 Welcome, everybody, back to the Martin E. Siegel Theatre Center here at the Graduate Center CUNY and the City University of New York from Manhattan. Welcome to Siegel Talks. It's another week of listening to voices from artists around the world. Yesterday we had an update from Indonesia, very significant, I thought, inspiring talk of the theater community coming together in that big nation, the fourth largest nation, the greatest Muslim population in the world, and how the arts are working there. Where is no real government funding for the arts, but over 350 festivals in a year where art and life seems to be intertwined. Great supportive community. We heard devastating accounts just last week from Brazil where artists are starving, there's no help, a hostile government, a right wing close to fascist government, and it's the same troubling news somehow from a bit from Hungary, part of Poland, Romania, and now we switch our focus to a country that has a great tradition of theater, one of the great superpowers, one would say, of theaters in the history of theater. It's Italy that has brought us so much over centuries of a significant contribution to the world of theater, reinventing theater, and from early Commedia groups being the hosts, of course, a lot of Greek theaters that are throughout the south of Italy, also in Sicily, and then the great works of the Pirandellos, the Giorgius trailers, and it's impossible to name the Ronconi's, all the names, and Massini going on now, and we have a very special update today from Italy, and it's from Palermo, from Sicily, and we have with us the Honorable Mayor of the city of Palermo, with Leo Luca Orlando. Thank you for joining us, the great Pamela Villorezzi, a great actor, actress, director, and she runs the Theater Beyondi in Sicily, and also with us is Atam Darauscha, who is the president of the Cultural Council in Palermo. Palermo, of course, is the city that is, as life itself, full of contradictions, full of everything that's good, that's good, and things that are not good, are not good, but they are close, of course, to the frontlines of the new development when it comes to refugees, when it comes to immigration, and much, much, much closer than everybody else is perhaps in Europe, and so we would like to hear what is going on. So, Leo Luca, first of all, thank you, really, for taking the time to talk to us. I know how much you work. You are a legend in Italy for your work, for supporting the arts, but also for your work for refugees to put Palermo in open city, but how is it now, in the time of Corona, what's going on in the city of Palermo? Could you hear us? Yeah, maybe you can come up. So, Pamela, let's go to you right away. What's going on in Palermo? Okay, I have to tell you, in the famous war between state and mafia in Palermo, thanks to Leo Luca and many heroes, like judges and so on, won the state. So, now we can call Palermo the town of culture, and every day there is some museums that is open, and when I arrived to direct the theater, Leo Luca, the mayor, asked me, please, destroy the world around the theater, and put the theater in all the town, in poor areas of the town, and so on, and that's what I did. Leo Luca was the mayor when, 30 years ago, he invited Pina Bausch for her show Palermo, Palermo, and if you remember at the beginning of the show, you could see a wall, and after two, three minutes, all the world fell down, and so he said, just that, and so we really started to bring the theater out of the world of the whole, and to go in all the parts of the town, for all the persons of the town, and we started to create a lot of synergy with all the cultural institutions of the town, not only cultural, even for assistants, volunteers, and so on, and that was, I think, a little bit my signature of my brief for the moment, a direction, but now we have Leo Luca, he can tell you about the coronavirus period in Palermo, Leo Luca. Okay, Leo Luca, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you, and I wish to say thanks for your attention, just I wish to say that after a test, a cemetery test, lucky negative, about me, I lived in quarantine, and my wife says that she spoke more along with me when I worked outside than now that I work inside my home, because I spend all my time just trying to direct the city remaining at home, but it means that probably now I am a new start-up, I am Leo since 35 years, but I feel like a start-up, because I think that everything changed, and I wish just to start from freedom from fear, freedom from fear, I am a real honoured, because 14 April of this year, I had to receive by King and Queen of Holland, by the Roosevelt Foundation, the freedom from fear, our art, of course, it was postponed, and I will receive next year this fantastic prize, I'm really, I say thanks for the attention to me, but the attention to the Palermo, because we probably know what does mean to be free from fear, there's only one way to be free from fear, to take care and to prevent, we just fight against the mafia taking care and preventing, not only with repression, not only with law enforcement, but even with the cultural prevention, because the fight against the mafias is something like a Sicilian cart, with two wheels, one wheel is the wheel of law enforcement, and the wheel is the wheel of the cartoon, the two wheels have to march at the same speed, if the wheel of repression marches, I remember tolerance zero, marches more fast than the wheel of cartoon, the cart doesn't go forward, get round, and people would say it was better when it was worse, so we just fight in the mafia, decided not to respect the law, but to respect the rights, in many cases the state law are against the human rights, lucky our republican constitution does protect the human rights, and the international convention protect the human rights, so we are not, we have not been only the city of legality of the law, but we wish to be the city of legality of the rights, I am really proud to say that we are not foreign non-migrant in Palermo, when someone asks to me, how many migrants are in Palermo, I reply, no one who is in Palermo is Palermo, and then I'm sorry for you, I'm sorry for you, if one day will come in Palermo, you will be obliged to be Palermo, just to repeat, just to repeat what Leo Luca said, he said there are no foreigners, there are no migrants in Palermo, everybody who is in Palermo is part of the city of Palermo, so this is an incredible statement, we know your legendary