 Welcome, welcome and welcome. Good day to you wherever you may be watching us. We're so excited that you finally are joining us today. The episode today is the last episode in the series of Decolonizing Dramatogy Theater Makers from Africa in Conversation. My name is Taiwo Afolabi, the curator of this series. I'm an assistant professor at the University of Regina. I'm a Canada Research and Socialist-Engaged Theater and a director of the Center for Socialist-Engaged Theater. And I have connection with Theater and International in Nigeria. I'm really excited to be on this journey with amazing partners such as HowRound, SafeWord in Canada, Pan-African Creative Exchange, Theater and International in Nigeria, and of course, University of Regina. The series has been really amazing. The first episode we studied by really situating a discourse around Decolonizing Dramatogy. And we came to that idea that the notion of dramatogy in terms of defining it as a terminology can be quite contentious because it's slippery to use Donat Malosi's word and he's going to talk at some point today. And that's because depending on where you are practicing, the time that you are practicing, the period in which you're practicing, the theater and performance tradition that you're practicing in determines so many things about how you conceptualize and envision and talk about dramatogy. However, we did settle on something. As to dramatogy, we see it as the logic of performance. We also went to query the question, why decolonize dramatogy? And we identify the need to talk about the political, the aesthetic, the culture, and the human component of performance itself. And that hopefully the idea of decolonizing dramatogy can give us platform and opportunity to speak and discuss big ideas such as power, colonization, capitalism, representation, ethics, and different things like that. The second episode also went into talking about dramaturgical skills from Egypt, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. The third episode also focused on self-dramatog and dramatogging others. And we had experts and practitioners from the UK, from Nigeria, and from Uganda. And of course, last week we had Karishma Bengani and the Charles Tia Benogo from Burkina Faso really discussing dramatogy and dramaturgical skills and what does that mean within the context of their own work. Today I'm really amazed and really privileged to have three theater practitioners, dramatogs, directors, playwright, theater, stage manager, in our midst to round up this web series for us. The three of them have traveled far and wide, their works have been taught, been taken on taught, different part of the world. And so it's my privilege and really an honor to have Donad Malosi with us. Ibokon Faso, Donad Malosi from Botswana and the UK. Ibokon from Nigeria and Princess Malongo from South Africa. I will, my first question to them, and they take it in tone, is to really introduce themselves in the capacity and their connection to dramatogy and what that mean for them within the context of their own work. So ask Princess Malongo, do you want to start, take it away please. Thank you so much, Tyro. Hi everyone. Such an honor to be part of this amazing discussion I caught quite a few of the chats before and it's been really interesting to hear all the different views. And I think for me, I've been a theater director for many years and then went into producing my own work and also working with different creatives from South Africa in various ways. And one particular way has been running an independent space for artists by artists, just providing a platform where people can tell their stories. And I think for me, I found a huge gap that is particularly in South Africa. When I started as a director, you sort of in a way, I don't want to say dictated, but in a way guided towards, you know, telling stories that bring forth our history. Our history is really rooted in our theater. And you'll find that a lot of the conventional spaces needed to retell those stories. So when you come as a new director, female, you sort of test it in that way. So my experience with dramaturgy and working with one wasn't necessarily termed as a dramaturgy person, but mostly you'd have a mentor who'd come in and guide, you know, on this work or this text that has, you know, been around for so many years. My first production was And The Girls And They Sunday Dressers, which was written by Zakeson and here I am, you know, coming across the script and needing to honor the history that comes with it, you know, so I found working with someone to this regard, you know, very beneficiary in how I told the honesty of the work. And moving on into becoming independent as a director, as a producer and wanting to write my own work, this is where I felt that it was a bit outdated or disconnected the process of having a dramaturgy in your beginning process, because you are young and, you know, needing to explore how you as a new director tell your own stories, what is that, you know, who do you engage with in discovering that. So I think with my own work, I needed to work with, the work was basically commissioned by Austria, which required me to then work with someone from a different cultural background and how do you find the meeting ground to, you know, tell my people's story, which is my story, with someone across the world, and finding that meeting point, and, you know, the advantages of it and the advantages of just having someone from somewhere else opening up my mind as a South African creative who hasn't been exposed to other ways and means of working. So I was able to use, you know, that process to inform my work, but also giving me the freedom to do something that's not done in my own hometown. So I think for me, this is how I understand the process and engaging with a person or a process that informs the work, new work, specifically new work that you are creating in your current time. So I will pass it on to Donald. Thank you. My name is Donald Mulussi. I am from Botswana, and I'm an actor and writer. In my work as an actor, I this year, I have 20 years of professional stage performance to my name, which is why I'm also thinking of trying out other medium. You know, it means that my dramaturgy is going to change in the coming couple of years. And as an actor, obviously, I've been dramaturged by other people when I was off Broadway and on Broadway, and also when I was performing around the African continent, the market theater. But I also got to perform my own original work on those stages, which meant I was also dramaturging as well. So I think the dynamic between being dramaturged and you're dramaturging yourself is something that I'll probably touch on later on. And then as a writer, I write dramatic literature plays. And I also write fiction. Again, you have these two different ways of writing that are about creating a story and experience in conversation with history. So I've had to sort of realize that as much as I'm writing something that I want to sort of have freedom over, I also want to, I'm also aware that I'm writing about a history of the people who've never had their history written. So there's a diligence that came with my dramaturgy in that sense. Thank you. And I'll pass it on to Iwukun. Yes. Hi, everyone. My name is Iwukun Faso. I'm a playwright. I'm a stage manager. I'm a director. I'm a producer. So yeah, my connection to dramaturgy is on different levels, on directed state management, producing and playwriting. So in terms of dramaturgy, it's not really been a formal thing to me. But in my experience as a director, I've always invited people to after block my play or turn my dress on set or something like that to help me look at the play, to dissect it. So I invite people from three, I think three or two different levels, from people that are either inclined, people that are culturally inclined, don't know anything about it, and just want to come and see the play. So I bring them on board to tell me what do you think about this play? You know, and although before that I was invited, I always do my research. I go to people and everything. So the dramaturgy to me is in terms of it's not institutionalized, institutionalized in a way because I have people, I have people that I consult that are not necessarily limited. So again, in terms of state management, I've worked with so many play directors and everything that would dissect you with what the audience wants. And is this play interesting? Is it not interesting? Is it going to really pass across the message we want to be passed? And in terms of producing, I produced, I was the associate producer of Big O State Festival for three years, I think it was in 2018. I was the producer of Big O State Festival in 2019. So my dramaturgy there has been a passive one, you know, where I have conversations with the producers, producers in the festival, in the festival one on one. How can we, you know, I know that you created your play, you know, so this is now in our space. So how do we make it work? And this is what I feel, I tell them, you know, this is what I feel has been working so far. So what do we, how do we make this thing much more interesting? And for example, for some plays, that if I get audience experience, you know, for maybe the best performance of the play, I go to many producers the next time. And so this is it, you know, do you think you can work like this? And sometimes, you know, it's, it's left for the producer, it's left for the director, so it's either a safe or not. And in terms of playwriting, my, my, I've always had to consult people really, really, you know, to, for example, for my recent play, the excitement, I had to consult a lot of people, especially people that could, that frequent bars in love. So it's from every process before I even start constructing my lines and everything. And even after writing, I, I, I submitted to peer reviews. So I submitted to different, my friends, colleagues, professionals, okay, we display, let me know what it is. So some people will review it, review the structural elements of people review the cultural elements of people review the political elements and everything. So, yeah, so that, that's just, you know, my, my connection to the project. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Interesting, because the three of you, you've touched on, you know, interesting ideas. One being, being a curator of, of, of an, of a theatrical experience of a, of a festival. And also being a, being a programmer in the context of Ibu Khan, and also being a producer. And I know that, you know, Karishma be talking about producing and hopefully we get there. We can revisit that. But I want to come back to that idea of it seems the three of you are different levels. It's either you have, you, you, you highlighted the fact that the idea of dramaturgy within the context of your own work and your location, it's not necessarily institutionalized. And perhaps there is no format training for that. I think my question then to follow up on that is, how have you been able to conceptualize that idea of dramaturgy if you have at the beginning of your work, or in the middle of it, or at the end of it, how are those, how has it been helpful for you in, in your writing for doughnut? And I mentioned earlier on in our previous conversation doughnut about one of your plays, Montuana, an amazing piece, you know, that is very at the forefront of, of so many, so many discourses from post-colonial to, to, to, you know, to decolonization, to speaking back to, you know, to, to, to identity and things like that, or to the entanglement in Bocon's work, or to princess work where as a director that is, you know, exploring stories that are of your people, from your people. And I just remember one of your projects he does, that was around centered around names, right, where you were critically, you were interested in exploring names and histories and identities and connection. How does this idea of dramaturgy itself, how does it help in that process, in that development process? And we can start with our princess now. No, we can start with doughnut now, and then we'll come to princess, I will come to Bocon then to princess. Okay. For me, the, the plays that I wrote in We Are All Blue, which is a collection of my Broadway plays, they are plays about Botswana, Botswana's history that has not been told, does not even exist in Botswana classrooms. So I was very aware that I'm putting together, curating almost a history for a different generation. There are people who will encounter my work and never encounter the archives because we don't have an education system that privileges our history. So when I approached those plays and writing them, I was aware that I was surrogating the past and I was aware that I wanted a historian to look at my plays and give me an A plus. And I still wanted a literary reviewer to also think that it was half decent. So my dramaturgical process then was more about the diligence of a lack, you know, a lack of our stories. I think if I came from a place that has told a lot of its own stories, I would even be doing satire or something like that about the past. But my engagement had to be very diligent. And so I think that informed a lot of my work to a great extent. And as I performed it around the world, because I wrote it and performed a lot of it, I was aware that I was performing it in English, you know, which of course in Botswana, it means that if I use English, I get to speak to the whole country. But it also means that I'm using a colonial language. And as we decolonize dramaturgy, I also am aware of my own positionality as an English speaking Botswana, that I claim English as mine, not every African will. And so my dramaturgical experience has sort of been characterized by lots of questions and experiments. And I really look forward to what it will evolve into as I try to move to a different media much as film. Interesting. I'm going to come back to because I think that language is a very, you know, it's a huge one, especially for the three of you, you're working across different continents, different cultures. And you have to always constantly look for language that connects, you know, that people can understand. And I think languages is that is that, you know, it's English language is something that kind of resonates to the three of you. We're going to come back to that when we, you know, that idea of language and other things within the context of decolonization, because I think it's really very critical. But I want to go back to Princess based on this question on that I've rendered. What are your thoughts, Princess? Princess, you might have to unmute. Sorry. I think, Tyrone, you know, for me, when I started writing my first play, I was truly exploring just the freedom of selecting a style as a director. So I was coming from that point of view. I felt the work that, you know, that comes from our past, engaged with poor theater. And I wanted to explore a different way of telling South African stories, you know, in, in different styles. So I was coming from that point of view. However, I was very much aware on that journey. That's my own personal journey as a director. I was my very much aware that around me, there were so many writers with unheard stories. I knew that that was happening because I went to Dowrow and there were files and files of scripts that have not been told, you know. So me providing a platform that allowed, you know, for us to be constantly, it wasn't, you know, about structure or, you know, it wasn't about what you may get from, you know, tertiary and B, because it really wasn't about that, because we weren't, we weren't exposed to that at all. So me as a theater director, I wasn't exposed to dramaturgy and, you know, engaging with someone only when I went, you know, and started directing as a theater director, because I was placed on a platform that allowed me. However, on the grassroots, there were so many writers who had scripts and nevermind structure and plot. They just, you know, they've written something and what do I do now, you know. So which is why the platform became so crucial in just us engaging in how we share our stories before, you know, understanding how it can move to across the world or what have you. It was just about how do we share, you know, the stories that exist amongst us. How do we constantly hear and discuss and share. So creating a platform allowed an environment where dramaturgy was taking place, even though we weren't aware. After someone watches a play, you know, someone is like, wow, I would have never thought of that if I didn't have this platform to have people talking about my work and new stories, let me go back, rewrite, you know. So the community in a way became that movement of how do we actually dissect this new work that's coming out that may have problems according to the western house structure and whatever it means, you know, needs to be. But how about let's just make sure the work is heard. So for me, it's never mind, you know, how, but let's make sure that it lands on someone's ear for the work to continue and move on. The interest interest in Prince is because you're touching on that idea of community drama talking one another. And like we did establish, you know, very early in the in the series where we're talking about the fact that the idea of format training of drama talk of dramaturgy itself of drama talks and all of that, it's an interesting one, even, you know, even in the western part of the world. And, you know, there's no necessarily that format training. And, you know, one of the things we said, I think it was in episode four is the idea, you know, posing the question that the fact that, you know, people, there's no, we don't have format training. That still doesn't mean that it's not it's not a thing, right? You know, the fact that there is a platform where folks can, you know, your community, you know, playwright, they are helping one another, you know, asking questions, historically, you