 Hello, everyone. Welcome to our Directing Praxis panel here at Panjia World Theatre as part of the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation, which is a partnership with Art to Action. We're very excited to be here in the Twin Cities with this amazing panel of folks. My name is Andrea Esaf. I'm the artistic director of Art to Action, Inc., and always very, very happy to be in this wonderful theater town of Minneapolis with all these wonderful people both up here on the panel and that folks can't see back home. We want to give a big thank you to HowlRound for live streaming this event and to all of you for being here and part of this conversation. So before I do a little framing of the conversation that we're going to be having around directing, I've asked all of the panelists to introduce themselves, the organization that they work with or affiliated with if they currently have one or where they're based, and a little bit about the context that you're all working in so that we know how to hear the conversation that follows with your context in mind. So it's a great honor to first pass the mic to Lou Bellamy. Thank you. My name is Lou Bellamy. I am founder and artistic director emeritus of Penumbra Theater Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. Our reason for being, if you will, is to explore the human condition using the African American culture and lens as a context through which to understand humanness. The belief, of course, is that anyone who is willing to look at themselves in their own culture will always come to the same universal. But we're not used to seeing it through that African American lens. And when I began that theater 40 some years ago, there was no one telling those kinds of stories in Minnesota. So we elected to have, provide sort of a safe space where those stories could be explored. We view ourselves as a professional theater inside of a community. And that is a very special kind of charge because you are then responsible to that community. And you may not always want to hear what them folks want to tell you. But they're there, and we invite them to be part of it, help define it. Indeed, it isn't even, it can't happen without them. All the work that I do, that I direct, are directed and presented as though there are no one but African Americans in the house. These, I don't draw dotted lines for those of you who don't get it. You know, you have to come along for the trip. Just like we've all in this dominant society been placed in situations where we're unfamiliar with the language, with the mores, with the tropes that they're using. So we have to lean into them. Well, I wanted a place where it was safe to push that language, that culture, that experience as far as we could push it in all directions. And it's still there, the space. My daughter's holding the rubber band open, letting people in. But it's still there, and that's it. My name is Diane Roberts, and I am the only Canadian on this panel. And so I guess the context I'm somewhat representing is the Canadian context. Excuse me, where racism, see, I choked on this, where racism doesn't exist. Everybody's really nice, and we all travel with the Mounties. No. I mean, the context is very similar but quite different. And it's within this context where this denial of racism, or this sort of sorry lack of acknowledgement of racism, and colonization, and the roots of colonization sort of drew me to the process that I'm representing, or the project I'm representing. I've run a number of different companies in three different cities across Canada. And right now, I developed a process called the Arrivals Legacy Project, which embraces the idea of belonging, or the need to belong, the desire to belong. It embraces that as an aesthetic process, as not a lack of, like I don't belong, but this sense of belonging, or this reaching to belong, is actually an aesthetic practice, can be an aesthetic practice. So in the Arrivals Legacy Project, we draw on ancestry as a jump off point for artistic creation. My name is Malik Najjar. I'm an associate professor of theater arts at the University of Oregon, and my focus is on Arab American, Middle Eastern American, and Middle Eastern theater. I am a child of immigrants. I'm married to an immigrant, and nobody's going back to a crime-ridden, broken place. They're staying here, and they'll feel free to continue to critique our nation in order to make it better, because we love this country. My work focuses on the plays written by Arabs and Arab Americans, and Middle Easterners who come from the diaspora, and are writing about very difficult lives that they may have, in different countries and wars. And I teach classes in that vein as well. I've created an Arab American theater class, Middle Eastern theater class, classes about artists who are exiled from their countries from all over the world. So I feel that I'm a scholar-practitioner, so I direct plays, and I also teach history, so I find it to be my job to unearth that history and to bring it back into the light and to make others aware of it, because too often I think that the dominant thought is that these people arrived recently in some sort of problematic portion of work. Hi, everybody. My name is Diane Rodriguez, and I come from the land of California. My mother and father were both farm workers. My mother worked the migrant trail from Indio, California, all the way to Gilroy, California. They picked garlic and celery and strawberries and apricots. And I joined in the midst of it. I learned here in Luis Valdez. I studied there for 11 years at a moment when I was in a position in the United States. There I learned what the theory of inlaques was. Does anyone know what that is? Tu eres mi otro yo. You are my other self. And it's symbolized by, I have always been at the center of my community, and my practice always reported me. And we were funny people. We made fun of everything. And there were two ladies in it, which was unusual when we started. And then I entered a time when I worked for Michigan for 10 years with Luis Alfaro, and we developed Latino plays and Latino audiences. And that ended with a new artistic director. I worked for the, you know, one of the founding godfathers of the regional theater, Gordon Davidson. And then I transitioned into working for Michael Ritchie. And I was itching because plays for me were starting not to service my community as much as I thought. And I really wanted to commission and develop the work of ensemble theaters, both here in the United States and internationally. And I wanted to work with people where the sole vision was not the sole vision of a playwright, but it was people that were involved in a rehearsal room and making a work together. So I received a large funding, and for the next 10 years, that changed