action when you went onto a ship full of refugees, that was rejected by Italian government, you filled out forms, immigration forms, and said everybody should come in here, did the immigration, the migration, did it revive the city, was it part of the renaissance of the rebirth of Palermo? All the Palermitans were important, including the so-called migrant, and I wish to say that the one year ago the former minister of interiors, Matteo Salvini, when I said I will not respect the law because I respect the constitution, he said that just in the press conference I will send the army to arrest, to stop Orlando, after one year Salvini is not yet minister of interiors and the army did not arrive, I'm waiting for the army but it did not arrive, because I think that no one can go against the the protection of human rights, what is really important is that I am not crazy, probably yes I am, I'm not crazy, isolated male, what I feel, what I say is supported, is just sponsored, just by the high majority of population, I'm not a philosopher, I'm proud to be honorary doctor in German philosophy in the University of Thier, but I'm a jurist, I'm not a philosopher, I am a politician, I've been with these ideas elected and re-elected in Palermo, please stop three minutes and think how different and better is Palermo just in comparison with other cities in the world, we applied the same strategy just against the will, just like the mafia, prevention and taking care, prevention and taking care and I wish to tell you that today Palermo is the big city, having less infected and less people who died, you can imagine that in the province of Palermo, it means 1,300,000 inhabitants, where the total 34 people who died, 34, may I tell you, I have not to say that, in the city of Palermo, there is the city that I govern with 6, because I said and I cried, you have to obey, you have to obey, then I prayed and prayed please, please obey, respect the law and the population followed me and I think that today we are just like in the past and better than in the past, we are exciting and safe, we were safe, just speaking about the community, we wish to be, to remain safe, speaking about sanitary dimension, respect of the of the of the health and I think that I am a startup, so I spent these two months to put in the quarantine, of course at the beginning to try to counter the thousand little and enormous emergencies, sanitary emergencies, but since the last four weeks when I just controlled that the virus, the virus did not expand in the city of Palermo, I take care of the of the future, just one hour before, together with Pamela, together with the deputy mayor for cartoonists, we spoke about the future of the city of Palermo, starting from using the theater, because we are just ready just to play the role of startup, of course, and then we shall only to say some some think about the virus, I think that because COVID-19 is a natural event, natural tragedy, just like the eruption of the volcano, just like earthquake, or if you prefer just like a a war, a war where it's possible, it's not the earth, the earth, but it's possible in the states of the human beings. Well, we have now counter the largest natural event in the history of humanity, because the volcano eruption is local, the earthquake is local, even the Second World War was not so expansive like the virus, because we have a lot of states not involved in Second World but involved by the virus. It means that our life has to change, it's changing the dimension of the time, the people are living in a different way, the time, they are living in a different way, just the right to to be in good health condition, and I think that any any artistic plan, any political plan, any economic plan has to start from the respect of the of the health. It is just the starting point that means the respect of human rights. Now I think that Palermo is in a special position in advance because for us to respect human rights is domestic life, it's just the life of every day. No one will come in Palermo because the cathedral is fantastic, no one will come in Palermo because our museum, our theater are really splendid, everybody will ask we will be safe, we will be sanitary safe, and we are just planning the sanitary safety of the city, we are a customer to get the safety, in the past was the safety coming from security, today is the safety coming from respect of the health, and as I told you, I think we are the only city in the world not having a deputy mayor, deputy mayor for culture, we are not deputy mayor for culture, we are deputy mayor for cultureists, not for culture, the cultureists, respecting the identity of everybody because identity is the supreme right, supreme human right, every human being is a cocktail, he's a cocktail, the Sicilian identity does not exist because each Sicilian is different, I think that even each American or each German is different, only the fascists, only the fascists, pretend to say that we are all the same identity, not times, my identity is different from the identity of everybody because we feel we think that we are to be different to be equal, somebody said just reaching because the United States, to be different to be equal, we are different because we are human being. And also we have the right, yeah we have the right to be different, the three of the difference as the the French, so this is an incredible account. And if we hear Leo Luca, if you wait a second, you know to say this is a sixth term mayor of a town that was shaped, a town that now has won as Pamela and others in the fight against mafia, where culture has made an important rule and as we heard from Brazil now or from Hungary, where government are not working right, they have forms that do not work, they do not serve and also they are hostile to culture, this is an example where government works, it keeps same and also keeps culture in it, so maybe we ask Atam as the president of the cultural council, how does theater and performance fit in? What difference does it make in the life of the city? He was the president of the council of the culturalists, now he is the mayor of the culturalists. So how does, how do you come in? What's difference does theater make in the city? Yes, thank you very much Frank, thank you very much to everybody as the mayor stated, I was the first president of the city council for culture, which was the city council that represented everybody who was born in another country, we don't call it the city