 Aganza Chisaka, who is a Wonder Woman of all sorts. So we're gonna jump right in today because we have a quote from it and it's crazy to think that we're almost at the end of our series, but we'll relish the last few moments just as we can. So why don't we jump in today? I'll start off by telling us a little story of how I met Aganza actually. Again, it's the same research trip that I've spoken about in the past. I went to Uganda to do some research related to post-colonial performance traditions in 2018. And my acting professor, Catherine Coray, mandated that I meet Aganza because we went to the same school a few years apart and have similar interests. So this is how we met. And in the same trip, she ended up producing the debut that I made in my international directing career and we became lifelong friends and colleagues and we found ourselves producing the sixth edition of the Kampala International Theater Festival and the seventh edition launched today. So the timing of all of this is so serendipitous and perfect. But to tell you a little bit about Aganza from the way I see her, she is an actor, a playwright, a producer, a director, a scholar, an interested artist, a global theater maker. Is there more that I can add to that list without using up the entire time we have today? Probably. But hi, my dear, how are you doing? I'm great. That was such a beautiful story back in time. Oh my goodness. And it's such a strange current period and all of that has happened. Wow. Right. It's not even been three years yet. It's crazy to think, right? My goodness, my goodness. But I think meeting you was such a match made in heaven. We have had a great artistic journey and also social journey as friends together. I thank Catherine Corey all the time. That she mandated you to do that. Thank you for having me on this platform. To have my voice added to these phenomenal women is such an honor. Thank you. This is such a great initiative. I'm excited to be here. Well, we're excited to have you. Thank you so much for being so willing to lend your time and to talk to us for an hour and tell us about who you are and what your practice is. Before we jump in, I just, given the recent violence and the issues happening in Uganda, I wanted to ask how everything is, what's the situation like there? I know you're based in Kampala right now, so I hope you and yours are safe as well. Yes, by God's grace, thankfully, we're safe. Our area is safe. It is quieted down. Sunday was a quiet day. Monday is a quiet day. Of course, everyone is following the news and keeping close contact of their family members, but thankfully, we're good. Thanks for asking. Yeah, I'm glad to hear you're doing okay, but just where I think the entire region at this moment is under some massive political turmoil with BBI happening in Kenya and the war going on in Ethiopia, but really happening in Uganda as well. So thank you for that update. I hope things start slowly easing out in the next couple of months, building up to the election. But on to brighter things. Tell us, I mean, I always love hearing this, right? This is my favorite part of the series because I get to talk to women and I love to hear their stories again, but why don't you tell our audiences present here today a little bit about you and your Jenny and what makes Aganda the artist that she is? I come from such an artistic background. I'm so honored to have that strong foundation, especially on my dad's side, my paternal side, very artistic line of individuals and not just in the performing arts, also in the visual arts, musicians, carpenters, whatever art it is, there is someone in my family who has done that. And so the arts was always around me. I always saw it, it was always appreciated and I'm so thankful to have that as my childhood background. I started out as a poet. My parents told me that I wrote this poem at seven years old and it was really cute and I had aunties who encouraged me to keep writing. Alongside the writing of poetry, I was dancing and I was doing hip hop, I was doing modern dance, I was doing ballet and so poetry and ballet or dance were my daily art form until I was about 18 years old. I never thought of myself as an actor because I believe it or not quite shy, I still am. Most people don't believe that but I think artists in general, to a certain extent, have a tinge of bashfulness to them. They're also some sort of introvert or something. And so being on stage, being the lead character, being the director, producer of anything wasn't my thing. It wasn't what I went for outright. It was just, oh, do you wanna dance? Yeah, sure, I want to dance. Do I get to wear that awesome outfit? Do I get to hang out with cool people during the weekends? That's cool, let me do that. It was not until I went to university that the lady who interviewed me said, you look like a great fit for theater. Would you like to try that? I said, would I get to dance in theater and would I get to sing in theater? I was like, yeah, you get to do all the stuff you love to do but theater, you get to do drama and we think that you'd be a great fit for that. I said, okay, my first class, I fell in love with theater. My director was Ruben Polendo. He's still my mentor, friend and director. And Ruben. Yeah, love Ruben. He broke down what storytelling was for me in such a real way. He has this thing he calls whole theater, theater that is fully visual or all the senses. And he loves, it's whole theater to him. This is his theology. He says, it's whole theater when the audience and the actors have this zinc moment