 I'm Daniela, I'm a performer, I'm Andrea, and I'm very curious about your process. And I'm Davey and I'm also very curious about that. I'm Gabrielle Ditto. I'm Eric, I'm one of the artists. I'm Kent and I'm one of the artists. And that's Devorah. Hey, I'm Devorah. She's one of the respondents. I'm Julia, I'm going to do scratch. So I'm just going to like set the stage a little bit for all of you. So first thing is first. This process is one of the artists. So maybe you're curious. That's right. But it's actually for the artist. Yeah, and so you can all are in charge also of steering things, going in a way. So I'm just going to give you a little map of how things are going to work. Okay, where do I go for? What do you do? There's a sign. But there's a thing on the wall. Oh, okay. Where are you? There is a sign. Where are you supposed to go? I guess. That was really actually very good. Yeah. There you go. Everything I've done for some strange reason has been in the lodge. So anyway, we're going to... So this is a process to give useful constructive feedback to our wonderful artists and their beautiful work. And that is set up a really cool structure where they have what's called a twin and an opposite. So the premise is that there's someone whose style, approach, methodology might be a little bit more aligned with the work that we saw. And then this is twin. And then there might be the opposite of someone whose work, process, methodology, aesthetic style might be a little bit more in contrast to the work. This is Sabrina's assignment. So if you don't disagree, that's fine. So what we'll do, so that we know where our folks are coming from, each of them will just do a short, like, hey, this is who I am, this is the value maybe, aesthetic theme. And then we'll have Devorah with our thoughts. And then Marvah Goode, Marvah's response. And then the artists will have some time to ruminate, ask questions on the response for the rest of the room, kind of like at. So this is the kind of feedback that we use to you, and then we'll have a kind of more open nature. Make sense? Yes. Sure. So hey, I'm Devorah. I'm the courtistic director with Ben here at the Bulls Fury Theater. My work before was in Bulls Fury at a dance theater company for seven years in San Francisco. And then finally joined, joined forces in Bulls Fury. So my work as very physical comes from theater to dance, then back to theater again. And we have a cornerstone for our work, the viewpoints, Suzuki training, LeCoc, very movement oriented, and just straight up a lot of contact and probably sharing. So, I mean, that kind of puts it in the realm here. It's quite a compliment to say, oh yeah, we're twins. I kind of like that. Eric was reflecting to me like a couple nights ago that he knows my work all the way back to what with my dance theater company. When I was dancing, we were doing all kinds of crazy things. Yeah, right on. Did he pay you 50 bucks? Right, yeah. She's lying with us. Anyway, and also Band-A-Line has been in the festival that we produce. So, oh, and this one too? No, you're showing us yours. I was celebrating the festival. Yeah. Anyway, we're going to talk about Band-A-Line and this great show. What else did I say about the work or anything you have joined? Just the violin. I love each violin. So, that's it. I don't mean to make a joke, but I don't want to do it. No pressure. So, I but have always done performances since I was a kid. And I was, I did go to college and the theater people were too mean, so I switched back these three weeks to something called Borland Terps. So, the background is in kind of giving service to the literature, and then you perform, but that's the training I got. And so, I never had a relationship with a theater theater, but felt compelled by social circumstances to start performing again, and realizing intuitively that it made me could turn things around in a big way for people to feel like they were powerful and really healing. And in the weapons movement, we started kind of broken into these huge fights and battles that were just like burn it down, burn each other down. And so, I started performing again because of that, even though I was so scared to perform. I was, I've always performed just a little. My tear is like a hair thickness less than me carrying about whatever the things got me to do that performance. So, I did one called City of Waterton, number three, they got to tour a lot about, I spent three years interviewing construction workers about the building of New York City's Third Waterton, the mayor, and I've been doing that kind of work since 87. And solo shows mostly in one show with actors which was incredibly challenging, but on abundance with the American money that toured in 2003 and 2004. Moved to Maine and has been spent the last eight years helping other people make art, figuring out non-arts based issues in city government. I've been in the city manager's office for eight years in the city government. The police did a play that I wrote for them and directed in response to a shooting in the community. Racism incidents resulted in story workshops with the public service workers and that kind of thing. And now we're back to the viewer amounts and we're doing some more coming up. Can you talk about a lot of the work. And I just encourage both of you to be as specific as possible. So that's awesome, it's not actually great. That's awesome because I know there's a lot of information. And how much time are we talking about? 10 minutes. 