teacher and the wonderful theatrical friend that Ellen was so I dedicated it to the two of them and so we did it as a play it seemed to it seemed to move people in a way that had nothing to do with me nothing to do with intellectual intention it seemed to reverberate the way a bell reverberates it just reverberated in space and people felt healed by it I haven't I think it had to do with the intention of everybody working on it it was directed by Asir Bhanipal Babila a Persian man Iranian and then I after it was a play I wanted it to be a book so it became a book a Tibetan book of the dead for reading aloud or how for reading aloud and it it's available now and I'm really pleased that having been the channel for that I don't think I don't I would I would never have thought in this lifetime that I would have done a thing like that but you just channel these things you make yourself as clear a vessel as possible and it comes out no it's an amazing amazing piece you've created amazing work amazing a piece of poetry writing and also connecting you know through through those words to two layers and times and wisdom and experiences you know that well Morris and after us you know I think I think that I didn't create anything I just got out of the way so to speak I let it I let it sort of bubble around in me I also do these calligraphies these brushworks so I my teacher Trunk Trunk Rinpoche did did brushworks not quite the same way but I watched him do it on my kitchen table when he was here doing a year's retreat at Chantigarh and later I found myself doing these brushworks too I move for maybe 45 minutes make sounds and clear myself then when I really clear I do that kind of vertical gesture that I showed before and then I take the brush I allow the energy or the image and the energy to come up through me and come out through the brush I look at it it either has it either is the movement or it's not if it's not I tear it up and if it is it is so that's a very interesting way to work too as a as an artist as a painter to catch well to be spontaneous to yeah to just be in a way to be a wind tunnel and the wind whooshes through you you don't impede it you the wind is your emotions you let it come out in the brush and there it is or there it's not so I use some of those illustrations in the Tibetan Book of the Dead for reading aloud yeah no that's a significant practice I think the great French critic he went to Tokyo and Japan got fascinated and he then would have his little table next to him next to his writing he did that and I didn't know that changed his work he said it changed his writing to do that yeah did he say how it changes writing to me it's just all one thing but I'm very interested well how did he say it changes writing well I have to go back I just went yeah well it's interesting I think that everything feeds everything if you get if you if you can do something with greater spontaneity you can do everything with or many things with greater spontaneity I found that that I became freer of what Tibetan Buddhist call ego became freer of the watcher became freer of self-consciousness in my teaching first right before my writing but one thing leads to another you find how it you find how it works in one way it leads to how it works in another yeah I think what he liked about it if I we call it now right he was accused of reversing his arguments and his ideas he would say it's the death of the author the author doesn't exist to just go through him is nothing to do with him there's no authorship yeah he's in itself and then he would go back no it has everything to do how we grow up and people say how can you say that and he said well that's what I think now and I think his idea of the moment of the painting of the brush and its beauty and also and it's failing that was missing it's an acknowledgement but I think mostly yeah also the contrasts something he says a philosopher will try everything to keep things open to not define to not make clear an artist a sculpture you make a sculpture it's the most defined what you can do like Fernando Pessoa who's at the sculptor of the gods ultimately they're just sculptures you know so yeah they are a definite form and then they are the indefinite of this thinking and we all know from philosophy there's nothing that really works they are all constructions they are dreams and they are models of for the world and some work better on them some not you sound you sound you sound very much like a like a buddhist it's not this it's not this it's not not this it's not this it's not that yeah yeah absolutely yeah I should find out what did you see in theater I would be interested what did you see they say this was great theater that was great performance in my whole life all decades the first the first thing that I one of the very first things that I ever saw was Gertrude Lawrence in Anna and the King of Siam in the King and I she was so bubbly she was wonderful um oddly enough one of my great maybe not oddly but one of my great heroes is Noel Coward and it comes from that world not because of the content of what he did but because of his honesty he was a gay man like I am but he there was something so elegant and beautiful about his I love I love Noel Coward I have a picture of him on my piano sort of autographed picture of him so the King and I was one thing Ethel Merman I love musicals in in Annie get your gun and she those things I think I can hear you saying my gosh he just he fell for it all hook line and sinker I did I guess very importantly was Maratzaad um it was very major for me I remember Joe Chacon who was my as close to my partner in this lifetime as I've had Joe took me to see it because he'd work with Peter Broke in London I went to see it on Broadway I was I was just completely bowled over the idea that a play could work on many different levels and you could see it working on many different levels at the same time you know they were they were they were inmates and Chalenton they were they were in the French Revolution or in the French Terror who was the audience what it was it was the idea that something could be so magnificently multifaceted was mind-blowing to me it was great um what else is moved I don't I think that may have been that may have been one of the things that moved me the most um there I'm I guess I've never made a list of that but that there I I'll keep thinking about that but I that's what I can think of for the moment what was that exercise to try can did or the open