Category: ARTS & THEATER

The Segal Center celebrates the history of legendary CLUB 57. In 1978, a Polish emigré Stanley Strychacki rented a basement space of the Holy Cross Polish National Church at 57 St. Marks’ Place with an intention “to create an environment for artists so they could meet, collaborate, and create.” With founder Stanley Strychacki, Dany Johnson, Ande Whyland and April Palmieri. Moderated by Frank Hentschker. Event is co-curated by Tomek Smolarski (Polish Cultural Institute NY).

Club 57 thrived on St. Mark’s Place from 1978-1983 and offered an early platform for the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, as well as composers and musicians like Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Cyndi Lauper, and performers Ann Magnuson, Joey Arias, Wendy Wild, RuPaul, John “Lypsinka” Epperson (who started doing drag there), Dany Johnson, Fab Five Freddy, Holly Woodlawn (a Warhol superstar), Michael Musto, and April Palmieri. Dany Johnson, Ande Whyland, and April Palmieri performed regularly at the Club 57 and Pyramid as members of the all-female band, Pulsallama. Additionally, Dany appeared as a DJ at both clubs, while Ande and April documented the scene as a photographers.

Photo courtesy of Ande Whyland.

Bios

Zbigniew “Stanley” Strychacki

Zbigniew “Stanley” Strychacki was born in Piotrkow Trybunalski in 1937. He spent his youth in Klimontow, and after the war he moved with his parents to Gdansk, where he graduated from a construction technical school and worked as a construction manager. Disillusioned with the communist system, he emigrated to the United States in 1972 on the MS “Batory” ship. He began his career in the US as a salesman. Later he ran a Polish restaurant located on First Avenue in Manhattan (today there is a Korean restaurant there). In 1973 he founded a Polish cultural center – the “Renesans” club in New York’s Greenpoint. The income from concerts held there fed the Rosa Czacka School and Educational Center for Blind Children in Laski.

In 1978 Zbigniew Stanley Strychacki opened the “East Village Club” in the basement of the Polish church at 57 St. Marks Place. The club changed its name over time to “Club 57.” It was the place where Cyndi Lauper, Klaus Nomi, The Cramps, B-52s gave their first concerts, and performers RuPaul and Lypsinka performed. Installations and paintings were created by artists such as Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Every Tuesday, it hosted the weekly “Monster Movies Club,” where horror films were shown. Until it closed in 1983, the club was a place where alternative and punk culture flourished. You can also learn about its history from Zbigniew Strychacki’s website.

In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art in New York organized a temporary exhibition “Club 57 – Film, Performance and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983” dedicated to the club’s history.

Dany Johnson

DJ/Percussionist Dany Johnson got her start as resident DJ at Club 57 and went on to DJ at other iconic downtown Manhattan clubs, including the Mudd Club, Area, and the Pyramid. With Ann Magnuson, she was a founding member of Pulsallama, the all-girl percussion spectacle of the early 1980s. Dany was editor of Sister, the lesbian side of Les (Linda) Simpson’s My Comrade zine and partnered with him for the Channel 69 weekly party of the early 90s. Dany created the Dyxploitation webzine that ran from the late 90s to 2001. She was the long time stage manager of the Wigstock festival, seeing it grow from Tompkins Square to the westside piers. She still DJs for pop ups and special events like the Club 57 opening at MoMA and the Keith Haring opening at Bozar Brussels. Dany is a founding member and assistant director of Fogo Azul NYC, the 100 member all women and nonbinary samba reggae drum line. She still lives in the East Village with her wife, photographer Ande Whyland, and kitty Gigi.

Ande Whyland

For decades Ande Whyland has documented New York City’s downtown performance scene, from the stage artists, to the drag queens, to the burlesque stars and everything in between. Her lush visual record of these flourishing times in NYC benefits from her unique position both as participant and photographer. She was an early member of the legendary Club 57, a co-founder and performer with the no-wave band Pulsallama, house photographer at The Pyramid Club, coat check at Jackie 60, bartender at The Boy Bar, just to name a few. Many of the photos from her book Shots, 1980 – 1986, have been featured at MOMA, The New Museum, Bozar Museum, Tate Museum Modern, Art Forum, a BBC documentary, and numerous books, movies, magazines, and solo shows. The extremely personal vision reflected in her images brings endearing humanity to exotic artists like Wendy Wild, John Sex, Keith Haring, Ann Magnuson, and Kenny Scharf, just to name a few.

Aprili Palmieri

April is a fine artist living in Brooklyn NY and a native New Yorker. She graduated from the School of Visual with a degree in fine art. She started going to the Monster Movie Club at Club 57 in 1978 and joined the Club 57 Ladies Auxiliary of The Lower East Side. Eventually April Palmieri participated in art shows like the Keith Haring Xerox Show, performances, and created events at Club 57 including The Lamp Show with Diana Lillig and The Science Fair. She was also a member of John Sex’s rock-pop-cabaret show John Sex and the Bodacious Ta Tas and a member of Pulsallama created by Ann Magnusson which was an all female performance band that got signed by British label Y Records. Both groups had success in NYC night clubs, made recordings and performed across the USA and toured internationally. She was also a photographer at the Club 57. In 2019 her photos were included as part of the Keith Haring exhibition at Tate Liverpool UK, June through November 2019 and featured in the New York Scene/Unseen as part of the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool UK curated by Suzie Zabrowski in 2019. Her photos were also shown in a digital format at The Museum of Modern Art, from 2017 to 2018, for the exhibition: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983. Lately, she is painting in acrylic and watercolor, making still life paintings at home and stepping outside to engage in plein air sketching and painting in New York City and in Maine.

Tomek Smolarski

Tomek Smolarski is Film and Performing Arts curator at the Polish Cultural Institute New York, with over 20 years of experience in production of international cultural events and he has extensive knowledge in cultural diplomacy. He initiated and executed projects with partners all over the US such as BAM, MoMA, Film at Lincoln Center, Museum of the Moving Image, Anthology Film Archives, NYU Skirball, Abrons Arts Center, Martin E. Segal Theater Center, La Mama Theater, Joe’s Pub, RedCat, Odyssey Theater, Berkley Arts Museum and Pacific Film Archives, Chicago Cultural Center, and many others.

 

Pang, a non-fiction writer and storyteller with no formal theatrical training who has toured with The Moth, approaches Herein Lies the Truth as an extended, physicalized essay rather than simply a piece of monologue. His collaboration with Kasimow, an assistant professor of Acting and Directing in the University of Iowa’s Department of Theatre Arts, began when the two were introduced by colleagues after Pang decided to create a performance for his MFA thesis for the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. When Pang expressed interest in enrolling in her beginning acting class, Kasimow thought formal acting training might not serve the needs of Pang’s project, leading the two to embark on a collaboration, working informally with an in-progress version of the text.

Audiences want…inspiration and therefore it suppresses the ability for disabled people to tell true, complex stories about themselves. 

Herein Lies the Truth is built around a question often asked of Pang by strangers: “what happened?” Pang, who has an incomplete spinal cord injury, wears leg braces, and uses a cane, sought to tell a story around sex and disability that also skewered the able-bodied world’s insistence on his disclosure. “Everyone wants to know what happened,” says Pang. “I walk onto a stage [and] everyone’s expecting that story. You walk into public spaces, everyone leans in.” Pang’s text satirizes the vulnerability expected out of disabled stories by “play[ing] the trope of the lonely boy who is always fucking up and trying to find love” who eventually “overcomes disability in some metaphorical way” thanks to the power of love. Accessing the aesthetic space of “inspiration porn” gives Pang the opportunity to turn the piece to larger questions about the integrity of the three-act structure, the exclusion of disabled people in sexual spaces, and the question of what a “happy ending” looks like in an able-bodied culture.

To Pang, “audiences want…inspiration, and therefore it suppresses the ability for disabled people to tell true, complex stories about themselves.” As Pang revisits the story over two acts, he leaves the audience with the choice of two endings: “new definitions of pleasure” or “continued frustrations.” According to Pang, he is “trying to confront the audience with their feelings in the moment” by toying with the perception of what a “disabled story” is, telling “stories with no redemption” in place of the feel-good tale that is the typical result of this mode of storytelling. I had the distinct pleasure of being able to watch the audience of Herein Lies the Truth at a performance midway through the run. Having attended a tech run-through of the show, I was acutely aware of the show’s secrets, all of which serve a pointed analysis of able-bodied audiences’ expectations. As a result, the audience’s preconceived notions of a “disabled story” made themselves readily apparent. Beats of deep vulnerability and disclosure from Pang were met with archetypal noises of performed empathy, from soft “mm”s in support of his struggles to teeth-sucking sounds at the antipathy of the able-bodied world. Ironically (or perhaps not), the well-intentioned audience upholds the passively ableist behaviors that the show critiques, precisely as Pang has planned it.

Kasimow, who has a background in devising and physical theatre, sees the collaboration as any other. While deferring to Pang as the “lead artist” through the whole process, she worked to cultivate the “feeling in the audience of not knowing what is real” in Pang’s performance, a tendency central to her practice. “Whatever is true for Aaron’s body” on a given night is woven in with choreographed elements, creating a hybrid of staged and improvised movement. By collaborating with such a movement-oriented director, Pang can push past the traditional aesthetic underpinnings of solo performance. “I [don’t] want to just stand there, I want to be able to show my disabled body in movement,” Pang says, as featuring simple movement serves as a critique of “how, inevitably, people get uncomfortable with” disabled bodies.