my life. Traveled all over the world to various festivals across the country. And I decided to quit. Felt like what I was doing no longer serviced my community or me as an artist. A new chapter. And being here at the institute has long- I feel that was the springboard that I know. I know that was the springboard that created Kahalaohanakeka, which is the Hawaiian medium theater troupe that I continue to serve as artistic director for. I'm also associated with the University of Hawaii at Manua in the Department of Theater and Dance. I run the Hawaiian theater program. We're a brand new program. I think 2014 we got approval to actually create the program. So we're quite new. We've had our inaugural production. I've had the inaugural MFA candidate come through and graduate and do her production. So we have one MFA in Hawaiian theater rolling in the earth now. And we have two more in the program right now. I also have the opportunity to work with our playwriting students in our program. And so through the university and through community effort, we are just trying to create space for our voices to be heard, because they're very much underrepresented. So first, a couple of acknowledgments. Thank you, Haleopua, for acknowledging where we are, which I would also like to join you in acknowledging that we are on the ancestral lands of the Dakota people and the Ojibwe people. And thank you for acknowledging that in your opening. And at Pangea World Theater and Art to Action, we have a commitment to always stating that, because we should never ever forget. I also want to acknowledge for those who are following by a livestream that we've been having a little bit of sound challenges, so please stay with us. I think it's back on now, but if you're out there, yeah, if you're out there, hang in there. And for the folks here live, just know that the mic is going directly through the livestream. So if you want to make noise to support what you hear up here, you've got to make a lot of noise for the folks out there on the livestream to hear you. So don't hold back if you hear something that you want to support. So thank you for those beautiful introductions. I want to do a little framing that we all agreed upon about this panel, which is, and it's already been acknowledged in some of the introductions around context. But we all know as people of color that we are constantly in a conversation and in a struggle for cultural equity, racial equity, gender equity in our field. In the United States in particular, in the theater field, specifically in arts field and culture field, field of arts and culture more generally. And we are often on panels in national forums where we need to talk about that and we need to talk about the lack of resources for the work or more specifically the inequitable distribution of the resources that exist in the field. And that that is a very important conversation. And also, right now, we really want to talk about our art making because we don't often get the opportunity to get together and just talk about what we're excited about, what we're inspired by, what we're passionate about, what our aesthetics are, how we make our work. And so that's what this panel is going to focus on and we all wanted to acknowledge that that lives constantly with the other conversation of equity and because we've chosen to take this time to talk about aesthetics, we also know that we are continuing that conversation out there in the world and must and need our witnesses and listeners and viewers to continue that equity and justice conversation with us. So having said that, I'm going to pass the mic again to talk about right now in your work, what are you excited about or inspired by or passionate about in your aesthetics or creative process right now? There's so much to say. And I'm afraid that I may miss something. The important thing is that, for me at least, is that it starts with a cultural expression of who I am. We do ensemble theater, that's what I do. A lot of people talk about ensemble theater, right? I think I really do it. And so quite often, now I direct at major regionals, but I will go in and do a piece in this sort of respectful ensemble way and people will say, you know, I thought I knew that play. I've seen that play five, six, seven times, but I've never really seen it because I asked the people to talk. One of the things, I was raised by women. Really strong women. They gave me a power and made me ask a question about the work that I do, about what are the women doing? And when you ask that question, these texts live in a different kind of way. They become holistic. There's another answer to a seemingly simple question when you ask that. And it stood me in good stead. I do the work, as I said, for African Americans. That doesn't mean that there isn't a worth in it for other folks. I am the community that I create work for is used to things being taken away from them. Anything that's good that rises to the top is sort of creamed off and taken for the larger society. Marx talked about it when he talked about objects picking up monetary worth as they move toward the periphery of the culture. Well, you know, I'm reminded of that all the time. I remember coming off stage a while ago, I don't act anymore, but coming off stage in this old lady that I knew from the hood said to me, she looked at me and she said, you know, you're good. And I started, you know, the little actor kicking me. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. And she said, no. And when her voice went there, I knew that someone was going to look up. No. No. You're really good. And I looked at her and I said, thank you. And her next question was so telling for me. Why are you still here? Why are you still amongst us? Why are you in the community as good as you are? It just, well, I'm going to cry right now. It just broke my heart, you know, for me. She's so used to that cycle. The good thing is, is that we've got an amount of creativity and a place to go to get some more to keep on keeping on. You know, we've got that. But that's sort of the context out of which the urge for the work happens. It's been codified in large places by people who have come out of the company. August Wilson, you know, for instance. We've done a lot of that stuff. All comes from that urge of creating that work of by for. That's an easy one. The harder one is near. And near. And we're still doing it. What excites me, or maybe it's more a question. There's a question that continually goes through my head as I approach new work. And it's this idea of how do we embody the stories we create. And create the stories we embody. So there's this idea that's a fundamental in the Arrivals Legacy Project that there are stories in our bodies that are buried in our blood and our bones. And that