theory that this was the first scene of your first act of America Hurrah but you came out you said it came out of an exercise what was yeah well the exercise was that the actors um there were about seven or eight actors in the open theater who were finding out how many people could talk at once when you could still recognize what was being said so there was a line of actors on a stage they would talk one then another then two or three would talk at the same time they were supposed to sense when to talk and so forth so that was the exercise to me and then I I I I came up here to Shantigar having heard that exercise on stage on a Friday I wrote the play which was originally called Pavan up here on that weekend I I was playing I don't know how I came up with it but I thought well that would be interesting do an employment agency because they're applicants and there there are people interviewing them so just do it that way I don't know why I picked on that particular thing so there was the given take of the people in the agency when one person would speak several people would respond and so forth and so forth then there was a space for monologues each of the characters had their own monologue the woman on the subway the man who looked up from his tv to see the real world all of those things a lot of it took place on 14th street which at that time was a much more popular place and and so I developed it that's that's how I developed it was called Pavan I thought of it very much in terms of rhythm when we did America off Broadway which was not the first production of it Joe directed it and at that time I renamed it interview because he played around with it and changed it a lot as he was wanting to do not the words but the staging so that that was interview yeah and if I remember right also in Italy it got interrupted in Italy well we we opened it ultimately we opened it at Teatro del Iate in Rome at the we got there we we got to Rome with with the open theater we suddenly I think we had left New York because I've had a big success with America Hurrah we were not at all sure about these three about about doing well we were doing the serpent actually we were not this is really about the serpent we were not sure that the serpent would be seen as the experimental work it was we went to Italy and we were all frightened we had we we we had about a hundred paparazzi coming and eventually it worked out but you're saying that people interrupted it in Italy I don't remember that I don't remember that story I'm reading it somewhere but maybe that's that's no it could have been it could have been interviewed it was certainly done there but I don't remember that and I just jumped to the story about the serpent I don't know why but yeah which was a collaborative piece the serpent was entirely collaborative it started with and it was an important thing to know that a group of people could make a play that is so we all think of it now it's it's normal you know we have to really also reflect on how that we had Eugenio Barber here on the program who said you know when we did workshops also to make some money for our company there were no workshops you had to be in an academy but you were rejected or not and that we were all rejected in Norway but we made our own company we and what do you say you know that people would come together and write a play collaboratively how radical that was or you say there was an exercise with actors and based out of that I created a play you know so forms you you found so early on that were pioneering of what we now think is normal even my fashion or whatever but I think it is still a significant work and as you also say you know to have that illumination that it is not about the professional artists anymore it's about everyone that everyone can participate can be on a stage can can can do that so these are radical radical inventions we are getting a bit closer to this session I think we could do it so many times and much longer but the New York City is in a in a tough place over a million jobs are gone you go now and you see the shop windows and you know advertising taken down it's for rent some say a fifth of all businesses will not make it some say fifths of all nonprofits won't make it it was as it will be a tough time when you did work in New York also it was not in a great shape in the 70s it was close to death also it couldn't pay its bills what do what do you say to artists what do you say to to theater makers now and how to experience this but how to prepare for it let's say that what we call the TAC the time after corona if it comes and a hundred vaccinations are being worked on it there's a one percent chance that one were one of them will go its own matter of time so but what what do you say to artists what compared to what I think in a certain sense we are all artists I think it's I think it's I think it's not going to be like it like it was ever again that's simply my feeling really ever again well I think ever again yes I think it may it may get better I hope it does I hope we can but I don't think it will ever be the same world again I listen to a really fascinating epidemiologist on democracy now which is a wonderful news show that I listen to frequently she said well she said earlier on that she thought it would be 36 months at least and then now since the Trump administration so mishandled it and acted so selfishly she says it's going to be three years at the very minimum but I don't think it'll ever be the same I think there's social distancing is going to happen we live in a completely new era an era of great pain but also great possibility because we can play with different forms because we can see each other in each other's homes because we will recognize when we're speaking the truth because we'll find new forms to speak the truth we'll understand that we're all artists we can all play our violin from home and we must play our violin from home and have other people hear it I think I think there are possibilities but it's a time of it's a time of acknowledging that we messed up as a society we really messed up this is like an x-ray of the society and what does that mean we messed up we came from a we came from a place that was not a deep place in ourselves we we acted selfishly we wanted for ourselves we ignored other people the feelings of others it won't work it hasn't worked and we have to work very hard not only in the outer world but simultaneously in our own acknowledgement of our bellies yeah yeah this