council for migrants, we call it city council for cultures, it was my first political experience, now I'm executive chancellor of culture, the deputy mayor for cultures, I'm the city government and it's very interesting that someone like me today, in these days, in these months, is running the cultural sector in Palermo and running the business in this period is very difficult, but you know Frank, you ask a very interesting question, you said how much did the migrants or migration contributed on changing, on creating the renaissance of Palermo, we have a lot of example on that and every kind of contribution that I can state now, it's always linked to the cultural issue, because culture for us, we have proved in this year that culture is a very a very, how you say it, a very important instrument of social inclusion, of putting people together, people that they are very different between them, when they meet they don't have almost anything in common, so you can stick people together by culture and the work that Pamela has done with the beyond the theater and the work that the Teatro Maxim, our Lyric Opera House does and the work that everybody does, we do a lot of cultural activity that it's addressed to social questions, so it's our way of taking care of things, so when we speak about a crisis like COVID-19 or any other crisis that the city had in these years, you will always see that we handle the situation using culture, you know, you can speak about COVID-19 by health, measurement by health, you know, sanitary actions, I'm a general practitioner myself, I'm a doctor, so I think that I and I still work as a general practitioner, although I'm Deputimero Palermo, for us culture it's not only a word, it's not something that you go there on Friday or Saturday and you live one hour, two hour in a theater, on a cinema house, it's not like that, for us, we decided that culture for us, we decided and we take it on in this year, that culture for us is the base of our action and when we are speaking about secure city, we are speaking about secure city because we speak about a city that takes care of everyone, you know, the mayor has spoken about this concept regarding taking care of people, it's very important not to have any invisible areas in the city, it's very important that people are visible, that we can help poor people, we can help people who are coming to our country after, you know, having a very long journey in Africa and then in the Mediterranean Sea, we can help people that are facing now very difficult economic action, making people visible is very important because it's the only way that you can assure that you have a secure city, so being inclusive, being how you say tolerance, being culturally involved with the place that you live in is a very important instrument that makes your city secure, I handle myself this situation in my first experiment as a president of the city council for cultures dealing with the migrants community, we had a lot of people who didn't really run their usual life, their daily life by the rhythm of the city and we make it that now they are a part of the city rhythm, it's very important for a big city to have everyone involved and I can assure you there is nothing that makes people involved and make people feel together than culture. That's incredible, normally we hear stories or we see film that people from Sicily went away to United States which was a country of openness where things were working, where they had a chance for a better life and now it seems all the sudden that things are reversed, Pamela Atam said we work to make things right, the mayor said this is an open town, this is a healthy town, a safe town, tell us about your work, how do you take care of things? So I have to tell you when I was very happy to come in Palermo because we have really a renaissance, a renaissance in this moment in the town and so it's very touching and one of the first productions I wanted because you know the duty of a national theatre like we are is to talk about the land's culture but the land's culture is not only Pirandello from Sicily, it's not the culture of the past, for instance the culture of the moment of the present, for instance, is the culture of 30,000 Indians, they are Palermitanino and from Pakistan to Sri Lanka but most of them are from Bengali. So I called a very good dramas writer and she spent five months in all the areas where the Bengali lives and so on and she was listening all the story, we were shooting all the interviews and all the stories we created, Bengala Palermo, that will be the next show, I mean it's a show that had to be to have the premiere on the 8th of May and unfortunately we have to postpone on the next spring but anyway is one of the next production and they are so happy to participate to the life of the town and I have to tell you one thing, many Indians of course they have different religion, mostly Catholic and Hinduist, they have only one fest, religious fest, they are all together for Santa Rosalia that is the scent of the town and you know there are many persons they walk up in the mountain to be in the cave, to go in the cave where is the statue where the scent lived and so there are thousands of persons they go up, they call Akyanata when you go up and so there are more or less every September 1,000, 1,500 Bengalis that go up to do the Akyanata and Rosalia is the common point of this, the three religions of the Bengalis you know is culture. Incredible, Mayor first of all congratulations on putting regulations in place that the Covid didn't speak, congratulations for six terms where you turned around the city that was a model for what's not working and now having something shining that is working, for you personally what does art mean, what does theatre mean for you as a person? His life, I wish only just to say something, just because I think the best way to communicate is not to say words is to tell stories, the words are all the same, all perfect, are all dead, the stories are all different, are all different, they are all not perfect so I can tell you stories, not words, one story is that Adam the Roushwa take care of the people because he was in this a doctor and being a doctor knows what it means to take care of the people and just speaking about Palermo, the candles of Chanukah in Palermo were switched on by Imam, by the male, by an Hindu leader, I forgot, by a rabbin too, by a rabbin too, I mean just we think that no one can accept that we divide