Pang and Kasimow’s goal in crafting Herein Lies the Truth is to instill a sense of precarity that is itself satirical of the expectations of an audience watching a disabled body on stage. Referring to parts of the play where he stands unassisted or drops his cane, Pang mentions that “everything precarious is intentionally precarious.” Kasimow skillfully links this to the mime tradition (re-popularized by Jacques Lecoq) of the bouffon, the archetype of the outcast whose social bumbling underscores the constricting nature of society. Where Pang’s text requires its audience’s full attention, he and Kasimow amplify this sense of precarity as a means of eliciting sympathy for the “lonely boy” who is unable to meet the standards of polite—or able-bodied—society.

 

Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder: Welcome to Teaching Theatre, a podcast about the practice and pedagogy of theatre education produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. I’m your host, playwright and theatre professor Elizabeth Gregory Wilder.

Welcome back to the Teaching Theatre podcast. We’re really excited today to be talking about devising. We have two exciting guests with us today. We have Andy Paris, who’s an Emmy-nominated writer who teaches devising at North Carolina School of the Arts. He’s a founding member of the Tectonic Theatre Project and helped develop Moment Work, a technique for theatrical exploration and interdisciplinary collaboration. Using the Moment Work technique, he co-created the critically acclaimed play The Laramie Project.

And we have Emily Harrison, an assistant professor of theatre at Hamilton College. She’s the founder and producing artistic director of the Boulder-based award-winning Square Product Theatre. Emily’s work focuses primarily on the creation and development of new and innovative works with American theatre and an exploration of American mythology, violence, and disaster and performance. Emily holds an MFA in performance from Savannah College of Art and Design, and a PhD in Theatre and Performance studies from the University of Colorado Boulder. Thank you, guys, for being with us today.

Andy. Paris: Thank you for having me.

Emily Harrison: Thank you for having us.

Elyzabeth: Before we get started, let’s make sure everyone knows what we mean by devising. Andy, could you talk a little bit about what devising is and where it came from?

Andy: Thanks, Elizabeth. I was hoping that you would ask Emily this question first.

Elyzabeth: Surprise.

Andy: My dean kind of makes fun of me. He’s like, “Who asked you ‘What is devising?’ today on campus?” Basically, I feel like I’ve spent the last five years here trying to explain what devising is, and it’s interesting because what I’ve found too is that training people in devising practice and devising a piece of theatre feel like two very different endeavors to me. And so when we’re talking about education, I can talk about what devising means to students first, and then if you want, we can also talk about what it means to devise a work.

But that’s sort of how I’ve been able to try to parse it in my brain so that I’m not trying to do two things at once that seem sometimes contradictory, because devising a piece of work involves a product. And part of what devising’s gift, I think, to students is the gift of concentrating on process without an immediate product in mind. And so in training devising practice—I’m not really answering the question “what is devising?” but I’m trying—that in devising practice, at least the way that I understand it, we are examining and the tools of the theatre and the power of the tools of the theatre and how the theatre operates and how theatrical tools can be used to create form and how that form coupled with content as form and content sort of relate to each other into moments of theatrical narrative.

So when we develop Moment Work, the moment we’re defining in part as a, a unit of theatrical time. So that has a beginning, a middle, an end, and some kind of dynamic change. And that dynamic change is a thing that makes it a piece of narrative. So in devising practice, we’re not starting with the story, we’re starting with elements and form and then noticing what story elements are coming out or what narrative elements emerge from that.

Now, eventually then, and this gets into the making a piece thing, you have to go write the thing that you found. So it’s not like a magic pill where it just rises up from the floor and you have a play. But what you are hopefully endeavoring to do is to dig in and find form that you as your personal artistry relate to or excites you or resonates with you, and then carry that forward with you to work more deeply in that form.

In my day when I was coming up, I think it was called “experimental theatre,” and I went to the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University, and it was very much in the vein of devising, just people weren’t using that word. And I think what happened was “experimental theatre” had began to adopt the kind of… Well, a kind of product of theatre. And so in order to separate a… I think people started to use devising to try to separate themselves from experimental theatre, which had this whole onus of what that was. And now I think that we’re somewhat gravitating toward the same place that people think of devising or devised theatre as a certain kind of theatre, whereas in devising, you might end up with something that looks very much like a play. It’s just how you arrived there is a very different journey.

Emily: Yeah, I think that’s great. I would just say that devising really, the most simple definition I can think of is that it is making an original piece of theatrical material together as an ensemble, as a collaborative. And like Andy was saying, it could be something that ends up being very abstract in nature and more experimental. I think “experimental” has become a bad word in theatre community. When you say making experimental theatre, most people are like, “Oh, God,” which is too bad because I don’t think they actually know what it means. But I also think that some people have seen some really bad “experimental theatre.”

So I think the simplest definition is that it’s making something new with a group of people, not necessarily privileging verbal language the way that most Western theatre does. And it can be more abstract, and it can end up being a product that looks very much like a traditional linear play.

Part of what devising’s gift, I think, to students is the gift of concentrating on process without an immediate product in mind.

Elyzabeth: Excellent. So now that we have our definition, how do you guys introduce devising to students? Where do you start?

Emily: Oh, man. I mean, I start small. I’m teaching in a college, and I’m teaching students who are very intelligent and very eager. They want to learn how to do things, and they want to learn about different kinds of ways in… But they’re still, the experience of theatre is very much traditional. So I start small and I start with having conversations with them about “what are the tools that we have at our disposal in theatre?” I ask them to consider pieces of theatre that they’ve seen and to think about a moment that really, really stood out to them and a piece of theatre that they’ve seen, and to talk about that and to break it down.

And normally what you find when you do that is that they’re not talking about plot. A lot of times they’re not even really talking about story. They’re talking about how all the elements came together to make them feel something. And so we start there. I don’t have a specific methodology. I use all kinds of different ways in and different texts, and sometimes I show them some video clips, but I also don’t want them to get an idea in their head of this is what devised theatre looks like because it really can be such a broad range of experiences.

So we just start at the very beginning. What can you do with a light? What can you do with a flashlight? What can you do with this jacket? What can you do, a doorbell? Just different tools that we have at our disposal that we can use to do something theatrical that’s not necessarily about the words.

Elyzabeth: It’s a very organic process and you sort of follow their lead?

Emily: Depends on who’s in the room. When I’m teaching a devising class, the goal is at the end of the semester, I start having them make like really small, just like micro projects basically that are two or three minutes in small groups. And then the goal is at the end of the semester, we all make something together. They decide on some sort of thing. They’re interested in exploring some sort of topic or theme or whatever, and they have to decide together that that’s the thing they want to do. And then I give them little assignments and we work on it throughout the second half of the semester and then show something that’s usually twenty-ish minutes long.

Elyzabeth: Cool. So you try to make it very attainable for them?

Emily: Yeah, because they’ve never done it before, and they have all these other things they’re doing. I mean, you’re both educators, so they’re in all these classes ,and then they’re also in all these different… They’re in acapella, and they’re in the improv troupe, and they’re in choir, and they’re in debate, and they’re just doing all this other stuff. And so I want to make it something that’s like they have to work to do it, but that it is something that we can do. It’s not beyond the realm of reality for them.

Elyzabeth: What about you, Andy? Where do you guys start?

Andy: I think in similar places as Emily. So I usually use two strains of pedagogies when I teach devising to people who haven’t done it before. Now, I will say that we’ve worked some devising practice, so I teach third year conservatory students, so they’ve already had two years of more traditional training. However, there’s a movement teacher named Jason Bohan who has them for two years before me, and he’s a Leqoc person and has done a lot of devising. And so he kind of starts to work some devising practices into his movement classes. He doesn’t necessarily always call it that.

So when I first got here, I had to start from beginning, beginning and take it a lot slower. I’ve been able to ratchet things up a little faster in years. So it does help to have those basics of physical impulse movement and ability to move on impulse and kind of act on impulse beforehand. But basically what I do is I use what I’ve been using all my career because I didn’t know what else to teach except for how I was a practitioner.

I start with the Six Viewpoints the way Mary Overlie taught it, because that’s who taught me. And so I start with Overlie’s viewpoints. I even start them reading the first chapter of her book on space. But I quickly couple that with the beginnings of Moment Work, which is of course methodology that I co-created with Moises Kaufman and the rest of Tectonic Theatre Project. And in that way, we’re kind of working… Sometimes Moment Work can feel a little bit more intellectual. And so working together that grounds it in something that is a little less cerebral and more instinctual and impulsive.

So I use those two pedagogies in tandem to… And what Moment Work does is much in the same vein as what Emily was talking about, is it really breaks down what we call the elements of the stage. Each tool is a repetition, rhythm, lights, set sound, and then the list goes on. And we make that list much like Emily does. I ask them what moments they’ve seen that really strike them that were very powerful and impacted them a great deal.

I have the same experience where the responses are 95 percent not text-related, if that’s a way to put that. So almost never does anyone talk about text. They talk about a gesture or a lighting gesture or way someone moved or the way someone changed something that they didn’t expect. And so we break that down to get beyond the like, “It was amazing.” Someone always says, “’Defying Gravity,’ and it was amazing.” And then we start to say, “Okay. Well, what was amazing about it?”

So rather than only being a consumer of our, how can we act as a practitioner and critique in a way that is helpful to us in creating our own work and also in analyzing the work in front of us? And so we break that moment down to scale, and costume, and light, and rhythm, and pitch. And so all the things that went into “Defying Gravity” to try to make a list of those tools that we can then spend the rest of semester becoming facile and becoming familiar with and finding all the uses of those things and how they can be used narratively.