is uh this is uh a significant uh twice and also significant evaluation hearing from you that sins world war truth isn't this is the same we'll have the same effect I feel that I I do feel that very strongly somehow somehow we were lucky my family was lucky we got out my father had some idea of what was coming my mother was courageous she drove us through the bombs somehow we found what was necessary but it wounded us it it wounded my parents it wounded me and it killed millions and millions and millions of people it's too bad that this has to happen it's too bad that it has to happen but everything that we can do to our express our deepest selves and with pleasure at expressing ourselves but our deepest selves it's our obligation to do that and to be to be the elements to be the trees that I can see out the window from here to be the fields to be nature to be those elements within ourselves that combine uniquely in each of us and express it I guess it's so significant and deep and intense and so we in a way we have to find our shantigari you know something that you created in whatever way and form it is and to take the change of the outer world as series as the change of our inner world yes yes and that that the outer world has changed as a signal that we weren't living in it from the deepest possible place and whoever gives us life wherever life comes from it should be expressed from a deep deep place otherwise what's the point and our compassion for other human beings from that deep place as well sure but it ain't going to be the same as before we we've we've we've we've taken a step down and the challenge is greater not taken a step we've we've we've karmically ended up a whole level different but it's also good to hear from you that you say this deep place can be reached and that forms will come and that there will be forms on ways absolutely absolutely there will be I can't predict them but they are to be looked for in intimacy intimacy with oneself intimacy with the people one loves and the intimate connection that one feels when one sees on somebody's suffering that's what it will come from not from anything else it will come from that and and saying I have to express that there's no other reason to be alive I have to express that so and you don't know you don't know what that expression will be you touch you you go to the deep place you connect with the world you allow your body to move you say what needs to be said that's play that's a play that's a performance that's a life yeah and art can do a big play a big role in that to make us aware and yeah that is art absolutely truthful and and but then it's always transcending so really Jean Claude thank you thank you thank you for for sharing well thank you Frank I think your questions are really penetrating they stimulate me thank you very much and thank you for doing this in-depth kind of work thank you thank you and and and I hope you know that time after corona if it comes closer than the epidemiologist said you know that also your place you know will be even more visible that people will come and understand and also learn from from from what you what you have done in your life as an artist and human being and spirit and and yes I think I will auto your book I had it I think when you came and did the reading of it and I just gave it to someone but I think to have that with me to read it and to be perhaps friends for people who are or someone else will do it for me we don't know you know so it's a time of great uncertainty and it was a great privilege and thank you for my privilege thank you Frank so honest and and and I think that is a great contribution to the kaleidoscope of voices and and makes the younger voice look young and sometimes older and older voices look very young and wise something that connects and contributes to each other so and really respect for all you did in your life it's a fantastic model what this theater artist can do defining him herself in a larger way and to create a place for community to create a neighborhood where where people can be and we will continue our our our journey next week again because it's getting so complicated again also in New York and in the US we go a little bit back we're going to have Ping Chong come and talk about his his work and his company someone who also came by the way the age of four to to New York interesting significant young artists from Berlin who was at looks at the folks who's Susanne Kennedy who is truly finding a way for as I say and we say the children of the digital age and the play of what Bryce said that theater is for the for the children of the technological age the analogue but now we have the different she's finding ways to connect to that world of screens of digital experiences VR which she represents on stage in a very different way and a very good one Mabu Mines will be with us Libreur and Mort Mitchell will tell about their work and their ongoing engagement and Tiago Rodriguez a significant European director from Portugal and not as much know me and his he should he will join us on Thursday if all works out but I think we will and then carry that switch will tell us a bit about her experience he's a great player right but also writes phalliathons and translates beautifully beautiful work and has observed the Latino Latinx community for a long time created also gathering symposia and so and and we will hear from her how she experiences this time of corona so thanks to howl round again for hosting us another week and it means a lot to us so VJ C Travis thank you for putting up with us every day of the week and thanks to the team San Yang and Andy and especially to you viewers that we went a little bit over time today but I think this was very very significant very important and this might be something that can change your life all my life and is of significance so really let's understand that art is not as he also said of changing just an evening as an experience or as a wallpaper as a karaoke now it's really meant by artists by Jean Claude to create a change in us and to be present to understand the world and to see what's real and to be closer to to the moment we live in so I think this was a great great reminder so Jean Claude thank you so much thanks so much thank you Frank I really enjoyed this opportunity thank you and up again you know all around later on so thank you all and encourage everybody to listen what Jean Claude said I think this was truly an off importance yes with so many of our