as the name of God, I believe in God but please don't ask me the name of God, when I am in Moshe I pray for Allah, when I am in the synagogue I pray for Yahweh, when I am in the Hindu temples I pray for Shiva, when I am in a Buddhist community of course I am with Buddha and the moment in this moment when I am in a Christian church I pray Jesus Christ, no one can divide the name of God, the man from the other man, it's not a philosophy, it's daily life, it's my life and I am really proud because I was, it was really a lot for me, I was able just to do what I feel and to be elected, re-elected, it's terrible, I think that is a fantastic luck, I can die in five minutes and if I die, I can say I die lucky, mission accomplished, non-completed, not completed, there's something to do, but accomplished because I, being my contribution to the cultural change, the change of the mind of the people, I think is a terrible, terrible privilege to be part of a community, I am a person, we are a community, that is alternative, I am an individual, we are across the group, so I'm a person, we are a community and I think that everybody understand what I wish to say that I am, of course, I'm not against Mr. Salvin, I'm not against Mr. Salvin, I'm not in competition with Mr. Salvin, he plays cricket, I play volley, I play another sport, another film with other rules, so we are not in competition, it is a completely alternative, so we are alternative to populism because the populism has no respect for the time, the populist thinks it's possible to change at soon, without respect of the past, without the project of the future, therefore the populists, they use tweet as slogan, tweet as slogan, we don't use tweet as slogan, we tell stories because we have respect of the past and we are sure that without respect of the past, it means respect of the time, it's not possible to build the future, the theater is giving this moment in Palermo and I have to say thanks to Pamela because we are demonstrating that it's possible to have theater without theater, it's possible to grow in school without school, it's possible to have a church without churches, it is the gift of the digital, we have only to think really globally, the virus and the digital, we wish to connect, we fight against the virus and we should use the digital, not to be used by digital, thanks. Thank you so much and this is interesting what you say, you say theater tells stories and we need to tell stories, not slogans, we need to make people visible and theater is one way to do that. Probably it's actually the role of theater to tell stories. Yeah, that is amazing, so Pamela, I hear you also have during the times of the corona and this is why the great Elizabeth Hayes who is joining us here listening in and will help us out if we can find the right Italian world, I think she's a speaker of French and English and Italian but thank you a little bit for putting us all together, it was her suggestion that we focus on Palermo, she said this is an extraordinary story and we did so. So Pamela, what do you do during the time of corona, your theater that is so deeply rooted in community that plays a vital role in the renaissance of Palermo, what do you do, did you close or what are you doing at the moment? We had to close, they closed because in Italy we have in the regions different situations of corona, in the north. I think we lost her. No, it just froze for a moment. Yeah, I'm sure she's talking about Bergamo where it was a terrible situation. Terrible, immediately terrible, we have another situation. So we heard that they were closing all the theaters in the north and so I just contacted some association companies or video and so we were ready to shoot live and to go in live streaming with the show. They closed our theater, we just had the premier, Leu Luca and Hamburg there, and so we announced that we had to close the theater and for three days we have been acted for live streaming with the cameras and the direct direction, live direction and we had so many spectators in all over the Italy, not only in so the same production, Pamela, so the production you stopped, the production you stopped, you showed live every evening. Yeah, for three days with only one spectator, the first one was our mayor, the second day a famous photographer, leticia battaglia and so on and we so one person came in your theater, then it was one person, they could and everybody in Palermo and everybody or who has an internet access could see the show. Of course, for free, without money, for free and it was a fantastic message because the show was about Frida Kahlo and the title is Viva la Vida, no one title was so perfect for the period and we were telling the story about a woman that was obliged to be closed in her room for years because of the accident of the tram and because of the 33 surgical operation she had, but in that prison, in that block she started to pain and so she became immortal. So with this message we closed the theater and we started to go online in our social media, in our social media with interviews, of course with some shows about our archivial but also to share the creative process of our productions with students and with all the public and so we called the directors, the costumes, design, scenery design, the musicians to talk with the public, for instance for one production that was a comedy of Latin word, Aulularia of Plauto, we wanted to have 300 students in the theater to talk with them about the trade that the treatment that you have to do when you translate, do the translation from an ancient language to a modern one to to be comic, you have to be to trade of course, so which treatment and so on and the surprise was that we had our 300 students from home but they were online, they were out of 5000 students from all over the world and so I thought it's fantastic, I really hope to see our students as soon as possible in our theater but I don't want to renounce anymore to the other 5000 in a lot of the world, we have to say the persons of my age, I'm 63, we are a little bit Jurassic with the new technologies and most of theater's artists, they are Jurassic, so this was an opportunity to our mentality and to open our mentality to the digital and so we are organizing a lot of work on digital, not really the show because of course theater is one person that talks about human stories to other persons, this is the theater but all the way, all the process we do to arrive to the premiere like a birth