 Hey, how are you doing today? Good. And did you see a show this afternoon? Yeah. Or anybody seeing a show after this? Yeah. OK, good, good. My name is Abigail Vega. I'm the producer of the Latino Theater Commons, which, in association with the LATC, is helping produce the 2014, specifically, all of the kind of tertulia events that are happening around the Huenthru. We're hosting nine events during the month. This is the very first one. And it's going to be moderated by the world very quickly. He's going to introduce himself shortly. But I just wanted to give a few ground rules. We are live streaming back here, so if you have questions, please speak up. I'm trying to get another mic in here, but first-person, I'll speak up. There are also at least one other show still going on upstairs. So people are going to be filtering in. It's totally fine. That's when their show gets out. People may filter out because they need to get to another show. That's the beauty of working with a festival that has 10 shows a day. So we're all going to be very understanding until the end of that. OK? OK. Cool. All right. In addition to this space, we also, the Latino Theater Commons in association with HowlRound, the LATC, and the Latino Theater Alliance of Los Angeles has kind of cleaned out and is starting to archive things in the vault, which is go up these stairs and towards the bathroom. You can see it after this tertulia panel. And that's kind of the place where we're holding and housing all of our treasures, all of our kind of collected works. Dr. Tiffany Enolopas, Dr. Borgui Guenta, and Dr. Chantel Rodriguez are the curators of that space. And I encourage you to check it out after this panel. All right. That's what we're going to do. I give you Jerry Carpley. Hello. Really, really excited to be part of this discussion today. I thought we might best facilitate this by giving you some context for the folks on stage. Just very briefly, I'm a writer and performer. I've had solo shows produced by Red Cat and The Taper. They've toured around a lot of several universities, working on a project at The Taper now, talking about the Irvine Foundation, creating dialogue between communities, communities of Lerner Park, and Montabello. And I'm writing an opera currently just with Philip Blast, who just presented the first movement a couple weeks ago. So that's what I'm doing. Now, our artists and performers here were all incredibly accomplished, and three of them have solo shows in the festival. So I'm hoping they will tag on something about their solo show at the end of their self-introduction. Hi. My name is Ruben Gonzalez, and I'm here with El Diablo Campesino as part of El Guento 2014. And my solo show is called La Esquerita USA. Hello. I'm Karin Answati. I'm a solo performer. I'm really provost of it. I am an Ecuadorian extraterrestrial. Capricorn is a permanent resident alien. So I'm really an alien agent from Her Majesty's Secret Salsa Service, with a license to transport diverse performance art across state, lines, and international waters. Some jokes I do just for me. And I'm performing here. I'm grateful to be here. Performing aliens, immigrants, and other evildoers, aside from Latino and non-Solo performance, looking at the persecution, the current persecution of Latino immigrants, satirizing the idea of the immigrant as an extraterrestrial, and looking at the dehumanizing monitor of the illegal alien. And at the same time, looking at that legacy of demonization within the United States of the immigrant other, through a sci-fi prison informed by film shorts, and many of the personas and characters I play are actually inspired by interviews of people I did who shared with me their border crossing stories. The piece was commissioned by Gala Hispanic Theater at the National Performance Network, the Archea Cultural Arts Center, and the Mecca Community Center. So it's based on, it's also inspired by really beautiful movie stories of people across the border. And in the Milky Way, it's a Jose Torres. It's his name here. I didn't mention it. Thank you. My name is Juan, Enrique Carrillo. I like to say I was made in Mexico, but born and raised in East Los Angeles. That makes sense to me, and I'm going to be back. I hope it does to you. And so, I'm a founding member of East LA Rep, a creative space here in East Los Angeles. I've acted for many years, but in the last two years, I've done a little switchover to solo work and writing. So I think that's why I'm here. I also teach elementary school in Los Angeles. Hi, I'm Marisa Chivas. Oh, let me pick this up. I want to be, like, all crooked. I'm with the Cal Art Center for the Performance Duente Cal Arts. And my show is called Daughter of the Cuban Revolutionary. I'm going to be part of the festival the last two weeks. Let us start with you. I really think that, and maybe I'm going to give you a full shift in your role, I think that a large number of solo shows, for whatever reason, seem to tend to be focused either aesthetically or emotionally on moving towards something or moving away from something and the feelings associated with that movement. Whatever it is, whether it's a kind of normal plane somewhere or whether it's a war that you never were part of or want to be part of, or whether it's apparent, but it's about distance and space and how we relate to it emotionally. That's what I think when I see solo theater that really resonates with me. Is that context of the conversation that's created, the emotional conversation about spatial relationships and the time of this thing? Does that play out in your? Yeah, it does. And interestingly enough, I was thinking about this a lot as I haven't done the show in three years. I've done it in five cities, three countries, two languages. And when I started the piece, it was very much excavating and claiming my family's stories and history. And both my parents were alive when I started the process and now they're both gone and actually fairly recently, my mom. So the daughter part is very different now. I'm not a daughter of anyone on this earth right now. And as I come back to the piece, I've just felt this, those spaces really shifting for me in a big way that, and I'm also not claiming that history anymore, I've claimed it. So there's another kind of opportunity it feels doing this piece now and especially as part of this festival. I just got emotional. It's so meaningful to me. When I got the phone call from Shantel that I was gonna be with this group, I said, you have no idea what this means to me. So it's toured for seven years and to bring it back home and to share this completely new place of claiming this history or revisiting this history to audiences who have not heard the story is really exciting to me. Can you talk a little bit about the relationship or if there is a relationship between the space of the writer or the characters and the things that they're talking about and imagine. Because it almost seems like it's like a north, south kind of old thing where they completely attract, completely repel and very often powerful solo pieces illustrate that effect. Well, thank you. I'm very honored to be here. I feel that definitely I like to just oppose the different scenarios that my characters are living through based on autobiographical experiences that I've had. Because I like to play with space and time as well, I tend to want to see how the opposite could possibly be versus what's actually happening or what happened, playing with the imaginary and kind of like weaving it through. So I think that definitely there's polarities. I like to see how the characters swim, how I could do different things with them depending on where I put them. So throughout the eight years that I was working on the show and I'm working on the show, I discover new things all the time. And so, yeah, it's very telling to, towards my experience, a very profound wave sometimes of self-discovery that I never thought I would be able to experience solo work, but throughout playing with the characters and putting them in one country, putting them in the other country. Whether it's in Argentina, whether it's in Paraguay, whether it's in LA or in Moreno Valley. Just seeing how that stretching, what that does to the characters, what that does to me, has been inexplicable in ways as an actor, as a writer, but as much as I'm limited in expressing myself with words through my solo performance and experiencing through my body, I think it's, it's the best thing, it's really great. I don't know if I answered the question. I think there should be a solo work that features most something that's a little sharp. Sharp, I'll try to keep it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. When