 Welcome everybody back here at Segal Talks. My name is Frank Henschka and I'm the director of the Segal Center here at the Graduate Center CUNY at the City University of New York in Manhattan. And it is another day and another week in Segal Talks. And we just had an update about situations in the Ukraine and yesterday about Palestine where restrictions seem to have worked well imposed or put in by the Israeli government also in the Palestine territories and slowly people are going out but they face a bleak situation. There hasn't been real support for this theater before and after but they have a fierce identity and a mission to bring change, social change to a situation that is not working for so many and it's not acceptable. Today we have guests from Brazil. We have Roberta Estela del Dalva and Dion Carlos who are here with us. So thank you for taking the time and Danilo will help us to translate in case they have open questions. So theaters artists as always are, as we say on the right side of history and the right side of justice, they also experience life immediately in a sense and the real sense they anticipate often the future. And so it is of a significance and important to listen. And also for us in New York but all around the world we really need to know more about local theater practices. Theater in Brazil is such a great history, such a long history, such a complex history. The country is so big, so vast and we are not always aware as much as we really should be. This virus has shown that we all connected intimately in a way deeply that the world has become much closer and smaller in the sense of we can talk to you, we travel normally also but also our lives have been confined in closer spaces and we look out at a reality that we have inside uncertainties and we process our information and in moments of raptures like this, perhaps it's a time where we also have a little insight how we process information, we question the reality where we are in and that perhaps is a reason why sometimes out of a crisis new realities emerge in a good way and at least we hope to where we had Natalia Voroshbid from the Ukraine who said she's anticipating not good things coming out for her country six years of war and that the corona crisis is actually a welcome pause. It's almost like a Christmas time. So it's just stunning around the world to hear what is going on. We heard from India where 500,000 people tried to leave New Delhi on foot to march up to 1,000 kilometers home because they couldn't work or the family's anymore and they had no place, no work, no income and had their babies on the back. So it's a complex in Roma families being beaten up by the police without warnings and reasons because they fear that they are spreading the virus and workers in Romania are stuck at borders not coming back or going out without any protections to fulfill their work commission. So it's a complex time. And Milo Rao talked about his new vision for theater, Richard Schachner looked back as a history of theater and with that and is working on the manifesto and things what we should change. We look at the nuclear reactor where the top has been taken off. We look inside and see a reality, a disaster situation in the United States. It's shocking that this country, this rich country, this wonderful country and this inspiring country doesn't seem to find a way to deal with problems. And Brazil, which is also in a way so close to the North America, the U.S. is also experiencing in a moment if we understand right of uncertainties, of complex problems and political guidance that perhaps is not always in the interest of everybody. So we wanted to hear from our friends and colleagues in Brazil. So here's the question, where are you all now? What time is it and are you on the confinement or what's going on in Sao Paulo, where you're from? He asked where you are, the city, what time are you there and if you're in quarantine now, how are you? We are in Sao Paulo, now it's 1.04, 1.05. And yes, we have the privilege of being in quarantine. Many people cannot obey quarantine, they have to eat. But yes. Yeah, we are currently in Sao Paulo as you said and it's one o'clock in the afternoon here. We have been able to maintain the quarantine but unfortunately it's a privilege in the current situation here. For how long is the quarantine? I know the winter is approaching or fall or winter, so how long has the quarantine been in place? 60 days, 60 days, right? Yeah. How long does it take to maintain and what is the forecast? I think we will have some months ahead. It will be unstable, as much as there is pressure not to. It's a matter of survival. Yeah, we believe that even though winter is nearing and obviously there are some risks that may come by should maintain for quite a few more months. So how are maybe, Roberta, you can also tell us, how are the restrictions? What can you go out? Do we have to fill out a form like in France? What are the conditions? In Italy, you can only go 100 meters around your house or to the next store where you can buy food or pharmacy. Everything else is forbidden. How is the situation in Brazil and how has it been introduced to this population? He is asking how is the situation here in Brazil? What kind of dynamics do we have? Well, we don't have a lockdown properly. We don't. Still, because what we have here is a war between the government from the states and the government from the country, the president and the governors. Because the governors say, stay home, it's dangerous. We have more than 10,000 people dead. And our president, it's working against it. He's saying it's just a lightly flew. So he's making an on-country service. And he's