at the exact same time. And it's a feeling in your body and sensations that you cannot express in words but you can only feel when you're in the theater. And I understood that. I understood exactly what he was talking about. And it was the only class. I mean, at university I did theater and psychology but theater was the only class that I did their readings willingly. I mean, who reads Stanislawski willingly and who reads Aristotle willingly or before that I couldn't read Shakespeare but here I was reading Shakespeare quite willingly and I've read it the whole night just because of the way Ruben opened up the world of theater and performing arts to me. It wasn't from the point of view of I'm an actor, I'm a director, I'm a producer. It was this, it was speaking, it was how does your body communicate? How does your voice communicate? Where is the real you? Who is the real you? And let's see that on stage, be vulnerable on stage. And I love that on authenticity and I love the integrity of performing. And I think up until now I still search for that in my own work. So that's how I got started. It's just one, there's just this thing about you where you're never casual. Like this was the first question and you've gone into the exact point of the conversation that we're supposed to have today. So deep, so fast. So let's just jump in. Here I was thinking, okay, I'll talk to you about your university experience then try to tease that out a little bit but you've gone bang in. So how do you, let's go for it. How do you seek to find this concept of whole theater, this zinc connection between audience and actor in your work today? Can you talk to us a little bit about some of the work you've been doing now that helps or that has helped create that philosophy for you in a more robust way in the context that you work? Yeah, you know, Karishma, it's been so hard in Uganda to create that type of theater. First of all, I mean, just the conversation at the theater festival that we just had today. Eric, I was talking about how do we get people to the theater to buy tickets, the ticketing issue? That's still a real, real issue that we have in Uganda. And so first of all, your challenge is to fill the theater or with the people that come to the theater, to the few audience members, how do you convince the actors, the performers to create that same whole theater with like 10 people in the audience? Is it the same feeling? Is there a performance that can exist away from an audience? So I guess that's what we're doing now in 2020 performing without an audience and can we say that we're having whole theater and isn't theater a place where people can convene and come together to share hearts and minds and disagreements and explore their self-identities through how they see themselves on stage or to see the society on stage? It's difficult, but I've had those experiences. So much good work. I guess, let me talk about the bitjodo, which you directed, I produced and acted in. The bitjodo was such a unique piece to begin. I had acted in it the first year and it didn't go so well simply because of the circumstances of where the piece was performed and how it was performed and coordinated at the theater festival. So the next two years of performing the bitjodo I performed in it three years. So the next two years were eye-opening for me because I saw the script in a whole new light and I think the compiler audience got to see the script in a whole new light. They saw it's humor, they saw it's political agenda or voice, they saw themselves on stage and the audience that came back for repeated performances were saying the jokes alongside the actors and that for me was like, ooh, we're doing something in the industry. We're speaking, people are coming to watch theater and they're getting it. Just to hear people in the audience say shh shh because they wanted to listen to the lines. That for me is exciting. It's, that's where I want to be but that's not what I've always had. Platforms like the Compiler International Theater Festival bring that sort of learning to Compala. Bring that, I'm talking about Compala because that's where I am right now. I'm not so sure how audiences are in other East African countries but platforms like KITF and other festivals enable the audience to learn how to appreciate art and therefore come to some sort of holistic theater. But I'd like to, that's one side. The other side that I'd like to say and how I approach whole theater in my own work is my own spiritual journey because I do believe a performer has to perform regardless of an audience. So I can't rely on an audience in order for my performance to be good. I can't work off their energy. At some point, I have to inspire me. I have to speak to me. And that's very spiritual and that's extremely emotional as well. So at what point does the performer unveil themselves to themselves? And it comes with a great deal of vulnerability to oneself in the storytelling. How does this character relate to me? What am I saying to me? What have I learned from this script or from this work that I'm doing right now that impacts me and I can somehow impact someone else wherever they are in the world because I don't know when this work will be seen. And I think that that holisticness in oneself that vulnerability to oneself to admit to oneself anything, whatever it is can create a kind of whole theater or a whole artistic moment that can transcend video and time and the four walls of the theater. It lasts long. I'm not sure if I'm going off too much. You tell me. You aren't. Okay, great. Keep