So I use those two lanes of pedagogy to work them out of the space of just interpreting a script and just interpreting text into finding what excites them and finding what artistry is within them through listening to the elements of the stage and what they gravitate toward and what interests them. And then we start introducing something along the lines of text later on in the semester so that they get a sense of what it means to write words and how that’s different than writing other moments. And then we start working with a hunch, which is Peter Brooks word, but also a word that we used a lot in Tectonic, just this sort of “what is tickling your brain artistically” and start to articulate that and articulate a path of research to dive into those questions that make up that hunch.

So my class is a yearlong class. So by the end of the second semester, they’re starting to work on their own projects, and we work on those throughout the second semester. We work in cohorts. And like Emily said, their bandwidth is what it is. They’re doing a lot of other things. They’re in shows. They’ve got other classes and all extracurricular activities that go on that are also valuable. And devising, I think it’s important to note that I think the nature of devising is that it takes time.

It takes a lot of time. There’s really no substitute for that. You can’t really speed up the process. So we try to work on smaller chunks and also not… I think that’s the advantage of, in a way, the time limitation gives us an opportunity to not worry about product because I just start by saying, “You can’t possibly end up with a kind of play at the end of this. It’s just not humanly possible.” So let’s just let go of the idea of what this is going to be and work moment to moment and see what comes up. And I think that’s very freeing for them, hopefully. And so that’s how we move through the year.

Teaching students to generate their own material and to use those same tools to approach material that already exists in a creative innovative way to sort of reimagine what those plays can look like is going to be crucial to the survival of our field.

Elyzabeth: So devising has become a bigger focus in theatre training programs in the past ten years or so. Why do you think that is? What do you think the appeal is?

Andy: The way the industry is changing right now, creating one’s own content is becoming more and more important. And this devising practice gives students a way in so that when they have an idea, they have a practical way of starting to explore that idea. A lot of times what I hear all the time is, “I have this great idea, but I don’t know where to start.” And if after they’ve taken my class, they’re still saying that I have failed. That is the test for me. It’s like if an alum comes back and I’m like, “Okay, I failed that alum because they did not know how to start their project.”

And that’s just tongue in cheek. I think really that is what I am trying to offer them is a way in to making their own content. And I think the other thing about the industry right now is we are in an inflection point, a very important inflection point where institutional theatres are closing, but in droves. And a lot of people agree with the statement that the reason a lot of these institutions are closing is because they lost touch with their community that they’re serving.

I think that in some ways this work lends itself to getting out. It lends itself to site-specific work. It lends itself to including different kinds of performance practice. It questions the role of the audience. And we spend a lot of time using the audience as an element of the stage asking where are they? How are you relating to them? If you want them to participate, how do you do that? And asking about that relationship. And that’s a really important piece of communicating pieces of theatre that I think might’ve fallen off some people’s radar.

So for instance, this semester, I’m directing a musical. I’m not devising it, but it was a musical that was originally commissioned by the Public Works program at the Public Theatre. And we are trying to mirror that process where I’m engaging members of the community, and we’re going out into the community and giving workshops and then inviting them to come and be a part of the show.

So there’s this exchange, and then they’re going to bring in people, and now we’re going to have an actual community conversation about what the play is trying to communicate. I think that devising sort of lends itself to things like that, that connect us more deeply and more directly with the community in which we’re serving or can and has the possibility to do that.

Elyzabeth: Emily, do you have anything to add?

Emily: I mean, I would just echo what Andy said. I mean, I think the sort of traditional subscriber model for theatres is not a useful model for most of what’s happening at this point. I feel like so many theatres have been playing it safe, and they’re sort of reaping the consequences of that. And I also think that that’s not to say we shouldn’t be producing plays that exist. We should be producing plays that exist, but there’s this… I mean, I think studying devising and learning different approaches also offers something to staging those plays, to staging important historical texts. There are all these different ways in when you learn these devising tools that can make productions of those plays far more compelling if you’re not just doing the same thing over and over and over again.

I think this sort of teaching students to generate their own material and to use those same tools to approach material that already exists in a creative innovative way to sort of reimagine what those plays can look like is going to be crucial to the survival of our field. I mean, I will say I don’t think that theatre is going to… People have been predicting the death of theatre since all of time. So I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I do think at least in the American theatre, we are at a pretty crucial point where it’s like, what direction are we going to go in? How are we going to continue doing this? Who’s going to support it?

And if you don’t have the buy-in of your community, I mean, we are not a country that really supports the arts on a national level at the scale that many other countries do. So you really do have to rely on your community, and if you’re not engaging with them, they’re not going to support the work. And that’s just a no-brainer.

Elyzabeth: So we’ve talked about devising as this very collaborative process. Do you think it’s important to have a director involved in the devising process, someone who guides that vision, or should it be entirely collaborative?

Emily: I think it could go either way. I think it’s good to have at least one or two people in the room who have some eye on the whole picture. But I think of a director as being part of the collaborative team. So I don’t typically work… I mean, I have a few times, but I don’t typically work in spaces where we’re making something new where there’s not necessarily someone serving as a director, or at least the people are moving in and out to have a look at a stage picture and have a sense of like, “Oh, actually maybe we need to shift this over here or there’s an opportunity for lighting here.” I think it just depends on the group. I think it could go either way. I personally like having a director in the space, even if they’re not also performing in the piece.

Elyzabeth: What about you, Andy?

Andy: Similarly, I have not been really in a devising space where there wasn’t a director or a writer who had their eye on the whole thing. I mean, I tend to think about it in terms of one can do this practice however one devises do it. That’s part of what devising is. I think one of the very important aspects of devising is feedback. It’s very difficult to see what you’re doing while you’re doing it. So whether that’s one director or another, I think it’s valuable to have somebody in the room. People do it with video and mirror, things like that.

I’m not at all saying it’s impossible, but I do find it helpful to… And oftentimes it’s someone’s hunch. I think it’s up to the individuals and the company they’re working with and their collaborators.

Elyzabeth: And because this is such a collaborative process, how do you address conflicts when they arise, especially when someone feels like they aren’t being heard or their ideas aren’t being included?

Emily: Fistfights, I think.

Elyzabeth: You just duke it out?

Emily: No, I mean, I think you learn.

So I’m really good friends with the folks in a theatre company called Buntport Theater in Denver, and they only make new work together, five of them now, and they only make new work together. And they’ve been doing it for more than twenty years. They’ve made more than fifty original works together. And this is a question they’ve been asked a lot, “What do you guys do when you get upset with each other? How do you work through that?” And Aaron Rollman was just like, “We’ve had every fight we can possibly have. We’ve just learned how to disagree with each other. And we know at some point we can say, ‘Oh, we had this fight on the other show five years ago. How did that resolve? How did we get to our solution? Can we just skip to the resolution?’”

I think when you are working in this kind of work, you often find yourself in the room with the same people repeatedly. Most of us are also working with new people as well. So it is often about learning people’s communication styles, saying from the beginning, from the beginning, like day one, if anyone is ever upset about anything, or the second you’re starting to feel something that’s not a good feeling, let’s have a conversation about it so that it doesn’t become something larger.

Because I personally, when I’m in a space working with other people, I don’t like conflict. I don’t want to be upset with people. Inevitably, you’re going to have moments where you disagree about something that you’re doing, some moment that you’re making or some element that you’re playing with. And for me, it’s just sort of like, “Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk it through and see if we can come to some sort of resolution and see how many different ways can we try this until we get to what we think is going to be the…” Whatever is going to serve the whole. It’s hard. You have to let your ego go at points and just be like, “Oh, I had this idea that I really like, but everyone else is saying it doesn’t work, so I just have to let it go.” You just have to kill your darling sometimes.

I will not pretend to be the person who’s the best at it because it can be really hard when you’re in conflict with someone else, but for me, it really is about… I’ve learned to not avoid those conversations, to really just sit down and be like, “Okay, we need to chat about this. I want to work through this and make sure that we are all on the same page and can do something together that we all feel good about.”

As long as we’re talking about a process and not a product, I would say devising becomes essential and that it provides different pathways through the industry, which is splintering.

Elyzabeth: What about you, Andy? How do you handle that when you are working on things, but also in the classroom?

Andy: It is important to, I think, just start by recognizing that these conflicts and tensions that arise can be very inspirational and fruitful to the process because inherently there’s tension in the work. And if you can keep the conversation work-related and try to stay away from “my idea,” “your idea” and critique what is happening, then I think it’s a little… It could be more constructive to march through those problems that come up. And they will. I think in any really crackly, fruitful process, conflicts will arise. And again, I think that those can be advantageous.

I, in the classroom and also in practice, I lean a lot on… And in class I teach the Critical Response Process that Liz Lerman developed as part of her dance company. And there’s actually a book, a pamphlet that you can buy of hers that takes you through what that process is. And it’s a four-step process. I find it very useful. And there are a couple ways that it’s useful. One is that it empowers the artist in the critique process so that when they’re offering an idea, there’s some language around how that idea gets critiqued. And there’s also a process by which the artist has, or the presenter/performer has some sort of control over how that process goes so that they can ask certain critique questions and ask specifically what they’re interested in hearing about and then let things go that they’re not ready to hear yet.