you have characters in a piece that some are closer to what is being discussed or felt to talk about, and some are maybe further away, I don't want to talk too much on this, but the space between those characters, I imagine, or their relationship to the event is well-deformed. And why do you pick different characters speaking about the same topic from a slightly different angle? What is revealed by creating that in multiple characters? Sorry. No, no, no, it's interesting, because I don't, I mean, everybody's process is different, right? And to me, I'm slightly crazy, right? As we all are, I'm sure. And so, I don't sit and say I'm gonna write a show, you know? I just allow them to come to me, because sometimes it's like physically embodying them. If their physicality comes to me and the voice comes to me and they'll say whatever they need to say. And because I write in flurries as opposed to every day, so I just allow them to speak to me. And I like, there's a character in my show and I've had this discussion with other people, it's Sunshine, you know? She said something else when I first, when I first embodied her and her voice came from. But it wasn't the right thing to say for this particular piece. But the character was right. And so I had to revisit her and I just, I just sat in front of the theater at the other copasino where I live, where I live, and I said she's gonna come to me. And so I just sat there as her with a pen, you know? And then just one thing happened to me in the monologue just came to life. And I find that when I'm writing characters that come later on in the process, they find their space in the show. You know, it's crazy the way things come to me, but I have a lot of voices in my head. And so they tend to come at the time when I'm writing this thing. And they create their own space. And they're emotionally, they might be in a different place and there's one character that drives a soul show. Well, at least for mine, I don't tell stories about my life. These stories just come to me. And so that one character that we're following, each of the other characters around them, they usually find a way to break that person, that big character's perspective over. And that creates either space from what he's learning or she's learning or from what she needs to learn. So I don't know what to answer the question with that. There's a, it's an emotional space that that I think you're talking about or you're asking about. So the characters kind of inform each other emotionally. Yeah, or they inform the lead that they're circling. Right. And that from their perspective, that lead finds either their redemption or their forgiveness or whatever it is they're looking for. I was going to ask you, why are you a theater artist and what is there unique about being a solo performer that attracts you to that area of the theater? Why do you need us to do this with your partner? I've got nothing better to do. I'm trying to chat with some voices. It's funny. So I come from the visual arts and creative writing. So I'm very interested in creating like very many performance artists in the older schools. My mentors are Guillermo de Mespinia with Desmond Jones, Tim Miller having to be some interesting California brilliant performance artists. I feel like that performance artists can sometimes use a personal story and be an intrepid practitioner to use the personal to explore some universal ideas. But coming from our, inspired by the work of people like Guillermo and others and even Karen Finley was a visual artist, right? And when I first saw Karen Finley, she gave me permission to rant and rage because I love the way that she just threw it all out there and actually costed the patriarchy that it costs women in general in this country. So for me, performance has to be very visual as much as it's driven by poetic texts because I also come from a spoken word, the New York Weekend Poets Cafe when I was in New York. Because I was born in Ecuador, I was raised in New York and I make my home in New Orleans. And New Orleans is my news. That's where I became a performance artist. I started putting visual arts together, literature together and street theater. For many years to support my bad habit of making esoteric performance art was very political. I juggled fire on the streets of New Orleans and I did Comedienne de L'Arte and I toured and performed as a comedy juggler in Comedienne de L'Arte all over Europe as well. So, and I studied pandemics, all these things come together and the driving force above all is how the personal story is really much more universal. So in the program it said that the theater artist is alone on stage, we're never alone, it's always collective. I mean, you know, this piece, The Aliens, Immigrants and Other Evil Doers because of the funding from the MPM. I've got John Bringsley who does my entire lighting design. He's the brilliant lighting designer I work with in New Orleans on numerous pieces. And I could say to John, here's the script, John. I want sci-fi Latino noir. And John's like, yeah, sure, you know. And he comes back and he's like, boom. It's there, you know, my video artist. My music, musically, Billy Atwell was there. It was really beautiful because Billy Atwell and I have been collaborating for 20 years. He does all the soundscapes on original music. And then there's Cloudy Corporal, the classical vocalist. And we have the sci-fi videos, the video vato that I use, his name is Bruce Frantz. So it's all collective, you know. And even, you know, we have a mirror, we have the text. It's never alone. And I think that for me is also that collective ritual, right, because you may be, I consider maybe the performance artist can be a catalyst for some possibilities. Does that? One, let me ask you, very often solo performers that is a work I've seen, I know personally, not always, but they're often operated from a space of perceived kind of responsibility to the storytelling or people in their past, people that are older than them, elders and generation and young people that go up around them. How much does your relationship with the community that you come from, how much does that weigh into the work that you create as an artist and what are some of the ways that it finds its way in and what it does? Can you repeat the question? Where do you live? How much of an impact is that on you? Well, I mean, for me, this is a new thing, the writing thing, and I think, I started writing about a year and a half ago, I took a master's class with Luis Alfato, who I love and has become a mentor and is brilliant and I love his style and his work. Well, one thing he said, I remember he said this right here, he said, right, the story that needs you the most, right? The story that needs you the most. I thought that was, because remember, when we all got there in this class, there were several of us, we all wanted to write the sexy story, we all wanted to write the funny story, we all wanted to write the dramatic story, right? But he said, keep digging, keep digging and find the story that needs you and then going back to the community, I mean, I think when you're new to writing, I think that's very natural to kind of write from when you come from that, I think that initial burst of writing, very often, I've noticed another writer seems to be like that story of your neighborhood, that story of where you come from, that story of community, the same thing happened to me in my first piece, Suenio Sefrase Flakes, it ended up being about, I wrote it from my dad, it was from my dad, but it ended up being about me teaching in East LA, but also what that means, right, what that means to be in East LA, to have your foot in East Los Angeles, put your other foot in Mexico, right? And all those two worlds kind of collide and combine and collaborate and mess you up, and also make it kind of cool and make it different. So you know what I mean? So in that case, that show is all about the community I was from, you know, and just kind of owning it, you know what I'm saying? Not making it precious, not making it, because you know, it isn't in a way, it's just who you are, you know, so you're not anything special in a way, like everyone is special, you know what I mean? But it's who you are. But I think for a new person, at least from my perspective, writing does tend to be completely who you are or where you come from, like you kind of explain that. Let me ask you, you've done a lot of work in traditional theater and, you know, legit television and stage and film, and you've also done extensive work as a solo artist. What is different about that reservoir of working as a solo artist? What's special, you know, when you