know, take going, taking their peace back to their community, or to their grandfathers or parents and say, Hey, I'm looking at this story, what does it mean? Or somebody that has read something from archive of history to say, have you considered this asking questions? It's, it's that idea of community drama talking in, in, within the context of the history and the ethos of the people, which is very, very interesting idea versus having just one drama talk or one pressing that is sitting on the walk of giving guidance and support. So it's an interesting piece you just touched. Now, well, of course, hopefully we're going to come back, hopefully we speak to institutional dramaturgy, because he's worked within institution as a person who, who was producing a festival and all of that. But we're going to come to that idea of community drama talking because maybe, maybe that's something interesting that the, you know, lot of theater makers and the practice and the tradition, the creative tradition on the continent can actually offer the feed of dramaturgy itself, right? Well, we're not, it's not just about one person. Donad was saying that he, you know, he wants to ensure that his piece lands in the hand of a historian and says, yes, this is accurate, lands in the hand of, and by historian, we're not just talking about somebody that acquired a PhD in history alone, we're talking about somebody that is actually from that country that has understanding of the accurate understanding of that, of the history of, you know, of the people of that country, right? So, which is very interesting, right? We're going to come, Ibokun, your thought on the question, and I'm doing a lot of editorial punches here because it's the last episode, just bringing many things together. But Ibokun, we're going to hand over to Ibokun, the thought about the question, and then we come back to other ideas that both Donad and Princes have raised. Over to you. Okay, so in terms of dramaturgy, you know, my dramaturgy is in three different phases. Okay, I will talk about playwrighting now. So, before I write my play, okay, let me use my recent video. Before I go to play, I wanted to, I wanted to write a video about NSAS, and that's a recent police brutality in Nigeria. And before that, oh my god, and before that, I had always wanted to also write a play about politics and everything. So, while I was researching, you know, the NSAS came about, and I was like, okay, this is a fantastic thing. And because I was not that active in the protest, you know, it gave me so much issues. So, the first thing I gave was to go to people that really attended this protest, and interviewed a lot of people. I said questionnaires, you know, what do you feel about this protest? You know, trying to divulge emotions, trying to divulge emotions in me, from all these things. Then, after that, I went, then after that, I started writing my play. You know, and in the process of writing my play, I discovered that I still didn't have enough experience. And then I was like, okay, what space can I physicalize this play? And I've always been a lover of one man play. There's one man to man play, and people who know me well know that I don't like to see them better at all. So, I decided, okay, I'm going to situate this performance in Ibarra. And if I situate the performance in Ibarra, I want that part to represent several things for me. So, Ibarra represented the church. Ibarra, you know, I was telling a lot of stories. So, then I started interviewing people again about, because there was one point I wrote about Yao Yao, you know, Yao Yao for people that don't know it. It's internet world, you know, about this guy. So, I didn't know a lot about them. So, I just, I started talking to people that, that new friends that, that were for stars and codes, you know, and they started telling me their stories, you know, how they are not really into this thing because of, because they really want to be the way, you know, how society has frustrated them and all these things. So, I made my story quite true to people that are representing. So, I don't miss represent anybody, you know, because I can have these ideas about these people. Then when it's on stage, people will be like, no, no, no, we don't talk like that. No, this is not us. We are not representing us well. And again, because of my experience, state managing and directing, you know, before the play will go on stage, we do a lot. We bring people in to tell the play down, you know, this can't just speak like someone, you know, out there. And so, then I decided, okay, let me put this play on stage. So, I wrote the first act, you know, the plays in three acts. But I wrote the first act and I decided that I was going to perform it at Ligo Stage, at Ligo Stage, that festival created by Kinect Move. So, I decided, okay, let me do this thing. And after the first performance, I got the response. And I didn't know that I knew something really interesting. So, the opportunity for the, oh, for the competition came in and I started fleshing it up. Fleshing it up and bringing in more people interviewing. So, you know, by the time I finished the play, I had to also send it back to people, you know, I sent it to someone that goes to buy, you know, that sent it to include an internet foxtel. You know, let me look at this play, whether it really depict this thing, you know, I sent it to my friend, I sent it to the people in the academia, you know, let me look at the structure, you know, you know, I sent it to my lecturer, you know, I sent it to just simple people to just speak and say, oh, I support it. So, you know, drama talk is of three points, different levels. And I feel that, you know, it's not, someone doesn't need to be that educated before they call the drama talk. There are some people that even, that are in the position of drama, and that are acting in the position of drama talk, and they don't even know that they are drama talk at all. You know, it's street, it's out. There was one time I was writing a play, it's out was my drama talk. It's street talking. So, it's so funny how drama talky and the definition of drama talky, there are different levels, different processes and everything. Thank you. Thank you, Buquay. Interesting how you're really touching the idea of outsourcing and finding and looking for the resources around you and tapping into that for those that can guide you through that process. Quite interesting, because also kind of maybe speaks to the idea of the collective that a lot of our community or society within the context of African culture, will you think about? And that's really, even though there is no one person that you could term as, you know, as giving you the dramaturgical support, you were able to gain support from multiple levels of interactions and people and all of that. I'm going to come to to Donut with this question because you've written a lot of plays and your plays have, you know, they are what winning plays and really, really proud of you for offering us amazing piece that I've taken center stage, you know, on Broadway and off Broadway. But before asking my question, Donut, I just wanted to have viewers, if you have questions or provocations or thoughts or ideas, just use the chat box. Co-producer Brendan will show that we get your question ideas to attend to them. We encourage the interaction as we move forward. So, Donut, do you want to talk about your own dramaturgical process? Or how as the dramaturgical skills help you in your work? I know that it seems the three of you have sort of inferred in different ways that you do not necessarily subscribe to having one person as a dramaturg. Rather, you research by yourself, your self-dramatog and also you sort of use that hybrid model of self-dramatogen and at the same time finding outsourcing it, the process of asking questions, taking the logic of the performance, research and all of that outsourcing it also to people around you that are in your network. What's your process as a playwright now, Donut? And I'm going to come to Princess as a director. What's your own process? But let's start with Donut first. What's your process? What does it look like? Yes, thank you. You know, it differs from project to project because I find that I need to be so aware of my positionality every single time. For example, my first play that was off Broadway was Today It's Me, which is a Ugandan play about the first public figure in Africa to declare that he was HIV positive in 1988. So he was Ugandan, I'm not Ugandan. I had to be very aware as I wrote Luganda and sang Luganda on stage of my positionality. So for that one, my process, for example, would be, you know, I did go to Uganda, lived in Uganda, learned the language, and so on. But I just wanted to share my process for Blue, Black and White, which is my play about Cercerus de Cama, Buzana's first president, that, you know, this was a story that only existed in the minds of our elders. It did not exist in the school curriculum. And so I had to go to three