I think that’s important. I think when you’re working on something, and you’re really working on how this movement sequence is going to go, and someone’s like, “Well, I don’t like the lighting.” It’s not necessarily helpful in that moment to, because you’re not thinking about lighting. And so I think it’s helpful to just have language around what are we talking about? What is important about this moment? How are we talking about it? And Liz, I think, has done a tremendous job in fashioning language around a process and procedure through the critique that is work focused and also makes… In a pedagogical way, it makes the performer responsible in part for the critique, which I think is valuable because then they have to think about what they’ve been working on and what they would like to hear about that will then further the work.

And that’s really the focus is what can we say constructively that will let this work deepen or take the next step? The hope is both in the classroom and professionally that that’s the focus. And obviously, we all have ego ,and we all have need, and we all have aesthetics. So those obviously come into play. But having some sort of critique structure, I found, can be helpful.

Elyzabeth: Yes. I certainly use Liz Lerman in all of my classes, and I think that more academics could apply the Liz Lerman process to their classes, whether they’re in the arts or not. It’s just the foundation of that technique is just so useful and so valuable.

So as we wrap up, I just wanted to look forward and see how do you see theatre programs use devising as we move forward in training the next generation of young actors, young theatremakers? Where do you think devising fits into that, and where do you see it going in the future?

Andy: Well, as long as we’re talking about a process and not a product, I would say devising becomes essential and that it provides different pathways through the industry, which is splintering. I was hired by the dean of School of Drama at North Carolina School of the Arts, Scott Ziegler, who had just taken over as dean. He recognized that although the training at UNCSA has always been very, very good, he felt like it was important to diversify the kinds of training that the students were getting in order to respond to where the industry was going.

So he added stronger on camera, he added devising. He made Shakespeare actually more present in the classroom as well, so that you’re getting a lot of different tools to use in your practice to respond to the different ways the industry is going. So the hope is that because devising can support a personal artistic process and even help that develop or even define it, that can provide a whole avenue to entrepreneurship that I think only interpreting a text denies.

So if we think of ourselves as small businesses, which I think every performer needs to and probably always needed to, how is that business going to survive in this present market? And as entrepreneurs, creative thinking, creative thinking outside of the box can help develop that brand that I don’t necessarily like to talk only in economic terms, but I think we, in a way, it’s helpful in this instance to talk about how can we develop young artists to respond to the industry and then also to pave the way in the industry for something new because there’s a lot of things there changing right now, and a lot of ways that people have gone through producing theatre that seem to be on their way out or going through a big dynamic change. So how are our students going to respond? Let’s allow them an outlet for their own creative artistry, and I think devising helps with that.

Emily: Yeah, I would agree with Andy. Even if you’re working in a devising classroom with someone who’s like, “I really just want to be an actor ultimately.” The tools that they learn in that class, whether it’s a semester-long class or a yearlong class, are going to be tools that serve them incredibly well as an actor for the rest of their career, should they have a career in theatre, and even in film and television, because it just teaches you about all of the tools you have at your disposal as opposed to just your body and your voice.

The other thing I’d say, just coming from a liberal arts context, because I’m teaching at a small liberal arts college, the whole point of the liberal arts is encouraging people to explore the full realm of possibility as opposed to focusing on a singular element. And so for me, it makes a lot of sense at liberal arts colleges to teach devising because we have students who are… They’re studying. They’re double majors in econ and theatre, or they’re studying biochemistry and theatre.

I have a student who’s a double major in neuroscience and theatre. So we have these in a liberal arts context, these students who are curious in a different way. They want to learn how the different elements of all kinds of different things in the world work and how they can inform each other. And that is not only going to make them, I think, better theatre practitioners, it’s also just going to make them better human beings on a larger scale. They’re going to be able to go into the world and engage with a lot of different ideas coming at them at once and synthesize information in ways that are maybe more creative and productive. I mean, just coming from a liberal arts ideology, it feels like kind of a no-brainer as well.

Elyzabeth: Well, I really appreciate both of you giving me a bit of your time today and sharing a bit of your experience and your insight into the world of devising. Thanks so much.

Emily: Thanks, Elyzabeth. Thanks, Andy.

Andy: Thank you, Elyzabeth. Thank you, Emily. It’s wonderful talking to both of you.

Elyzabeth: This podcast is produced as a contribution to HowlRound Theatre Commons. You can find more episodes of this show and other HowlRound shows wherever you find podcasts. Be sure to search “HowlRound Theatre Commons podcasts” and subscribe to receive new episodes. If you love this podcast, post a rating and write a review on those platforms. This helps other people find us. You can also find a transcript for this episode, along with a lot of other progressive and disruptive content, on howlround.com.

Have an idea for an exciting podcast, essay, or TV event the theatre community needs to hear? Visit howlround.com and submit your ideas to this digital commons.

Join us to celebrate the publication of We Started a Nightclub by Brian Butterick, Susan Martin, and Kestutis Nakas. 
A panel with John Jesurun, Kestutis Nakas, and others. 
Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

What Studio 54 was for disco, the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge was for the alternative scene of 1980s downtown New York. Located at 101 Avenue A, the Pyramid offered a mixture of cultures: from groundbreaking, irreverent theater and experimental music to “anti-drag” that challenged the norms of gender binaries. It began in 1981 when the East Village was considered a dangerous no man’s land, rents were cheap, AIDS was still unknown and a new generation of creators broke the mold and went on to make art in an atmosphere of unbridled celebration. Theme nights and bar dancers, fixtures of the downtown avant-garde and kids escaping their past all added to the club’s popularity. At the Pyramid, John Jesurun and Ann Magnuson rubbed elbows with They Might Be Giants, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and 3 Teens Kill 4, who shared a stage with Lady Bunny and Hapi Phace. By offering a home to obscure, genre-defying and unpolished acts, the Pyramid played a crucial role in shaping the city’s underground cultural scene for decades to come. In 2021, the Pyramid closed permanently. Though the venue was no longer the hotspot of its early years, its closure prompted an outpouring of reminiscence and mourning for a bygone era, amid a broad renewed interest in the art and culture of 1980s New York.

We Started a Nightclub is an inside look at the cultural history of the East Village in the early 1980s. The project, which began in 2006, represents the only in-depth exploration of the Pyramid’s origins. An oral history comprising more than 75 interviews, it covers the early years of the Pyramid from the time of its founding through its rise, near demise and rebirth. The book includes previously unpublished photos, flyers and other ephemera, as well as excerpts from more than 50 press releases written between 1983 and 1986.

Yaşam: As the name suggests, OpenSpace is “open” to experimental works. You produce in a unique space in Tbilisi, relatively far from the center. When you are producing, how does the space affect your production in terms of opportunities it offers or certain limits it imposes?

Davit: I grew up in the district of Tbilisi called Nadzaladevi, which means “the place where the disobedient live” based on the imperial legal term for the construction unauthorized by central authorities. I had to change two buses to get to the “city center” where the theatre school is located. It wasn’t just about the time or distance, but about the change in the communicative style with the place that I experienced during these daily journeys, my own daily psycho-geographical drifts. So, the performativity of space became material to me.

The Isani District where OpenSpace is located is one of the areas in Tbilisi that suffered most terribly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was centered around a major aviation plant located just down the road and the micromotors factory where we are now was part of its supply chain that defined the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who lived here. After the collapse of the Soviet system, these factories became irrelevant and abandoned. People still live here, but the meaning of the place has largely become obsolete. So, in our own humble way, we aspire to be a space that creates new relevant meaning here and now in the middle of these modern ruins of concrete. It’s also our statement against the imaginary cultural hierarchies of the city and the obstacles to access culture and expression that they create. Our neighbors are a punk bar, sewing production, garages, and the homes of ordinary people, not the downtown temples of bureaucracy and establishment. This is where we feel most at home to reflect on the change and dynamic of Georgian society in the media and forms that we create, which is the purpose of OpenSpace.

Yaşam: UNLOVE is a research project and the second performance of your “UN-” trilogy. What is your starting point in this trilogy?

While following the war and progressively repressive politics of our own government on our smartphones in real-time, we strove to reconnect with what being a human was.

Davit: The starting point of the “UN-” trilogy is my personal crisis that coincided with a crisis in the world at large. It just so happened that when the world entered the COVID crisis, I experienced a major transformation in my personal life as well, and that pushed me to reflect on this condition that we all experience from time to time, the ending of something big and the beginning of a new life. To an extent, the trilogy follows the curve of this shocking resemblance between intimate experiences and global events.

The first part of the trilogy, UNMEMORY, is dedicated to the workings of human memory striving to piece together a coherent picture of the past out of disjointed and fragmented notions, acting like a person coming to what remained of their destroyed home. This was done based on real-life documentary material, not in a verbatim form, but in a way in which any memory actually works—as a collage, a series of echoes, and sensory associations without clear-cut divisions between personal and “social” reminiscences.

The second part of the trilogy, UNLOVE, was originally prototyped as an audio play at the time of the pandemic when all of us were trying to explore the available form of performativity and presence. However, I always meant it to be a real-life performance based on my personal documentary material surrounding the loss of love and the identity crisis that ensued. Just like in the case of UNMEMORY, its production coincided with a global crisis, which this time was the beginning of the full-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine on 24 February 2022 that shook everyone in the team to the core. The onset of this new crisis was followed by some political moves undertaken by the Georgian government that required performative commentary. Thus, the performance naturally incorporated various political meanings, creating jarring rhymes between the unfolding humanitarian and political catastrophe on the one hand and the personal catastrophes of cut-off connections, abuse, and broken trust on the other.