going. This is beautiful. Keep going. Yeah, so there's that kind of whole theater. And my work right now, I've just done a piece called Killing Time this year that has been two years in working. Not because the piece is long. It's because it has gone through rewrites and reworks just showing people and people giving them me their input. And every time I hear it, I'm like, this needs to be enhanced. This needs to be taken away. I hear a voice of a character that I never heard before. And I'm like, oh, let me enhance that part. And so when in writing now, well, let me speak as a writer now, in writing, looking for whole theater would be, is this character saying what they need to say? Now, sometimes I wish I was like, Deborah, Simway, who to me feels like she just, you know, conjures all these amazing words and scripts from on high and then just fills them out. But I'm not like that. I need to sit with the work. I need to allow the characters to speak to me. I speak back to them. I need to hear them. I need to hear actors do them. And then I know what they're saying. I know where they want to go. And I need to be honest to that character. Recently in one of the killing time rehearsals, I heard one of the characters in such a unique way that I hadn't heard them before. And it freaked me out because I was like, whoa, this character is controversial. This character doesn't sound like Aganda Jizaka wrote that character. And that was a really great moment for me because I was not sounding like myself. There is a pressure to always write characters that convey exactly what you believe at all times and at every single 24 hours, seconds of the day. But that's not the case. Art just spills out of you and you need to let it spill out of you because it's a reflection of life and our interactions with life. So to negate one side of yourself and say, I'm only staying true to this path because it's the right path according to your inner ethos and values could create work that is a bit lopsided. It's like, I'm going to create a story of being on a border border from my home to town, but on that border border from home to town, the surrounding areas completely meet void of trash, void of carbon dioxide, void of everything that makes Kampala Kampala. That would make the story lopsided. People be like, hey, but what about all the cars honking and what about the trash bins on this side and what about the birds that are singing at that corner? Why didn't you write about those birds? And so to create an art that is holistic and to write characters that is holistic, one has to bring in everything that affects them in life and let it be what it is. It becomes difficult, of course, when the audience then questions you and says, so do you really believe what you notice? Is that your, are those your beliefs? They don't have to be. They don't have to be, but that's what the character is saying. That's what the work is saying. And if I can be a conduit, that's the word we're using in this conversation, a conduit, a vessel that carries that message that I should carry that, then I should convey that message and let it be that. Perhaps it's not for me, perhaps it's not for you, but it might work for someone else. Yeah, you've really touched on a lot of really interesting concepts throughout your process, both as an actor, as a writer, in your producing capacities as you're speaking about the audience. One of the things that stuck out to me as you were speaking was this notion that not everything is for everybody, right? Not every piece of work is for every single audience. And you've talked about your experience producing the betrothal and with KITF and then also in your own shoes as an actor. If you're not finding the space in Kampala or if you're not finding that sort of connection with the audience, you talked about looking in within yourself to be able to maintain that connection with whatever character you're playing or whatever character you're writing about, how do you, Aganza, do that? What are the things that you cannibalize, so to speak, as your art? And what do you find in your daily life that moves you in a specific direction when it comes to the art that you're making? What makes you tick? What makes me tick? You know, there are some good days and there are some bad days. And thank God for friends who are there on your bad days. Thank you. Great conversations, books, good sleep. But also going out to society. I think the times when I've stopped creating are the times where I've distanced myself from the real world. And I say real world because it's easy to be in your own world and think it's the real world, your own little safe bubble. Like right now, for me with the situation that's going in Kampala, it's not inspiring for me to write anything about it sitting here in a comfort zone in a safe space. I'm not inspired. My inspiration is going to the streets when all the halibut is happening and seeing how it's happening. My inspiration is reading the newspapers and seeing all the contradicting or all the different views. My inspiration is hearing my friends talk about it and seeing the expressions in their face and how they get excited or afraid of another just because of different political views. That's exciting. That's juicy for me. Seeing other people do work. When I see other artists' friends pursuing their dreams and saying they're gonna get through, they don't have funding, they don't have this, they don't have that. But they just say, we're gonna do it, we're gonna go ninja, you know, we'll sneak in at night, we'll