if we can learn how to listen to those stories, how to draw on those stories through breath, through our craft, through our feet firmly on the earth. I talk about these little mouths on the bottoms of our feet that breathe the earth. Or kiss. Kiss and lick and suck the juices from the earth. And that there's a response between ourselves and the Aina. And then also between us, how do we embody the stories we create and create the stories we embody in relationship. In relationship to each other. What excites me now is that it's actually happening. It's happening in this environment. This environment is a dream that I've had since I stepped into the audition room in theater school way back when. They asked me, so what is your vision for theater? And I said, I want to have an international, intercultural group of artists that I collaborate with. And I didn't even know what I was talking about then. And to be able to experience that here. And to be able to make that a mission in my work is a blessing. Really is a blessing. So there's this idea of drawing on these memories in our bodies and the breath of that. And just that moment of sitting in that possibility of the memories living flowing through me and being able to draw on that. And then being able to sit across from somebody who's also drawing. And then I imagine that my ancestor and your ancestor are sitting across from each other. And then the ancestors of this land are sitting across from each other witnessing the relationship building that's happening. So it's very, it's cyclical, it's multi-directional. And there's so many possibilities. And there's no reason why it shouldn't be there. There's no reason. I think anything else for me is a waste of time. A waste of time, you know? So that's, yeah, that's what excites me right now. Well, your question troubles me because I can't see my work excites me in a sort of like, oh how joyous. Because a lot of the work I do and focus on is the work of refugees and people coming from war-torn places. Whether it's Tahrir Square during the uprising, whether it's the Iraq war, whether it's the Lebanese diaspora that survived the civil war, whether it goes on and on and on. And that's the work that I feel compelled to. My parents were survivors of the various civil wars in Lebanon. My wife barely survived the civil war in Lebanon. She almost was killed in a bombing. So I look at the people coming from that area and I feel that their stories have to be told. Like that for me is so important. I feel that there are all these people walking around us in such pain. And not just from the Middle Eastern community. I'm not going to pretend it's only there, it's everywhere. But, you know, if we have an opportunity to give those people voice, you know, that's incredible. And so, you know, when I think about the Syrian refugees, when I think about what's happening every day, and then I think about the fact that new wars are being concocted, I just, it pains me to be at the end of the degree. And I guess I'm carrying some sort of post trauma around. You know, I guess that's what it is. But that drives me to tell those stories. And when I do a play, like Scorch Story on Som Di by Westi Moai, I don't know if you've seen it, but I directed that play and I had some of our community members come to see it that were Iranian, Lebanese, Palestinian. And they just said, you took me back to the war. And I first felt guilty. I was like, oh my god, I'm re-traumatizing these people. And then they said, but I felt like the ending was so healing. And I needed that, you know. So for me, that was it. That was, I said, that's what I need to be doing. So, yeah, I can't say it excites me, but it drives me. And it makes me want to keep telling these stories, publishing these plays, getting these writers out there because we need to get these people's stories out into the consciousness. You know how people love Shakespeare? And artists always want to direct it or they want to act it. And they're kind of into a kind of mainstream positioning. And I've admitted many times in public, I just don't like Shakespeare. I don't get it. It's not part of my culture. And now if someone invited me to direct it, I would do it because I want to get inside it. But generally, I find it the epitome of colonizing our communities. And so when I hear about a big theater trying to do an outdoor summer set and they're centralizing their programming on doing Shakespeare, I'm like, wow, man, I reject it. And so a few years ago, I convinced my theater to reach back and go back to San Juan de Vista where the theater comes in a blaze and lives and thrives and to do a version of the Bobo Vu, the creation myth. Part one. And we did it with a community from Boyle Heights. And we had outdoor performances in the Park Grand Street Park right by our theater. And we had musicians of every color in the show. And we basically used the community of Boyle Heights to do it. And it was huge and it was epic and it was exciting. And there was movement. Everything that we've been talking about here. And after it was over, I thought, why don't we widen the circle? Why don't we bring in the Chinese community? Because my God, there were these huge puppets that were serpents. And it emanates from that culture. There was movement and drumming that was African. And there was this huge cultural fusion and there was a circle that was being created that I thought all of us in our communities could benefit from. And the next time I do something like that, an outdoor show in which I figure how to monetize it. Because that's really how we get our work out is figuring out how to monetize it and make money on something that we find essential to our communities. And how we can lead. And going, this is an alternative to Shakespeare. I understand how everyone wants to embrace Shakespeare. It's part of a culture. But there are alternatives. And I want to offer an alternative that is based in the new world, right? That is based on our own myths that we all understand. And that everyone shares in. I want to lead in that through my aesthetic. And include everyone that lives in my community in that work. Share my work with them, my community, and my stories with them. And have them be in it. So what excites me? Old newspaper archives excite me from the 1830s. You know, right into the 1940s. But all these Hawaiian-language newspapers really excite me because I feel like there are so many more Oledo, so many stories that have not yet been told. If you go to the library, there's tons of Shakespeare. There's tons of plays written by white, predominantly men. They're okay. We don't have to do their plays. We don't have to tell their stories. They're on the shelf already. Our stories need to be told. So that excites me to have the opportunity to tell those