10 minutes? Right. It's not longer. I'll keep time so you don't have to worry about it. Thanks. Okay, great. Well, that was awesome. I think that's first there. Because, and I won't be so great but I think what was lovely to see is and a real joy to observe is this true marriage between these visions. It looked like one piece. These people were very multi-talented multi-integrated and that was something that I really enjoyed as a spectator. It felt like you had made an example and that brings a lot of questions for me regarding how it happened which I'd love to hear about. I think Kent, you had spoken about the empty space and not having props and even if you didn't say that it was evident in the work because I think I really appreciated your use of time. I thought time was really well catered for in this piece. Just allowing and also this joy of taking a lot of distractions away. One of the first images I wrote suit blue and that's a lot of information for people sitting on chairs suit blue, suit blue and just being able to have the time to just observe that, take that in and already my narratives are going, going, going, going and I can be allowed to take that in and so I thought that was very successful. I felt very allowed to have that experience so I appreciated that a lot. Maybe I'll just refer to some notes here. Also setting up the first moment of using breath in the first gesture and where that comes from it allows us to be very skilled in there ensemble feeling to be able to allow themselves to be surprised by when that moment occurs so I really appreciated that. I appreciate and this is in Eric's other work too that something was going oh yeah there was a child delighting verbally in what was going on and you just acknowledged it and I also loved that. This aspect of the meta that you put at certain sections throughout I think it's also as a genre we maybe it opens the dialogue for that of how we're commenting on ourselves and I thought that that was successful in terms of where, how that was happening this is a really play you know I think Keith says Daniel says that I'm sorry that whole thing of just like commenting on yourself. The banality of the first real dramatic thing being a piece of tape on the ground it was just kind of so weird that it was interesting to me and then you realize it's not just some random moment but that it's actually very thoughtfully a way to get you to your next space so then it becomes a marker for your chair which is also a comment about the play and then so it's setting up all of and then it sets up this whole other section of the chairs the chairs the chairs the chairs configuring and so getting mileage out of the one thing that you allowed yourself to have the drone over there a little Benji stool there but anyway so that was very satisfying to kind of be to have this experience of being intrigued by this seemingly random act and then to have this follow through that was very satisfying the idea the thought of speaking when absolutely necessary came up for me which is I think what was happening is that the first story didn't come out until like verbal storytelling was the last thing that we received and experienced as it progressed and for me that felt right because we were learning so much just to be moved and your story was being told so many other ways that then there was a moment where it became very compelling over also the moment where Daniel was being threatened that was another compelling moment for her to speak raising the stakes there which I appreciated so I thought there was a lot of care with the use of text and how it was presented there was the idea of we which was intriguing to me we were there we were all there we were there every story was about us and I began to think what is us with us your children your childhood mates your dorm room mates you know I just went on to college it's like her dorm room mates in a car with an accident that I started going off in my personal life but yeah just this idea of we who are we is a very powerful pronoun so I appreciated that provocation and then just like the chorus and the hero you know the concept of there's one person carrying the story and the chorus is ground-based was very clear and very well used I thought and satisfying for me with time repetition is just like it's like this toast done with spraying butter just so satisfying to just see everybody like do the same motion and all at once or then later repeating seeing a piece of choreography and seeing it repeated again especially with modern dance is useful to the viewer because you get it all the first time so then you get to chew it up and enjoy it or experience it again so those are some strong points that I felt were really successful some I one just thing is like hey you've got chairs I would be really interested so other things that if you were working again if you're interested things I'd like to see or explore questions I had I'd like to see the chair being used in other ways and maybe they are in the next chapter I just didn't see it but like you know you have a chair you could stand on it for example like open up the vertical space you did use it in other ways what are all the ways you can use that chair I think would be really interesting to see that's one thing I said I thought of and then I just started having a lot of questions and anxiety when we got to the part of the story that is difficult and you know I'm still asking myself and that is choices that were made and what part of that are just things that I would do differently or want to see differently and that has to do of course with Tara's storyline of starting to be oppressed so I will address the parts that maybe first that I think are just stuff I'd like to see and then I'll adjust like the content but I was just like we have this okay for me I see a beautiful woman on stage and I want to see her do something more than just be beautiful because I feel very very strongly that you can do more than that and I want to see that that means you were given a lot of like miracle