messing us. He changed the minister of health here, a health of common health. And it's a mess because this is really making people being confused. And so we have a situation, people from the states telling, stay home. And our president going into television, going to the lives in Instagram and say, we can't stop. Brazil can't stop. So enterprises and fabrics are going to die. But, mister, this president, people are dying. That's it, more or less. We have a conflict here. I'm just presenting for Brazilian people. It's a conflict here from the president and the governors from the states telling us to stay home and the president telling us to leave. So we don't have a lockdown and there's a conflict of interest. While the president says, leave because the economy can't die, because the companies can't die and expressing what people are, almost more than 10,000 people are dying. It might be a bit too complicated. We translate everything back into Portuguese also. But it's good that we try to give some explanation. But so the president of Brazil, of course, and the world is wondering and they don't understand why he is not taking this serious. So how is the situation for theater artists? Are theaters open? Are they closed? Are there rehearsals going on? What is happening? The whole world is asking because the president doesn't follow. He wants to know how the situation is for theater artists here in Brazil. And if they are open, if they are working or not? And how the situation is for artists? At the moment, we are stopped. I read a news that the European artists suffer from a pressure to open theaters. We are suffering from a pressure to stop giving up. So at the moment there is a very big difficulty to return or even to be organized due to the extreme situation that the artists are facing here. So she saw news that in certain countries of Europe there's been an urge by the government and by the people for theaters to reopen and to engage in open performances. In here, it's the extreme opposite. There's a pressure only for them to be closed down but for them to cease to exist. So it's a deep crisis and theater artists have very few resources to actually maintain their craft. So for 60 days also theaters have been closed? Yeah. Yeah, theaters stores and just the basic services are open like food service and what happened was when Bolsonaro entered he killed the culture ministry. So... It doesn't exist anymore? It doesn't exist anymore and the situation is getting worse and worse for the artists because Corona came in a time that we were already in a tough situation with theaters closing, with artists in a very bad situation with space and money and breathing. So it is a plan. So when he came in, he closed down the Ministry of Culture it's no longer existing. This was on his political agenda to close down any support for the arts. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I was not fully aware of this. It's of course shocking news so that means there is no help, no funding in place to support Brazilian artists. So it means there are no funds to help Brazilian artists? What happens today is that an emergency fund was released and many artists can't get the resources. What has happened now is a social organization made by the artists, mainly voted by the artists of the periphery to help us, especially with food, with basic baskets. It is at this level that we are at right now. Yeah, the government released an emergency fund for all the population and for all the artists as well. But most of them have not been able to grab the money, to seize the money. And so what happened is that there's been an unity in the artist community and theater particularly to help get food for these people. So it's been mostly the artists trying to help out the artists so that they can survive. So artists basically would be starving right now. There's no help. Also in New York City, for the next eight, nine months there are no jobs, the musicians, all the gigs have been canceled. Of course, no payments from theaters. There's even a case of a big regional theater that demanded a playwright to pay back the commissioning fee even though the playwright has already started writing. So what do you do then in Brazil? You don't have a theater there all closed. There's no support. There's no ministry of culture. What is your, what is the future? We are fucked up. Well, I'm kidding, but it's not for kidding. The situation is we are trying, we are having conversations and trying to see what we're going to do and debating and talking to each other. But nobody knows the answer. We're trying to do things together because it's a time that alone like trying to save yourself, we are going nowhere. Like collective solutions, collective thoughts, trying to write stuff. And first of all, the basic necessities like support this project. They give food because we don't food. What is theater? If the person is starving. But we don't see a horizon because theater is the president's art. You know, you can sing, you can project a movie, stream a movie, but theater you need the public and the discussion is, is there a theater without public and actors together in a room? Is this theater still? If you don't have it, the presence that is a essential question in theater. And we don't know because I don't know if in September we'll be able to be together in a room even in December because the things will open, but theaters will be open to us be together. And I don't know, I heard that in Italy they are going to put like a person in three seats and another person in three seats, but I don't know. Yeah, the next row empty and then a gun one, yeah, and people will have to wear masks. How will