stories, to create those stories, and kind of repurpose them for today. That really excites me. The thing that inspires me is all of our keiki, all of our Hawaii, all of our young children who are speaking the language. That is what inspires me. And I think when I started to have children, it made me more conscious of the need for having theater, for having television, for having film, for even having books in the language. So that has been a driving force for me. And something that Mr. Lu said really stuck with me, and I just want to get it out there about being asked, why are you still here? For many years, people have asked me, why don't you go to America? Why don't you go to New York? Why don't you go? That's not my kuleana. That's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to stay home and tell our stories to our people and be able to articulate and inspire and lift up. And that's why, I mean, even though it's wonderful to go national if you believe in the whole America thing. Right? Because we kind of have issues with America. We don't. We still feel we're illegally occupied. So it's a wonderful thing to explore that. And I'm very grateful to be here and to make these connections. This is truthfully only the second time I've come to America, the continental U.S., for anything theater related. I've been here for weddings or, you know, whatever. My sister had a crazy idea of getting married in Las Vegas. And that took us to Vegas for the first time. That was exciting and wonderful. But truly to be involved in any kind of gathering to do with theater, this is the second time. And I'm very grateful both times have been wonderful. I've met amazing artists and people who continue to inspire. So, yeah, those are my two little things. Mahalo. There's so much already. I want to talk about it. And we also, we've made a little outline, but I'm just going to continue offering prompts, but also encourage the panel to like go anywhere that you're passionate about in the conversation because ideally we wanted to be a conversation. And at some point we'll also maybe receive some questions or provocations from the folks who are here with us live. But one thing we did want to address is that the name of this panel and kind of unpack it a little bit so that people maybe know how to enter the conversation. We called it Directing Praxis. And I think honestly when, you know, Mina DePunker at Panjia and I were like, what do we call this panel? And we were trying to like figure it out. We just thought it, maybe we just thought it sounded cool. But for now we're like, let's call it Directing Praxis. And then we had to really think about, well, what are we trying to get at with that word by using that word, which is a word that might alienate some of the communities who are here representing or talking about or working with, right? So I'm like that dictionary geek that likes to go look everything up. And I, so I was like, well, let's really look at what is the difference between praxis and practice. And that practice is defined as when you repeat something and repeat something and repeat something to improve your skill and get better at it like rehearsal. And praxis is about the application of what you have learned through that repetition and what, in other words, what we want the work to then go out and do in the world. And I also, because I'm a little bit of a theory geek, know that there's lots of conversations about this or about what we mean by praxis. And like on the one hand, it might be about that relationship between theory and practice. And what I'm interested in our work is how does our practice embody the theories that it's based on. No matter whether those theories come from the academy or from books or philosophy or lived theories of survival from our communities. But how does our practice actually embody the theory that informs it? And the other part of that piece is what, how does it really to action or activism or what we want the work to do in the world, the impact of it. The why, the how do we apply it or when we apply it, what do we want it to do? And so we're kind of, you can go anywhere you want to go within those questions but what do you think of as you're directing praxis, either in body and theory or what you want your work to do in the world. And also we don't have to keep going down the line if you just want to jump in and pass it around. We were laughing because I had a real issue with the word. I didn't know what it was and I had to be told repeatedly and then I wouldn't remember and I was really a mess over it. So I just think that my, the essential core of what I do as an artist is to tell my people's stories like everyone on this panel and that's what I do. And I do it by listening and I do it by trying to work with whoever's creation that is to make it as clear as possible and I do it when I'm in the room like a painter in that I did many exercises in which I try to release my power through my solar plexus and when you paint you don't think, you just move the brush and something creates and that's really the way that I direct. I sit there and I let ideas come to me and then I put them to action and I trust my actors to help me make choices and I pick the choices that I like. Someone said earlier, we had an afternoon session about being prepared. I don't really prepare. I work with my designers. I know what my visual is going to be, what the space is going to be. I know what the play is saying and I'm making discoveries but I go in there every day and improvise with the people that are around me because I trust them and something emerges. I have a personal vision but that vision is collectively done in the room because I believe in the community that I'm bringing their story to and I believe in the community that I surround myself as who our art is. Yeah, I think the word practice for me has always been kind of a heavy concept but when I think of it, I think of Axis. And Axis in a way. But a few years back, quite a few years back actually, I was at a conference in Toronto and there was a professor from the University of the West Indies his name is Rol Gibbons who proposed that there are aesthetic values that one can trace in African and African diaspora work and these values are ancestrality, communality and adaptation or affirmation and so I was really captured by that idea and started whenever I read a play from anywhere in the diaspora or from Africa, from the continent itself I would look for these values in the plays and I would often find them and then I started mapping that onto what I call the building blocks for making performance in theatre which is body, mind, voice or breath and spirit and so I started looking at adaptation or ancestrality from the perspective of the mind from the perspective of the