go swimming down there in the bottom of a little glass of gold or silver, what's down, like, why do you return to solo in addition to the other genres and platforms that you used to work with? I'm crazy. It's terrifying. I mean, it is, there is a terrifying part of it, but I mean, I agree with Jose, we're not alone, right? There's all those characters that are up there with us and the team behind us. I mean, I think there's something about mining that those resources where you can do all that shape-shifting where, you know, you hold the story, you have to hold the stage. The first solo show I did, I didn't write. It was written by the Colombian writer Roberto Dorado, and it was an hour and 50 minutes, and it was a very heavy subject, and I felt like, you know, I had hyped Mount Kilimanjaro, like anything after that. You know, part of it is the challenge and part of it is the way in which, especially if it's something that I've created, that I'm sharing that, which is deepest to me, which is the story that enacted me and won't let me go to sleep because I have to write it down and get it out there. And also just knowing that as a storyteller, there are things that I'm going to be able to do afterwards that, you know, expand my resources, my abilities to such an extent by just holding that stage. Let me ask you a little bit. There's a... as a multidisciplinary artist, including working music and hip-hop, there's a moment in freestyle where, at its best, the entire world just falls away and it's you in the moment that's turning the world around you into art. It's timeless for this kind of moment to happen. And I really see a connection between the type of beauty and freedom attached to that improvisational work that's a step around you. And what happens on stage and solo shows is because the level of focus and commitment that you muster for anywhere from an hour, half, two hours, it's a very neat space as an artist. It's very rare that an artist were on for one to two hours and just in it. And the only other experience I've had that seems so much to me is in terms of freestyle. Do you find a unique kind of freedom or a unique feeling associated with the intense focus of being on stage for an hour and a half or two hours? You know, yeah, it is a certain kind of high, right? I mean, it's like, you know that once those, that first sound cue and the lights go up, and once you get on the train, you have to ride it away. You gotta go, you can't get off, you gotta go and things can happen. But there's a... That reminds me of the way I write and the way I live my life, I think. I mean, just taking it all in and I'm on this train and we keep going and we keep going. And yeah, and this particular piece of mine right now, if you listen to it, it's very musical and there's a lot of rhyming in it that happened on accident. I wasn't trying to rhyme the lines. They just came out that way. So in performing it feels that way because in my director game, I came up with some really brilliant transitions with physical transitions and the show never feels like it stops. It always feels like one thing's molten to another and it molds into another. And I think that's the way freestyle works as well. Freestyle and I write in a freestyle kind of way. I don't style it. I tend not to edit it. I just allow everything to just kind of... You know, it's how it doesn't work or if that's worked or whatever. I don't know if that's your question. Yeah, there is a high freedom of free flowing. Because you're like, oh, what is this? Ah, what is it? Thank you very much. I'm going to ask this over to all of you and you'll have a moment to prepare for a moment. One or two solo shows that you saw that really had a tremendous impact on you? Oh, I saw Eric Progosian way back in the day banning ekmanals into the floor with my forehead or into concrete with my forehead, something like that. And I just watched him and I was just so amazed by just how easy he was. You know what I mean? And the characters and what he talked about and what these characters said. And I remember leaving that going, wow, man, that dude was cool. He had known who he was and I was dating this woman. She bought some tickets and she said, maybe let's go check out this guy. And so that's one person. And I love George Carlin's stand-up. I just think he's brilliant. I think he's just awesome. Just the stuff that he talks about and the way he finds a little place where people go, you're right. But it's your right. You know what I mean? And I think he's brilliant. People like him and Richard Pryor are great storytellers. People like that. And so I think it's the stand-up comedies that I think are even more. They're just more out there because they don't laugh. And you're done. And so I'm too scared to try that. I got a lot of material, man. It's crazy, man. At least the other ones you can see, you know. But I'm not sure they have their acts, too, but... That's interesting. Yeah, especially comedies. Right, those are two of the best storytellers. Yes. Have a couple of one or two solo shows that you saw that really had a profound impact on you. What? I think Lily Tomlin definitely had a really strong impact on me because first fall, she's a woman. And she's also lesbian. And I didn't know that she was lesbian when I saw her until later when I asked her out, I was kidding. Actually, I saw her at Rio Hondo College when she came and I got an opportunity to see her live with the universal... I'm really bad with names and titles, but it's the universal life, universal something, right? Yeah. Okay. And I hear it out there. And I just think, like, wow, like to see her be able to be out there on stage by herself in front of a lot of my colleagues and people that I respected, that majority of them were males and I was like, oh, wow, this is... Not only is it like brave, like she's talking to herself on stage, like, what is this? I was like 18, but definitely just her... just what she's got. I was like, a little baby. I mean, I would see her on film and I loved her and I didn't know why, you know? And then, of course, Jonathan was humble too. And I saw Freak completely change my life because I was going through, like, I was around that time, 18 and 19, and I was, like, starting in theater and I was, you know, classic work and everything. And when I saw that, I was like, wait a minute, he's Colombian. He's talking about his crazy-ass family on stage. Is that why you're dancing? No, that's just, like, the Latin thing, I think. All right, I'm not playing the stereotype, it's just because I don't know what else to do but dance and just move around. I'm sorry, last minute to recent days and I don't want to do that too soon. In a show, I think. Yeah, so I don't know. The dance that came later in my development of the show was just maybe words and some movement and stuff. But also, stand-up comedians as well. Just, there are so many stand-up comedians, but I definitely, like, throwing myself out there on stages is, like, dang, that is probably, like, you know, it's definitely, like, the hardest thing ever, right? So the solo work is, as well, the hardest thing ever. But anyway, yeah, those are a few. And I love who he is, because he's a mentor of mine as well and I just love the images that he presents through his words and his body. So. So, by the way that, for Jerry, he asked, you know, I've been on panels with him before. He asked such brilliant questions right off the cuff, right? So let's just give him some crude ups there, right there. Because he's always, like, you know, he's so cool. In the very pedestrian way, he's like, you know, can you deconstruct your show and tell us about the ghost that influenced your work? So, performance artists, you know, I've always been a big fan of comics. A big fan of Freddie Prinze and Rihanna, you know, just love them, bringing the Latino. The Chicano, for me, you know, I have a very Latin perspective. In performance art, Guillermo de Mespinia, Rodessa Jones, whose work really influenced Kevin Finney, I mentioned, Halle Hughes, Tim Miller, you know, these are performance artists whose work I've got a chance to see live and, you know, very influential in terms, again, of how the personal story can be used, you know, and offer a larger political context, right? How the person can move it into the universal. And for us to be able to, you know, especially performance art in general, when we look at what's happened in the last 20, 30 years, it's been a great platform. And I saw Freak, and I love it, you know, I saw it up in New York, and I loved Mambo, Malta, Rihanna as well. But it gave a platform a lot of times to artists of color, you know, and, you know, David Wozniak, one