steal a few cables, you're gonna light up the place and then we'll be out before they even know it. That's inspiring for me. And that makes me want to write. But then you can't always have that. There are some days when you really need to self-motivate and honestly, it's hard. It's really hard. Sometimes it's just like one line and hours. And then the next hour you raise that line and then you go back. And it's in those moments that a good friend, friendly call really spurs you on when someone says, oh, I saw this work you were doing. What was it about? And then you have to talk about your work and then you realize, oh yeah, that's why I'm doing it. And then you remember. So recently as having a conversation with an artist, we were talking about dance. Saying, why do you dance? What's the why? And I could ask the same question about performing arts, acting and drama. Why do you act? Why do you write? Why do you direct? Why do you produce? And I think the answer to that question has to be unchanging no matter what the circumstance is. If your answer changes or is changeable by circumstance, then you have a shaky, you have a shaky why. But you want a constant why. I write because I need to tell the stories of people. That's an unshaking why. It's stories will be there daily. I now just have to go and find them. Why do you dance? I dance because da, da, da, da, da. But you don't want to why that is tied to something that is going to change. Because once it's gone, it's gone. And then where's your why? Where's your motivation? But honestly, Karishma, it's a hard, motivating though. Your art is hard, it's really hard. Yeah, I hear you. And I mean, I think even in our context as well, right? The notion of detaching our artistic motivation from materialistic gain is so difficult because it's like I'm acting because I need to pay the bills. Or I'm actually an actor, but I'm directing because I need to pay the bills. It's not really what I want to do. It becomes very challenging. Particularly, as I said in our context, because the sector is still so young, it's still developing, the economy is still, it's not as heavily reliant as the state of New York is on Broadway. We'll get there with our own sustainable models. It works in our favor to extend that we are not there because now we can't say that money is a motivator. We can't say accolades is a motivator. We can't say reaching a certain level is a motivator because there is no level to reach. We're creating levels as we go. So it really helps our art scene to search for that inner motivation without it being monetary or whatever. I think in projects where the motivation is work or an accolade, it's very easy to die in mutual work because I'm going to just tweak it so that it works and then it works and then I get my accolade. But when you're fighting for your name and fighting to be known and fighting to create something out of nothing, your work is deeper and that motivation is in a much more secure place. So if you were to tell our audiences and viewers today what your why is, and you can have one sentence for every practice of yours, what's your why? That's my why. You knew the question was going to come. No, actually, no, I did not know. Well, I'm glad I can still surprise you. What is my why for acting? My why for acting is that I love to tell the stories of the individuals I meet and encounter daily. I love to tell their story. Not necessarily my story. I just love to tell that story. I'm like, ooh, look at you fancy character. I'm that person who walks into a bank or any sort of area and I am interested in the individuals around me and I like noticing body language. I like noticing how people are communicating without using their voices. I'm like, hmm, that's interesting. I wonder why that happened. That's why I act. I like looking for those characters in me. Ah, why do I direct? Oh, I know why I love directing. I love watching actors bring characters to life. I love it. I absolutely love it. I love seeing them struggle with their process and then either succeeding or not succeeding and then talking about why they didn't succeed. I love how when you're directing a character or an actor there is so much that comes to the surface and now this is speaking from like psychology. There are just so many conversations you have with the actor about who they are who they are in relation to the character. Why is that even a thing? And then you go off topic and then you figure out that you're now talking about lunch and you've skipped a whole two hours in rehearsal then you have to come back to point A. So I love developing characters in the act. I love seeing people become better people just because of the characters they've played or not played. The rehearsal room is so intriguing to me and yummy. Why producing? Well, producing, this is a good story. To the viewers out there, I started producing because there's such a lady who is on this call, called Karishma Lagani. Told me I should start producing. Oh my word. Oh wow. So why do I produce? Why I produce because, and I've been thinking about this a lot, Karishma, in terms of producers in Uganda and what their goals are. And most producers enter, especially in theater arts, I mean theater film, they enter to get the money. That's where the money is. If you want to earn money in the industry, become a producer. You'll definitely earn more than the other roles. That's definitely a motivator, but I've been thinking about it alongside you and alongside Deborah same way. Why do I produce? And I think this year in particular, it