body and so I have a geeky chart that I fill out and I put questions in there and the questions change every time I revisit those aesthetic values and the building blocks and especially within, in relationship to the project I'm working on so this idea of theory doesn't become heavy but it's also, it's all through my being and yeah, again, this idea of multi-directionality yeah, so I think, I love to geek out in that way and also to figure out how to practice that how does that work itself into a methodology of creation, a methodology of rehearsal and a methodology of performance we talk about decolonizing space and so we also, I think, decolonize theatre in general I think back that performance has been in the Middle East for thousands of years but just when Napoleon shows up and throws a proscenium arch we have to start standing up in front of an audience, you know, under a proscenium so what I try to do is I try to go back and think about what was there before Napoleon showed up and terrorized all the people it's all from him but, you know, I think about the Halakha form I talk about the Hakaweiti form I talk about, I try to study all of these forms in an attempt to kind of get back to basics and think about how can I reapply that now because if there is a sort of common spirit that has connected us through the ages maybe we're still informed by that spirit and can we not get back to that spirit and how can it tell us about plays you've been written in 2019, right? I mean, I think there's something very powerful there and so that's for me, what I try to do with my practice is I try to think, learn about these different forms study these different forms and then find ways to really embody them in the plays whether it's physically, through design elements through the way I direct the play, the staging, all of the above and there's so many deep traditions in the Middle East I'm doing a play about a Maronite tradition I mean, that's such a deep, beautiful Christian tradition I've done plays about ancient Islamic forms and others so I think that's, that for me is where practice comes in is learning something like Pan about this culture and then finding direct ways of re-embodying, re-staging and re-signifying all of those new works with that ancient knowledge So hearing you say that made me think of one of my influences which is Englugi Wathiyongo and moving the center that's what it's all about it's about realigning and shifting that paradigm and for us it's going back to looking at our forms from time in memorial where we had performance and drawing from that and the other thing from Englugi is his statement that when we choose our language, we assume our audience So when we are writing in Oloho Wai'i we are doing that for our Oloho Wai'i community Other folks can come along We want the allies, right? We want everybody to, if everybody could speak Hawaiian that would be amazing, right? But it is definitely for that primary reason that, you know, the raising of the language and the serving of our community Takirua in Aotearoa their work has also influenced our praxis how we approach things trying to get out into the community with our work as well and then I would even mention Thompson Highway When I first read Red Sisters I went, oh, yes! These are the stories we need to be telling and being introduced to Spider Woman Theatre that's another thing when I was a graduate student I was introduced to that material and the methodology and that inspired me as well and also what it did was it validated that we were making the right choices to stay in our culture and then applying, for us, there's four things there's our mo'olelo, our stories and story and history, you know there's fantastical things in our stories as well so we don't have non-fiction and fiction, right? It's all involved, yeah and then our ku'auho which is our genealogical connection to this material then we have our hananoe'au which are our various forms of performing arts and then Oloho Hawaii those four things are our pillars there are kukulu of everything that we do and when we have those four we have a strong story to tell Mahalo Trained as an actor so as I direct these pieces many times I'll get stuck and I won't know what to do and then I go and stand on that spot and the actors stand on it suddenly I know because that activates all my stuff so much has come out of just listening to you people how wise they are and what we can all take one of the things the yolks we all struggle under is that post-colonial legacy that separated us and diced us up and you see as long as you're carrying that around and I'm not saying I'm free of it like Zaki said that paint is harder to remove than we thought but you believe that this experience is unique to you and so you never get the strength and solidarity of dealing with other people because you think it's just you well it's the same process in culture after culture after these cultures have been unique so that's first there's just so much to learn inside of this literature I do plays I'd be scared to go where you go with well-made plays a lot and you can't read this work you can't come in contact with this literature without being changed by it not only the craft that it takes to put the piece up and knowing all how to do that let's talk about the content of what they're saying I see in the plays that I read a conduct of life a way of moving through the world rules for survival cautionary tales these are ways of passing information on and making them live sometimes it's awakening my community many times we're in Minnesota and in Minnesota I think the last census we won't get into the census we're trying to do there but there's only 5% of Minnesota is African-American and that's not a lot and you break that down into how many African-Americans go to theater so you might not have a lot of people in some of your performances it'll surprise you the point being though is that we still well I used to get in an argument with August most of the time he was one of our company managers and August used to say that culture is something that you put in your pocket and you can take it anywhere you want it goes with you I said no man culture is in the ground it's in the dirt that's where my grandfather was these are arguments that we can go on about but I know that the practice of bringing these things to life changes you it changes who you are it changes the way you think I'm looking at Sharon back there you see in her I'm never the same since we did that play what was the name of the play? Confluent Yes, Confluent never forget that little girl in those things that's the way we we move ourselves the way we commune the way we give ourselves the dignity that the world may not we can be in control of that in those places and it's up to us to do that