continents, you know, to find pieces of the story, to go into museums in the UK, find audio. We had never heard his voice at that point. I mean, that's just how extremely colonial it is. I mean, I can't imagine any African country that hasn't heard the voice of the speeches of its first president. But this was the case, you know, 10 years ago. And so I had to really do almost like historical work. And at some point I thought to myself, am I writing a play or am I writing something else? Because this seemed like a very academic exercise. But it was useful because I was able to get different facets of how this couple who were interracial in 1947 were perceived. Once I had done that and put it on stage, the dramaturgical journey did not stop for me because I still wanted to learn how to better shape the story. So I took it on tour. And the reason I perform a lot of my works over and over again, it's an editing method for me, right? Every audience that speaks to me after that, I go back to my room and I write all of that down. And if that goes on for six months around the world, at the end of it, I have collaborated with the feedback that's been given. And that helps me shape the story in a different or better dramatic, surgical direction. So that's kind of my approach to it that it has to be collaborative. And also, I have to first and foremost be aware of my positionality. I cannot tell a Ugandan story and pretend like I'm a cultural insider. I have to have the same sensitivities as a white person telling an African story. Thank you. Interesting. Because you've touched on, after this round, we're going to come to the idea of decolonizing dramaturgy. The three of you, you've touched on different things that I'm hoping we're going to draw from and really focus on decolonizing dramaturgy. But one of the things you said, and I think it was specifically episode two, where we were talking about the idea of having an external dramaturge, where you're taking a particular place. And I think Princess also mentioned that, where she had a commission from Austria, and then she's working across two cultures. And the reality is that a person coming from that part of the world, may necessarily not have that cultural sensibility and sensitivity to the story. So that's really very interesting, especially from the context of what it means to dramaturge. But then beyond that, an institutional dramaturge, as maybe in charge of a festival, you're in charge of curation and all of that. And those are interesting ideas, where you for Donut, you had to really do like Torah research, archival research and all of that, which is really interesting, to your process. Princess, what's your process? What does it look like? And you can feel free to cite any of your examples, whether from a direct toast perspective or from other perspectives and positionalities that you want to take. Yeah. I think I'll speak of a musical that I directed and also formed part of the dramaturge process with the writer, which was an interesting position for me, because I had never, I feel being in that position where now I'm giving insight on, before I have access to the work. So it was different for me as the director to be in the process of writing from the beginning stages with the writer. And it was a very, I think it was a self-discovery for me and my journey as a director that this is actually how I want to tell my stories, is to work closely with someone, because I already have a vision of what I want to see on stage and how I influenced that from the beginning was very crucial for me. And this particular play was called Divas of Kofifi, which had, at that moment, living legends, mom Tandi Klassen, mom Dorothy Masuga, and mom Abigail. And two of them have since passed on. And for me, that sort of highlighted the importance of telling that story while they were still alive and extracting all that information from them that only they held. And that formed an important part in how me and the writer sort of engaged with each other on how do we handle this history. And I think it's constantly that, as a South African, you're constantly trying to see how you handle a history that now needs to be told and heard. And that was a beautiful process, very different to my earlier experience of being a young director, wanting to be free, wanting to tell my own story in my own way. And I feel that Austria actually allowed me to do that. So the process of the dramaturgies was not necessarily to question and interrogate what I'm putting on the floor. It was basically his role became what you were mentioning, Ta'ov, what institution is he coming from and what responsibilities does he have to ensure that whatever's on the floor can connect to these representing the people from his culture. So it was a meeting ground. And although there were, like I said, disadvantages and advantages, you constantly negotiating, which was what's different from working in the South African context of my, you know, but taking my work somewhere else where already what I'm doing is foreign. I felt that there was respect in terms of honoring what I want to be told and what I felt is fit, important and needs to be in the play. However, even prior to that, I had engaged with so many different people at home, knowing that someone else is going to come in. So I think as a director or writer, you know, you sort of also trying to find ways of protecting your work from, you know, people who may enter and may take you somewhere else. So the community aspect of bringing people into the work has always been important and a part of my work from a young age to now. And even as a dramatist, I can say that because now I think we've explained that in a way we all are, you know, if you've worked on work, whether you self-dramatized, self-being yourself, dramatist or involving other people, you know, there's still a part of you that informs the work in how it moves forward, you know. So I think I've connected to my role as that, not solely as a director, because you also sort of put to stay in your lane, right? It's like wait for the script, the writer will send it to you when it's ready. But crossing and, you know, crossing those lines and having the director sooner with the writer was something very special for me, which I felt took the work to a completely different direction. By the time it's the final draft, then I'm directing it, you know. There's just so much that has been put in by so many different people that there's no way that it can be light, it's heavy because our history is heavy. And it's because it's not told, you need people to continuously add, you know, until whoever's making the final decision of it's enough now, you know, gives the go-ahead to pass it on to the next phase. So I think for me as a director, I've just enjoyed that fluidity of moving in and out, of staying in my lane, but also going in and putting in my two cents to send it in the direction we want it to go in. Interesting. The three of you kind of touching on that, you know, that the dramaturgy of now really acknowledge that how nuanced and complex the word we live in right now exists, the word we exist in right now, it is that sense of that complexity and involving different people in that creative process. And that even for you, if you want to do that research and all of that by yourself, that you're considering and asking those critical questions that are really important to bringing things together. I love something that the three of you kind of alluded to the community again, you know, for doughnut, even though you do your archival work, you do the research and you're asking all of those questions, the community become like that thought I for you, that it guide that process and the informed revision upon revision. Same thing for Ibuquon and same thing for Princes, where the community again gives you that platform when you outsource that, you know, that thought I responsibility to them to ask you questions, to challenge you, to help you to refine, define, and hopefully clearly articulate what you're trying to say. This question is for Ibuquon and then after that we're going to flip to why decolonize dramaturgy. So I wanted to start thinking in terms of that, your key point in terms of, you know, decolonizing dramaturgy, for Ibuquon because you've worked, you've curated a festival, a series of festivals, you also produced them, you've programmed them. What does dramaturgy looks like in the context of doing a festival in Nigeria? All right? We have to emphasize the rule of the place. All right? And I think Dona had also said that you're writing a play for Uganda, somewhat from Uganda where you're not really Uganda, and then you have to understand the rule of the place and history and all of that and the entire ethos in that place. So for you, Ibuquon, what does that look like? One, two, and what does it look like to go to that festival? Because you just came back from Dubai and I, you know, graciously happened to know some of your forthcoming itineraries and the ones