of the first artists, performance artists who railed out against the Reagan administration and he died of AIDS. So, a lot of artists, you know, gay, black, black, gay, right? So, Latino, brown, Asian, right? Yeah, you know, American Indian. You know, I love the work of James Luna if you've ever got a chance to see him. Really brilliant people that have used that, the performance art platform, to really bring other stories to the stage. You know, because if you look at, you know, the most beautiful thing about this entire festival, and I was like, here we have, it's historic, right? I was hanging outside, and I was talking to Kita from Nephi, and I was thinking, when was the last time I was at a national Latino deal at the festival? And we were thinking, it was sometime 15 years ago, I remember, I couldn't remember what was happening, because, you know, generally, across the stages of these United States, you know, our brown bodies, our Asian bodies, our black bodies, you know, our gay and brown and black bodies, our Native bodies, we're not seen, our stories are not seen across the stages of these United States. And here we are in 2014, and I find that very problematic still, right? So, I think that performance art can be a really great platform for other voices to be heard. What do you want? I'm going to say, I have two. I'm going to say Adelina Antony, who I think is amazing. I remember I took a group of teachers to see Adelina Antony, the tortilla show. But after, I think Adelina's so brilliant because, going back to your community, the question about community, because Adelina is there, culture is there, forefront, right? The Korean is there, her coach is there, everything. But it's also freaking good, right? And the point is that it's freaking good. It's really good. And I remember after the teachers saying, I wish I was Latino, so I could understand the jokes better, you know? And I'm like, I know, I get it. I get it, but it's so good, like you make other people want to kind of wish they were the new more of your world. And I think that solo work really could do that, you know? Because it's a more direct conversation with the audience in a way that you can do as an actor, right? So kind of making people want to wish they were part of your world because you write about your world, right? You write about your world and then people want to kind of be in it because you make it that way. You make them want to be in it, right? So Adelina Antony for sure. My other one is Tim Crouch. Anybody know who Tim Crouch is? From England, I think he's amazing. I saw the artist in the oak tree and he's from England as a guy and he messes more with the audience, right? Which is something I would like to explore. Like, when I see one of his shows, I feel like there's danger, you know? Like, there's a little more danger in his shows. Like, and especially if you've seen the artist, like, oh my goodness, that's just a trick, right? But I know in the second piece, my second piece is called Los Ambitos de Locte. And then I remember I was thinking of Tim Crouch because that sense of like, can you make the audience feel... I don't want to say uncomfortable, but just like, there's a little danger in the air. You know what I mean? I'm attracted to that for some reason, but I would say those two, right? And you say danger because that's exactly everything changed for me when I saw Roger Winterson. And he knew the story. This was in the 90s. He was in Baltimore during the show. I was doing a show there and the way in which he embodies history and just when everyone in the audience thinks, oh, I know what this is, he turns around and goes, you know you don't, do you? And complicates, he allows for a complicated view, which I really appreciated his work. I mean, besides being a master storyteller and an incredible mover, it's not like you can pay it. And I love that as well. No easy answers from his work, you know. But incredibly old and important stories that need to be heard, that need to be told. And anybody know Don Saito's work here? Okay. Amazing, amazing actor, performer, a Bouto performer based in New York and her physical work had a huge impact on me. And, you know, I kind of, as you asked the question, I was like, oh wow, yeah, I love mixing, you know, Little Don and Roger. I also loved John Luziano and Spaulding Gray. This is really important. Out of the desk? Yeah, just sitting in a desk, you know. The answer about Nichols, when I said her show, you know, she had broken her knee and her solo shows sitting in a chair. So those are all, and Vicki Price and her solo work. Fun time. Where has solo theater not gone or not gone as strongly as you'd like to see it in the future? What direction would you like to see solo shows continue to develop and not necessarily for a specific show, but broad in terms of aesthetics, the type of support available to stage these shows? What do you see the future of solo theater being and what would you like to see? Oh, me? Oh, boy. Oh, my God. Sounds great. I mean, it's interesting because I have a playwriting initiative that I oversee in class of part of school, in class of part of school history, and you know, the point is not to have playwrights necessarily, it's more, you know, you can have an idea and have it made manifest. But on occasion, there's somebody, there's a real artist that comes out of his program and they do it in nine years with the same English teacher. Started off in a school in Highland Park and when he moved and helped found that school, the program went with him. And I, there's some kids who graduated from that program and who are in colleges and who don't want to give up their, they want to continue to be theater artists and they haven't found the right place or the right way of bringing together their ideas. I notice a lot of the young people that we're working with are really interested in the interdisciplinary thing of how they can take a visual idea they have, a movement idea they have and some text and put it together. And there are a lot of places where they can put that together and I'm actually trying to create a kind of lab here for that for people like and thinking of a couple of particular people who come from this program. So, I mean physical space and support and artists of different backgrounds being able to support the solo artist's vision of being able to put this stuff together. It's not easy to find that things are so compartmentalized and it's expensive. Without the help of the right kind of grant you just can't get those other collaborators to help lift the project out of, which is great and Spaulding Great, I don't know if you can tell a great story but I feel like there's a whole other level that could be explored in terms of transdisciplinary communication, collaboration that I'd like to see happen. What would you like to see in terms of future solo theater? Where do you think solo theater America is going? We really want to just limit it to our shores. But where do you see solo theater around the world going in terms of what's interesting to you? What's coming down the road that you're connected with that you think might sustain your artistic cultural interests next year? I don't know, I don't think I'm versed enough not to really answer that but all I can say is I agree with you about the spaces, you know? I do think we need more spaces to explore solo work, you know? For everyone, I know I'm carrying the move with Luis so we saw the numbers dwindle down, the people who started the class and who finished but that's okay, that's natural so then you have to have another one because then the next one may be one or two and then the next one is one or two so I agree with that but I would always just say about solo work is what intrigues me and I'm going to go back to Tim Crouch I do feel like that solo artists are trying to find different ways to interact with the audience one of one of Tim Crouch's shows is in a museum so you go to a physical museum and then you watch the art pieces and it starts to show it was very interesting to me so I feel that solo artists are trying to find different ways to involve the audience in an experience versus I'm here doing characters and watch me, I feel like solo artists are trying to push that in a different way I'm saying there's a theatre is just basically for older white people that's what I read earlier today before I started the show where did you read that? Fox Music I like what Stuart called the Bolshevik Nationals Bolshevik Mountain Bolshevik Fox but they're real strong structural realities that theatre companies are up against large institutions medium or small and one of the real continuing problems of theatre