 Okay, so we're going to be slowly getting back into our seats. Are you ready? Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you. Yeah, I know. You're going to talk a little bit. Okay. So everybody, Robby is convening her conversation on community activism. And after that, we will be having a celebrate party. So, somebody once said to me, you can do this, but I can't. And I thought, whoa, whoa, why bother? And as we were just talking about, how do we do this? How do we break barriers and live together in the park? When and if we want to. How do we make spaces for our own to go with family like a baby was talking about? Do family dance? And how do we break the heck out of that sometimes? As much as you can or as long as you can. And how do you find other spaces to enter and other families to enter? But there's another space. Space where no one is. That space where you're not restricted around culture and politics and store the empty space. And I think that's a theater space. The space where you can enter and make something that you didn't know before you got there. That's the work that I thought about doing in going to different communities with questions, opening dialogue, and sometimes making plays, creating poems. And the latest one was here in Boston. Boston Fasting De-segregation Project. You know I'm going to call you the other day. I am so full. I couldn't come yesterday because I was at a retreat of facilitators. And I learned so much of that retreat. And I have to say I talked to Robbie before I went to the retreat for the first time since she left Boston. And I realized that I had been grieving. Robbie's leaving Boston. And for parts of this today, I didn't think I could do this without crying. So if I start crying, it's okay. But I just realized, hearing her voice, that when she said she was leaving, I thought this is the right thing because of some of the health challenges. And I just said go. And I didn't know what a deep, deep loss it was. It wasn't a loss. We talked for a really long time. We talked so long that we couldn't get together for dinner. But it goes back to what Daniel was saying so much. And we put up this picture. This was our very first story circle that Robbie brought story circles to us. She had us over here at Emerson doing things. And this was our first story circle. And the Boston Boston Designation Project was so much about grieving. And the refusal to grieve. And at the workshop, at the workshop I was at, the retreat I was at, one of the leaders said that he talked about leadership as stepping across a threshold into the unknown. And he said it's not man's room. It's not so many things that get confused with it. And you don't need somebody else to do it with you. It is stepping across that leadership. And I thought that is Robbie, that threshold. That is Robbie. That's the work. And that's what was, to me, the most important thing about our project is that, you know, if you look at how great people were into talking about what that meant to them, you know, it's just so, it was just so, the deepest moments were for me the most important. And finding ways to bring the art of conversation, of sharing, of storytelling into a space like Robbie was able to do was so much the soul of the project. And I, because I marveled at first night's supper, just how she would listen and make that space for people to speak on things that they said. We were told not to talk about this or, you know, I've never said this before or whatever, but the whole thing was making that space available. So I have so many things that have come up because I just can't tell you how much Robbie, how much he brought for leadership. And to the project. And to, well, let me speak for myself, to my individual life. So even when she left and I said, I didn't know I was believing, now I'm getting some clarity about it, like you do with belief. And one thing was that it was a part of an understanding that the work I wasn't doing isn't the work I need to do right now. And I think that a lot of times that, that stepping into the unknown is saying that. And what I think Robbie does is help you to do that. And so I'll just close with another quote that really has always guided my work I haven't seen since he said this, but he said that in a time of a dying culture, our work is to be hospice workers to what's dying and midwives to what's being born. And that's always stuck with me. And to me that's the essence of Robbie's work. She has midwifed us and she has helped us let things die, but needed to die. So wise. Paula goes back because another project that I did was called CHERF. Boston Boston is about that subject matter. And what was it, 97? 96, 97. We did a project on the well-known, infamous history in Boston that no one was talking about outside of Boston. Everyone knew that the contemporary school children and everyone never talked about it. And she talked about the school children didn't know about it. It still really don't know about it because it's not part of the formal, even DPS is not part of the formal curriculum. Other sites of activism, so-called activism and efforts to integrate so forth are part of the curriculum. So cities outside of Boston, but not in Boston. So it was another so structural way of containing that story and reifying the one that was presented as the model. I think in terms of the impact for me for CHERF, sometimes I'll quickly say, I was doing my doctorate at UMass Amherst. So it added a year to my doctoral process because I had a chance to, I just couldn't resist it. I had a chance to listen to people, tell stories about race and class, which is part of my work. And he introduced to theater. I was a singer. I had no frame around thinking about theater in however I defined it. It was a part of my trajectory. So my gratitude to Ravi starts right there instead of opening up that pathway for me. I'm really having a hard time thinking how even how to sort of lock, concisely talk about this, this whole experience, this particular conversation because this has been so rich. I am so filled. Donna was asking if I wanted to go see Get Out. She won't see it again. I haven't seen it yet. But, you