Everyone took out booklets, which accounted for the fifty cent to ten dollar contributions they had made, pooling resources to invest in each other’s business and lives—who had borrowed what, what small interest was due the group.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Here I’ve been thinking about spaces of home, how we’ve lost all alternative arts spaces to the rise of the “permanent alternative,” how there are no independent artist-run houses anymore.

But home has never been brick and mortar.

Home has always been the set of practices between us.

On every scale—the scale of artist to artist collectivities, and the scale of all of us in this ecosystem: presenters, administrators, artists, funders, producers.

Real talk: people working inside institutions, for a moment—y’all are broke? No? Most of you have unprecedented deficits, no? Even all our sexy friends with their governments who believe in the arts across the various ponds. And even y’all with the structural deficits that are just baked into the math and the reserve funds—the old tools for patching those holes aren’t working. This year, more than most, we’re all out here talking about new works and it feels like the house is on fire and we are chatting about fabric options for new curtains.

The thing we know better than most is that what we do is never done alone.

The danger I see in our global processing of war, our national election year terror, the immediate and existential crisis that is global warming—there is a move right now to get a gun and sit on the porch, proverbially, strap up and go it alone.

But the thing we know better than most is that what we do is never done alone. For live performance more than any other form—we create from collectivity and we give unto collectivity.

Today means something.

It can.

This is an ecosystem; how do we invest in it as such?

Let go of “going it alone.” That is a mighty task for intuitions, particularly 501c3s with boards of devout capitalists with supremist notions of permeance and fantasies of independence.

But all you brilliant humans inside institutions, you are gonna wield these beasts into honoring that we are in an ecosystem.

We are in it together.

Talk about poetry: Under The Radar, home of independent art, becoming independent, and doing so though the ecosystem of many institutions leaning into the interdependence inherent to fostering experimentation.

For every work I start with a question. I build a team to ask that question with me—ideally a lot of different kinds of folks who work in different ways. This is part of why working in international contexts is critical to my practice, why working in different mediums is critical to me.

Lately I’ve been thinking about war—how we process war. Around the world, whether we are in Honduras, or Cox’s Bazaar, or Cairo—we have war on our minds. Being in Rwanda this summer, we are twenty-five years out, and still: individually, collectivity, politically, spiritually—processing war. Art and performance have always been used for this process, for thousands of years: tomb paintings in Luxor, the Iliad, the Ramayana. We have mighty artists today who continue in that tradition, doing this work for our contemporary moment. My next team will gather around these ideas—Ocean Voung, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Christopher Myers.

When I look into this room at you all, I see the thing I love best: a group of different kinds of people, who work in different kinds of ways, trying to ask some hard questions.

My provocation to you is that lock box. How do we do it together? For ten minutes, may we lay down the mantle of our 501c3 capitalist empires, our individualistic American training, our singularity obsessions, our premieres mentality. And really consider, in unprecedented times, how do we do this together? We are actually good at this. All of us.

Thank you.

 CJ Ochoco: I really always try to keep a positive outlook. I’m a realist, but I also just like to put out into the universe what we want back. In my life and in how I run Breaking Wave, and how we move, our goal is always to put the good out and always knowing that it’ll return. We really try to break down the barriers of traditional theatre and focus on connecting more with Indigenous storytelling and practices. We try to put people before productions, and stay true to who we are and the work we do, and so just manifest good things all around for us personally, professionally, and with our company.

Yura Sapi: You are listening to Building Our Own Tables, a podcast produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. I’m your host, Yura Sapi, and I’m the founder of various organizations and projects, including a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a six-hectare farm and food sovereignty project, an LGBTQ+ healing and art space. And I’ve helped numerous creatives, leaders, and other founders unleash their excellence into the world through my programs, workshops, and coaching services. In this podcast, I’m showcasing the high vibration solutions for you as a visionary leader to implement into your own practice and thrive. Stay tuned this season to hear from other founders who have built their own tables for their communities and for the world in this evolutionary time on earth. You are here for a reason, and I am so honored and grateful to support you on your journey, so stay tuned and enjoy.

As a theatre practitioner, have you ever considered yourself a doctor? Have you ever considered yourself a healer? In this episode, I talked to CJ Ochoco of Breaking Wave Theatre Company, 501(c)(3) nonprofit based out of Guam. CJ shared her incredible story of starting off as someone who was studying to be a doctor, and actually made the shift to study theatre instead and really follow her true soul’s purpose. But still connected to this way in which theatre and the arts can heal with Breaking Wave Theatre Company, she has co-produced with her team and co-founders, events that support the local theatre and creative community of Guam, at-risk youth, and the community at large. Breaking Wave is all about bringing accessibility for the arts, and highlighting the diverse community on the island of Guam.

In this episode, we really dive into this understanding of theatre as medicine, of how to connect with the earth in your arts producing work, and why this work that we’re doing as founders, as creators of these new movements and organizations, are making a ripple effect on generations to come. So, get excited about this beautiful episode with CJ and Breaking Wave Theatre Company. Enjoy.

Before we get into this episode, go ahead and hit subscribe on this podcast. This is the best way to stay updated on new episodes, and it helps build a thriving planet where all beings experience joy and harmony with each other and Mother Earth. So, go ahead and hit subscribe and keep this good energy flowing.

CJ Ochoco, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.

CJ: Thank you so much for having me.

Yura: It’s such an honor to be here with you, and I wanted to start us off with this question. What is your superhero origin story? What was that pivotal moment that led you to forge your own path and build your own table?

CJ: I remember reading the question and I was like, “Ooh, I’m not going to think about this and answer organically.” So, I started college thinking that I wanted to be a doctor, I think as many arts people do, they start with something completely different. I started as a pre-med major, and this was my first year of college way back when, over a decade ago. I was good at it, I had a lot of fun with Bio and Chem, but it wasn’t necessarily something that I really had a strong passion for. And then I ended up leaving the school I was at and moving back to Guam, because I was going through some mental health struggles and issues. In 2010, I returned home to Guam after spending my first year away from Guam, and decided to start attending the university. And when I first attended there, I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m still going to do pre-med,” and the issues persisted and I was really struggling.

It wasn’t until I found the theatre that I started to feel more at home and at peace. I found this support system that was really great within my theatre classmates and colleagues, and I would say that that’s kind of my pivotal moment when it started as, “Okay, well maybe I’m going to minor in theatre,” and then it was like, “No, let’s just be real about who I am,” and I decided to major in theatre and that was really the moment that shifted for me when I personally found my healing space in the arts. And that’s what really encouraged me to then build my own table eventually with Breaking Wave so that we could create a healing space for other people, the same way it was for many of us back with my cohort.

Yura: Wow, that’s incredible. I’m really resonating with this shift that happened for you. It was just a moment of yes to your soul’s purpose, to what you’re really meant to be doing on earth.

CJ: Yeah. And if you’re meant to be a doctor, good on you, just wasn’t for me.

I could help people not just as a doctor or a nurse or whatever we’re fed as…the careers you need to get into if you want to help people, and realizing that yeah, we could help people with theatre and the arts too. 

Yura: Yeah, I hear that. I mean, I also really liked biology, and chemistry, and science, and I think it’s more that I actually really like earth and plants, and now that I’ve gotten into farming as well and really seeing how we’re doing arts on land with the earth in connection. So, that’s I think where that comes from, and flows into what I’m doing now. I think it’s always part of it. But yeah, it sounds like you were really able to take that leap of faith of maybe whatever was causing you to feel like you had to go down this other route, but then choose what your heart, what your soul was saying, actually this is what is going to help me be healthy both emotionally and mentally, and then that reflects in the physical too.

CJ: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think at the core of it was that I wanted to help people, and finding my piece and getting the help I needed through, of course professionals, but also realizing that the arts had so much healing power, I think that was my moment of, hey, I could help people not just as a doctor or a nurse or whatever we’re fed as these are the careers you need to get into if you want to help people, and realizing that yeah, we could help people with theatre and the arts too.

Yura: This offering of letting folks be reflected on stage, of seeing your story, of having a place to have your catharsis, have your release, understand more about yourself. What else draws you to this idea of art as medicine, theatre as medicine?

CJ: I think there’s just so much power in being able to see yourself on stage, so whether or not you’re the audience member or an actor or behind the scenes, there’s just so much power with being able to connect to these stories. It’s part of why with Breaking Wave Theatre Company, we do a lot of different work, but we encourage a lot of original works because we’re so passionate about making sure people are seen, and making sure that their stories are heard. There’s such a healing power as the person writing or the person producing, wherever you are in that spectrum of a life cycle of a theatre production, or a film or anything like that, there’s so much healing to it. And I think it also empowers people to share their stories. With Breaking Wave, our signature production that we’ve done for three years now is this production called Unspoken.

And we work with the community to take their stories about mental health, substance abuse, and suicide prevention, and we help them create the stories and then put it on stage—whether they want to be an actor or help backstage, or not even be involved and just want to see their work—we empower them to take that work and bring it on stage, and we help them do that. We’ve done that for three years and it’s been such a powerful experience to see how so many people are so much more willing to talk about their mental health when we share those stories in that way. So yeah, I think that’s where I find theatre is medicine. Getting a little emotional. I am a very emotional person. Every time I do a podcast, I somehow cry. So, please excuse me.

Yura: No, I love it. Yeah, we’re getting into it. We’re showing the real, we’re giving the energy. I am curious to hear more about Breaking Wave Theatre. How did you transition from making that decision to study theatre into actually saying, “I’m actually going to start my own theatre company”?