came so strongly to me that I love to create platforms for other people, other creators to thrive. And just like directing, which is a smaller version of that, being someone to come into character, producing is seeing someone's dream come to fruition. And that makes me so happy, so happy to see someone who says, I want to dance and then I create, can create a platform for them to dance. And so I want to act and I create a space for them to act. Oh, I want to sing. And I'm like, here's a studio, go sing. And I can manage their money without them getting swindled or cheated. And I can just make sure they're taken care of as human beings, as artists that need to be loved. Bambi, artists need to be loved. And many producers don't realize how much loving and nurturing artists need in order to create the best art. I like the image of a mom giving birth, like art. So if the artist is the mother with the baby who needs to give birth, you're the midwife who's going crazy all over with like the hot water and the towels, just trying to make sure she goes through it as easy as possible. You're the producer. And I love to do that. I love to see it when young people are done with their production and they're just so happy. And I want to show them a party. So that's now why I produce. What else do I do? Right, why do I write? I write because there's a story that only I can tell. And there's a way that I see life that only I can see it. So I need to write it. So just hearing you speak about your various hats that you're wearing, and this is something that for those that have been following our series from the beginning will have noticed that you can't just be one thing in our context. Like you are all things all the time. And you're sometimes a producer in some context and sometimes a director. And then sometimes you've got to make space for your own work. And it's just, it's so interesting to hear you talk about your one sentence thing description of every part of your practice because in some ways they're so similar, but in other ways they're so different. And that's why it almost needs a whole other craft to facilitate that main goal that you have to achieve. So thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for sharing the why. Aganza, I'm curious. And having known you personally also, I know that these responses of yours are kind of things that have evolved over time. I mean, you're especially like your response about producing. It's something new that I've heard you speak about more recently in terms of why you're taking that on, you know, more hands-on. And of course it's a big, long, tiring, hard journey, rewarding, but hard. For folks that are younger, that are still finding their footing, what would you advise they think about as they confront problems or confront challenges like this where they're not sure why they're doing what they're doing. They're not necessarily being seen in the market. They're not necessarily, a space is not necessarily made for them in the same way. It's a good one. I would advise folks to get under people you see doing what you wanna do. So if it's Karishma and she's doing something close to what you're doing or want to do, find a way of working with Karishma and just humbling yourself and working under Karishma. There's a desire, I understand, in young people to be at the level immediately. But art is a continual process. It's always changing. It's always growing. When you think you've reached the level, there's a new one. And so it doesn't hurt to just humble yourself and work under people, all with people for extended periods of time as long as they're not harassing you, mistreating you, treating you like trash. Stay there and learn and learn and ask questions and learn. If you don't have a place when opportunity to work under people, try little things. One thing at a time, whether if you're a writer, write something daily, whether it's journaling or poetry or reading a book and then writing the parts of the book that stood out to you and just thinking about why they stood out to you and then finding someone who you can share your work with and saying, is this working? Is it not working? When I started writing and I still do this, I workshop my writing. I bring 10 people into a room and I allow them to read it, which is such a scary process because anyone can say anything to your work, but it allows you to hear your work and how you speak and hear your voice. Yeah, so I'd say get under people and if there's no one to get under, start doing the minimal. So don't, of course, you have to think about budgets. So start doing the minimum with whatever area it is, if you're an actor, you start doing actor drill. If you're a writer, you start doing writing drill. If you are a producer, you start following the producers and seeing how something is produced or taking work that is already produced and figuring out how would you produce it? Yeah. And just on that note, earlier you had mentioned, you had said something very witty, you were like, who reads Stanislavski willingly? What do you read willingly that you want to recommend us to be reading at our own will also? Read Stanislavski willingly. I'd say read plays. Read, read plays. I have a ton of plays that I like going through. Some I read over and over again. Some are hard to get through, so I start them next up and then I start again. But if you can get your hands on plays, directing books, whatever genre you're trying to get into, that's what you read or read articles. This year a lot of articles have come out on how to do theater in a