know, I had already planned it. I just need to go home and just sit. I cannot take Get Out right now. So please forgive me because I'm really trying to sort of lock into this particular moment because now being here filled with all that's transpired and the love is still circulating. So I guess we tried one other thing here that TERF gave us a chance to hear stories and to think about our own story which is obviously very connected to so much of what we talked about. You know, I had a chance to voice particular memories of my grandmother. All your family weren't slaves. They were businessmen and doctors, you know, this kind of thing. And, you know, that always sort of messed with me about this bougie kind of thing she was holding up. I remember Tom talking about going to see cows. Tom was one of the other actors and he was from South Boston. And I still remember the preciousness of his words when he talked about going to see cows for the first time. So there are these moments, these feelings and connections to that experience that are still, can I say that, 20 years? I don't know. But it also, the TERF also laid the groundwork about the importance of stories of others, of your own story. And I don't think I'd ever gotten that message as clearly before. I mean, other than sort of family, familiar family histories. So that which has been talked about so much here, for me was introduced by Robbie and the TERF experience and then amplified through the Boston bus and desegregation process. Donna and I had known each other for many, many years. We both were around VU in 1973. We came to Boston. But we really had a chance to really directly connect. There was something we knew we liked about each other and sort of respected and so forth. So as the director of the program she had come to see me and wanted me to be involved. And I just got really hooked. I just got really hooked because it was this way, we need to get these stories out because we know that this history around what we were referring to as busing, which we also wanted to reframe, say, the desegregation. Because it was the Boston busing desegregation project because we kept hearing stories about how much people, especially in Roxbury, were saying this wasn't about busing, busing was a strategy. And it didn't start with busing. It didn't end with busing. It's not paying attention to this long legacy of activism with the Black community. So the idea of that particular era was reframed as a result of the stories that were collected through Robbie's influence and through the real purpose of the project. There was such a complimentary nature to Robbie's gifts and the initial framing of the project which was truth learning and change. It was taken from a reconciliation model, actually, the people that funded it were really working on reconciliation. As Donna was moving this and the people that she started to pull together around it, we realized that it was... we weren't looking for reconciliation at that point. We weren't ready for reconciliation. We really, to hear more of these truths that had been buried or dismissed under the guise of, well, we already know the history because didn't you read Common Ground? We heard that a lot. Didn't you read Common Ground? So this reframing, the power of reframing that bigger story through these personal stories became... I don't want to just trivialize and call it a device, but it became really integral to some of the work that... how I saw myself in my own future and my work with teachers because I'm sort of known in teacher education, working with teachers around issues raised in class and in culture and all that fun stuff. So, but that, I think... I'm trying to connect the dots about the power of Robbie's influence and the... as an individual and in the community that you brought together, too. Regina's not here, but she was going to be here. But, you know, there was this... this being a member of a cast, a group of people coming together became very special and I still have very fond memories of those moments, even just remembering the way Tom said, cows. When I see cows, I... you know... and there were cows. I mean, there's... Yeah, so just cows, you know. So I guess it's the storytelling, it's the community and the loving nature in which we all interacted and the affirmation of the power of our stories, whatever those stories were, it certainly was bringing up, I said, some contradictions in my life around the race class stuff. And then it's extended into the Boston Buzzing Decent Project. Nancy, you want to share some of your thoughts on that? Well, I came late to the project and the story circles are pretty much... and most of the story circles are wrapping up. There were other things going on and I was just volunteering in the office to help out in any way. And then we started... we had come up with these seven questions, seven lessons from all these story circles and interviews and all the talk and conversation. And we were going into this new thing that was as hard to explain exactly, called Race and Class Talkabouts, that was this idea of having conversations that were based on those questions and lessons. I'm sure someone else can explain it better. Anyway, so that's how I got to know Robbie, was because Robbie was involved with those talkabouts and so the big thing is that we would get together to have these conversations among ourselves about what we were going to do at the talkabout and that was really a great experience of... Well, for me it became the third space. It became a theater event and we decided to add an audience to our talking about. And Donna brought up mainly we were talking about race and we had that conversation that was similar to one that's, you know, overhearing today about is it race, is it class? If you talk about class, are you dismissing race or whatever? And Donna came up with we needed in this country race and class literacy. And so we brought up how hard it was to talk about class and we haven't really quite got to do an easy talk about in terms of class but we did a significant theatrical event at Sister Mary's Church in Roxbury and we had a theatrical partly improvised partly retelling