can be like a pregnancy shared with all the public, with the students and not only the students. So you prepare dramatically, you show the process but do you also do daily programming now or? Of course, of course. What do you do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, quite every day, yeah and every day, what do you show? Yes, I explained some shows we had in their kibios, a lot of interviews and there are a lot of actors, they gave us some reading about classical poems, Divina Comedia, a lot of things even for little children and especially for the students they are studying at home, it's very difficult you know but if you have an actor that reads for you the poems or Divina Odante or Lepardi, everyone checks here, it's more easy I think. So you commission artists, theater artists to program, to tape something and you show it live at 6.30 p.m. or something. And especially with our young actors, our students of our school, so even they could get some money because we have a very good, how do you say, government help for workers and financial help from government assistance, okay, but for freelance there are only 800 euros per month and not for everybody, especially for young freelance artists. So we could pay them and we involved them to create something for digital, but from theater actors that was very interesting. A great idea, yesterday we heard from Indonesia, from the Paper Moon, the company, they actually they ask people, pay us, pay $10, three people and then they create a story based on suggestions from audiences or they send little boxes to make a puppet for people at home, students, people make the puppet at home and they create stories. So it's another way around, so there are many ways and your way is a fantastic way to reach out. At Ham, what do you want artists to do? You are the president and Nixon the mayor but for you, what do you need from artists at the moment? What do you want them to contribute? What is of essence? It's not an easy question, you know, you ask the mayor what do you think about art and culture and I told you that it is his life. I am involved for this period that we have a lot of discussion with a lot of artists who live and work in Palermo. There are a lot of them that have chosen Palermo to live here. They come from other cities from Italy and we have a direct and frank discussion about the situation. It's not easy to say what do you want from them, it's what I want for them. I would really want that our government and the European Union and in any other country, being an artist, it's a state of mind. We accept that but it's a job too and they should be helped to be able to produce their cultural activities without being worried every day and every month on how to pay the rent. I really am a dreamer. I think I dream about a way of like a substitution that the state just pay the artist to do their part in our society because I think that artists, singer, cultural operator are very important to our society like doctors, lawyers and any other else. It's not easy to understand the life of artists in Italy and in Europe. Usually, as Pamela said, a lot of them, the freelance, they don't have a fixed income and it's very difficult for them. So this is what I really, we ask the government to try to help them more because being an artist is not only a state of mind, it's a situation that you have to run on your life. We try in Palermo to be very near them and to help them in passing this period that it's not an easy period. Frank Speck has spoken about artists in Brazil and in Indonesia and other countries that they are dealing with very difficult questions. What I really dream about art and culture in general is to make you understand what I really think. I think that here in Palermo, we don't have migrants, but I think it's a free sentence. I know it's a very crazy idea, but we don't have artists too because art and culture belong to everyone and when I meet with Pamela and when I go to the theater, she makes you feel a part of the theater. When you go to small theaters in Palermo, when you go to Teatro de la Balata or Spazofranco, you go there, you are not an artist. You are not a cultural operator. It's not your job, but you feel a part of this place. When you go to the Massimo Theater, to the Opera Lyrica House, you feel a part. This way of making people feel belong to these places. It's the only way to give much more strength to cultural activity and to the whole sector of art and cultures, because if the whole population feel that the art is very important for us, they will do anything to defend it. It's the same thing that we as doctors live in this space in Italy, because as doctors, we didn't have a lot of easy period working in a country like Italy. It's not an easy job to be a general practitioner or a surgeon or whatever, but in this crisis, a lot of people understood that we are saving the country. We are saving health of people and I want you to understand that I think that artists and cultural activity will save our society. That's why I will do everything to try to give them the whole support that they need and they need a lot of it. May I? What? Yes, please. Go ahead. What Adamus said is not the present, the future, it's even the past. In 1987, Pina Bausch, coming from Wuppertal, became Palermeton, felt the soul of the city, shared our life as she produced the Palermo. It was in 1987. It means the wall fell down two years before the wall fell down in Berlin. It was a prophecy. It was a Palermeton prophecy that was just produced by a German, a German artist. They tie love, they will never stop to cry remembering my love of Pina. I wish just to say that the past, the future, and the present try to live together. Therefore, there is not only a mayor, a deputy mayor for Cartres, there is a deputy mayor, is a lady, for school and job, school and job. Just to send the message that we have to go to promote the school outside the classes, to promote the job inside the classes. I mean, this is a cultural change. Another deputy mayor, another deputy mayor is very old, is 26 years old, 26 years old, is very, very old. It means that when I started to be a mayor, he was not born, he was not born. And so, you know what I did, just speaking with the father and the mother, because you did not know what I did when I was mayor. Now, his deputy mayor is taking care of young people and innovation, young people and innovation. Incredible. Incredible also for us. This is what we call cultural change for us. It is normal. No one protested when a Palermeton born in Nazareth, because Adam was born in Nazareth, of course, he and another person were born in Nazareth, not only he came from Nazareth, even Jesus Christ. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Yes, but we have the hospital in Nazareth. The family came from Nazareth. Yeah, but they have problems in the hospital in Nazareth, so they went to Bethlehem. And let us discuss about Jesus Christ with Adam that is Muslim, of course. If I can, I want to tell you that what we have really understood, I hope, in this situation of COVID is that we are saved together because we are part of a greater whole. And that was what I really wanted to do with the Biondo theater, to create synergy with all institutions of the town. For instance, the most one, the most important is with the university. We have a lot of students now that are in our, in our internship in our theater. For instance, for molecular biology, they have a restoration course and they are doing some pictures, they are black from a big fire of 30 years ago. We have students of Bosaart, the Belle Arti, they are designing the scenery and there for us and so on and so on. But now we have just signed the convention two days ago. Our school theater will be the first university diploma of Italy. And from October, we will start in October and we are very happy with the students in the morning. I mean, there are many theater universities, first diploma for... Frank, a little bit. No, it's just, there is a remarkable theater school connected to the town of Biondo and they study, but now as of this new agreement, which thanks to Pamela's initiative, they will receive a university, it will be a university level diploma, because you don't have arts universities in Italy. So it's the first time that the theater course will be recognized on a university level diploma. It's extraordinary. And you also put together theaters... We have the double diploma. And you also put together theaters in Sicily, right, to try to create a union. Does it happen in corona time? Yes, during this period. No, we started before, many months before, to call the other theaters, the other town, to create the association of Sicilian theater, because there are many regions like Tuscany and so on. They have a circuit, an association of the theaters. And that can be a very good job for Sicily, because you don't pass through the Sicily. You have to come from the other parts of Italy and it's very expensive. So if you invite a production from Milan, for instance, if you have to pay a lot of aeroplanes and the track for Sicily and so on, it can be very good if you have an association of theater. Now you can divide all this money and so on. But also because a lot of theaters of little town, they are closed for many years. So if we create an association now, it's the moment to reinforce the base, because especially in the autumn, we don't know if we can have some invitation, some invite productions, so guest productions. The mobility, we don't know what it will be in the autumn, special for our production to go out. So maybe it's a good moment to reinforce our situation. And we are quite ready to sign the document. We are just 15 theaters for the moment. In a time when theaters, one second, but in a time when theaters are closing down in the US, the richest country of the world, when it looks like everything is in danger, there's a town in Italy where you think of reopening theaters during corona time, that theaters that have been closed for decades. We have a mayor who has been moved by his theater piece of a dense choreographer that was important for a vision for his city. So it's a foundational myth almost to have theater. If we always think, what does theater really do? Then I guess you can look at Palermo and say this made the mayor or the future mayor, or he was already mayor, think. May I say that for us, the lockdown was not, we had not a lockdown. We had the pregnancies. All of this, what Pamela is doing now, what Atam is doing now, they are walking in your dream of a city. They are part of the dream, dream workers who walk in what you dreamed up inside you. What voice was it that told you I should become a politician? I should change the city and I want to have art as part of it. Where does that come from? I am just to tell stories, not only to say words. Everything for me started on 6 January 1980. And since January 1988, the president of Sicilian region, the governor of Sicily, was killed by politicians and by mafios. He was named the president. Yes, I'd say. He was killed and the name was Piersanti Mattarella, the president of Sicilian region. By the body of the president, there were two persons, the brother of Piersanti, Sergio Mattarella, a professor of the president. Professor of the university, my colleague, were in the same department. He was teaching parliamentary law. I was teaching constitutional law. And I was the legal advisor of Piersanti, the killer, the president of Sicilian region. And Piersanti was assistant university of my father, because my father was the kind of the faculty of law in the city of Palermo. And he was a young lawyer in the law office of my father. When I went from the second floor to the first floor, the palace of my family, just with my father, I met every time the young Piersanti Mattarella. When he started to be involved in politicians, he stopped to be a lawyer, giving me a terrible positive lesson. You cannot be a lawyer and be involved in politics. Otherwise, you will be in conflict of interest. And I followed the example of Piersanti. When I started to be involved in politics, I was a rich lawyer. A rich lawyer. But I decided to be a poor mayor, because I think that if you are free, you can defend the freedom of everybody. By the body of the killer, the president, I was obliged to be involved in politics. The brother, Sergio, and the widow, Irma, told me, you cannot accept the Piersanti will be will die a second time. You are young. You are not 30 years old. You don't know the politician. You have never met the politician of Piersanti. You are pretty crazy. I occupied the faculty of law where my father was the dean. Then I went to live two years in Germany, where I occupied the faculty of law where the dean was not my father, so no proper family in Germany. And I could not say no. And I candidate in the first election, Sergio Matterelle at the time professor in the university, candidate, the