CJ: Yeah. Breaking Wave Theatre Company, we’re based on Guam, or Guahan is the Indigenous name of the island. We are a U.S. territory in the middle of the Pacific, closer to Japan and the Philippines than we are to the continental U.S. I was born and raised there, and like I said, I left for a year and then ended up coming home, and studying at the University of Guam. And the thing about Guam, it’s literally thirty-five miles long, so that’s really, really small. And there’s about one hundred fifty-thousand people on the island, so it’s very, very small. We don’t even have cities, we have villages, and it really is just like one big city because it’s so small. And so with that in mind, theatre and the arts are a little bit limited. Like for theatre, we had the university theatre and then we had the high school public theatre program. It’s pretty robust, and actually my uncle, who helped inspire me to do theatre, runs it. My Uncle Ernest.

So between those two, when I graduated college in 2016, that was pretty much our options. You either keep volunteering for the university, which we were so happy to do and still continue to do, or you help out with the high school productions through the high school public program that we had. So, my colleagues and I that co-founded Breaking Wave—Chris Santiago, Jerome Ocampo, Joey Datuina and Sierra Sevilla—we were all looking at ourselves around 2018 and being like, “Hey, we love doing this work with the community, and we also know that maybe at some point we might want to go to the States and get our MFAs or things like that, but we’re not all ready to leave right now.” And other people may never want to leave Guam, and that’s okay. So, what can we do to make a home for people who may not have access to the university, or may not want to just do the musicals that the high schools do?

What can we do? And for a long time we were like, “Yeah, we’re going to go out, get our MFAs work out in the theatre industry, and then we’ll come back and start the theatre company.” Then we kind of just sat and we’re like, “Well, why are we waiting for that? Why not now?” One of those, “if not now, then when, if not you, then who” kind of moments we had. And so, we deep dove into it. We taught ourselves how to start a nonprofit because the last nonprofit theatre company on Guam prior to us was twenty years ago, so there hadn’t been a nonprofit theatre company on Guam for twenty years. And so, we taught ourselves how to start a nonprofit, and I was getting my master’s in arts leadership at the time so it was like real life being able to do both learning about it and then working on it.

In 2018, we got a small grant to do a show I had always wanted to do, which was Tuesdays with Maury, just like a super simple show, and we’re like, “Well, we need a theatre company to put on the show.” And so, we’ve made our own and that’s how we began. What we try to create is we try to create a space to fill in the gaps between what the other theatres do. Since we started, a for-profit theatre company started on Guam as well, but they focus on musicals and whatnot. Then of course, the university theatre focuses more on educational theatre, and so we’ve really filled in the gaps with original works, taking pre-made or already made shows and different takes on it. We do a lot of work with youth, and actually bringing theatre to schools and the community. So, that’s where we exist and it’s been six years coming this summer, so it’s been great.

Yura: Wow, congratulations.

CJ: Thank you.

Yura: Yeah, I would love to hear your reflections on these. If you were to give a pep talk to that younger version of yourself, what are the words of encouragement that you would say?

CJ: Yeah, I think I would let younger CJ know to keep doing the thing, even when things get hard, and maybe this is a pep talk to myself. When things get hard, when the funding isn’t as robust, that it’s always worth pushing through. I think about younger me facing the pandemic, leading this brand new two-year-old theatre company and just being like, “Keep pushing through. It’s always worth it.” And so, I guess that is a message to me now that no matter the challenges we face, the work we do matters, and the work we’re all doing to uplift theatre in communities and BIPOC Indigenous voices, that it all matters. And so, I think that’s what I would tell myself is just keep going and keep centered on what we’re all about. I feel like there’s been a couple times in our short history that we’ve veered the path a little bit, when just always centering that we’re really here for the community and for uplifting Guahan artists and stories. So, that’s what I would tell myself.

Yura: Yeah, that’s so important to come back to the why in those difficult moments, and also in those moments of confusion, feeling like we’re almost like too in the moment but then not in the moment because we’re worried about the future.

CJ: Yeah, exactly. I’m all about manifesting and really looking forward.

Yura: Yeah. Well, tell me more about how you manifest—

CJ: I really always try to keep a positive outlook. I’m a realist, but I also just like to put out into the universe what we want back. I think in my life and in how I run Breaking Wave, and how we move, our goal is always to put the good out and always knowing that it’ll return. With Breaking Wave, we really try to break down the barriers of traditional theatre and focus a lot more on connecting more with Indigenous storytelling and practices. And so, I think all of those combined, that’s just what we try to do. We try to put people before productions, and try to stay true to who we are and the work we do, and so just manifest good things all around for us personally and professionally, and with our company.

Yura: Yeah, that really resonates. Do you have any examples that you could share with listeners on how this type of work shows up in practice?

CJ: Yeah. So, we actually like to call it “the culture of care,” and it’s something that came out from the pandemic when we took the moment when all the reckoning was happening for everyone everywhere, but in theatre structures as well of taking the moment. We are a BIPOC-led company and we’re mostly all BIPOC, but taking the moment to be like, “Hey, what are the ways that we perpetuate white supremacy?” And things like that, and really questioning some of the things we had been taught or been practicing from our experiences of why do we put this pressure on our people? We were able to really look internally and reflect to see, wait, this is made up. This pressure on theatre is so made up, because at the end of the day the arts are so, so important, but it’s not life or death, and so that’s the culture of care we do, where your life and your health and your wellbeing is so much more important than any production that we can put on.

And so, how that started to come into practice is not that we let people get away with being late or being absent all the time. We still keep people accountable to the things they commit to, but having a lot more grace on, “Hey, I just need a mental health day,” and you don’t have to explain it, take your mental health. Because we don’t run on a full-time staff, we mostly run on contractors. We’ve had times where our folks are like, “Hey, I just need a week.” And just being like, “Hey, I respect that. Come back to me when you’re ready. You are more important than the work, it’s okay.” And so, that’s how it has manifested.

And I hope and I think—we’ve gotten good feedback from that, having more people willing to work with us because we’re not here to put any pressure. We’re putting on a play, and so we want to play, and whether or not the topic is super serious or not, at the end of the day we want people to have fun and enjoy what they’re doing, and never make it feel like a chore.

Yura: Modeling and reflecting back to others to take care of themselves as well, because especially under, I’ve discovered about myself and also can see it in others as I’ve gone through so many of these interviews, that we go through formation through the process of stepping into this leadership in this way and become a new person. And what I’ve found that has really been helpful for a lot of people, including myself, is to really invest in my own capacity to hold space, and hold space for keeping the vision alive and keeping the energy, the positivity, the manifesting, the “it works out” versus “it’s not going to work out” or “we’re stuck” in an issue. And so yeah, I found really doubling down on all of the practice, caring, connecting with the moon, the four elements, and really being intentional about a lot of things as well in terms of how we structure our day, being able to receive the rest we need as well. So I’m curious, what are your go-to practices around being able to hold space for yourself so that you can hold space for a larger group and a whole vision?

CJ: One of the things I recently, just in this new year have really connected with, is hiking. So it’s really funny, prior to January 1st I absolutely refused to go on a hike. I went on a hike when I was sixteen and fell a bunch of times, and I was like, “I’m not made for this.” And I’m not generally a very athletic person, but I’ve loved nature, especially because I left Guam about four and a half years ago, right before the pandemic hit to do some theatre work out with Oregon Shakes, and then that all fell apart with the pandemic. And so, I ended up moving to Nashville, Tennessee, where I’m tuning in today, and have lived here for the past four years. And so, I think living in a landlocked state helped me appreciate, because I go back to Guam often for Breaking Wave, helped me appreciate the land and the ocean more.

And so, when I went home for this long period of time this past winter, I decided, I was like, “You know what? It’s a new year, let me just go on a hike.” Because I had a friend who really loves hiking and he was like, “Let’s go.” So, he took me on a really easy one and I absolutely fell in love. In eight weeks we went on eight hikes, one hike every weekend, and that was like going from zero to eight real fast… And so, now I absolutely love it and it’s everyone who knows me is like, “This is wild,” because I’m usually very like, “I’m going to stay inside.” I’ll go to the beach, but I’m not going to exercise or go out in nature. I don’t like being hot or sweaty, and I hate bugs.

But now I actually love this. I’m no longer scared of bugs, so I’ve been climbing rocks , and scaling down caves, and going to cliff sides for the past few weeks. And so, that’s my new form of self-care. And then going on walks and so, even here in Nashville, learning to love the land here too and going to be going on some hikes soon.

Yura: Amazing. Yes, that is what I’m talking about. That is turning something into a habit, to a practice to… Wow, talk about transformation. How do you feel it has affected your leadership and your work at Breaking Wave?

CJ: I feel like it’s been really good for me because it’s time for me to not lead. I definitely have no sense of direction, so I always take the rear and I don’t take the lead in this because I know that I’m not the person who knows the best in the situation. And so, I think it’s been good for me mentally personally to have that time to be … This is the one thing I get to do where I don’t have to take the lead. Because I’m sure as many other leaders do in our personal lives, we’re probably the ones making the plans, we’re the ones leading the friendship group and whatnot. I think it’s been really nice to have a space where I can learn. I can learn, and I can see my friends who I’ve worked with for years, because they’re both colleagues and friends, seeing how they lead and how they take the reins.