you see this as an artist you go around is that we rarely create theatre that appeals to young people rarely create theatre I'm not showing you theatre I'm talking about theatre for girls that isn't written it's a real group of folks almost exclusively there's like a default posture that makes it difficult for work that resonates with young people to be brought into theatres how do we as working theatre artists do what we can do to contribute to having this all processed? this is what I mean I love the default posture I'm going to remember that so a couple of things I want to answer that but also when you were saying Marissa so when Eric Bogosian says I'm not a performance artist because it was actually a playwright but the economics because of economics not being able to put together his work in New York he decided to play his own character it was an economic thing I used to work with an improv theatre group in New Orleans but only few are willing to make the long distance run when I did my comedy Japanese show I also used to do a duo comedy Japanese show throughout Europe but sometimes economics brings us to the point sometimes I come from a pen or a poet and I begin writing I have an idea the story that wants to come out so we have to figure out the strategies and really out of economics I migrated much more towards the solo performance work now I also work with a lot of youth and I think that's the best audience because if I'm not kicking it for a young people's crowd and I was also writing about the migration of hip hop and theater when it was all happening in the mid 90s and I'm very familiar with the work of universes hip hop theater junction seeing poets like Sarah Jones when hip hop theater into full-fledged shows there are the audience that needs to tell you what's up I was just at Cal Arts and I had a great time because I would begin each class with an excerpt from the Alliance piece just to be able to deal with what we were going to explore that evening that particular workshop and if young people can't you know if the workers and turn them on for me they're like the best audiences it doesn't turn them on but then something's not right I think that what's happening is that we also have a Eurocentric power structure like within the United States in terms of what controls theater that has created and established venues where theater has become really taken hostage by that Eurocentric power structure and the arts as well so therefore we have had to create our own spaces and we're still dealing with that in general so I think that the future can be a lot brighter if we make sure that generations are continuously being cultivated and you've got to look at the forms what are the forms that I'm a hybrid genre form my visual arts spoken word films, personal stories documentary work and soundscapes and all these but at the end it's a real live personal story and ritual I think is really important but the economics are tough so only with that grant from the National Performance Network was I able to when that happened that was the first time I was able to hire folks who had volunteered for me before or even put the show on my credit card and I noticed that nervously I scratched my ear because I remember that I was like I'm picking a show with my credit card but when we got the funding then you could help build and create something much more powerful audiences for me if they don't get it then I'm not doing something well I agree, yeah when young people want to get it I was like what the fuck am I you design works to see the opportunity in your solo business what the hell is that I don't know do you think about making your work we're not like writing for audiences generally I don't know how to describe anyone's process but you know you write for a reason and you write for it but in terms of presenting your work and your work connecting with audiences is it a consideration for you to try to cultivate particular audience segments or do you find that people are probably the youngest person on the panel is there any of this I think there's a problem with getting young people we're not often making no matter what we want to commit to ourselves we're often not making theater that is appealing to young people and I think generally as artists we all need to be better at it we're working towards it generally there are always exceptions I think generally when it's solo work and writing and processing that and like what's the gender what's going to connect with people generally it's very universal it is universal there's something there so I think like discovering what the story is obviously it's like what's going to drive people through but also just I think like really working with different types of forms and different ways and interesting ways like exploring them like turning them inside out movement like space and really just like flipping it upside down and just like hey what are we going to do with this big ass room and just through solo work through the collaboration of all the different artists I'm working with or that we work with yes the funding it's like ah but it's I think exploring things in different ways is really interesting to me because I would be like oh this is a plastic bottle and so how I can make this you know something else and then also talk about the politics of having plastic water bottles and I think that to me is really interesting because I I think it's like solo work is so important because of the politics we can really bring to the tables and but not in like we're talking about this so I think young people will be like more intrigued by how we present it and how we explore it in ways that perhaps have been done before but they have never seen because it's through your through the solo performer and each every one of us is unique so so I think in that way I'm exploring music you know I love that you're writing an opera because like this speaks to me because I'm exploring music in so many different ways and I'm coming out with like all kinds of like wow you know when I was a kid that's what I wanted to do but I was so like no this is not what I'm gonna do no my voice is not okay so then I'll do this I'm gonna be a psychologist or ah this and that so and then finally it actually comes out it comes out somehow this dream this this seed inside is somehow manifesting out somehow so I don't know that's part of like how to reach out to young people and how it's important or how to how to tell stories in a way that you are making turning yourself inside out and now being scared you should put me on there and say turn them off we do the young young young young young do you think that there's any do you think that the issues facing theaters are something that there's a space for you to address it or think about or include it in any way in your work as a theater artist or as your work as an artist you just kind of like operate a little vacuum or reality around us I don't know what that question means not being honest I'm so stupid do you think that the pressures of our presenters they translate into your work no because I don't have to first enter I just write I mean you write because you have to because the story has to get out do you apply to build your work appeal to a particular audience do you who are you trying to speak to no I don't because I usually I'm so so much of a solo artist in a way that I call up university like clubs and go hey do you guys have a spot in my first equal to mile or whatever right and that's how I kind of do things I don't have a booking engine I don't have personal connections to theaters and so I have to create connection with a school or something to say can you bring me in and so I don't have to appeal to anybody in that way I just have to say what I need to say and what I'm seeing in the world and what's affecting me and what's coming through me and going back to the young adults I'm blessed that this show really connects to young people you know and I've done it for a lot of how do you short connect young people because it the lead character is a senior in high school was dealing with drugs was dealing with with violence was dealing with the economic downturn and how it affects him in his life and he's dealing with issues that I think most young people are dealing with right now why did you choose to write because I was like a lot of actors were substitute teachers you know auditioning and I was asked to take over what they call opportunity room you know it's just the students and the sweat hogs they were the sweat hogs you know I was getting caught right and that's an old reference yeah so so I had my sweat hogs you know and you know I was supposed to have and I