in the past. What does it look like from a dramaturgical perspective, curating programming festivals or co-curated or co-programming festivals and then being part of other festivals that you were invited to be? And I know Dona do not have something to say here, too, with your work with, you know, with World, I'm going blank on that. You will help me. United Solo. Yeah, United Solo. Thank you. Thank you. United Solo. Yes, yes, exactly. And hopefully, Prince is also within the context of South Africa if you're connected to any festival. But let's go to Ibuquon. What are your thoughts to that question? Okay. In terms of producing festivals, okay, it starts with first coming up with a theme, you know, the theme of the festival, you know, what do we want the festival to reflect? And then selecting three-inch companies and selecting curated companies, you know, so for Lagos Tata Festival, we curate up to four performances that we are going to pay attention to, you know, so much attention to. Then we have other performances, French performances. So for French performances, I would say that my influence as a producer and a co-deployment or, you know, doesn't really have, I don't have so much influence on them because it's their work anyway. So what I do is to try to just try to advise them on how to perform this play into spaces. You know, so for example, we did Lagos Tata Festival in 2019. If we don't pack, so we have issues, not issues. So of course, in your producing place at that festival, you know, you know that you're constrained with space and you just have to do it in the space that you're giving that that you can allocate it to. So the thing is, you know, so you can which play are you doing? So to start with, if someone tells me that he's doing better than King Sosman, you know, you're giving this somewhere better than King Sosman and everything then, I look at the spaces, you know, you can suggest the space you want, but I look at the spaces, you know, based on the timing and all those things that I do. It is a space that will be good for your performance, you know, so let's put it there. And then I give them an explanation for why. So there was one thing that happened one-on-one with a French producer came to me and said, you know, did this space, I don't really like it that much. I don't think it can work. So what I did there was, you know, to he had to explain his performance to me and because I love size facilities, I love outdoor space. You know, we are going to treat the play this way, you know, don't let your actors enter like that, you know, because of audience that, you know, you wanted the whole thing to be proscenium style. And I told him, look, people are not in proscenium space and people are not indoors. Everybody's outdoors in this festival. So why don't you, why, why don't you make your play to just fit the outdoor style. So with that, I, I, I, I act as a drama queen. Also for curated plays, you know, that we have that as a festival, we have big demands, you know, because you're playing them, of course, and there's ticket for sharing. You know, so they, for me, I, when I, when people submit ventures for the festival, you know, I say, please, which one, which stories we want to get to, you know, and I don't want the occasion of paying for everything. So there was one story I was very interested in, you know, the story about mental illness. And during this time, you know, several people, you know, there have been issues of suicide, and I felt, you know, this, this story is coming at the appropriate time. So we, I attend you as I was, you know, this is what we can do. You know, this is, if you want to tell your guests it will be. How do we make your guests experience really good so that people can come to your, to see this show? And I will tell you as much, I tell you as much as possible not to interfere in the creative process, because I understand, because I've also been a director, I understand how it is when it relates to us, and it's an idea of how it is to be, to be, and also have also been a, I'm also a stick manager. So I just advise, based on space, based on audience experience, because audience experience is core in anything you do, you know, you can, if your this experience is not good, especially in festivals, nobody will come to see your shows, and you need to make money. So I decided to do that. I'm also putting, you know, I'm also managing a project in teleculture at the moment, you know, out of theatre. So I'm also curating that, bringing smaller company to curate me. So after the pandemic, sorry, not after the pandemic, during this pandemic, you know, we discovered that producing plays have been very difficult for companies. In 2019, we had seven big shows happening in Lagos, every day. It even got to a point that theatre artists, you know, it was about, you know, how much are you paying, you know, this one is offering me better. So for this, for this idea of out of theatre, I'm more interested about how small, you know, how what's the strength of your cast. How can we, how can you adapt this play to suit out of space, forget about procedure, you know, let's start decolonizing all this, let's not just start thinking about everything has to be procedure, procedure, procedure. And so far, audience have loved it, you know, before, when we first started, people were all about, you know, this thing not that send me to pay $5,000 to what you pay out, but every producer that has come to studio please, they have been successful in terms of the audience experience, you know, just the audience experience has been good. And again, we are redirecting the minds, the expectations of the audience into other forms of theatre. Because right now in Nigeria, audience have been made to believe that proscenium theatre is really form of theatre, you know, because we don't have lots of other theatres, which is actually the African theatre. So we are bringing that back to play. So that, I think, I don't know if I've answered the question that well, because this has been my functionality of producing and dramatogical, please, and call on this about it. No, thank you, because you've kind of given us, you know, different, you know, you're coming at this from different perspectives, perspectives rather, as someone who is producing and also offering that dramatogical lens to and asking questions really to place that you're, you know, you're selecting that you're bringing and helping being that whole eye to say, why are you choosing proscenium stage vessels, you know, around theatre? Why are you, that's a directorial choice, but why did you choose it? Because we know that a dramatog, you know, the main question, the main role of a dramatog is really to ask questions, the why question? Why are you doing this? So that you can, you can be able to articulate or even if you cannot, at least you haven't understood what you're trying to do. So thank you for, thank you for offering that thought. Over to you, Donut. I know you experienced off-Broadway with United Solo. That will be, it'll be something to hear your own thoughts to this question. Over to you. Thank you. And before I respond, let me just say earlier, I said that me going to Uganda and not being sensitive to the culture would be like a white person coming to Africa. I meant a non-African white person. I don't mean to pretend that white Africans don't exist. For me, the institutionalization of dramaturgy has been interesting because it cuts across media and I realized that when I was working on stage, there was much more in exchange of ideas in terms of whether I was on Broadway or whether I was in Taiwan or wherever I was because theater lends itself to that collaborative process. Now with film, I found that the asylos of the executive decisions I made here and then this one here and then the producers here and the way that unfolded for me pragmatically, I'll just tell you a quick story is the the play that I told you about that was about the interracial marriage of our first president in Botswana in the 1940s to a British woman while we were still a British protectorate. I mean, that's why it was scandalous. So I did that as a play of Broadway and I wrote it as a book. I did it as a documentary and I finally did it as a Hollywood film. Now, the Hollywood film is where it got interesting in terms of dramaturgy because it meant that now it was being produced by this multi-million dollar billion dollar machine called Hollywood and institution on its own and it wanted to have a monopoly on how a story is told for its own capitalist gain and that's what Hollywood does. So I found that a story that I had lived with at that point for a third of my life, I was 30 years old and I've been doing it for 11 years, a story that I lived with for so long across continents to watch it get sort of taken apart in the name of dramaturgy, bastardized in the name of dramaturgy and always being excused as the material being prepped for a global audience. That was an interesting experience and I remember one