voice beautiful singing and you're very just very talented in that and I bet you could make some other kind of sounds too ugly sounds, different sounds like I wanted more soundscape that allowed us to see more of who that because this character that we dig into more so I wanted as a woman I wanted to see her totality instead of a representation of her being a young beautiful fragile victim I'd like to you know put that word into the room I want to see her power too and her complexity so that was something that was coming up for me and then also that I was like getting very stressed out about this trio where the two men are I was like well she can lift people well why would she and then I understand directorially that that's where that was going just like the echo of the tape you had thoughtfully put that piece of the next story so you know I'm interested in what other people have to say I also wanted to say just comment that right after that a person next to me said was that was that an active violence that just happened and I said what do you think and anyway it was provoking thought provoking emotionally provoking and I thank you for that if this was a San Francisco audience I would go further that's I don't know what other audiences are I said if it was a San Francisco audience I would maybe go further meaning deeper and it's like I want to respond sure meaning I can see more and I felt that there was a suggestion of what happened I'm not saying that I need to see more violence on stage I need to see a deeper addressing of what that means and that can take many various forms so that's me personally I don't know if and that means what does that mean like is that her struggle only or is that just more deeper complexity of this character or I have an idea of what I think happened and what I interpreted I guess the reason why I say audience is that it depends on audiences what is the age who are the people what is who is being affected what is the level of understood trauma I don't know maybe to be sensitive about that I will wrap up so that's a very it's a hard topic to talk about I can only give my emotional emotional and aesthetic response to it but I thought that the work was very well cared for and very well respected in terms of what we thought it should be or what our interpretation what we were seeing was and so I thank you for that and I really want to see the whole people thank you can I just add something that occurred to me that I do sometimes in my career it's sort of just more efficient if it's alright with you guys if you say something that you hear somebody say something that you agree with you can just sort of like snap or do this so that visually people can see that that doesn't have to be restated so I'm not surprised that several of you said you wanted to ignore more about the process because I thought wow right? wow whatever the hell process that was it shook him up with a hell of a good piece and how they did that and and you said so many good things that I would agree with so I don't want to repeat it but I think one of the elements in theater is the love and kind of rigor that gets brought to making work both on the part of you truly like amazing and moving performers but also the directors and however else that happens and that was so clear right from the beginning we were in it was like the game was on you know we are together and that kind of control and confidence and playfulness and I think a lot about joy in theater and the element of people actually even if it's a tough play there's a perceptible human way you could pick up that the people are actually enjoying what they're doing they are where they want to be and it is communicatable regardless of the topic so I really felt that and I thought the quality and the skill that you all brought as performers and also directors in choreography and in choosing the stories was just it was joyful because it's so much fun and things are that good it's just fun and for me in theater or any of us I assume it's at least half as painful for everyone else but that's not the case as it is for me and I thought I was very impressed I write my own shows and I was very impressed with the writing and editing and I don't know what that process was but it really was good it was well done it was good about it you didn't have extra extra stuff in there there was no fluff and it had a point but there was an elusiveness that I easily confounded in performances that are non-traditional and I've realized years ago I needed to quit wondering what it meant that that would be a helpful add but what I described to somebody earlier was there were enough breadcrumbs that I didn't start disassociating I wasn't battling any buzz of confusion and yet I truly didn't and it was a nice preamble but the piece itself kind of let it happen and the way it was titled the genetic is just so helpful just to help us help give us a shared version of the map that we get to be fully engaged as well and do keep on to your faith be more detailed and you all are good just technically technically wise whatever in the dancing and in the story delivery and in relation to the audience just really open heartedly respectful and very aware that this is the stage and that we are a part of it a couple things that stood out you did a nice kind of thoughtful thinking about that dance the trio and I at the time I had a similar responses of being kind of disturbed and anytime you see something that's disturbing as a theater maker myself in the way that I am and thinking about the whole I know I'm stirring a lot of stuff and going there and that's where theater should be going there where else would that only be going for not going to those tough places but then you're obviously taking on a responsibility that