had for ten weeks and I was supposed to have and I ended up having like seventeen students and pretty much from different bodies so they were all from different games you know they were in a different way and there was one particular student that I that was kind of mentoring I was trying to and he was very intelligent but you know at the end of the day after the ten weeks I found out that you know he'd been doing speed and he'd been just lying to me and I was going and bending over backwards for him and so it's about remembering my conversations with Daniel so you actually talked to young people more no I don't talk to them I had them in a class I tried to talk to them I used to go to the zoo it's important excuse me for a writer I think is to talk less and listen more I think when you listen more and you put yourself in a vulnerable place emotional and I think the world around you and what's happening will come through you and allow you to write for them for me it's like I like to find where the pain is and where people are being challenged so we can find a different world and what they're going to do and I think that's sort of what this piece is about I'm just switching it a little bit and so I'm trying to with the young kids that come and watch that they know when you're bullshitting they know when you're lying and so doing it for the 10 a.m. show for magnet students who are all smart and just really respectful it's interesting but one young kid he was the only one who spoke up and he said that was real to me I know all these people and it was the powerful thing about solo shows and especially when you're doing different characters they could just be fascinated by what you're doing and watching sweat and they're fascinated by that like wow how does somebody remember all that or whatever how do they do that how do they physically become an old lady and all of a sudden you're an 18 year old kid or whatever and so they that's the power of solo shows like you know if they're by yourself if you're a young kid they feel like they're by themselves they think they live in the world by themselves and they've got to make all these big decisions and when you can connect with that it's something that's real to them that's what you've got to do I was just going to say that it's interesting because I know when you're supposed to play it's going to get published next year and actually a young theater for young audiences book but I never ever even considered young audiences I mean that was completely not in my brain at all right but someone thinks it is so that's interesting like do you write you know do you write for that audience I mean I can't do that I think I think it takes a lot of skill to do that like I'm not there yet like I just wrote what I had to write what had to come out and it happened to be in that world that's great so but I do feel though that that you're responsible at least to for young people at least to be connected to the world still as much as you can to know their metaphors and you know what I'm saying like I have an example because I talked for great last year and I would always talk about Harry Potter they have no idea who Harry Potter was they didn't know who he was and it was shocking to me but then I was like okay so I have to know who Liberty Snickers is right at least they're responsible and I really think that they're responsible to at least keep up with the world not necessarily right to them but at least keep up with the world that's going on in that way I also feel like I've been a little surprised by some of the responses to the work that I've done that young people have responded to really positively like I think we have to be careful about making assumptions absolutely and I remember something at the Latino Theater LA Latino Theater Alliance in July who works in TYA and said you know they don't want to be talked down to they don't want to be I mean it's even in the summertime I work with high school students 10th, 11th and 12th grades and there's this like real slow exercise that I do and I always worry because they want to do the fast games and big crowds and stuff like that and every time I do that slow we want to we wanted to so I try to keep that in mind as well but I don't want to make assumptions I want to know the references and I want to keep the work vital but in some ways if I'm working from a passionate place, if I'm working from an honest, truthful place they're going to hear that connect with them as individuals and everything else follows I know we are are we okay with time? we have like 20 more minutes are we doing Q&A? I think I'm going to ask one more question we're going to jump right into the audience audience Q&A you are hired Ruben to fight one person Harry Potter, Obama, Romney quick Harry Potter, Romney, Obama sex, fight, kill which one? sex, I had to say my wife what's the other one? kill kill, my wife not kill, I totally can kill, not a bum Harry Potter, everyone knows that you've got that long Harry Potter's the answer fight fight the power I really I want to thank you all that the panel members are really enlightening in spite of my diatribe in spite of that digression really enlightening panel and I'd like to open up the discussion for comments or questions for the panelists from the audience a process question for those of you who have worked with directors or generally work with the director can you talk a little bit about this book for you, for example do you meet and talk and go away and rehearse the work and come and show and critique there was a director there all the time can you just talk about that collaboration if it is existing for you I'm just speaking to my directors right there I'll usually write whatever I wrote and then I'll hand it to him or he'll look at it and he doesn't want to read it because he has too many other things to do so he'll read it to me so we'll sit there and I'll read him this diatribe and he'll look at it and that's very good at editing so he'll just go but then we'll just kind of work with the script then he'll have these questions through line questions and such and such and then from there he knows me for a long time so he knows I need to physically get up and start playing with it like that and we'll work on it and then for me as I'm also still in the writing process I'll say alright you know what let me give you a couple days to go back and kind of I see something now that I didn't see before he usually brings light to something and makes my train of thought go oh I didn't see that yeah then you go and clean it up and then we'll come back so it's kind of like that backing for me yeah I guess I've worked with different directors and sometimes I feel like I'm in a box or I'm like strapped in so it's really important like this relationship I'm exploring what it means to be maybe perhaps through my movement, direct myself it's been a very spiritual journey for myself working on my work and I'm also exploring what it means to work with different directors so so I don't work with directors per se I work with a group of eyes of collaborators that again it all depends on really so much we got we got a good support for the funding for aliens that we were able to do shows like basically like performance reading of it in front of the Latino community, African American community the white community in New Orleans and hear feedback and just hear what people are waiting you know and those really helped me and so you know some memorized even when I did it in DC some memorized and some performed and just dealing with a topic where we brought day laborers and I do one of the day laborers stories in New Orleans I perform one of those stories because it's based on film interviews bringing them into the theater bringing what they need to do bringing the African American community John Grimsley who's my lighting designer he'll say you know and he's very democratic we have this great process and just hear feedback and get to a particular place so that the honesty and the inhabited personas characters are there in their most raw form early on and maybe polished a little bit later but also you know engaging with the audience as you know the pieces also presented to young people because I also teach Latino the other project in New Orleans and bring Latinos and African Americans together not perform for them and you know hear what they have to say and it's really important so a lot more of a other eyes other than just working with a director we're doing a new project called the aliens the other project where I'm working directly with director Dr. Mukherjee because of our synergy and our interest and it's a collaboration project and Raquel Almasan