some of the stories that we told each other in proposition and dialogue and including the audience. And I remember one moment at the talkabout when Nancy looked up and stood up and said, now you talk. She's got it. We had two other people who were very involved, Joan and Trina were very involved at different times in VVDT but what Cardina was one of the talk about people and she had to leave. She said, I'm sorry I could not be here Robbie to speak to you as part of the talk about group about your contribution to guiding us in this process of collective learning and storytelling and performance to address systemic racism and class literacy. I can't entirely capture the wholeness or expanse of it. One of the things I have received from you is your presence and beingness connected to the practice of whole body listening. I was talking to a member of our group about the calm and stillness of your presence. Just being in the flow of the moment paying attention to your own and others feelings and what's happening in the space. I'm an impatient, she underlined that person. So I want to get where we want to go or trying to go quickly. You've taught me you've taught me and modeled for me being present and listening closely and generously may be slower but we will learn so much more from each other and create and carry a richer bag of goodies better than we could have imagined when we arrived where we are and she put it in quotation marks where we are going. Donna also gave me the concept or the possibility of community education outside of established institutions of education how those things connect was something that many of us have talked about for years college, community and arts and in many awkward ways we're doing that but the idea of calling it community education is something for me that's very rich because we tend to think of education as having levels and then when you get to the highest level you get the hat on and then you know everything that's when art starts I mean I'm retired this is my highest learning point so the idea of continual learning I just still agree I saw what you were saying because the other thing that I love about Robbie is that she connects and this is what we do looking at systemic racism or systemic oppression at any point she connects what's going on with you with what's going on with your relationships with what's going on with the institutionally connect with the larger global system but she does that she just lives that so we were talking the other day and I think like that too not in an artistic way but in my work I think like that and so it's like Robbie can talk about something that a lot of times people don't talk about so for example from doing anti-racism work which I do a lot and they had done before the election a lot in very white spaces in northern New England I knew Donald Trump was coming I just knew it and everybody was saying oh he's not going to win really so I sort of taught myself what I was feeling inside seeing in the world and I was like okay and Robbie won't let you do that so when he won so when he won I was so happy to get a letter back from the same retreat where I written to myself and said I hope I'm not right because it's like again I think it's something that you teach to just go with where you are even if it's getting embarrassing crying off the stage or whatever so you know and so that was a big part of it but this whole brief thing that David Robin that we've sort of been talking about so I was talking to Robbie the other day and she said just tell me about this article she read in the New Yorker I don't know if people have seen this but it's about these billionaires who are investing all this money into living forever it's it's mind boggling and again it's that place of what we'll do to avoid grief and loss and death and dying and and birth and you know it's like something we've got to come to to charm with but you know that's it Robbie won't wear any place with you that was a bit much with that article because I couldn't put it down but I was like whoa this is weird when I ever thought that was weird I just I think I'm thinking too about the synergy of Robbie's relationship with his project the you know there was truth learning and change truth and learning being a lifelong learner we were so that was part of the language and the vision of the project initially and so I'm seeing connections in terms of this particular artist way of being in the world that was so complementary to that we were in the I don't know who could be in and would appreciate being at the learning network because there was there was a bunch of us that we had our own subcommittee assignments right so this was the learning network and our work was to to think about ways that people could take could engage in the the stories that initially actually was part of a video that had been made interviewing some people that had been involved in the on the buses or driving the buses so forth and as a catalyst to these ultimately these story circles but we really wanted to think about the learning process for people and making some assumptions about how people that had been schooled to think of themselves as repositories of information outside and so we had these very animated conversations among us around this belief about drawing on your own experience bringing your own stories to it so again it was very much a complementary to the way Robbie walks in the world and the way we were sort of structuring ourselves and then as we changed the structure of the project in sort of standing committees in this exactly overwriting committees so forth we dismantled those particular committees but the passion that was held among the folks that were involved in this learning network group really still would top up the conversations over time and we're back to the learning network it was a validation about the importance of the work the rightness of the work and again I'm again trying to make connections to the way Robbie walks in the world and the synergy with that and I guess I just want to sort of throw out the point that Charlotte was posing Charlotte was posing in other comments about how we sort