there's an arc there in whichever direction that arc is going there's an arc and I couldn't tell the story afterwards although I thought that ending was just to the story was just perfect in terms of like an almost one more five an almost perfect was how it came to me and I can't be that much more helpful right now but it felt like it was not a match for what just happened and I don't know that I don't contend that has to be some balancing act between getting things like whoa um can I clarify? after the dancing story that came after the dance and I was thinking in terms of directing like in also whoever puts these shows together are you the person thinking you know even at the time I was like oh wow were they thinking well that was upsetting we better put in a you know we chewed the story what I put the story before it well then what I've recorded the story and had the story running as that dance was dancing and I don't have any conclusion but these were the kinds of things I was thinking about was like do one of those things not belong you know or do they belong differently um and again saying this is where theater should be so that's not the issue for me um and the other thing that um that gives me a chance to say something during this part of the talk by the respondent was the song and um I wasn't sure it's you know something can work perfectly and then the next night it's like one thread got pulled out and you know it's all little pieces on the floor and I didn't feel that happened at all but I started like so excited music you know recording oh my god good voices singing and about halfway through I felt like why are we still singing the song um and then I thought more I think just for very exercised you know maybe just literally you know we are trying to think about ourselves maybe they're trying to you know get their get their energies back so um it was beautiful it was well sung um somebody who speaks Spanish said they thought that there might be some issues about the Spanish that was in it um I would be able to other than share that with you so you know it was dramatically or yeah dramatically and then they couldn't figure if there was they were confused by me they thought maybe there might be something in the song itself that was not accurately translated or whatever just for uh it's living now and that's the other possibility so they shouldn't be confused yeah perfect um yeah and so it wasn't that there was music it was it was yeah what was happening there um and uh yeah um I'd love to see it again I'd love to see the whole piece oh capacity was one kind of thought I had was about when you make theater how do you think about how do we think about the capacity the capacities and they're like what can these performers right like what's possible how much can they give and when you structure a piece you know um and I thought the capacity was really impressive like with what the performers what you all could hold what you could offer what you could sustain what you could build it was just seemingly like wow you know to be there to be present to actually be that engaged and that is kind of the point right and so I thought that was very well crafted and it made me think what the hell this is one third of the show you know and then I didn't get to see the rest so I was just thinking wow you know is this they pulled us off the whole night so okay thank you so now it's we really gave him hell we did yeah medic now it's sort of enough to you to ask questions to respond to and I would just offer that you don't have to explain or defend anything if that's not useful to because sometimes I just take a feedback and I just go think about it so you don't have to do any of that but whatever is this to bring it into the do that question with the spark or anything um what I've been really interested in with this process is sort of how we came together I've come from a dance background and the Cortesco folks come from a theater background and we're both interested in transcending those backgrounds and my hope for the piece is that yes there's dance that happens and yes there's theater that happens but that you're not thinking about that and not thinking about technique or oh that must be the dance where it must be and I'm curious if anybody can sort of say what your experience was with that that happened or the places where you were taken out of it by those sort of categories um anybody in the audience? right now okay I would definitely like this because in my own work I find that's what I'm also trying to figure out like how now I can remember so um I would that's what I was so impressed by doing and why I want to know about your process because I felt like they were very one like there was a lot of mystery as the piece as the unrolled as things were revealed so so much was said through the movement that I didn't find oh this is now a choreographic moment because they were so weaved I mean they were so one um and I like what you said about the necessity of the language when it was time um or important for that to shift but if everything was um how you made transitions into space um into one thing to the other it was all movement and theater at the same time I felt you really successfully aided that I thought yeah I had to push back slightly um you know in terms of all the things that I've seen in their dance theater I think you did do very very well and yet I still felt that there were transitions from one dance to the next and I I thought those transitions were pretty small um and they were close to disappearing so I was encouraged to keep just specifically like when is the moment of dance takes the lead and where's the moment of the text where the text takes the lead um or and where does narrative live in relation to those two things