that look like? This is a big question. And I think from our friends in Tia and Poland in Warsaw, they have been put on the same list as massage salons. Only when massage salons can open, also the theaters will open, which they felt as a clear insult against, of course theater community and which they do not really want at the moment also to hear from. How is the situation? How was it before like doing theater in Sao Paulo before coronavirus? Tell us a little bit. Was it already complicated or their support or how do you experience it? I know you also work in television and film also both of you, but how is the theater situation at the moment in Sao Paulo? How was the situation before the arrival of theater in itself? Theater, theater here was always very independent. We always told people, there is a motto in Brazil that says us for us. I think theater is that in Brazil. But, of course, I know that Roberta and I also we had a work agenda. We always worked a lot. And suddenly this was taken away. Sao Paulo is a very privileged city in this sense because there are many theaters. We have a institution here that supports a lot theater. We have some institutions that support theater, that support theater artists. So we came out of a situation very privileged with work with a full agenda for nothing. Practically. The theater in Sao Paulo has always been very independent in a way. So they have institutions that contribute to theater in here. There are a lot more theaters than in most places in Brazil. Even after the government came in, they sort of lost all their jobs and they had full agendas and they could actually perform the work. But even before the virus, it was all shut down. It's a privilege to be in Sao Paulo and the opportunity is already not that extensive in the country. So the government shut down theaters in Sao Paulo and when Balzano came in, they closed theaters. Not the government, the artists, I think, the artists by themselves closed because we didn't get the Bolsonaro hint of it's just a flu. Because the Ministry of Culture closed and there was no more support for running the theaters or? Yeah, I have a particular case that we had the headquarters of my company. I'm part of a company called Núcleo Bartolomeu de Depoimentos. It's a hip-hop theater company that mixes elements from the hip-hop culture with the epic theater from Bertol Beres and we had this headquarters, our place and it was just we were kicked off the place and they demolished the place to put some buildings. We have a gentrification process in Pompeia that the theater was in and we were kicked out, literally kicked out and they just demolished put the place down in a city that has like one theater for a 1040 inhabitants. So it's a very few theaters for the quantity of people even being privileged. It's a kind of a very small quantity of theater we have here. So yeah, I think it is. I think I was in Pompeia's theater which was part of ASCII and that theater has been closed down and yeah, and we were kicked off we have this this what happened in the neighborhood the gentrification they bought very cheap and they put like a whole food supermarket like what happened in Harlan or Williamsburg, you know the gentrification problem that it's all over it's going all over and so culture buildings are more important than culture for this government and all this so yeah, so what was what were the ideas of the theater scene in Sao Paulo even before the corner was the idea to find new spaces or you felt it was kind of a resignation people gave up to make a contribution to the cultural life of the city that theater was it's just no longer possible what were the plans for the artists, was it a question of finding new spaces or people simply resigned in the theater as if they didn't consider the theater as much as possible to be made in Sao Paulo? No, on the contrary we had here even because of some initiatives of the theater groups that were able to viabilize foments that helped the groups to keep up so as not to happen what happened with the group in Cule Bartolomeu of Depoimentos and with so many others that closed the doors there was a multiple scenario of a theater with varied research so the theater existed and was very alive and diverse in the city the theater companies they were creating funds to make sure that they would survive so there was going on a diversification in terms of research and public they were approaching and extensive research in terms of what could touch more people so they were still fighting they were still trying to find solutions to make sure that they would would remain solid and that they could maintain their work Even Bartolomeu my company that was kicked we were like in rented space place for friends brought us together under the wing for us to continue and last year we released terror and misery in the third millennium improvising utopias that is a version of terror and misery in the third Reich from Bertolt Brecht fresh for the moment because it fits like a glove because it's the situation the rising of fascism is what we are living literally here in Brazil with Bolsonaro so you both would say that you are witnessing a rise of fascism that openly is hostile to culture So the two of you said that you are facing a fascism that openly is hostile to culture I would say that it has my culture as much as Hitler has the surrealists that's what I said It's the same kind of fear and dread and persecution that perhaps Hitler had with the third realist class of art What are the solutions at the moment What do our theater artists have to fear? Don't have food to eat Right now everybody's stopped but in the recent past some strange things started