And I think that’s always so inspiring to have these opportunities to learn from others. I really resonate with what you say about connecting with nature and the moon, because I think having this time to connect as well has helped me open up my heart to different possibilities, and how the arts can connect so much to the land. And so, I’m really interested to learn more about your work, and I feel like that’s where this is taking me with my new journey on learning how to be a hiking girl, and then also leading an arts organization.

Yura: Yeah. For me I realized, actually in Colombia, so ancestral lands after a shift from life in the U.S. and New York and really connecting more with nature, finding farming. I had actually been visioning, manifesting farming for years. Fell into place. And I realized especially in the community of Nuqui, Choco, Pacific Coast community as well, that Black and Indigenous community, we don’t have to think about activism or “change the world” energy from only one perspective, that there’s only one way that that might look. And for me, I was thinking very much in this protest energy and anti-racism, figuring out what is it that we don’t want basically. And yeah, finding out actually the opportunity that comes from connecting with the earth, and realizing that actually all of these problems that we’re facing as humans on earth at this time really comes back to this disconnection that we have with both ourselves and also each other and the earth in that way.

We are a reflection of the world, we’re cells of a body that is the entire earth. When we think about being a part of something bigger in that way, even though we are individual cells, there’s a huge opportunity to reconnect. And so, I’ve definitely found that through living in nature in this way, really close to the forest, and river, and ocean, and also in a community that is a village where you know everybody who lives around. Just a different way of understanding. And I think a lot of Indigenous communities, I would say around the world, have that connection still. And so, I think that is part of what is wanting to be reconnected.

It’s a gateway, because there’s something, about both having a mural with a message and creating the mural together brings this connection, energy, this ability also for people to be able to see the mural later for a music piece, for a song, both singing the song and experiencing that connection, feeling the support, a mycelium network when you are singing and connecting. And then to each other, dancing, and theatre, and performance, and this storytelling opportunity that is so ancestral.

There’s so much there around how we use the arts to reconnect with ourselves, and with each other, and with the earth. So, that’s why I love doing events and programming, convenings and gatherings where we actually spend time in nature receiving sunlight, moonlight, fire. It’s been really such an honor to get to do this now with my own organization, LiberArte, that really, it’s like you said, I’m a leader but leaning into my strengths, it’s more about keeping the vision alive, having visions, seeing a place and saying, “Oh, this would be really great to do something here.” And so, applying to the grants, thinking about who are the people that can help, and basically putting other people in charge too, because it’s my strength to put together the team.

CJ: I love that. Yeah, I love that.

Yura: So yeah, that’s been the journey.

CJ: That’s so inspiring. I’m already taking so much with me too, so that’s amazing.

Yura: Yeah, I feel like we could definitely do some collaborations.

CJ: Yeah, we’re all about that. We’re all about collaborating and reaching out. Guam’s so geographically isolated. And so, any chance we can get to connect with other artists, we love that.

Yura: That’s incredible. Yeah. So, right now the project I’m working on is bringing a music group from Nuqui to the U.S., and we actually got a grant to do a festival in the Rockaways in Queens, Far Rockaways, where it’s going to be this ocean festival, Afro-diasporic with communities of the Rockaways, as well as welcoming this group from the Pacific Coast in Colombia. And I just see this as an opportunity for what we can do in the future in terms of this global collaboration and exchange. Because we worked on a festival for Tambacum for this music group in Nuqui this year, in Nuqui, a festival that’s been performed three years before. And so, this ability to go to a place and with the community, and then also have that in the U.S. where we’re incorporated. And yeah, I think it is a way to both be able to exchange and offer this sense of reparations as a U.S. organization, this ability to have funding in a different way than other places. So yeah, growing and keeping this idea of what we could do all over.

CJ: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really powerful and yeah, that’s amazing.

Yura: Are you ready to build your own table? I’m thrilled to be expanding the work of our annual Strategic Planning Institute where we cultivate visionaries who are creating transformative projects, initiatives, and organizations for themselves and their communities around the world. The Strategic Planning Institute guides you through different modules of exercises, processing, and practices that help you tap into your soul’s unique purpose in the work that you are doing, in the organization that you will launch as the leader and founder. You’re welcome to take the journey with your co-founders and co-create something incredible. Take it from me as someone who has birds out into the world, all kinds of projects including this podcast, I am so excited and honored to be supporting you on your journey of making this world a better place. And it’s my purpose to be helping you do this. I’m so grateful to have been trained and certified by the Dharma Coaching Institute as a sole purpose and spiritual life coach.

This, combined with my training and graduate degree in performing arts management as well as undergrad in theatre arts, along with my initiations and certifications in shamanic energy healing practices, and a certified freedom meditation teacher, allows me to bring it all together to really curate an incredible space for you to transform and expand outward into the world in the way you were born to be. So, this is your time to shine. There’s no need to wait any longer. This is your moment, the world is asking of you, the earth is calling you. So, go ahead and sign up with us at LiberArte to be notified on the next opening for the Strategic Planning Institute. We’re curating this year’s cohort of visionaries to go through this process together, and be connected to others who are like-minded, socially conscious, and really making an impact on the world.

Together in our local communities we combine as a network of change makers. And if you’re looking for even more curated support, you can book a one-on-one coaching package with yours truly to guide you through immediately on what you need to start your own organization to build your own table that is abundant, sustainable and full of love for yourself and your community. And you can always join our free network of visionaries, a community online forum curated by me and my team, to provide you resources, links to grants, business recommendations, and tools for you to really grow, as well as access to my weekly self-care for visionaries reading, and other meditations and talks that I’m sharing in a larger forum content. There’s so many ways for you to engage, I am so excited to work with you and support you, and thanks for listening. I can’t wait to meet you.

Our ancestors took care of the land for years before there was even Google to tell us how to. If we all take some time to really connect to ourselves and to the generations that came before us, I think we could have a better hope for the generations to come.

I want to ask you speaking about the world and global connections, there’s this offering that if we all shared our solutions, we would only have solutions. We wouldn’t have any more problems. If everyone shared their solutions, everyone would have solutions. So, what is one solution to the world’s problem you wish everyone knew about?

CJ: This is a good question… solution to the world’s problems. I think it’s connecting to what you said, where it’s just connecting back to the land, and connecting back to our ancestries and where we came from. I feel like that would help jumpstart a lot of issues. Our ancestors took care of the land for years before there was even Google to tell us how to. If we all take some time to really connect to ourselves and to the generations that came before us, I think we could have a better hope for the generations to come.

Yura: Yeah. And if you were to connect this to the theatre industry, how do you envision this shifting or supporting any challenges that the theatre industry might be facing right now?

CJ: I’d love to see theatres really connect more back into Indigenous practices and roots. That’s actually something we’re really passionate about and trying to do more actively with Breaking Wave. We try our best not to operate on a hierarchical structure, and really connecting back to more community-based, and that we’re all working together and thinking about the people of Guahan and the Pacific. They were navigators, and thinking a lot about how it takes every single person to steer the ship, and to steer the canoes and get people around. And so, I would love to see those practices implemented in theatre in the United States. And I think so many people are doing it already.

So many great organizations that we’ve connected with and so many we have yet to connect with that do that already. And I’d love to see that implemented on a bigger scale in these bigger theatres, because I think that when we go back to the heart of what theatre is, it’s supposed to be storytelling, and it’s supposed to be something we all come together to do. There’s less of the red tape, and the bureaucracy and whatnot. I’d love to see that.

Yura: Yes. It sounds like a really great conference workshop, a whole even long-term course that you could take, that one could take on this. I actually have been working on this methodology called revolutionary organizational structures, evolutionary organizational structures, where we look at this connection to nature and the earth, and the systems that already exist in nature and the earth, solar system even, our body systems, things that show us how things work already—ecosystems. And really looking at, okay, actually how can we model our understanding of how we run our organization based off of these systems in nature? Because they’ve been around for much longer than this hierarchical organizational chart of boxes has been. If you’ve ever seen that type of boxes chart where it’s like the directors at top, and the managers and then the workers and the interns at the bottom, all this understanding is very limiting as to what you can be, how you fit if you’re just a box underneath or above other boxes.

So, I actually have been working on this, and for LiberArte, we created this structure that is a tree. So, we have the roots being the board of directors, and the trunk being the people internal, the more in the center you are the more internal you are, the more outwards in the bark, the more outward facing you are. And then upwards through the branches are consultants, and people who work as contractors, helping out. And then the leaves are audiences and clients and people who interact with us, and then the fruit are our artists and the folks who are really presenting and performing, and being out there in this way—

CJ: That is amazing.

Yura: Yeah, it’s really liberating and helpful too. Sometimes people talk about, “Oh, where in the hierarchy are you? Look at your organizational chart,” and then I can look at mine and I’m like, “I mean, it isn’t a hierarchy.” I’m technically at the bottom because I’m in the roots. So, it’s just been so helpful for me to understand, and I’m really excited to keep sharing this.

CJ: I’m getting goosebumps, because this is exactly what I think we’ve been working towards, so I’m really eager to connect more about this, for sure.

Yura: A lot of theatre companies could benefit and probably want the type of guidance as you might be transitioning, transforming, realizing that you actually want to do things differently, because it is a different time and the earth is calling for a different way of working together for us to continue living on the planet. So yeah, I think if anybody’s listening, wanting to have our support, hire us, feel free to reach out.

I have one more question for you. I would love to hear what has been the most rewarding aspect of carving your own path and creating your own space, really building your own table?