COVID year. So read that, read articles of theater and what other people are doing. Read newspapers. Newspapers can be quite inspiring. There's so much theater in New York's paper too. You'd be surprised. So I would say read plays. Our politicians and the government, the politicians and the government, lest I get caught now, but it's like a whole show. It's a whole show. It's, you've got the humor section, you've got character arc. Yeah, so I'd say read plays if you're an actor. Read newspapers if you're a writer. And also other plays and figure out the style that you like. And once you find that style, keep going down that lane of that style. If you're a producer, like a director, you're reading articles like crazy, figuring out what other people are doing, seeing how you can get into contact with them. Yeah. Yeah, that's really, really sound advice. Thank you for that. I think I'm going to start having to read a few more things that I haven't been doing that much recently. Yeah, I think that it's also such an interesting balance, right, of being in a space where you can continuously generate and create content, but then also finding things that can help you move your practice forward. Yeah. And just on that note, I'll ask you one more question because I want us to have enough time for the little gift that you have to share with our viewers today. On the topic of creative stimulation versus creative generation, can you talk to us a little bit about your experience having gone abroad to study certain way you, you were at NYU Abu Dhabi, and then having to come back to practice in a region that you didn't necessarily learn in. What's that been like? And how has that changed your creative generation and creative stimulation in every sense of the word? Yeah, those are things people don't prepare you for. Everyone's like, go abroad, it's awesome. Oh my goodness, what? Yeah, culture shock is real, but I had reverse culture shock. I had the culture shock when I came back. Going was easy, coming back was hard. So when you're abroad, things work out and I'm thankful for NYU Abu Dhabi. It's such a great learning environment where if you need a camera, there's a camera. If you need a black box, there's a black box. If you need to go to a prop shop, there is a prop shop that is fully stocked. Everything was at my disposal as an artist to become the best artist that I needed to be. And when we graduated, they sent us into the world to be awesome and to prosper. And yeah, prosper, you're coming back to a third world country, but that doesn't hit you till you're back in that third world country where you start feeling it right from the airport and you're like, oh, this is how it's going to be. I can't just pick up a phone and say, I need this or I need that and it's there like magic. So the broad experience taught me to work in a cosmopolitan environment. It taught me to understand how other people think and to appreciate other languages and other ways of seeing the world. Artism is a very empathetic field. It's a very compassionate field, especially theater, because you have to place yourself in someone else's shoes. And when you have the opportunity to do that in another country and in another environment, that experience is heightened because not only are you adjusting your mental capacities to the space that you're in, you're adjusting to a different language, to a different look to individuals who just look very different from you to different accents. So it expanded me, it stretched me. It made me so accommodating to and open to different forms of art and how theater could be seen and valued. On the flip side, it taught me a lot about Western art and not about African art. And so I came home with a lot of Western knowledge of how to do theater, a lot of Western knowledge on literature in theater. And so when I came home, I had to readjust and say, hey, what about my people? What, how do we do things here? And at university, I learned how to produce in a Western society. I learned how to direct in a Western society. This is how you communicate to the actors because voila, everyone automatically comes on time when you're in that such a space. And then in Uganda, you start your rehearsal. Do you remember, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt you and just like remind us of the tech day when we were supposed to start at 10 a.m. and we didn't start rehearsal till 1 p.m. Do you remember that? And so we went, what time did we go to? I was just sitting there and you were like, welcome back. We went for coffee because we were waiting for everything to just, you know, start. It's like, oh, it's getting exciting now. Yeah, I remember that moment. I remember that moment being the moment where you looked back at me and said, Krishna, welcome back, welcome back, my friend. Welcome back. And I had no one to tell me welcome back. I had to tell myself, Sanyu, welcome back. And you don't really love it and sit into me in the snow. And so the Western education system of art doesn't prepare you for all those things. And I'm not saying that these things are negative. There's a way that we in the colonial world think that if it's Western, it's probably right. But they're catering for their culture. They're catering for society that works perfectly like that. And so I think coming back here and having to navigate all the nuances of the industry, timekeeping, the hardships of directing, casting, communication, because language barriers is also a thing here. And realizing that the people here may or may not have had such a wide