to happen like photographs which are in a very rapid place because the artist was naked censorship we have a very close past of dictatorship very violent that tortured and killed a lot it's very close so these guys are still around trying to stop and shut the mouth so these guys are our vice president is a captain he's a military guy he's a military guy so they are around a lot of censorship little by little started to happen since Bolsonaro came to power there was a narrative that was brought forward of how trying to demonize theater artists in general and unfortunately that is a narrative that has spread throughout the nation and it's quite well installed so theater artists are demonized tell us about the interruptions of shows what happened as the shows follow my son there are some examples for example Jesus there is a version of John Clifford Jesus I don't know the name in English Jesus the queen of heaven I don't know the name in English the show in Portuguese Jesus the queen of self so Renata the actress who was playing it holding this she was interrupted or people came to protest you're not going to do this here and some people like doing ameaças people trying to intimidate them by internet or something called Bolsonaro here huge fans of Bolsonaro and they are fanatics just as Hitlerism was in German like but right now we have the net in Facebook and all this stuff so the fake news we had since politics to artists being victims of fake news and saying that absurd so it's a terror made on the net but also with threads real threads body by body in front of theaters in the gate of the in the enter of the place that the play would be shown Brazil ends up being a kind of place it seems to me that we are Kobayas of a project of necropolitics installed this has been for a long time I think Brazil is the avant-garde of necropolitics in some way and we are feeling the effects of this she believes that Brazil has been sort of an experiment for a type of necropolitics that happens for decades now and the main consequences that we are seeing this there has been a project that has been put in place to deem those who are more or less worthy of of being of they are living in them the good citizens so there has been this project going on I think this is it took its place after the Bolsonaro government and it's settled where do you think theater and performance has its place now for you what do you think it can make a difference can it at all? What do you think is the place of the plays of theater and theater in general and do you think it can make a difference now? I am a teacher of drama and I continue to teach online and I realize that reading plays and thinking about theater and remembering and evoking theater is a way of keeping yourself alive at this moment she is also a playwright and teacher and what she has noticed in her online classes is that to read theater and to really live theater is a very helpful tool to remain alive more or less the same in this current crisis I never left theater sorry, Roberta I never left theater no matter the pandemic, theater always happened in one way or another inside or outside the spaces yeah, no matter the crisis that happened throughout history, there has always been theater and it has always happened no matter if it was within the term spaces or not it has always existed what happened? me with Nuclo Bartolomeo the company we are still discussing and talking we have one day in the week to sacred day to discuss and say the things we are thinking, we are reading and also with the company they are directing it is called Ubonj is a black theater company that we are also talking watching movies, reading the play we are going to do like feeding the fire never letting it die I think even under the dictatorship theater was putting up a form of resistance, free groups outside performances, festivals and it was part of a social change that anticipated the end of that so in your group in your reading group where you are preparing what do you talk about when you say we sit together and we talk what do you talk about? well first of all we talk how are you doing people because this is important to also talk how are you feeling moving in the middle of this because otherwise we are just producing and let's do something and I think we have to be very human but we are looking back it is strange we are looking because it is 20 years of my company this year it was supposed to be the year that we are going to be like celebrating 20 years of company and we are wow this is happening in our 20 years anniversary so I think we are looking back and trying to to take a look to our story and to comprehend in the moment we are trying to imagine a future but we don't know what it is but trying to we are taking this look back to see more or less where are we and to see more or less where are we going but nobody knows like comes to this room and say wow people so we are in this situation let's nobody knows if somebody says that knows these people maybe this is crazy but we talk about what we will be doing in these 20 years and what we are going to do if we can be in front of an audience till December because we are asking this theater happens this theater we are going to make pieces recorded and showing what we are going to do and other lots lots of subjects also like slavery that it's a a ghost as dictatorship that is a ghost it's our two problems in Brazil that lead us till here we think and so we are racial subjects we are always discussing it this still all the time for example why did you start your company 20 years ago take us back to that moment when did you start it and what were your dreams so Claudia Shapira who is our