city council member, to vote for me as mayor, because at that time, the mayor was elected inside the body of the council members. And I started to show my experience. So when Sergio Matterelle was elected president of the Italian Republic, is our president of the Italian Republic, I called him and said, Sergio, mission accomplished. You are the president of the Italian Republic, and the mayor of Palermo and the mafia doesn't govern any longer the city of Palermo. So you can understand why I cannot have a compromise with the mafia, because it should be against my life, against the sense of my life. Therefore, I say, if I will die in five minutes, I will die. I'm lucky in saying mission accomplished. Not completely accomplished. Now I'm sorry, but I have to leave because at seven o'clock, I have an appointment because I have to fight against some friend of mine, the minister of the Italian government. I have to fight against them, the name of my party. My party is Palermo, and the name of Palermo, I fight against everybody, but I am really happy because I convinced, I say to all the 1390 mayors and citizens, I'm the president of the 390 mayors and citizens, put in Catania, Tormina, Montreal, and Cefolo, and they all accepted my vision. And we have the same party, the party for the mayor as the name of the city, the government. So we are always together in the name of our city, and I don't take care, in this case, I don't take care of what say this party or that party. So in five minutes, I will fight against my friend who are the national government in name of my party, in name of my city. Thanks for your attention. Sorry, but I really, really, really have to leave. Yeah. No, thank you so, so much for joining us and for sharing this. Congratulations on your work. What a great example. And if anybody who questions what good government can do, how government can change, look at the city of Palermo, look at your work, and also how you integrate the arts. It's a role model. And where art flourishes, where art is a center stage, it's a good sign for the city, for the community. It's an indicator that things are going the right way. And that I'm not saying that it's a good way of taking care of things before you go. And maybe then I ask everybody, what do you feel, Lio Luca, what do we have to focus? What do you say to our listeners or to young artists? What should we think about? What is important to keep in mind in this time of Corona? I think that what is important for an artist is to be free from fear, to be free from fear. It means not to imagine what the people wait, they do, but do what they feel to do. I think the real artist has to be free. When the artist is not free, there is no artist. And I think that we are building new humanism. So I hope that the artist will be all crazy, all crazy, all crazy. I hope that the artist will be all crazy. So I hope that all the males will be crazy, of course. In the sense I said before, and just speaking about new humanism, I just was watching my iPhone because I received really human information. My granddaughter, 18 years old, the daughter of my daughter lives in Groningen in Holland. She's 18 years old. She was just in a school of art. The school of art was closed. And she remained in quarantine. She is in quarantine in Groningen since three months. Now she told me that she was accepted in the University of Paris. So she will go not in Palermo, but in Paris. But she will be Palermitan even in Paris. I'm sure. So thanks a lot. Thank you. And congratulations. Thank you. Atam, what do you think? Thank you. Thank you. It's a great honor to have you with us and really all our respect to you and your life's work and whatever. See you in Palermo. See you in Palermo. Yes, I will come. Exciting and safe. Exciting and safe. Don't forget. And even not expensive. Even not expensive. Okay. We will be there. It's a great city and an important city to support. Atam, what do you think artists talk about? What do you say to young artists, but in general to our listeners in this time? What do you focus about? Well, we are exciting and safe and we are a lot sunny. We are sunny like California and even more. What I really want to say to all artists, mainly young ones who are facing this period is to be hopeful because you have to be free from fear, but you have to have hope. Because it's only hope with hope that you can build new ideas and new visions. You can be mad. You can be crazy. But if you don't have hope in you, you can't go anywhere. So to be hopeful because we have already demonstrated in these years and these decades and centuries that the history of humankind is always evolving and going ahead. So just it's a new way of dealing with things. It's a new way of seeing things and living things. And as I always said, art has been always the key that permits us to see things differently. And I think that artists are showing us and will show us how to cope with this period in a different way. And I'm a good observer of their activities. And I have to say that since my politician role is to deal with them and as the mayor said, you want them even more crazy and dealing with a lot of crazy people make you very happy because it makes me feel like in my family. And I'm very in this context. It's very important to understand that when things are changing, it's not the end of the world. It's a new world. It's a big thing. Elizabeth, since you have been such a faithful listener also to our series and you have been such a great worker in the field of cultural diplomacy, from your experience, how do you go through this and what do you feel is of significance in this time? I did want to say that I expected to remain in the background, but I can't resist because all of these extraordinary things that we've been hearing today, they are true. I'm a little bit on the inside and on the outside because I'm very honored to be a teammate with Pamela and be consulting on some international projects. And I was absolutely stunned having lived and worked in other cities in the world, primarily Paris, that there's this incredible feeling of humanism, of acceptance. I really, when I'm in Palermo, I don't see the seams between one neighborhood and another or one community and another. And if anything, Pamela was a little bit modest and underestimated some of the things that the theater is doing. So as for the future, first of all, I think there's a degree of flexibility in the way they are working at Teatro Biondo and