of have to do it for ourselves how we hold ourselves accountable how we create our own relationships organizational relationships to bring forth the work that has integrity and is honest so I'm also feeling like something in a relationship that way this sustained this extended relationship sustained itself over the years with all of the activity that you were doing in and out but there was always this sense of connection with Robbie about that we felt and we knew she felt so there's something I think that could be explored too about how do artists find those parents that are mutually satisfying mutually enriching and I'd like to think that there might be some other things that we could talk about that might pull some of that some of those possibilities up for others A lot of this has to do with where you are where you go and there's there are different points of view in community theater in the teaching of it and the practice of it about going to a place and staying there going as a catalyst which I would prefer to be called if that is worthwhile understanding the limitations of that being in the place that you're from or as many students that have had have come to learn more about the principles and go back home to introduce and help change and since I have chosen in my circumstances to move around I feel like the work for me has to be catalytic although when I was here I thought I was going to be here and so I felt so much more bonded and and as I said we still are with Marshall and with with the the DDP I feel some kind of long distance relationship all the circles are broken and it is true and the thing is it's like it's a little ways away but it was that there was something else and then you have to go through that process to know that you have lost you have lost something but that's not the biggest thing and I think too it's just the way that you are so conscious and intentional about what you do about where you put your energy and sometimes it might mean you have to move here or there that movement thing that everybody is talking about but you just do it with such and I guess the word is authenticity and integrity and that's what I that's what I want that's what I'm working for working to get and not leaving keeps you from getting it it keeps you from really really wise action I wonder if you want to talk about those questions that you were bringing up going back to the subject matter around differences you brought up seven questions oh okay of the two questions you know who am I here there were other ethnic groups in the circle but so you're really on the spot today I'm not sure which questions you have about race and class or how you brought up the seven questions seven messages that one the subject matter of race and class well I was saying that we were kind of wanting people to engage around the seven questions but it seems like you're thinking of something else talk about what it means to be a white woman in this oh yeah like this feels like this feels like pressure yeah it's been there were times when I didn't really feel like I belonged to be in the group because well for one thing we're talking about histories that oh in like a situation where like segregation of the schools and also the lack of quality public education for everyone I mean some people have it but not everyone and especially in the communities of college there isn't there are some schools but it feels like that resources are not put to those schools and there's other dynamics that play into it so in talking about those things it sometimes feels like I don't really have a a place to talk about it felt like yeah just like I don't know what I can bring to that but I also like hearing the conversations yesterday there was at one point somebody was talking I can't remember which conversation it was but the importance of having this dialogue oh I think it was when you were talking about sugar oh yeah differences different stories that need to be told Joanie brought out that it was different for black having diabetes because the social and cultural but also the were different no I think it was no I'm sorry it was a conversation with with Cindy yeah yeah with Cindy where Cindy was telling how she was telling her story and how that that's what it was so yeah so both you and Donna really worked with me to be to find my own truth and to speak my own truth and that was an important piece something I keep working on to figure out what's my role with working for quality and health education it's also interesting to think about well we really do love each other this group it's really a wonderful place to be and it's always food too but also with Nancy I'm reminded about the ways we've been reminded about listening and breathing and my deep regard and respect for Nancy's work in a variety of different community settings makes me sometimes capture my energy instead of say Nancy you doing this and you doing this and you doing this you know just get over that and so I'm publicly reminding myself to sit and listen to myself about why I want to get her to get over it so I guess it's the opportunity to practice it's the opportunity to try to create spaces where people have opportunities to practice that so I'm not looking to say that because she's doing some wonderful work and to see serious business about but that's the space that's been created gives us ways of giving ourselves permission to practice and because of worlds of people the different worlds of people that I've been in contact with who I've been in contact I keep thinking that a lot of work is being done in terms of finding ways to talk to each other and break these barriers but I'm beginning to think especially with the election and so forth that I may live in a special bubble everyone up here each of you and all the rest who have worked with us are all day every day activists in this community Nancy does committees and work in Black Lives Matter and all kinds of youth who brought in more youthful members and of course this is her work and Paula in an educational level this is her work so these are the folks I know you know and all of you who do this kind of work and I think isn't this the