director and play writer she was researching about the city issues and he saw Eugenio Lima who is our musical and director also dancing because he has a street dance company and she wanted this pose she said this is what I'm missing in my theater so they were together so the theater met hip hop and so I came and other people and well our wish was to discuss the problems the situation of living in a city like São Paulo like being black in São Paulo being women in São Paulo being deal with the beauty and the tragedy that a big city like São Paulo brings so we operated in the city São Paulo is our inspiration with the problematics and the beauties I don't know we didn't know that we were a company we just started with common wish and then when we saw we were 20 years making it together and creating a language and then this became our most beautiful dream we create hip hop theater actor and see and all the stuff we created together language is the most precious thing that we have to spread and Dion how did you get into theater and why did you feel it could make a contribution also to the city of São Paulo how did you start theater and why did you think it could be a contribution to São Paulo I started the theater as a actress I worked a long time with a great actor here in São Paulo called Renato Borg who taught me about acting he is one of the people who participated in the foundation of the office group that is well known here and then I realized I didn't see myself in the dramas that I read I didn't see people like me in the dramas that I read and then I decided to translate she started off as an actress and she started off working with a very famous Brazilian actor called Renato Borg who is the founder of a big project here called Oficina and as she began acting she was represented by the character she saw in those plays and so she was seeking out for a different sort of narrative also because I think dramaturgy is a place of creation of imagination and for us to have a multiple dramaturgy we need multiple voices and also because she believes playwriting is the biggest tool to create different narratives to create a certain general narrative so in order for us to have those different artists that are more diverse you need different voices and she wanted to be one of those voices it's basically the same reason and the same contribution for me the same answer if you think of the Sao Paulo the city you love and do your theater for and what do you imagine that will you be doing do you feel this moment is changing how you think about theater will you do what you did before but in a stronger way or in a different way what will be the consequences of this time for you of being at home for 60 days I think I think I have thought more about us than about myself I think it will be a theater of many of us also understanding a little better the relationships of power even inside the theater that theater is submitted even I believe that theater will become much more of a collective experience for her instead of a more individual one in a way that we are now able to understand more or less the power relationships that have been going on in Brazil and inside the Brazilian theater itself I think sorry, Roberta, just one thing I think that we are facing now and this will force us to think and maybe take some attitudes that we were hating even for a matter of comfort of being in a certain privilege now we will be forced to think alternatives for what we were used to I think the world ends and a new world begins she believes that due to this crisis artists will have to take another look at the circumstances and to take certain attitudes and certain standards that they had not been taking maybe because they were in a place of privilege in Sao Paulo and that now represents in a way the end of a certain reality, of a certain words and the start of a new one and so those are the changes she believes will happen mostly here in Sao Paulo theater just one more thing there is a phrase from the drama which is a Brazilian drama in a text she says that all the endings come because I know how to recommend and I think that we Brazilians we know how to do it very well there is a common saying by a Brazilian play writer called that says that may all ends calm because I know how to start over and it's in her opinion a very important part of a Brazilian spirit and Brazilians can do that very well and that must be translated into theater to move forward and to evolve yeah yeah I agree with all that Gianni said and we hope that things are different when we were out of this and we were together with out of the circle we always had been and thinking more collective more with the peripheries of the city exchanging more out of our circles and the urgency I think they will change what is what is urgent because the relationship with death changes you can be there tomorrow you can with the body how I imagine how it's going to be the physical contact what would the urgency I think we are having a lot of questions right now and we are going to have messy answers and some ways to go some new ways some old trying to come and we will our perception will be more refined I think what will be the answer the solution or a way to survive I think there will be a periphery to the center of the answer the solution or a way I think in a very poor neighborhood that's the periphery of the city percentage has been most fatal in the city and she believes that that solution for the narrative for the many problems that Tieta has been facing will come in the process of going from those regions into the center and not the opposite. She believes that the answers will also come from indigenous writers and the