you've got to be careful because there's so much misinformation about all of y'all till you put something up and you think you're being you built another stereotype so you do have to study it's not good enough to put the book under the pillow and sleep on it I always say the people that I portray these black folks are tricky I've been studying them for 70 years and I'm telling you they're tricky so you really have to study it and if you do that and if you love learn to love who you are and what it is you do these people will open like flowers for you they'll become something that you can stand there and just watch it happen but you do have to have that that investment that love and that study that hard, hard study that teaches me about Fort Silver or you know those kinds of things you have to study it you have to learn it but those are the sort of the rules that I use in creating my work and I'm not afraid to think about what my grandmother would think about what it is I'm doing you know if she she'd say what is wrong with you if I can hear that then I know I'm not doing right it sounds trite but it works for me thank you I was supposed to be keeping some kind of time and I just got so into the conversation I was like that just went out the window because all of this is so rich and so many important things to talk about and so we'll just keep the conversation flowing and you know we just discovered in our lunch meeting before the panel that I'm also a student of Ngugi Wa Tiong Do I mean literally I was a student and so to find that somebody that I was drawn to study with a playwright from Kenya influenced this movement in Hawaii right in the way that Augusta Bual's work in Brazil influenced I don't know how many theater practitioners around the world in the way that hip-hop theater you know in the way that hip-hop is the voice of an activist movement in Palestine in the way that you know the great John O'Neill who we just lost who just passed away and his practice of story circles coming from the civil rights movement has also influenced so many artists practicing in the United States who might not even know that they're doing his work but they're doing it right so there's a certain way I also studied with Mae Joseph who always said you know globalization started in the 1300's I don't know what you all think is new about this in some ways we have always been doing this right theater has always been oral tradition and we have always been exchanging and learning from each other and yet here we are in this moment in 2019 in Minneapolis Minnesota in this institute where we have brought together this extremely intentionally diverse group of artists to see what we can learn from each other and so we've already talked about solidarity we've already talked about intercultural connection and even though it's like core to what we do it's also hard you know it's also full of challenges it's full of moments that don't always go so well and where we have to do that hard learning and so that's another thing that we were talking about as we were preparing for this is how do we work across context what across cultures across collaborating across context with maybe we have so much learning still to do about each other's histories and struggles and what are we learning in this time together about how to do that better you know I started at the end of our conversation lunch I said I think I need I need therapy because everyone says the question of how do you use your power and that's a big question for me you reach a certain point in your career in which you have cache or you have equity and I don't know how to spend it you know because so few ahead have had this opportunity right and one of the ways in which we can at least help each other is to elevate each other right and about each other lift up each other right across cultural barriers that once were because now we don't have those anymore let's envision us not having them right and that we bring each other up whenever we can and that's definitely one way to lift I live in contradiction let me stay I know all of you do too so I worked at this regional theater which is an amazing theater done a lot of great work I always felt like an outsider but I think I practiced that I think really in the end I wanted to be an outsider and I would push and I would pull and I would argue and I would challenge the status quo because kind of that's what I was that's the community I came from and that's what we did and I never said I belong here I never said that so 25 years later I'm saying it might be retirement which is I never uttered that word I don't know where they got that nearly 25 years that's weird that I'm an American artist I claim that I am a US artist and if you won't move over from my butt to sit down in this chair I will push you over because I do think that we have to claim our space and even now I am trying to challenge form I love the well-made play and if Lou Bellamy is going to be directing a well-made play I'm going to go see it if Lou I mean not like Shakespeare but if Lou Bellamy is going to play King Lear I'm there to do that work I don't need to because I don't love that work I'm not passionate about that work so I'm trying to figure out how to challenge our forms so I and many people some of us have been doing this but I say hey there's three of us creating a play you're the you're the production designer I'm the direction designer and she's the script designer and we're going to make a work together and I pitched this concept with a story and all to a major theater and we went back and forth as to how we could make this work within their form they're a university-based repertory company and it was interesting that they took it on so all I'm saying is that there is power and challenge and when you claim I'm an American artist and make room for me it's interesting what happens it is I would just like to put the call out there for us to realize that American artists can meet so many things and I I'm a product of public schools and frankly I didn't know there was anybody but a Shakespeare or Hawthorne or Milton or I mean it was shocking that we are not taught our history in this country and it's shocking and it's wrong and we need to we need to reteach the history there's Latinx history that needs to be taught and I know that's a fraught term but I know there is Asian American history, African American history Arab American history there is you name it call it out there we go that's right I grew up in New Mexico did I read a single work by a Native American writer and there were plenty and there are plenty so this is a problem and so I would just like to call all of you artists to also become activists in that way to change the landscape of what is being read in our schools so our young people can