of the decisions in A United Kingdom, that's the name of the film, that were made was to remove Setsuana. That Setsuana as a language was not going to be heard on the film and I thought to myself, first of all, this whole drama of speaking to your ethnic group and justifying your international marriage, whatever, all those things happened in Setsuana. I know because I have the transcripts for my book. So to watch that suddenly have to cross the linguistic barrier and have to make sense in English was disheartening for me as a Mutsuana because you know there's so much that English just fails to capture about Africans and so even as I'm an African who writes in English about Africa, I'm very aware of the times when it just fails and so for me that kind of experience of how we curated that story for a different medium for film and for a different audience which is the global audience with prospects of getting Oscars and all that, it became a much more problematically dramatized story and the unfortunate part of this is that Hollywood is such a huge institution that once they have told a certain story about a certain people, it's very difficult for those people to get their story back and tell it for their own voice. So, you know, similar to what Irukumu was saying earlier that institutions do control the voice of how the story ends up being told but in this case I felt that it's not just the story being affected, it's a history of a people. It won't be in my child's generation that that's corrected, my child's generation has Hollywood as the authority on that story and it's almost like what I did for 10 years before that film came along does not matter because now it's been told by an institution that is so big and what I did and many other people did. So, I just wanted to point out like how you know when institutions get involved they don't always have the people's history at heart and they are just looking for profit and those stories tend to be extremely colonialist in that sense that they reaffirm the very tenets of colonialism yeah I will stop here but yeah so that was my experience. Well, I'd love to hear more about about the is it the one that was released in 2016? Yes, it is. Oh okay great I'd love to hear more about that which is interesting to think about the dramatic within the context of theater versus the context of film and the other forces, unseen forces that direct how we tell stories, the question we ask, the audience we're serving and things like that. Over to you princess, what's your thought to this question? Yeah, yeah a lot to take in, it's wow it's really great to hear. I think I was, I'll start with what Donna was speaking about especially because you know I'm missioning into the film world and I completely relate because my husband is a film director so I've you know had the stories he's also had the Hollywood opportunities way. You know your work is just ripped apart you know in the name of you know Hollywood standards. However I think when I think of the National Arts Festival and going virtual right because I think theater going virtual sort of brought about this interest for a lot of theater makers to explore you know this different medium of telling stories and having worked with the National Arts Festival and being exposed to so many different ways of you know of just relaying a story from people from all over the world right has been an eye opener for me in terms of already what's happening or though we are saying you know the process of decolonizing I feel like it's already or it's it's already been happening in many ways right and I think as a producer you constantly trying to or you always have to be aware of the changes that take place or else you'll be left behind right. There's a show that I produce and we've done so for for quite a while rate for a motorcycle and it's a performance art piece and we usually look for spaces that are unconventional that will allow the work to to live in a different way so we're performing it in galleries we're performing it in if it's a theater we you know in the changing rooms dressing rooms of the theater bringing in the audience you know in different direction just basically breaking the rules and I feel for me as a producer this is where it becomes so important to like I'm saying being aware of the transformation as we're going through them because this informs the work in a different way this is why when you continuously going back to work you know going back to the work because that's the beauty with theater and what makes different from film you know is that you this opportunity to continuously revisit the story and how it's told in different places for different people in a different time you know for me this is where the decolonizing process may you know I feel that's where we should not touch you know that process of revisiting a work and what it means in a different time and I say that as a director directing you know a play by Zakes and Dao many years before I was born it holds that history which is where I feel the people who who are well as a producer working with an artist this is where I have to place a certain type of respect of how each time do I you know revisit the work and to ensure that you know it lives on so as you know we're touching about the space and I've been very passionate about space for many years for this particular reason that if we do not have a place where artists can lay to ground you know what needs to be heard then where and even that decolonizing the structures you know that have been placed where it's the only place where you can hear the theater you know it's also problematic you know for me it just doesn't go it's not only about how a dramaturg you know engages with the work but it's also about how do we decolonize the spaces where the works get seen how do we decolonize how we're supposed to tell our stories as as Africans you know and for me it all works hand in hand you know and I mentioned the National Arts Festival particularly because it's a curation of now the structure that you used to know has to be changed you know so you are forced into breaking it whether you wanted to or not and there we discovered beautiful stories where people went beyond what they were used to I mean the the play or rather the film that won the gold evasion was called the shack where this guy just took his camera and recorded the thoughts of a shack and where else would you see that you know and except in in maybe Africa where people would then relate to those stories and those are the stories we want to hear you know so for me just having various platforms where we can engage with the stories is so important in how we continue with the history of us as Africans. Interesting I'd love to go to the question around space but we don't have time because I want us to spend time on decolonizing the but I just want to say that you know the question of space in the in the context of Lucal the question and its context of having a physical space can be an interesting conversation especially because of the administrative and managerial responsibility of having a space itself right the lot of theaters cannot even have not been able to survive wouldn't wouldn't have survived if they are the physical space so for example my own theater theater company Tetemish International in Nigeria when I studied we didn't even have money to have a space and we've never we have space that sort of like you know administrative and all that but our work has always been from one place to another we're very nomad in our practice in our function and even when we think about theater from a from an African perspective it's not about the space itself because every space you get to your performance claims that space you know the market space the market itself like you were saying the market theater you know the community theater the the market is not their space right from from a standpoint but when they get to that community that particular place the claiming for their performance it's kind of interesting to hear how the idea of space you know speak to dramaturgy and how the stories are being told and the kind of stories that have been told and the audience that are coming to it and how the practice of the the the space itself informed so many layers and levels of the theater itself family will permit us to go into space but but I like to just kind of dive in why we're I've checked in with Brandon we don't have question from our viewers yet hopefully we do but I like to ask the question and for three of you to weigh into this why decolonize dramaturgy or what what what do you think these idea of decolonizing dramaturgy what do you think what ideas do you think this is opening us to to talk about or giving us platform to engage maybe I can ask Dona to to take to take that first and we'll go to Ibuku and then we'll go to princess over to you Dona. I think we need to decolonize everything right so because colonialism was bad but but but you know jokes aside I think that our understanding of