a very well known playwright in New York and Fish performs on herself but I met Miami we'll be performing and we'll be working with the director but we're also looking to engage three different dreamers in each city to have them tell their own stories and how we bring their stories to them I've been to meet many dreamers as well and I'm going to see how to use the voices of the community really in a very Augusto Boal kind of way for them to be able to be protagonists for their own stories can I say something about that for both shows I've worked with Alejandra Cisneros God bless her she's directed the whole time and it reminds me it was interesting because I had, there were both commissions so I had a deadline by the way there's nothing better for writing I don't want this but both times it was very similar she would not let me rehearse until the script she felt the script she became the dramaturg in both cases actually she would not let me rehearse until we felt the script was ready and then that first show it was done to ten days before I got on my feet so I was terrified but now that I think back on it it was fantastic because the script was ready you know what I'm saying the writing is the most important the writing, the writing, the writing if the writing is ready it's there then you can take it from there yes, hi, I'm Yusunga and I'm a I guess I would call myself like a three-year-old Soda performer so I was wondering what types of grants you all would recommend or programs that admission you if you have a beneficial because it's it's very acceptable to use obviously you all understand girl work so this is for anyone I'd like to know that answer too I think I'll just very briefly say that I'm always more absolutely shocked than anything else when someone writes a check to support something I'm doing I'm always like oh my god I can't believe these suckers went weird again and I don't I mean that just from the sense of that money's so rare and hard to find it's just so weird that I don't put much energy or emphasis on it but it doesn't completely discourage me from doing the work so I just kind of do the work and you know you meet the folks you need and the work resonates and which I know is exactly what you're asking but he wants to know I was giving you the checks I Keenan and I are the recipients of a large grant for just over $600,000 an institutional grant for these projects working on paper but that was just luck I mean in all honesty I have nothing to do with me it was a great grant writing apparatus and those folks at the taper and I wouldn't have even known that grant existed if the taper said hey I want to work on the illness so I kind of think that I'm just crazy about money and weird shit in my life and I don't like to think about it so it's easier for me to focus on the work and on occasion get it lucky and connect with an organization or an individual institution that might support it at least that has been what my process has been so then what would that place be I mean if you guys can name anything I mean in terms like if it is grants or if it is a theater company that you found you had a really great relationship with that supported the work supported solo performers who is that and I'm asking because I'm currently transitioning here I'm going to LA soon and I don't know anyone so this is like such a great introduction to build relationships and I'm very excited to meet people I just know the people that interest me right so I go see your show and I'm like wow that's awesome I just go and talk to that person but maybe it's a two minute conversation nothing goes further than that I'm not in any way strategic about it I probably should be but it's just what resonates with you know you lose a lot of support just in it I feel very fortunate and again nothing happens on one's own above all make the work make the work, write the work, do the work just that's you know it's a long you know I used to be a long distance runner and one of my mentors African-American the arts it's a long distance runner you've got to make the work now I will say that I feel extremely fortunate early on and I was the only I'm performing in the streets you know I'm doing stuff in New Orleans and I'm working with Joomba Productions which is a national performance network company and I'm doing stuff with the CAC things that started to get seen I used to perform at bars and coffee shops right like many of us did in those days and almost like the way stand-up comics did in many ways I got very fortunate the National Performance Network back in 1994 to exhibit to present the first piece that I toured national and international called We Are Patriots With Dark Faces and I was showcased at this National Performance Network Conference in New Orleans and things happened Guillermo Gomez-Pena John O'Neill happened to help support the work as well and you know I started making connections now I'm also a renegade scholar so I've always been writing about work and I also made connections with many scholars you know there are networks but the National Performance Network for example Highways is an NPN site here in Santa Monica LACE is one of the other organizations and look for funding you know TCG has individual funding grants and I can give you some more specifics but the NPN actually cultivated a lot of performance art voices some of which I've mentioned before Dan Kwan, Tim Miller Odessa Jones Holly Hughes even Philip Gladys both the Red Cat Studio and now Festival that's all local artists who like theater has been a really great supporter of a lot of interesting stuff the Center for Cultural Innovation has both grants and really great workshops for artists just to name a few but here an actor said I shouldn't allow you to speak I want to say part of it is the resources the question how do they find the resources to do your work and sometimes I think so performance is actually happening in the context of a much bigger company or community and the reason why Ben has been able to develop his work is because he is a member of the Catholic Episcene as an artist who has given over 20 years all of us in the company said absolutely we're going to work and support you in your personal vision to have this become real in your case you're part of the theater company just because you're going solo is your relationships and your networks are important because you have a bunch of supporters that will help mobilize the resources to make your solo work happen it's not just about the grant it's about the resources and ultimately the power of our relationships and so that is also we have to remember solo work happens not just as individuals but there's a network of supporters who are going to be right behind you and push you and somebody said theater is never a collective enterprise excuse me and that is true as well I have to say as a woman I feel connected to anyone who's doing solo work that's a woman just I would say if I could offer anything just see your vision and just stick to it and be as detailed as possible and it will come I know that sounds like that's not the one answer you want but I just have that question so I just want to say that everything everyone's saying plus just really have that vision and it will happen intention but there are grants and you look at TCG individual grants again some of us feel I feel very fortunate because there's been a collective tribe of people that have helped to support the work that I've been doing I mean I met Jorge back in 1995 when I always said that Leone was at the center of the Grand La Raza had seen me in 94 at the NPN and brought me to Centro and UCSD I met all these amazing people I met the Board of Arts Workshop people I met Richard Blue I met that whole San Diego Collective and again you know we helped to create tribes of network and support and right here we have a beautiful tribe of people that we're getting to meet each other and the resources you have to look at the whole tribe of people I have to say we remember the reason we're here because it's all about networking and we're not going to meet here in the back and tell another scholar throughout the course of the event we're documented we have websites we don't have to we don't have any policy about being on solo work we don't we don't have anything else to do we don't have anything for madness but it's true we need so it's about getting on you're going to be here in LA people here are very involved that's why we're together since wherever we have OSOL OPPOMO and works available in that question but as I was listening to you talk I thought we really need to have a solo performance of an editor and a drawing tour of a public shadowing