grow up knowing that you can be a hyphenated artist, you're still an American artist but you can be hyphenated and be proud of your particular community while still honoring other communities and that's something I feel is such a detriment in our society there's a quote that I love from Amon Kar Kabrao that is if I remember it well, let's see without underestimating the contributions from the oppressor's culture we must uphold and uplift the traditions from our root cultures and I butchered the exact quote but it's about drawing from our root cultures and valuing that in a way and equally with what we've been taught to value in terms of mainstream culture yeah oh yes so we are taking some questions from the folks who are live and while they're getting passed over my way we will okay hi Diana say hi to the camera and the people awesome cameo from Diana Negro so yes so we have about 20 minutes to keep talking and take some of these questions and I also just want to say just because it had been kind of recently I have to so it is interesting to me how folks of color get hyphenated and white folks get normalized right so I am just offering that we develop the practice of saying European-American or Euro-American that's what we mean yeah Euro-American because there shouldn't be this kind of normalization of language right we are all hyphenated and Native American folks shouldn't be hyphenated at all because that's ridiculous and to also remember that when we say American we mean all of the Americans and that this is just a place that had the audacity to call itself the United States of America so okay question number one very exciting is hope a relationship between healing and your work and if so can you talk about how you have experienced it is hope the relationship between healing and your work and can you talk about how you have experienced that yes oh is there a relationship much more general is there a relationship between healing and your work and how have you experienced that although I just love so feel free to answer any of them coming I'm not sure if this is how you had intended Ron but I'm going to answer anyway because this came to my mind coming from a people a community in which our language was banned in 1896 and not reinstated until nearly a century later performing in our language is healing it is it is a political a political move that's part of our consciousness and my dear grandma has passed but when she heard her grandmother, her grandchildren, my children speaking in the language and I saw her crying every sacrifice I had ever made I'm not sure my children was raised knowing their language knowing their identity and having a firm foundation of what it means to be kanakamali that's all I needed that is all I needed Bible's work is also healing work in the sense that many of the people that come to the work don't have their root culture they don't know including myself I don't know but really in a hard kind of documented way where my people come from so what do I work from I have to work from what is in my body what travels through my body and that is healing and the people that I work with it's most definitely healing it's healing in the practice it's healing in their lives just because they've reported it to me and I think it's healing in the community as well I think the way I could describe for you what happens when you free up the stuff that we're talking about when you engage it actors that come to work with me in our theater and on the literature that we work on it's rather like they're wearing tight shoes do you know what I mean that they're in there now they've got all the craft they can do all the stuff you ask them to do something and often they will show you the pain of it because that's what they've been asked for in many circumstances to give I will ask them well I know it hurts what you're going to do let me see you think about it and it says though you take off those tight shoes and those feet just start to breathe and things begin to happen in a different kind of way on any other way to describe it it feeds itself and the more that you do the more it happens and I found it to be so we did when the National Endowment for Theater sponsored a national tour in the United States they sponsored a tour that the Guthrie did of Othello I know one of our company members played with Othello so we at the same time toured the first Native American play to tour the United States we weren't funded we found the money to do it played by Billy O'Rourke called the Grand Children of the Buffalo Soldiers and we toured this piece at reservations where people are many of them have never seen drum on stage it was well I can't explain I try but that way that his play and art allowed us to approach another culture and watch the way those wounds are opened and healed and not left gaping but spoken about and so forth it was truly miraculous art does something we don't get all of you know we can intellectualize it but something else happens I want to say something on this healing question kind of connected to what my life said earlier which is my own work I actually still love a good tragedy you know it doesn't have to be a Shakespearean one but I was drawn to theater because of drama first right and then I think about why is that and why do I need that space and when I think about my own work sometimes I think that sometimes we need places to mourn to publicly mourn together because we're not allowed to or we're not safe to right in the political context that we live in right now like can you imagine in the United States of a bunch of Arabs just got together and decided to wail in the street no I don't think we'd feel very safe doing that right but we can't be there we can mourn and then we can also laugh and dance and play music and but if we don't if we don't have that space we can't heal right and so in a way that leads to this interesting one of the next question is an interesting question about strong and powerful characters and physical action on stage and the question is when we're representing our own communities what does that look like a quote-unquote strong or powerful character or strong or powerful physical action because we're so often told what not to do and as directors what do you love to do or what do you want to be sure that actors always do in your pieces I mean I may be interpreting this a little bit wrong but that's what I'm thinking that's what I'm thinking we talk about like you're not on anybody want to answer that I think the most powerful thing an actor can do on stage is think seriously Andy Warhol with that camera we are innately interesting because we're human so that thinking is a place where I always want to leave space for an actor to perform there's that instance where a choice is made and that's