the city of Palermo, thanks to the mayor and thanks to the deputy mayor for culture, where it's really the question of adapting and not leaning on the past, but using this very difficult, challenging period to be an opportunity. And I'm very excited to see what will come. But the courage and the energy and the solidarity that I have already witnessed in Palermo, and I certainly know that I will see when I return, is this says, I think a great deal, and I've been listening to many of your Segal talks, and the contrast between one country and another is, as you pointed out, is very, very pronounced. Our dream is to go deep in our identity, in our past, in our culture, but just to grow up and to meet all the world, even in theater. We are connecting with many situations, all the Europe, all the world, thanks to Elisabeth, that is our collaboration. She accepted to collaborate with us. And so with Wuppertal, with Pina Bausch Foundation, with Kartuscheri, Ariane Manuschkin in Paris, with Eugenio Barba in Denmark, and so on. So we are creating something very interesting. It's very exciting. No, that is sensational and really thank you for this update. That is unexpected. We also don't really read about, in the news, or we don't hear about it at all, especially often, is in the headlines for refugee crisis and the inability of Europe of handlings, I think this is a great, great model. And again, it's impressive how governments and the arts work together. In a way, also what makes New York City great, that mayors have such a great respect. Bloomberg, of course, was a mayor that put also the culture in the city. He understood that it's no longer the city of manufacturing, no longer the city just of Wall Street alone. It's also a lifestyle city and you need something to glue it all together. Tony Kushner said New York is the melting pot that never really melted. And we have real problems there. And perhaps Palermo is finding a way to melt and to combine and to do some alchemy to create a gold out of all these ingredients that are there. And I certainly will also go to do that. But it was moving to hear how significant it is for a mayor to have the arts that he goes to theater openings that Pina Bausch's work was so foundational to his vision and that you really are inventing something new that you imagine a city where someone from India or from Pakistan is part of the vision and that is not a threat, but as something to reinvent as they it was the great thinker who no longer with us, but who was also at the grud center said so many of problems are just failures of imagination because we fail to imagination to imagine a possible world and theater helps us. And of course, you and Palermo, you're imagining a different world. And it seems to be working just by simple looking at COVID cases and seeing that the government is making contributions to make that city better. And here in the U.S., as around the world, it might not be the mafia and the cliches of the Italian ones, but there are people out there who only take advantage of others who kill for their own advantages and they have to be fought as much as you look at it over six terms and over decades, it hooks courage and everybody has to go out. We all need to be part of the change we see, you know, with the same energy and dedication. So really, thank you for joining us and Pamela. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Adam. Yeah. And tomorrow we will have a Monty Python would say now to something completely different. The great Richard Foreman, the great director of avant-garde theater in the world who also created completely new forms who said it's impossible to express with words what we really see, that we have to find different ways, new forms to understand reality, to transcend it. And he is a great master who now works mostly with film or video from his home. He will join us. Significant also inspiring and great Thomas Oberender from Berlin who runs the Berlin Festival, a significant undertaking. Not only he overlooks the Martin Kropius Museum, his immersion festival. He overlooks the Berlin Theater from the Berlin Film Festival, the Jazz Festival and others. And he's a great writer on the cultural and artistic developments in Europe. He is very close to the earth and I can't wait to hear from him how he experienced this time. But also what he sees, what new forms will be developing and he always is looking for them even before a corona time, but I will be great to hear what's on his mind. And Phillip Howe will come with Giordana, a great New York playwright and to hear an update from the theater scene in New York and reflections on how this experience, we are still the epicenter at the moment in the world, of the coronavirus with so so many death people and we don't know can it really be opened? What will happen if we go the German way or other ways? How will fatalism be? It's the healthcare is catastrophic, the problems that were existing are wide wide open and in Latin America as we are learning it's only starting and New York is so connected to every place on the planet. So it is really uncertain what will come but as Atan said, let's not be afraid of the uncertainty of the future, this is a chance we can reinvent it. So I thank you all for listening, it was an inspiring and also significant talk and it does show why theater, why the arts is important, we don't always feel we have to justify ourselves but a session like today makes it clear how significant it is and that working societies, working cities, working communities see it as a given to have a cultural present as the great playwright Goethe said, the German man, you have a house, you want to have nice colors, you want to have nice paintings and furniture, do you really need it? You don't. If you have a partner in life, you want someone who is attractive, who you feel close to and the same as with cities and countries, you have to have art and you have to have culture and you have to have a livable situation, you have forms that work and old forms that do not work, we have to get rid of and we all have to be part of creating new ones. So thank you all for listening, thanks for howl around to thank you friends, thea and Vijay and Travis and the Seagal team, Andy and Sanyan and hope you will tune in tomorrow for Richard Foreman and thank you all in Lidibus, especially of course for putting this together, Pamela, all the best for your work and thank you Frank to you. Thank you, thank you, bye bye, bye bye.