international experience as I did. And so they're thinking, I don't want to say it's narrow. It's Uganda, it's here. It's very specific. It's a very specific one to a specific context. Specific, that's the word. So how do I move them to a place that is more objective, more open and say it can speak? It can speak. I remember the theater festival, 2016, we had an Arab piece that was multimedia. And most of the Ugandans were like, yeah, hmm, interesting. And that's where it stopped. Like how do I stretch your brain without having to take you out of the country? And then also how do I adjust my brain to communicate with you? So I think there is a theater that is, that can work in Uganda and East Africa and Denmark countries. That is as excellent as Western learning, but is uniquely tethered to our cultural space. And one of the things that I've learned with my rehearsals is, you know, you said, you need to say that rehearsal is at 9 a.m. And just know you're going to start at midday. And you need to be absolutely okay with that. And just, you just know it in your head. And when you say you're starting at midday, it means you're going to spend 30 minutes asking everyone, how are you? How are you doing? Or did the border throw you off? Or you didn't eat lunch today? Oh, sorry. Then rehearsals start. And that needs to be in your brain and slowly but surely work can get started. So that was the separation for me. First, just, man, I think the Western learning really expanded me in a great way that I can be useful here. And people said, why did you come back? Why don't you just stay there? And you know, you had succeeded. You had reached everything that we wanted you to reach. But I think God placed me in Uganda for a reason. And I do want to find that reason. And I think I'm more useful to people here than struggling to fight at a level that is not even my level in a country that doesn't even value what I have to save. And yet I have so much to save for this country. Yeah, yeah. I could not have thought of a better way of phrasing it. You know, I got similar questions when I was coming back. And you know, it's very rewarding and very inspiring to hear you say what you're saying about the context we're working in because there is a place for us and this place is here. And I think it's our responsibility as the sort of next generation, the current generation of artists to construct and contribute significantly to the expansion of a creative sector that really is in our hands, right? We've been left with something that is kind of developed, but not really. So we have the power to push it to the level that we've seen, you know? And actually that has existed, you know, pre-colonialism, during colonialism in our own context. So how do we just see what's within us already and push that forward? So yeah, thank you. I kind of now want to switch gears and really just hand you the stage. Our viewers today, we have a very special gift that Aganda will share with us. She has a little bit of an activity for us to engage in together so that we can feel like we are bridging the liminal space between our Zoom screens and really connecting with ourselves for a quick moment. So take us away, my dear. Great. So right now, Karishma is going to become the student alongside you guys. And I will be the professor. No, I'll just be your acting coach. When we're acting or when we're going to perform, performers go through different stages of warm-ups. Some are more intense than others. And I'm going to take you through the least intense warm-up that you can do on a daily. And everyone should just do this on a daily because it helps your body so much. And that is warming up your vocal pipes, warming up your speaking muscles, just centering your body to get you through the day or to get you through the performance. You don't want to have any tension. You don't want to have your breath going through the wrong channels. You don't want to have your jaw in the wrong areas. So sit up if you're watching this and a chair or if in your bed, sit up and let's do these exercises together. So Karishma, is your back straight? Yes, ma'am. All right. So very gently and easily, we're going to take in three deep breaths. Breathe in and out. Now the first deep breath is always the fastest in my opinion because sometimes we go through the entire day without breathing. I don't know what time zones everyone is in right now, but we sometimes go through that whole day without actually taking oxygen into our lungs. We sort of just speak and think it's a normal thing, but breathing is a miracle that God has granted us daily. And I think we should breathe in at least three times a day, really deep breath. So let's do our second one. And this time when you breathe in, we're going to breathe out so slowly until you feel it in your tummy and then your body has no choice, but to just inhale oxygen at the end. So deep breath and exhale so slowly until everything is out. Go, let's do that again. Third time, breathe in. You should feel your lungs enlarge right now. You should feel like they have done a reshuffling of air, which is a good thing. In this day and age when we're wearing masks, man, if you get a chance to take off your mask, inhale oxygen. You don't want to be breathing in carbon dioxide the whole day and then you go to bed and not give your lungs a breath of fresh air and oxygen. So this is a really good technique to get oxygen into your lungs and just expand your diaphragm. You don't want to be like this the whole day. Just want to stay expanded. Next up, we're going to