the crux of theater for me that's what makes it live it isn't just a stimulus response there's a choice to be made and that's the stuff of it I mean we are creating a new canon for the United States right? so it's up to us to create those powerful characters that we envision us to be and that's our responsibility we don't need to go back to that well made play if you want to go for it but you don't need to we need to go and make our own versions of well made plays or our own ensemble driven work and I think that that's really what the future is is to contribute to what we're putting on on our American stages on our U.S. stages in particular and then that work will go out into the world right? and so I think that's our responsibility so here's another question to Lou and Halia and anybody can answer as well how do those of us who are coming up and who are starting to hear that question why are you still here grapple with the economic questions of opportunity versus community that's the way it was opportunity versus community or capitalization capitalized and colonized especially when you have multiple marginalized identities and there's so opportunities are limited in so many ways by the challenges of inequity in our fields what do you say to those folks coming up? that's an eternal question and it calls at least from where I found I'm lucky I found in a theater and started finding a way to make a living being paid for something that I do free so I'm it's a bird nest on the ground I really used to say that but I think it calls for some sort of schizoid existence and it's nothing that you don't know how to do because you're surviving in this world in the United States you already know how to do it who do I know I think you want to try to keep your art as sacred as you can for as long as you can it's very true I'm not saying you're going to win because you're going to go sell Cheerios or something for somebody you know or you'll be prostitute and you don't even know but you should try to keep that as pure for as long as you possibly can you're in a wonderful spot at the age you're in and you should hold on to it you're in the cars as long as you can I was thinking about this idea we talked about when we were at lunch together about this idea of stealing back so I'm thinking of this idea of digging in deeper we dig in deeper as you say dig in deeper and train learn your own traditions learn theirs and steal them back what was stolen from us and repurpose it re-find it in your own bodies so that you can just more confidently once the opportunity comes you are there and you more confidently can step into those feet that Lou talked about perhaps I'll add to me at a young age there's still a lot of learning to be done and there's still a lot of exploring that needs to be done once you explore and once you decide once you're able to kind of listen to the path that you're meant to be on then you can step forward and realize that if you stay home your community's got you and they will hold you accountable for the work that you're doing now if you want to be that fancy expert and go 500 miles away a professor once told me what's an expert it's any I'm going to say it any asshole that's 500 miles away from their home they're an expert right because nobody can check them on what they're seeing right so if you choose that path right maybe that's the path for you no judgment no judgment if you stay home you might have to diversify I'm very grateful to have the teaching gig that I have to be and I call it a gig that's probably demeaning but to be a professor it's a gig we perform in front of the class I think but I think being able to I feel like I have a dream job being able to teach and grow new artists and new voices nurture new voices and then still through our theater company be doing the important work for the community it's a dream scenario so I think find what you love and then allow yourself to recognize what we call the signs recognize those signs like what you're supposed to be and what your purpose, your function and your kuleana or responsibility is maham Joseph Campbell said the minute you take somebody else's path it's not your path so just forge your own path and if that means staying where you are and digging deep into your community do that thing because that's probably going to be the source of your power the more you chase down somebody else's life the less you're probably going to find it that's what I've noticed in my few years here the other thing is we don't recognize our own power you would understand this August Wilson says I'm standing in my grandfather's shoes in other words his grandfather walked as far as he could and he's put those shoes on that's what you bring with you you've got stuff but we don't always recognize that we have we're just doing it and it's our job as people who are supposedly in the know to let you know why are you got before you go to some finishing school and they take it away from you you know you get in there and they say cross over there and don't hold your crotch like that why do you have to walk like that those kinds of things you have to understand the power we are winding down on time we have about three minutes left at least for the live stream conversation although the conversation here will definitely continue at the national institute for directing and ensemble creation we didn't fully get to the last question although it was very connected to what you all just said about advice for how to stay true to yourself in doing the work and whether you're working whether you get an opportunity that takes you off your path or even you're working with a director or a collaborator trying to push the work in that direction that doesn't feel true and what we hear you all saying is stay true stay true to who you are stay true to your path stay true to the roots of the work and hang on to that as long as you can thank you Lou Bellamy for that and so if folks at home or online want to continue to follow what we're doing here at the national institute for directing and ensemble creation you can follow us on the Pangea website or social media or art to action we have hashtags hashtag directing institute which always amazes me that nobody claimed that hashtag amazing so yes that's us directing institute and also NIDAC 2019 our art to action art Pangea WT so we hope you'll stay in the conversation and stay in the journey with us online and I'm just going to pass the mic one more time for any last and really a word or two just a word or two because we got literally two minutes on the live stream so just any last thought or blessing wish or anything gratitude that's all really gratitude I'm grateful to be among my tribe here thank you so much and I love your generosity with time thank you Mahalo Anui, thank you all