I think it's pretty close but I think you can take it further can you like mention a moment where you're like oh I'm switching from one to another yeah I mean I think um you know the moment where Eric towards the beginning Eric tells his story and then we go and everybody goes into the dance and Eric's like wait wait wait let's not go into the dance and actually that's a bad example because that one sort of fell down right um there was I don't know if it was right after the whole thing but there was a story being told and then there was a moment where all four of you got up stepped down a little bit and did a movement sequence or dance or moments when we were all in the chair and they did the and I don't know I actually don't let me rephrase it I don't know if it's possible I don't know how you do it without a sense of transition and maybe it's not a problem but I felt like it was pretty close somehow set them together so it was hopeful and I also and this may also reflect a lot about my where I'm sitting in front of the viewer because even though I've been making dance, theater, movement, theater for 15 years they're still a little bit where I would say hey when you switch from this story to that I don't know and to this story it's like I'm still prioritizing in my mind the spoken narrative in terms of I'm not more interested in it but in terms of that's what demarcates the story for me still that may be my problem and I was going to say I mean this is something that I found helpful in working in this kind of way that may or may not be helpful to you but I felt like watching this when you all were telling the stories there was all that kind of movement stuff and you were like they were doing the slow motion running and stuff and there were movement elements to enhance the storytelling and I felt like that maybe it was sort of like in those moments the movement leaked into the kind of more theatrical storytelling and I think I wanted to see more of the theatrical storytelling leak into the dance and for me a lot of times in my work and things that I really attached to especially when I'm just seeing dance in particular like modern and contemporary dance is gestural work and I think there were times when I wanted in the midst of some of these beautiful lifts and really cool movements that was happening to have moments where it almost broke and you just had a really simple gesture that was very pedestrian that kind of grounded us back into the not even reality but back into the maybe more theatrical elements so that they really feel like they just kind of slipped in and out of each other and because I think when you were when it was a little more theatrical the dancing really effectively and I began to see how some of that could make its way the other way around and my primary training is in dance and context and you're the duet between you and Keith which is this beautiful partnering duet with beautiful spaces and some really lovely surprising movements what I really appreciated about it was the way that what also was very like I don't want to say conventional but familiar partnering strategies were infused with a clarity of character intention that is usually not there if you're looking at a dance thing and that was very satisfying to me and the moment that the narrative was spoken through the body in a way that the text didn't also enforce so I really appreciated that there and then to go back to the other sort of primary the trio which we've been talking about like the relationship to the the range, the most great violation story I saw that so if I came before and I was watching it and rather than disturb I was annoyed and I was annoyed because from my context, from concert dance it is so normative to have the men lift the women to have the men manipulate the women to have the women have no physical agency that I wasn't like oh they're making a statement they're telling a story through this I'm just like they're doing that again and they're not thinking it that was my conclusion the beauty of the technique especially on Tara Spark they're like nice lines and a plain with feet and I was thinking about which to me undermined the violence and that it also didn't have quite the clarity of the emotional moments on the duet between people and so I then later and I was talking to people and I was like oh yeah I guess those two moments but I only figured that out later in conversation and then and so at the time I was just like doesn't she have can she pick them up, how come she can't fight back how come, you know, did it up because I was just like they're making this choice again everybody always wins, the choice everybody always makes those two moments there I just want to take that even a step further and I think all of this is I love the piece and I love I agree a lot on set I was not annoyed I was really angry actually because it wasn't it wasn't even just those normative moves but there was something about the fact that and I agree it's because there's this beautiful woman there who is who is having this power and all of a sudden boom it's lifted up from under her and rather than do anything another man was able to save her just by doing moving back and around and that pissed me off I remember growing that tree on what you felt kept on making it you wondering well part of an intention that I use in the drumming is supporting her like for example when she takes the run or when she's coming down from that movement there it's like I'm encouraging her and forcing her and backing her up and supporting her as best I can from a drum so I'm watching her journey and I'm like ooh I'm rooting for her or something so that's my intention when I'm playing is to be that witness that's present for her but to respond to your initial question