theater as you know Ibuku pointed out about how the proscenium is privileged over our own way of performing outdoors inside specifically and whatnot is that the way we practice theater as Africans is still very much colonial meaning that it excludes a lot of people and it excludes a lot of African narratives as well it excludes almost the core parts of us and I realize that when I look at the way that we practice theater in Botswana for example a lot of it is geared towards the tourist market who is the tourist in Botswana who is this European coming to gawk at animals and see us dancing in animal skin those kind of very reductive expectations of theater are what characterize theater in Botswana that it has to be pleasing to the tourist so I really push against that and I see it as a colonial understanding of what theater can do in my home so I push against it and I think that's what decolonization can do it can actually put people who look like me and who are sensible and intelligent and black in theater one of the things that I I had to talk because you were touching a bit on space that I had to think about a little differently as I grow as a person was maybe well my head space not really the space in the literal sense that I got the opportunity to work to teach at a school in India that was a school for children with disability now most of the students were there because they were deaf but it was a very mixed school in terms of disabilities which of course is a terrible challenge and I came back from that experience and I had already premiered that Ugandan play off Broadway I changed it and rewrote it into a sign language play so when I performed it in 2013 at United Solo it was a sign language so I was performing the whole thing through sign and it was because of how my whole mind space had changed and now as I work with United Solo for next year I'm realizing that in my work dramaturgically I've been excluding probably because I'm a product of colonialism myself but I've been excluding queer narratives from my work and pretending that you know there aren't queer characters in history so I am going into that space as well to see now how dramaturgy can catch up with our moralities our times and what we demand of our own humanity you know um so I will see how that goes um it's an experiment in my own humanity and also in my work um and if I do it well maybe um maybe Ibu Kun will invite me to Dubai and uh princess will invite me to to come and do a film also okay so um I think I I I have the problem with uh the world dramaturg and we we want dramaturg and and what institutions have made them to to be you know so and and I feel really like like what Dona said we need to decolonize everything you know just and the moment you decolonize everything start writing our truth okay for example um and well and again I have I have issues with when a a a dramaturg comes to me and tells me this is how it must be done you know for example when um when we went to UK to perform a play there was there was soon you know from the institution you know from from an institution in UK you know that told us you know this is this is this this is how the audience would like to play because they're bringing it to another country and just just to clarify and that would be the in an institutional drama talk for that particular yes yes yes yes an institutional drama talk you know this this and this is what you can do you know to make audience enjoy the play because you are inclined and this is what they will love and everything so I uh the uh we we had some conversations you know and and the director decided because I'm not going to I'm just going to have fun you know my my uh I'm going to let this play just be like that you know whether you like it or not you know let's say I goes and we discover that the audience loved it you know they were not even and you know then then at that point except by default with how institutions train dramaturgs you know and and and the uh and what uh I would like and the code I don't know the right word now in the code of conducts you know that dramaturgs uh have to follow and everything you know because and again I've had to also in in my words about to uh have this battle internal part of the drama talking play especially when it goes to another space or something because I remember the four parts that I that I directed that's all about about migration and about uh and about identities migration identity and what it means to be black in a white man's country and what it means to be black in a black man's country you know the the dilemma you know when we did it in idea of course it's in one woman play and it was written by Jacob Aiber uh that's a fantastic actor uh she it was the whole story so I was what can you tell me now so we have to go you know editing editing because she's the actress dramaturg at that point because that was the whole story so when when we state it at legal screen it was well accepted but we have to mission we wanted to take it to take it to uh to to South Africa to to perform at the crystal festival you know so we started looking at the what is the concept of uh migration what's the concept of greener pastures to South Africa you know what's the concept of and being what what what does it feel like to be black in South Africa what does it feel like to be you know so you know just to make the audience appreciate it even more even though it's a it's it's a story that has been told and it's it's it's a personal story of the actor itself you know so uh I discovered that the audience in increase of although they loved it but they didn't love the originality of it so and when we were taking Pelanto back recently you know we I was having discussions with some of the actors I was like you know you took the Pelanto South Africa when you took the Pelanto South Africa you know you had to change it you know to suit the South Africa and someone said something look at it Chinese we always speak Chinese we will always speak Chinese to you you know they will never change it you know so why must we why must we uh always always defer to the westerners you know why must you always want to let them understand us you know why must English be in the mode of communication for everybody why why must you do place of certain ways so we decided okay let's make this thing PG you know street street PG in English and with additions of Yuban I mean with additions of Yubai English you know and the audience loved it so again the the question of what is the concept of dramaturgy and again you know I again uh well I was writing something I think to me I think there is audience dramaturgy and institution dramaturgy you know and when I look at books I feel audience dramaturgy is as much as as a lot to as a lot because then you start thinking what they love and is it if they would love this do you think they would love it or are you thinking for the audience and and and again I used to say something that is what to give the audience a take you know if you don't if you give them rights you can't give so you you determine what the audience would accept so again you know there can be that there's a need to start uh colonizing what the western western people have have made to there there's a need to decolonize the concept of western or the the the concept of decolonize the concept of dramaturgy in western war because I can't imagine you know someone that is learning dramaturgy in in in in this day and they're just telling him about those western style of theater then he thinks he can he has he has all the authority to to dramatize an apricot but it's not even possible in fact even in apricot let's let me know in just after that if you're if you're working if you're in Nigeria and you're working on a Niger pay and play is uh culture specific so far you are evil doesn't mean you know a lot about you right but even if you're a Yompa man there are still some cultures you don't know about that you need to to to to research online at every stage there are people you need to meet and this person might just be this might just be someone working on the streets might be at home or might be anybody interesting thank you thank you Bukun you've touched on so many things that time won't permit us to unpack them um but very interesting to to you know your last point about um understanding our cultural boundaries and and and knowing that even for me as Yoruba I can't say I want to drama talk uh uh you know an evil an evil play it's not gonna work right and knowing that that's the same thing that culture specific and things like that um please we have to be careful and and and also for you and Donut you also touched on the idea of the the idea of always taking you know what is given to us as a standard the Greek theater is the standard who says that right who says that right um you know thanks to Brecht that came to to debunk that idea that you know you know his episodic theater is a theater too our own theater you know in our own theater performance tradition they are