communities in general. Those are those are the places that perhaps have been the most neglected and where the voices are the hardest to hear but maybe the solutions and the difference in which they deal with these problems and the current crisis will be the main way to find the answer. So numbers, I think just yesterday, numbers were staggering. I almost hear from very little, finally to four, five hundred that people in a day, most probably the numbers are much, much higher. How is this situation, the favelas or in the periphery of the cities where people live so close together and share space also have a sense of a community and staying together? Do you all feel that this catastrophe is coming or is it, do you feel you already have the crisis behind you? Well, we have five times more black people killed by coronavirus in Brazil than white people. So this says a lot of our slaver. Five hundred percent higher. Five times. So this says about our country, about the yesterday was the abolition day, abolition day that we say that this false abolition because who died, like in the U.S., are black people still, who aren't the favelas are black people still. So is a, is a situation that is growing as Dion mentioned, is a necropolitics acting and a necroliberalist, liberalist, necropolitics is a term by Professor Schiller meant that is a mentor for, for many people and are discussing this colonialism. So the, the word of order right now is decolonization, decolonization of the relationship, relationships and you have this yesterday I saw in Erica's, Erica's, Madu Instagram, they killed two boys, they're killing police in America and in Brazil. We have two idiots. Trump is an, is an idiot like Bolsonaro and racist and a slave master as him. And so the periphery is suffering with corona as it is suffering with police militarization or any disease, dengue or anything because they are in, in, in a situation since the abolition of slavery that is under, under any help, under any attention by the government or stuff like that. Before the virus, we already had a virus, a virus that kills a lot of people all the time, especially people, poor people, black people in this country, women. So I think I expect a catastrophe, yes, I think there will be a catastrophe. Before corona itself, there was already the sort of a virus installed in Brazil and that killed many, many poor people, many black people, many women and she believes that catastrophe is on its way for sure. The latest infected and no, the latest death, numbers worked 13,149 people. And the main thing is that the virus is already, already reached a lot of indigenous communities and obviously the peripheral communities in the big cities and the small cities. So it's already a catastrophe on its own and it won't get worse. That's for sure. I heard, I read something yesterday that was saying, Emmanuel explaining to people, don't say 13,000 of COVID cases, of COVID, use COVID person because they are person, not cases, numbers. Social security numbers, as we say here, there are people, a lot, human beings and this is very important in the language we use. Yeah, we heard of reports that indigenous populations are not warned, that even festivities where they come together were not interrupted or forbidden because they didn't know so much about it and that there is perhaps the idea that it's a welcome interruption that, you know, that deforestation, the using of the forest and the deployment of indigenous people on their own lands, you know, will advance much faster with the virus. Do you think this is an open political agenda behind it against also the indigenous? Yes, but indigenous people already know that and we also know that. I think no one else has the illusion of depending on this government at all, or the other governments too. I think there's a phrase by Soeli Carmeiro, who is a Brazilian thinker here, she says, right or left, I will continue being black, right? So, although the left has looked at indigenous and black issues, but I think this is a project plan. Yeah, she believes that it's a project that has been going on for a long time now, even before the virus and the indigenous communities are aware that they cannot depend on the government to assist them. They know that the government is against them. So, it's for sure a political project, but it's been going on for years and obviously you can argue that left or right candidates have been more or less more supportive, but at the end of the day, they know that they cannot count the government to help them. So, do you think, I think, Dion, you said that you think this will be a rapture, it will be in Brazilian history, will it be corona time? You said things will be different. Do you feel people will reconsider political choices they made and it will turn to a better society, new forms, better forms will be found or do you think it will get worse after the corona? For both of you, the question, of course. I think the two of them will get worse. I think the fanatized people are more fanatized, but the people who organize themselves socially for a long time, thinking about us for us, they, more than ever, are thinking of paths, routes of escape and coming into contact with other possibilities of the world, other ideas of the world. She believes that, you know, at the same time get worse and get better. She believes that those who have fallen prey of the political fanatism for the president, they won't get worse and they have been getting worse progressively and the corona situation won't aggravate that issue. But on the other hand, people who have been engaging in thinking in collective solutions and social organizations will find new