center our neck and our shoulders. Some people go through the day and then they end up being jetted up forward or they get far too back. And they're just not centered. That's me right now. That's you right now. You're wearing a backpack. The one shoulder is higher than the other. Yeah, you're just not aligned. So right, especially if you've been in front of the screen the entire day. Yeah, you start doing all that business. So sit up straight or as straight as you think you can be and just take your shoulders right up to your ears, really uncomfortably and drop them. And up again, squish them to your ears and drop them. And one more time and drop them. Now very gently, take your shoulders up, back and around. You should do this every morning. Once you just step out of bed, this is what you're doing. Up, back and around and up and around. You should already be feeling centered. If not, let's keep going. Okay, take your right hand, place it on your neck very gently. Take your left hand, put it on your left shoulder and just pull very gently. As you do this, you want to keep breathing and relax. Now you can see it on me. This side looks a little lower than this side. It's like a little bit more relaxed. Do you notice that for yourself? Yeah, it's really gently pull. It's amazing how your body gets so unaligned. Great. So this is some little things that actors do to open up their shoulders, open up their diaphragm and to get their vocal cords free so they can do rehearsals and speak clearly. I could show you more, but that's just show the work and like neck work to free you up. Now, since I'm already stammering with my words, let's free up our jaws. So there's this little thing over here and over here that gets clenched so often. If you chew gum a lot, you just do that. You can see it moving and that's your jaw muscle and you need to massage that. So if you're having a speaking engagement or if you have a Zoom meeting or if you're going to speak on stage, you want to massage your jaw because chewing often or speaking often brings a lot of tension to your jaw. So clench your jaw. You can bite your teeth so you can feel the plenched jaw and then just massage that area. Great. Now my favorite, which is still the jaw area, is this part right here, which is in between your neck, like this tendon right here and your jaw line, it's right behind your ear and on the other side as well. If you open your mouth, you can get really in there and just massage inside. Yeah, if you want to be very gentle, sometimes it's painful. Some people who have a lot of tension in their jaw and some just go through it really simply. How is it for you, Karishna? It's less tense than the back of my neck but my neck is so tense that I can actually feel it here. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So once you've got your breath in, your jaw is warmed up, then you can go into other stretches but I already feel like my voice is more clear just from breathing. So you can do this in the morning. Yeah, let me hear you say hi. Yeah. Yeah. Shall we do this session all over again with a clearer voice? Hi, my name is Agandjit. Hello and welcome, this is just the beginning. Yeah, so that's all I have for you today. And the two tips, how acts is warm up. Thank you so much, Agandja. That's lovely. And folks, if you joined us in this activity, I hope that if you're wrapping up your day like we are here in East Africa, that you have a way to unwind and for those that are starting up their day like those watching from California, from those sides, hope that this is something that you can incorporate into your daily practice. With that, I want to say thank you so much, Agandja, for joining us in this space today and for really showing your insights and telling us about your process and your practice as it spans all of these wonderful, wonderful parts of your artistry. Before I ask you my final question, I just also want to thank Rafael and Lucy, who are our Kenyan Sign Language interpreters, and Julia, who's our American Sign Language interpreters to the entire Howl Drowned team that has produced this one-of-a-kind series that has both Kenyan Sign Language and American Sign Language interpreters and to the Tiberi Arts Foundation and the Ruby Musical Theater Initiative for co-producing this series with us. So before we sign off, Agandja, how can we follow you on social media if you want to get in touch? What's the best way to learn about the work you're doing right now? Great. Thank you so much, Karishma, for this conversation. It has made me think about how I talk about my art. I'm like, hmm, I should really find how to speak about it more often. And thank you to our Sign Language interpreters. It's such a joy watching you. It's like a performance all on its own. It really is. Yeah, thank you for this opportunity. You can find me on agandzachisaka.com or on my Instagram, Turquoise Lush. Turquoise is my favorite color, so Turquoise Lush. On Instagram. But all my platforms are Agandza, so just look for Agandza and something to show off. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. And for those who missed the conversation, you can see the recording on our pages as well. Well, we'll have a wonderful, wonderful evening. Thank you, everybody. Please join us next week, same time, same place, Monday at 8 p.m., East Africa time. We will be speaking to the Lam sisterhood, so Lora Kumbu, Ann Mora and Aleya Kasam will be joining us and we'll be talking about collective authorship as part of the creative process. So thanks, everybody. Have a good night.