theater in their own right right so that idea of debunking those those those standards that has been that have been handed over to us we need to start thinking carefully about that I'd like to give the floor to to princess um to to share her thoughts about this question on white white decolonize uh dramaturgy over to you princess um yeah I think um for me it's it's really about rediscovering um and the process towards that in a way requires you to to strip off things that you know have been drilled into your head um from wherever I think it starts you know with the teachings of what are we being taught you know and for me even you know going and completing my degree and you know there's there's a whole disconnect of trying to catch up especially in South Africa you know because um I going through we went through a phase where you know a particular history was being told including in the arts you know and it took a while to introduce what actually are the stories that um my people you know left for me um so for me it starts there you know how do we actually change you know what is being taught and then from there how do you actually change the industry in terms of the work that is accepted which is why I refer to spaces because for me that was my initial engagement or my first engagement with the professional uh uh world of theater is that in order for your work to be seen you had to be in those spaces that you know were colonized and we know of theaters which are restricting in terms of what you're going to tell so that for me already was problematic that if I if for this space to accept me I have to be telling this type of work you understand so which is why the questioning of then why am I going to that space that does not allow me to tell something else so where else can I tell you know this work maybe I can do it in my garage okay what does that mean what am I actually missing out you know excluding from the work that may be crucial that you'll get in you know in them in the commercial spaces in the market theater what have you and for me uh not well I don't want to say nothing but uh when you weigh it up you know having one light is okay if I get to make sure my story is told you know and I feel that you know these structures may sell a particular way a colonized way of how we tell our story so hence I'm saying that decolonizing and I'm repeating what has been sold that it starts with everything it's what I'm being taught at school if it's it's it's unfortunate for me to discover a zaksimda play only towards my fourth year you understand and brach is first year and you know I'm interrogating that script and the structure and you know already it's thrilled in me the dramaturgy before I even meet the person it's already there I need to understand this world you know of this playwright although it is just as important because they hold the history so for me the reason why I say we need to drop and rediscover is because we've we've left out so much of ourselves because we so used to being told how to think we so used to you know this is the way that things are being done like you're saying by whom you know why is it that Greek theater has to be the first thing that I learn about you know what I mean because someone else has said this is the standard this it's been here for so long but that's because our stories have been erased it's not that we haven't been telling those stories they we can't find them so in order to find them you have to drop everything and take what is available now to ensure that at least that voice is heard regardless of how it is that script that is written by Donald you know needs to be heard because if it wasn't heard then it wouldn't have taught as much as it did you know what I mean so for me absolutely it's let's just get into it and stop trying to define it by all terms we need to redefine it according to our terms oh amazing thank you princess you kind of you kind of you know thank you for also bringing more nuance to the idea of space so that's not just physical space you're talking space from a different perspective and thank you for that you've kind of touched on really key things here the three of you the need for us to we have to rediscover ourselves as a people that were enough right that we don't have to be we don't have to be told what to do because that's the standard we you know the marriage shouldn't be their marriage should be our marriage should be our terms right and those are those are critical ideas that was kind of touched on you know in all the four episodes I know we have four more minutes to to come to bring this this to an end and we don't have questions so far we've asked folks if there are questions please pass it across we'll be happy to answer them but I just want to say thank you to the four to the three of you for taking the time to to share the space with me today it's been an interesting web series I have to say putting it together because I had to really ask myself some of these questions my you know in terms of you know what does it mean right and then looking into those to invite to speak to this and also knowing that the idea of decolonization can be contentious depending on who is talking about it where you're talking about it and different things like that um to our viewers out there want to say thank you for being part of of the journey with us we have four series before now so if you want to take you know an overview of all of them they are available on HowRound website and you can have access to watch them later on you can refurb to them in your classes for those that are teaching if you find any of these things useful I think all of them are open source so you can come on license I believe so you can you can refer to them on all of that I also want to thank you know HowRound for taking the time to be on this journey with us thanks to to our interpreter Jay and Tywoo is here today and of course Sarika has been one of our interpreters also that has been with us and to our captioners thank you so much and to to all our partners um Pan-African creative exchange thank you for taking been on the journey with us to safe work thank you so much to Teteh Mishri thank you so much and of course to the University of Regina thank you so much maybe to end today um if I do my final spiel idea last thought from three of you you know in 30 seconds that you just want to drop as we as we bring this to an end maybe to wrap up your thoughts um and we can we can just just go boom boom boom just go quickly three of you um we can start with um with Ibukon and then to Princess and then end on Donut we have to meet yourself Ibukon okay uh I'm not really thinking of something but I feel you know that there is a need for Africans to start owning their own space in terms of dramaturgy yeah and and uh and there's the need for us to start constructing writing about ourselves and not always uh and and not always be subjected to what the Westerners always be able to you know as as and thank you yeah thank you uh princess I think I'm gonna what I'm leaving with is is your words Tyra that we are enough I think um we are enough to to continue we are enough you know to to to share our stories so I think for me that's my biggest take take home take home with yeah thank you thank you princess uh Donut um I am really grateful um to learn um from Princess and Ibukon and I think anyone watching us who wants to do what we do is that don't be fearful to write the way we speak even if it's English write it the way we speak it and then the structure don't be afraid to structure it after our folk tales that's what I do forget the whole three structure thing do it the way your grandmother tells us those yeah thank you thanks very very radical um um really thank you so much for taking the time today um my name is Tywa Falabi and I've been really a privilege to curate this um I'm really excited that um all the all the environment the guests that were brought on this episode through on this series from episode one to episode of the fifth episode you can always go with their name contact them if you want information about them please feel free to reach out to me if you can reach out to them I think they're they're available anytime and they're contacted out there but um just wanted to say that's really been a privilege um like I did mention at the beginning I'm a Canada researcher in socially engaged theater and the director of a center for social engaged theater and an assistant professor at the university of uh Regina and um I started my own theater company back in enjoy theater and international assist driving and so it's an opportunity to bring all of these connections to my work and to be able to share space with this lovely folks today thank you so much thanks to Brendan that has been there my co-producer from safe world thanks to Tywa and Jay and of course thank you to all our viewers and um thank you so much thank you all right thank you thank you to you Tywa well done this is awesome thank you great thank you thank you bye