about integration for me the duet really did stand out and I don't know it's because I've seen you guys perform before but I was like oh this is the part where these guys who dance together dance together and then maybe wouldn't have felt that way if I'd also seen the women do something similar just putting that out but in terms of the the whole thing obviously I know we're only seeing a portion too so maybe we didn't see that portion were those things happen or not and the rest of the piece had more and you know felt more of a hold so that stood out but if there was a transition for me if there was a transition moment that seemed a little abrupt but not on purpose it was it was getting since we was getting into that and I don't know if you remember what it was but I remember thinking oh here we go to this it just seemed like it was telegraphed in a way that you could well an interesting question is if the trio informs that story and does the duet inform another story the male men's experience that maybe we didn't hear and just you're missing I'm sure the women actually do have a duet and they also have probably the two largest soons in the show that they carry together maybe that's why seeing a fragment is always challenging so many of our comments and points to maybe not at all but these are really helpful comments can I ask a question she's still in charge right now yeah the artists are still actually in charge and that is that is the element of symmetry and that the symmetry of the men and women actors at the top and all of the the sort of spatial relationships at the top of the show are so pronounced and then it goes away I wonder if during the course of the big show are there moments where it comes back in that pronounced fashion and I think that there's because of communication I think that there's a that we do this thing where we where we all feel like we're on the same page and then we go off into our realization that we're not even close to being on the same page and then we get back together to come back to the same page and then we go off again and I thought it was an interesting commentary on how communication goes and I didn't know that was a thing that was revisited if that's where the show ends yeah I am I figured that would be somewhere you know they invent this game in the end which is that's the transition into society and it's a cinema game and the audience has fun trying to figure out the rules and stuff but it ends up in an argument because they're all games through that you argue about the rules and someone's cheating and someone's making strategy and the bankers have figured out this and the hens have figured out this and they finally and actually with the resolution is that they take that anger to those four seats in front of the audience and they're silent for several minutes and the audience watches them go from anger to neutral to a little bit of a couple of things to smile we're going to fight again I'd love to hear from the performers who are here as well on time or whatever they are I don't have a specific question but I also wanted to make sure that Ken or Sean if you had a particular question or particular kind of feedback that you wanted from this group that you could put it into No, I don't think so So then we're going to just keep that in conversation Can I ask you how that trio feels to you in the story and also the story how it feels to you as a performer Yeah, sure To me, I'm not really from the dance world this is the first show I've done especially for me when we started it was just really fun to be a part of the trio I haven't done it before it was also a research piece for me to look at how how the voice comes in and how the movement and I guess I want to say I really appreciate this like you bringing this up something this is really good to talk about but being within it and sort of since these are many of these are our stories and Berlin was my story it feels like it's such a mind because that was an experience and it was a story that I brought to the table and said hey well this is a story I had when we decided it was an ensemble it was something that we wanted to show so I'm really interested in how when we have these stories how to treat it in a way that doesn't send the message that this weak woman is being objectified while still being able to use that because we feel there were some peaks and I think maybe within the rest of the show where you see more variations of our characters it's not quite so stark I'm interested in so Berlin in the moment you know where in the trio where I first saw your leg I was like okay dance so just in terms of that however I feel like yes I was disturbed but I'm not angry that it was represented this way because I'm sorry it may not be how we want women to be however there are soft beautiful feminine beings that have things happen and sometimes someone does have I just felt like I'm troubled when that happens but it didn't bother me that you were making a choice that is being called normative from a choreographic perspective because I felt like I'm troubled and I don't know exactly what's happened until I have the story right but I don't actually feel like it's your responsibility to create dynamic women in all roles and that's the what you have to say to represent women in the theater I feel like I love strong women but things happen I'm not troubled by the way she was represented to me it felt it was soft unsettling but that doesn't bother me but that was the it's more bothered that the choreography wasn't unsettling that it felt normal but that's hardly what I mean I get that one could you could take place angularity and restraint and there are definitely places but that's not necessarily what this story was I felt a sense of of the emotion