world I'm there in the bubble we're in the Black Lives Matter Are you ready to maybe Are you ready to open it? Yes I do What do you mind and particularly nurse Could somebody just briefly describe exactly what the project is like have you been thinking like how many people have been involved I'm sorry What is this? It started out as a project to figure out why in quotes Bussing kept coming up as we were trying to get Black parents more involved as you were meant was trying to get Black people more involved in public schools and a lot of those people that they met were around very reform for that involved everybody but a lot of people traced things back to that started with their distress around the massive incarceration system to that time and so a lot of people who had been directly impacting we did a little film called Can We Talk and then we used that film to ask people is it important to go back well first we asked is it important to go back to that history and they said yes they said yes and so we said it was all inquiry the structure was inquiry so they said yes if you connected to what's happening today don't just go back like it's a history lesson you have to connect it to what's happening today so we did that and then we used the film to ask the question how is it related to what's happening today and so people mentioned three things that we focused on racing racing class equity like excellence and access and access and so then we used then Robby brought the story circles to go to places and have a story circle where people would talk and we used a lot of different prompts but basically it was a story circle model and then we tried I don't know quite where we are with it but we need to talk about that to do to then do a curriculum around race and class literacy and education so we're sort of in limbo about that but we talked to hundreds of people in different settings either interviews or story circles or the talk about later you know so using the we came out with three reports and using those reports so that we archived the stories we're archiving the stories with Northeastern and also one of the things the reports you talked about unfinished business seven questions and seven lessons and we scored the questions part because when we had a press conference about rolling out this report it was really designed to be something that could be very accessible and used by a lot of people the Globe reported yes they've got seven questions and seven answers and you know it's like it's just you know they don't get that part yet and we wanted to affirm the value of it being open to questions so and then some people we started to design some workshops around the use of that document going back to some of the community groups churches and so forth to try to see what would happen when people engaged in those questions and lessons and Robbie I know that you did a series of community theater pieces one in Mississippi, one in Buffalo and then one in Boston and I saw the one in Buffalo which was about the race riots and it happened there and nobody wanted to talk about actors interviewing to try to get information and then I think the one in here in Boston you did this project really sort of a follow up to that and not about just using using the story circle format in order to talk about the community history and charged issues that would be the language I'd use and each place has been a little different and in fact there's an article that Marie Ciarri who produced that project called Primary Sources there's an article on what we would call a process for doing that work and so we got in there started doing something and defining it as we went and found some markers to guide us but each time it was different and to talk about calling it that because the process for us became a way to talk about things that were hard to talk about and here is the first time I thought about and we came to it together I began to think of talk about as a form of theater that literally tears down the wall I will take two more Deborah and David I have a whole bunch of questions one is just what's next are you that are going to be in Boston thinking of another version of this project or are you content is it being archived and this is an archive there's no product no I know that is there another inquiry plan or not we don't know but we've changed you know I think it is like theater or have come to understand it from Robbie it's like we've been changed as actors in the project and so who we were when we started isn't who we were who we are now and so I think and we've had this this party with Robbie leaving and so we have to look again I think we're in that part of the grief process where something new starts to emerge really going through it and that's the good part about it right something has to die right David and I just want to point out one of the best experiences I had with Robbie is going we went to David's workshop called Love Driven Politics and that was transformational and I think that's really what what Robbie brings to work it's very love driven you know sometimes it's tough love it's it's a very very it's just loving she's just really a loving person and that's what that's what brings transformation quicker to me whether it's on the death side and dying or on the birth side and birthing you know you have to know that you're loved and to me that's Robbie I'll just say briefly that Marshall and I were chatting before your session about the experience of isolation how so many folks feel so isolated and then I hear through the practice of your storytelling and the community making transformation you know that all of us were feeling dispersed like a diaspora you know get called home so that you know when you call a community together you're calling people home it's that transformation so you don't have to be an exile you don't have to normalize exile that home can be home can be ours home can be ours the power of Robbie's the power of her work is that message and it's not just her message but it's a message that she empowers all of us to speak beautiful thank you now we're going to we're going to be ready in about six to seven minutes with