CJ: I think the most rewarding aspect is to see all the people who have come to the table, and continue to. I don’t do theatre for myself, I do it for the community. I’m always behind the scenes because I really believe that my purpose on this earth is to make the paths for people the most inspiring thing. And the thing that brings me the most joy is knowing that I have been able to create that table, and to bring so many people. It’s wild thinking about where we’ve gone. Like I mentioned, we’re six years old now and we have kids who started with us when they were sixteen who are now majors at the University of Guam in theatre. And to know that we played a part in that I think is the most inspiring. And even the ones who don’t major in theatre but go on to do all the great things, and knowing that they were able to get a foundation through the work we do, and that they like it so much that they keep doing it has been the most rewarding part of this journey.

And I look forward to continuing to do that, and I’m all about access and accessibility. We don’t believe in gatekeeping with Breaking Wave, there’s no reason to not share and open up all the seats because we’ve been let out of tables and rooms for so long, and so we will always open the doors where we can.

Yura: Yes, so beautiful. Oh, I definitely want to visit.

CJ: Yes, come to Guam. So much possibilities, I’m so excited.

Yura: Let us know how we can connect more with Breaking Wave Theatre Company.

CJ: Breaking Wave Theatre Company. We’re at @bwtcguam on Instagram and Facebook. And then we also have our website, which is also bwtcguam.com, and we’re always happy to connect. If anyone wants to connect with us directly, [email protected] and we’ll definitely reach out, because we love to collaborate and work with folks

Yura: Like, subscribe, follow Breaking Wave Theatre company. Thank you so much, CJ. It was such an honor and pleasure to connect.

CJ: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so grateful to have this space and this time. Thank you.

Yura: This podcast is produced as a contribution to HowlRound Theatre Commons. You can find more episodes of this show and other HowlRound shows wherever you find podcasts. Be sure to search with the keyword HowlRound and subscribe to receive new episodes. If you love this podcast, post a rating and write a review on those platforms. You can also find a transcript for this episode, along with a lot of other progressive and disruptive content on howlround.com. Have an idea for an exciting podcast, essay, or TV event the theatre community needs to hear? Visit howlround.com and submit your idea to this digital commons.

About the event

The essays gathered in the five volumes of Nehad Selaiha: Selected Essays are those selected by the author herself from the hundreds she published in the weekly journal Al-Ahram (The Pyramids). These collections, now long out of print, appeared in 2003 and 2004, approximately half way through Nehad Selaiha’s remarkable career, and provide an impressive sampling of the range and depth of her critical insight and interest. The first volume is largely devoted to one of Selaiha’s central interests, the modern Egyptian Free Theatre Movement, which has produced almost all of the significant young directors, dramatists and actors in that country for the past generation. The next two books report on productions of various Arab dramatists. The final two volumes, Cultural Encounters, discuss examples of international theatre, primarily European and American drama presented in Egypt.

With and introduction by editor Marvin Carlson—followed by a panel with Edward Blaise Ziter (NYU), Sarah Fahmy (Florida State University), Marvin Carlson and GC CUNY Ph.D. student in theatre Adam Elsayigh. 
Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

Biographies:

Edward Ziter is Professor of Theatre History in the Department of Drama at New York University. He is the author of The Orient on the Victorian Stage (Cambridge UP 2003) and Political Performance in Syria: From the Six-Day War to the Syrian Uprising (Palgrave 2015), which was co-winner of the Calloway Prize for best book on Theatre or Drama. Additionally he edits the peer-adjudicated journal, Arab Stages.

Sarah Fahmy, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Research at Florida State University. Sarah is a decolonial scholartist, whose work intersects Middle East North African identity politics, community-based performance, digital humanities, and ecofeminist art-science devising. She is a co-founder and chair of the Middle Eastern Theatre Focus Group at ATHE, where she’s leading the development of the “MENA Theatre Handbook: A Digital Guide to MENA Plays and Scholarship” and is a member of MENATMA’s Educators Circle. Her publications appear in theatre and social science journals ranging from Theatre Topics and RiDE, to PloS One; and is on Environmental Communication’s editorial board. Sarah has devised multi-disciplinary site-specific pieces and facilitated applied performance and Playback with hundreds of participants internationally, ranging from creative climate communication with scientists, to youth-centered workshops for the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Her current book project explores MENA-specific decolonial feminist praxis with young women.

Cairo-Born and Dubai-raised, Adam Elsayigh’s childhood entwined a Muslim Egyptian home, American cable, and British schooling in a migrant-majority city. This upbringing at cultural crossroads deeply shapes the artistic projects and research Adam pursues today.  As a playwright, dramaturg, and scholar, Adam focuses on themes such as queerness, immigration, and colonialism. His plays, including Alaa: A Family Trilogy, Drowning in Cairo, Revelation, and Memorial, have been featured in venues like New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, The Tisch School of the Arts, The LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, and Golden Thread Productions. These works engage with significant social issues. Adam is a PhD Candidate in Theater History and Criticism at the Graduate Center, where his research intersects with his playwriting. He holds a BA in Theater and Dramaturgy from NYU Abu Dhabi and an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College. Adam is also an Alum Fellow of Georgetown University’s Laboratory for Global Performance. His current doctoral research merges his playwriting and academic roles toward a data-driven study of the evolution of the Contemporary American play.

Since Why Not was a co-producer, we were able to help address those accessibility concerns. Shaw is hard to get to, so we encouraged the Shaw to charter buses that would travel directly from South Asian communities, to the theatre and back. While Shaw’s marketing was largely focused on digital, press, and radio ads, our Why Not Team did a ton of grassroots outreach to local temples, gurdwaras, restaurants, grocery stores and newcomer community groups… we were producing outside of their regular season and all of our approaches had led to us exceeding the box office expectations and a whopping 42 percent of our audience were first time visitors to the festival. It was amazing to see “old” and “new” audiences mingling in the lobby after the show after spending the whole day together.

One cultural collision that I’d love to share, is the culture of the theatre itself—which can present barriers to a lot of new audiences. Before one of the performances of Mahabharata, I was in the lobby, and the show was about to start. There was a little panic from front of house (FOH) to get things started and hurry people in. A family walked in— auntie, uncle, grandma, grandpa, two toddlers, one passed out in a stroller.

If we really, truly, want “new” audiences, it might not always be on our terms, and it has to be our job to make sure all feel welcomed—so that everyone decides to come back!

They were “late” and they wanted to change their seats. They had seen part one, but their kids were vocal and they felt bad annoying other patrons, so they wanted to move into the balcony. The FOH manager was imploding, she couldn’t compute the request and manage the pressure to start, and one of our understudies intervened and got the box office manager to help out—he was awesome. As they were walking up the stairs, half way the grandparents changed their mind and they were discussing in Bengali, whether they wanted to walk all the way up or go back to their original seats… meanwhile FOH is going bananas, Our understudy is speaking terrible Hindi saying “Jaldi Jaldi!” They get to the top of the stairs, park the stroller and they all head in, and the show was eight minutes late. I share the shortened version of this because it really was a clash of cultures for that theatre. The culture of the theatre and its “rules,” which are rigid, and the culture of (broadly speaking) Indian people, where time, tickets, everything is flexible. To me, it was hilarious. I could understand how stressful the situation was for the staff of the theatre, but the chaos of it, was so recognizable to me, so comforting to witness, because it was my culture. It felt right. If we really, truly, want “new” audiences, it might not always be on our terms, and it has to be our job to make sure all feel welcomed—so that everyone decides to come back!

Barbican

A different kind of cultural collision happened in our collaboration with the Barbican Centre, which to me was a huge success. Beyond the Western and South Asian audiences, we had also anticipated that there were two different working cultures and styles between Why Not, a small Canadian POC led company, and the Barbican, a massive British institution. We knew there could be the potential for friction (as we had had with predominantly white institutions in the past), so very early on in the process we got all the key folks from both Why Not and Barbican teams together to have a conversation about values. To our surprise, the Barbican welcomed this invitation with open arms; they were thrilled to discuss the way we each worked, our expectations, how we would practice values-based decision making, how we would handle conflict if it emerged between the teams, and what we hoped the audience experience to feel like. Most importantly, the Barbican’s marketing team was part of the meeting, so what became evident through the values meeting, was that we needed to hire a South Asian marketing consultant (which we recommended through one of the actors in the company) to ensure we’d reach those first-time-theatregoing South Asian audiences that we were hoping to.

Not only did we sell out the entire run, but we were the second most successful show of 2023 to bring new audiences to the Barbican. It didn’t feel like a presenter/visiting artist relationship, and it wasn’t a co-producing relationship. It felt like—and was—a true collaboration. And standing in the lobby, being miles away from home, I had the feeling of home.

A beloved Canadian programmer, Norman Armour—the founder of the PuSh festival in Vancouver—who recently passed away, used to speak with me about touring in terms of hosts and guests. I think there is the potential for presenters to work with artists to create a new category of “Guest Host,” where we, the “guest” artists, can play a significant role in helping venues host “new” audiences.

Of course, not all artists will want to play this role, nor should they have to, but I offer these learnings as a way of helping to think about more deep and long-term relationships in touring between artists and presenters and audiences.

Being a good guest or a good host, is really about understanding the importance of generosity and what it means to share. And I think if we share the resource of the building, the theatre, the venue itself, between artists and presenters, we might find more creative ways to not only engage and welcome a “new” audience, but we might also find ways to better immerse ourselves in another’s story and authentically experience another’s culture. This is true for local, national, and international contexts.

I am sure many minds in this room are hard at work on this—so I hope sharing some of these experiences will help build on your conversations and ideas.

Thank you for your time and for having me here today!