of the character was communicated through the words and the next section was very unsettling I felt very with that story I was very present with the situation I wasn't present with the dance because the dance just looks like the dance I've seen 2,000 times 200,000 times also in relation to your beauty and how fluid and in that I remember a moment when you were singing while you were doing the contact work maybe it was a physical moment and maybe maybe that's it maybe there's the possibility that it's not so pretty it's you know we're not so fluid in a moment emotion so that maybe there's not that fluidity and beauty there and even go farther with how you're playing with singing and how that you know wouldn't sound so pretty in that moment I could see the dance happening without the female and then the story following even more evocative and having more wouldn't have necessarily a disconnection the way it was but Daniel I did want to I hate these when the performers don't get a chance so that maybe me and you may choose not to say anything but I'm not happy when these end without people who have done so amazingly and been such a part Any questions? Yes Which company? Grotesco Yes So everybody but Okay, so you really wanted to say that And Keith at the end of the line And Keith at the root of it The stories all came from company members Yeah Could you clarify a little bit because some of what I'm wondering in terms of everyone's response to that moment you mentioned that the women have quite a bit to do in other sections of how they're represented in other sections and is this pretty, is this one story pretty typical for kind of the entire piece of how they're represented or is this sort of one facet of how women are represented because I feel like that makes a huge difference Can I say something? It's, I'm really appreciative of this feedback I feel like this is challenging stuff to talk about and give feedback on and appreciate the way people are talking about It was so interesting because I felt when we got to that section last night it felt very different than it ever felt before doing it in this room and in the piece in the context of it because in the whole piece it feels like just such a departure at that moment and it feels much subtler it felt very explicit somehow last night and in the whole piece there's almost not so much gender for me in a lot of the piece that we're discovering the space and I mean there's gender in our costumes and then a lot of just how our roles develop and stories come out and then that is sort of the first time I really feel gender very strongly as in that and so I think it's not typical and it just felt very different it was interesting it just felt like oh boy this is it was intense it was a real big change 150U is that I saw gender and it was useful throughout there was never a moment where I wasn't aware of it so it's there I felt relationships more than gender that too I'd like to get back to your question the women actually invent language in the piece early on Tara speaks Persian and she's giving a language lesson to Danielle and it's very funny it's very very funny and then right after this piece they do a scene where they're in a dressing room trying on clothes and they're very mean to each other they're very mean I mean it's women being really mean to each other and then the play goes someplace else but I noticed last night the little particular piece we chose ends very dark and the whole play it goes dark and it gets funny again and then it goes crazy and chaotic and they have a fight and they're angry and it ends on this little up note so the relationship of the women does change a lot throughout the piece well I don't know what y'all's background is but I thought that the male duet was really great I love a good male duet especially with real partnering lists and I think it would be kind of fun if you all continued working on this to play with doing some real weight sharing and contacting them for opportunity because I think that's or if not even just two of you can you lift him can you really do some things on stage when the women start when there's a back and forth that sort of shift back and forth because like I'm picking you up but not you're picking me up I have a question about the process that you worked with because I think this is a a lot of what we're asking now about sort of beauty and grace and things like that I know before you you said well you came up with gestures and then you gave it to him and then you made it more I don't know what the word is it was like maybe more pedestrian or maybe more narrow or something like that and I think that this is kind of the roots of some of this because dancers are great generalizations but dancers touch be very beautiful grace ball and actors are talking beautiful grace ball or they can be awkward and stupid and floppy and a lot of other things be like greater vocabulary which is certainly great and I know this is a generalization but that's okay but I find like working with my company if we have dancers we have to spend a lot of time getting pretty like clumsy and awkward and you know it's probably just their particular training but I really would like to hear more about this kind of back and forth about how you worked together and how you kind of shared this process very American I go back 10 years so he worked with Della Davidson and was choreographer out of the Bay Area and we did a large project together and it was our first I mean I think Y'all actually had already been doing some dance theater but this was the first foray to work with a theater company on top of it and I think that Della and Eric carried this out if I'm wrong but they've been working hard to not be beautiful so they take different shapes and you know