of Anthony's work and a slip of the tongue by listening to Arthur Fire other playwrights but you know I think it's really all we sense all the artists need to have a scholar who is like a designated key worker at their work and they need to reach out and have people that will usher the work into print I'm very impressed we need to do that we need to do that like for example with Joe Bonney when Joe I just missed it when Joe I just got to New York and Joe Bonney had to work my work and a number of other people and I just missed she was like oh I just heard about the work and I just missed that big fat thing the ransom raid the solar raid was on my back yeah I just missed that one this is 25 years of performance poems that just got published and many of them are selected poems performance poems from seven different monologues but as a solo an anthology of solo work you know the Latino spectrum is certainly needed that's a good idea not that you're semi-retired Dr. Bonney that's a great idea I know we had a couple of questions I'm trying to get to them but we have a single response so we can get to both questions the old ladies in the front here yes ma'am so kind of creating that opinion off of this comment I am really interested in how each of you have found participating creative home being as a little artist or what that has meant and how that's transformed with the force of character here and one can answer I definitely agree with Kenan absolutely if it wasn't for Istelebreb and that's the creative space where I found this voice we were a theater company we turned it into a creative space to bring artists and community together Luis Sampado became a friend he offered a master class for us and there you go I also met Alejandro from Istelebreb the director so absolutely you have to find the community find someone that you connect with you're good here I like these people here and then definitely yeah I think I went to Teatro with my first solo show I came to Teatro and I had the show but what I learned from having support from a theater is that it's aesthetically appealing now because you have the support of lighting people of designers and people that can and it makes you a better actor and it makes the show just a little bit fuller my home in New Orleans has been the Ashe Cultural Art Center the African American Community Center since 2004 where they helped to commission this particular piece and others it was previously the Contemporary Art Center but then the Contemporary Art Center somehow went in a different direction and you know you got to find a home and they were willing to let me also the Ashe Carol Babel opened up her center her castes she has a very positive perspective because post-Catrina so much in Latino neighborhoods that came in in the growing Latino population you don't have a cultural center so the Ashe Cultural Center has become really important for that Latino community and they're doing a lot around the black and the brown alliance and I was the first Latino artist who really began working with them as far back as 2004 and that's been my home yeah how do you want to mention you guys have reached now and the resources that come with that and so for me as I have been in a lot of theater but as a solo artist it's fairly interesting to that and even with grants that's something that is attached to me too of like what have you had or where have you been working so the first time that you're putting something up a solo work do you sacrifice something because something I write is often media aspect of it so do you just put it up with a little bit of resources just to put it up do you keep knocking on the door so that you can do it the way you envision it that first time so what were those first experiences I say you go for the vision I say you go for the vision and probably the first second solo piece I did which was the first time I was working behind the camera I knew nothing about the camera and I was very hesitant to do it kind of pushed a little bit my loved ones to just ask a DP if he would partner up with me and I was like would I have nothing to offer him it was like I was like sweating when I went to talk to this guy and I told him the idea of the project he went oh great sure and I went really like I'm just going to and that's enough and he's like yeah I love shooting and the idea sounds great and so don't be afraid to ask ask for what you want go for the vision go for the big idea and the worst he could have said was no and I could go to the next person but artists want to work and especially you've got a good idea you're going to get the collaborations you want you're going from all time eating all that stuff always don't be afraid to look at students that are about to graduate from film schools and stuff like that they just want to get real going and if they can help you out on any way trade and they're great I did as my own feature film you know an independent film and I used to have students in my school now in film school and they were seniors and they said yeah I'll do it yeah I'll get you a crew and they got me a crew and we did it and they are enthusiastic and have way more energy than you do and they will work and you just feed them you got a crew and they want to feel it but yeah students are and they're great these kids know they know how to work on TV by the age of like 3 months my son got my phone all of a sudden I got a new ringtone I always have it on vibrate and he's got like jeep over it's about finding your tribe and also being realistic about what's needed and then a vision for the third floating screen you know basic like you can't tell the story in one or two general washes you can't tell the fucking story the lighting is not telling the story these are just a polished accent yes they're a critical and important part of what you do but not at the beginning when you're developing and building then you don't have to worry about having a full fledged production on your very first and having a space like a black box space with a couple lights and some music you choose and you can do a little bit of video design yourself or starting with those elements yourself and then bring on something more challenging but you know keep it small, keep it close and let it grow organic use the economics as an empowerment tool the lack of it maybe sometimes rather than as an oppressive tool I've added a lot of now I've kind of been obsessed with too much media but at the end when I was at Palo Alto I just threw the boom I just threw down excerpts of the piece in what I call The Aliens Unplugged like the ghost show on Meguzamo I heard this brilliant show on Meguzamo with Mambo Mouth that all because he was doing the projections and it was really funny that everything broke down and he just went ahead and just did the whole piece and actually satirized the whole idea of the projections and everything just like do it the economics, don't let the economics be an oppressive thing let it be an empowering thing because at the end whatever it is that you're telling your movement, your text, how you work with the space how you deal with the audience what kind of collective ritual you're creating that's going to be the driving force and then slowly the network starts to come there and come to and have a job it's also going to be some of that knowledge the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture become a member of Life of the Grants yeah and you know Bob Dylan said three quarts in the truth so Solaris we say three lights in the truth yeah it's okay I was just working at a bar I have eight quarts, I have eight quarts if you don't have three lights you can get a flashlight yeah I'm not sure you're open and in, God said two quarts and a fashion two quarts and a fashion not even a light do it in the daytime I think we're all incredibly fortunate to have this really amazing group of artists here today to share their experiences with us all and I'm very happy they came and they shared so generously and put up with me as well. So I want to thank you all for coming and thank the artists. Thank you. We're going to our first truly event of the month. Tomorrow join us back here at the same time, same place. We're going to do our second panel is on performance and the projected image. So Lisa's going to be moderating that now. It's about video and using visit video whether it's live feed or already existing video incorporated into shows which about three quarters of our shows have videos. We hope you can join us later tonight. What's playing tonight? Dreamscape across the hall. Premeditation here in Tar. The desert is playing upstairs as well as Enrique's journey. So go to dinner and come back.