possibilities and working harder to find new ways of standing and helping the country. Yes. In the other hand, you have the male, white, rich people in Brazil that have this harrypad from, straight from the slave masters, they are slave masters, modern slave masters, that don't want to let go of their privileges. And they are most, most, most, most, most like embracing these privileges and don't want to let it go. But is it? The peace is not for everybody, it will be to no one. It will be to no one. It's allusion to think if you are closed in your rich house, you're going to live with fear. The price that we're going to pay because of all this falling down of the cultural institutions, falling down of educational institutions in Brazil would be very, very expensive. The social price. We are seeing yesterday I went out to buy some food. The only thing that we are doing outside and you see the massive quantity of people living in the streets, the increasing of the number of these people, of miserables, of people, it's going to be in three years. So, so you feel the homeless population is growing. More and more people are living on the streets? Yeah, lots. Since Bolsonaro came in, since Doria came in, it came to be the mayor, Shirley, Shirley. Turing families, Varysha Milich. Many families are forced to live on the street, which of course in a time of corona is a devastating situation for them, for the families, but also for everybody. So all the social and political problems are so open. When it comes to theater and performance, and of course there's the famous Augusto Bois, who came out of Brazil. Actually, he started out in politics and gave up and felt only theater and performance can make a change and he created specific methods. But what did you feel? What do you think will work? How do you reach your audience in Sao Paulo? Now you are without a ministry of culture, without support. Even theaters are closed down. What do you feel from your history, from your experience, but also what do you think? What do you think could be forms of theater performance to make it relevant that people will listen, that it will help them to come to terms with the new reality? Is there something where you feel this is the thing we all should be doing? Do you think there's a way or a solution to make theater come back and connect? Do you think theater comes back and connect with people and adjust to this new reality, despite all these circumstances? I think at this moment, for me, at least it is impossible to think how to do it. I feel in a war, in front of a war, and in some way fighting for the theater not to be destroyed, for the theater not to disappear. And I have done this from the works that follow, for meetings with groups and with students. But I think that at the moment here in Brazil, we are trying to survive, not die, not die before death. That's what we're trying to do now. So it's hard to imagine, to do any kind of, there's a text by Edwin Penaque that says, in the morning, I mean, his book that he said, tomorrow is not sold, he says that it is important to live every day, I can't have this projection for a long time. What to do? She believes that in the current moment, it's not possible to even project or try to imagine what can be done in the future because it's a matter of survival. Artists and theater itself has been just trying to not be swept away and not to disappear. And she has been doing that by encountering with many companies and engaging with her students and keeping on writing. But right now, the circumstances are that they're just trying not to disappear, they try not to die before death itself. And for them to try to create a future or to imagine a future, it all comes after being able to just survive. I agree. I agree and bring people who are not actors or dramaturgs or directors because we have a legion of people who are like designers, who work with things that they can make a video and say something like an actor or an actress like me can do. There are people that are sewing the costumes and are legion of people that are not working. They are not working in any way. And these people are part of the imagination also. How can we bring these people together? So it was what Dion was saying, food first. It's an emergency out time. We are in the emergency. Eat and then leave and have the basic. And then we are going to, because dad, you can do shit even theater. So it's really existential. It's about starving to death as a fear like some people in favelas, but also the artists, the country of Brazil is not taking care of it. It's neglecting them. Actually openly hostile. This is shocking reports from a great country, the country that has brought so much to the world of joy and engagement and artistic quality, whether it's in painting and writing or in games or played or music that comes from it. It's shocking account. How is it for you the day? Do you both have any time? Do you even write? Do you read something? Do you engage with art in your days in your confinement? I'm working now, which is the company of inventives. We are researching about Maria Auxiliadora, who is an amazing artist. And I have dedicated myself a lot to read a book called Oracle of the Night by Siddhartha Ribeiro, which talks about dreams. I think you can translate them. It won't be long. Besides research and obviously trying to learn new things, she has been doing close by research of a book written by an artist called Siddhartha Ribeiro, who is actually a neuroscientist. And it's called Oracle of the Night. She has also been reading a book by a Brazilian author called Daliton Kernaki, which translates to ways to postpone the end of the world. So she has