they really worked hard and so kind of choosing the right partners is the most important part if we had a classic modern company that we were working with we never would have come up with the same show and it allowed us we've done several projects in between I went there with a net grant to work on the text for dancers which was a big leap and then we invited Eric into this and his contribution became really big and it was backed by Vandalide and the companies were close enough that we could cross those lines very quickly so we could send them gestures they would make it into a form of dance that our actors could perform and interpret so it was really I think the right collaborators it was probably the most important part also the one thing I like is that because we've been working together for 10 years I feel like this piece was really a continuation of the work that Della, John and our ensembles were doing and what I'm liking about this process because I feel like we're still in the middle of anything going for it is that we have these questions that have been fermenting and like we're looking at a lot of the same questions and we've tried them in so many different ways and that feels exciting to go deep and some other questions well a big one about what is dance and what is theater and what are we doing and how do we be human beings on stage and not only technicians and how do we make something that's meaningful to us and the audience has a powerful experience, how do we go into dark places together how do we cut through a lot of the ritual of theater that from a theatrical perspective becomes fairly hollow because we forget where it comes from so for us to go back to theater brought to empty space and say how can we put actors on stage and make every moment real that was really the focus there's all these rituals of deliberated text telling a story all these things, sets and costumes and all that stuff that we associate with and we put a plan on and it's it's very difficult to do that and make it all ideal usually a large portion of it is not and the audience sense that I can speak to that a little bit as an actor this work is a built part of what I usually do always when scripted it's a very classical contemporary and very strict blocking and very strict play analysis and it's very here and very technical and so this for me was a real treat because and also a little bit of a challenge because I don't I am the character it's me pretty much on stage and so my first in the very beginning of the rehearsal process I was confronted with okay how do I not overact myself how do I do that so I was really negotiating my craft as a trained actor into something that was more exploratory and really a treat movement being able to be part of a dance pretty good as well yeah it's a move on stage and I've really been creating you know being you know the corsets looking here it was like it's one of the great three so this has been a treat for me in that respect so we're technically over time I can feel there's Jason in the conversation to continue it until the plenary starts at 3 yeah 315 right now so there are great conversations you should continue them you can even just sit here and do that in case you need to go to the bathroom can I I just I want to respond first of all I you know I apologize for my anger and that my anger would with you that's not you know or what would happen so I apologize for getting so angry and passing a judgment on that when you say it that it makes total sense that it was your story I think we this is as a playwright I get into this a lot when I I write myself characters that are somewhat based on myself in some situation I'm very passive whereas in life we're even our choices to not do something or not passive and so I don't think it's about what you did in that moment I think as it's always hard for us to make ourselves when we're we make ourselves too passive as the character because we see life is happening to us right that's what you do in life oh this happened to me and this happened to me this happened to me but in theater each character and in truth you know in reality we are making a choice every time and we're making an action so maybe it's exploring the choices that you did make and just knowing that it so that you're not seeing it all as happening to you it did all happen to you but you did something whatever it was whether it was to stand a certain way to back away to you know whatever so maybe just exploring those choices I like your anger yeah because one of you know the piece is about communication so part of what we wanted we wanted to definitely make sure the audience wants to clue it into they are communicating to us and we are communicating back and forth a little spoiler alert before we play the game at the end of the play Tara asked the entire audience to stand and sing the national anthem because that's what we do in America we sing the national anthem before games and you should have seen audience reactions to that piss me off you know I mean freaked out and then there are no reactions they would almost get into conversations amongst themselves because some people would stand up and do it and other people wouldn't and then there was all this discomfort about it and it was a great moment great moment I heard something about somebody who was not a theater person per se that brought up a very interesting question which is John you would give him the prologue explaining that there were gestures they were dancified and then brought back he said if I hadn't known that I don't think I would have been as interesting in the gestural or in the historiographic work just bring points to that question in the process how much do we already know about this yes continue the conversations thank you