been writing lies, but she's been trying to read more and research more and find new sources. And how about, how is it for you? Yeah, I'm researching with these companies I'm involved in and reading the readings of these words and also reading lots of pieces of stuff, like starting lots of books and seeing that no book, no one, nothing gives the answer. So I work with Sample a lot. So I'm sampling and trying to write and he covering old projects and seeing two past tests. And I work with the SLAM community also here, the poetry SLAM. So the poets, we are trying to organize it because we have 220 communities here in 20 states in Brazil. And so we are dealing with these communities and also helping and thinking together what can we do because they are all young people. They had these agoras open to tell their stories, their ideas and all of a sudden all is closed. And all these feelings, all these tests, all these things that, all these things that these agoras were healing, just this is a youth that don't have space to say it. So we are working projects to help them. Yeah, we're coming close to an end. So you both work with students, Dionne, but also Beto. What do you tell young artists? What do you tell students? How to deal with this moment? What do you tell young artists in relation to this moment? To her students, she says, stay alive, survive and make sure you pay close attention and listen well to the silence that has been echoing all around the city, but it's above all to stay alive and survive. So to listen to the silence you say, yes, yes. For me, I would say what I would say what I'm saying to myself is something like a mantra, be present in the present, be present in the present, be the quality of presence in each stuff you are doing. Just what we have is the present. The only thing that we have is the present. So be present in quality. It doesn't matter if you're going to be like 10 minutes doing something, be there just 10 minutes, talking to someone or taking a shower or reading or helping, donating, be there like with your body or soul, with your complete, because the present is all we have. Well, Willi, thank you both and this is a good reminder to listen to the silence, to be present in the present and also to participate in the communities and prepare for what is coming. It's a shocking account from Brazil and perhaps it's not really clear also to the outside world how desperate the situation is that artists are really afraid of starving, that they don't have any support in theirs for months, maybe for a year, nothing on the horizon. So it is shameful. The state of theater always is the arts, a little business card of any society, of a city, if it's alive, this is vibrant, if it's open. And once the arts are in good shape, you can see that things are working, that governments are right. And if not, you see disastrous moments like you were experiencing there. We do hope, as Dion said, that the forces and energy of Brazil to make new starts and to redo what's wrong and put it into right will be there and that social justice and progress will take its way. And it's really heartbreaking to hear your accounts, but your work is important there. And I know coming also out of the slam poetry and rap movement and all of it, you know, you all do important work and you with your students. So we watch, of course, what is happening in Brazil. We have had many evenings about Brazilian theater, contemporary theater at the Segal Center. You both haven't been there, but Isabela Pinheiro from the great Ivoe ensemble in New York is a group of Brazilian artists who also already felt in Brazil it's so hard to do work. Maybe it's better to do it outside, which is a very sad and regretful thoughts of young artists who would be immigrants of their countries. But they said you are the ones to talk to and you would be the ones who really can give us an account of what is of the significance to know about it from Brazil and so on. So thank you for taking the time. And maybe we check in and later on how it all will be going. But I wish you all good energy and we send our very best and hope that there will always be found, you know, to support artists. This is the moment now to really support artists perhaps less producing and doing, but really supporting you and I hope that your community will find ways to also support you. We are coming close to the end of week seven. It's incredible that for such a long time we are doing this now. We are the only theater institution we know of in the Americas, perhaps also in Europe that every day is producing a new content to talk about corona, about art, about meaning, we do it every day. And I think it's rewarding for all of us to hear from around the world and it helps us to get through this, but also to perhaps rethink and update our own hard drives of what we think. Tomorrow we will hear from Cameroon, Idois and this Vuma will be here with Arminio and they will talk about Cameroon, maybe also you guys listening and hear what is going on in that place that in a way also is close to Brazil. And I want to thank our listeners for taking the time to listen to artists from around the world. It's important and meaningful for them to know that people are listening, that people care and that in a way we are all in this together. So thank you for listening. It means a lot to us and how much is out there and how much more gets out there. So it's important for us and thanks to Hallround for hosting us, Thea and Travis and Talia and so into our Segal team. So I hope to all see you again. Hope you again tomorrow and next week. Stay all safe and stay tuned and good luck and we all hope you'll be safe and healthy. Bye bye.