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Dance Dramaturgy and Sharing Leadership with George Staib of Staibdance
82 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Amber chats with George Staib, a new collaborator and founder of Staibdance about dramaturging dance, artist care and artist agency as well as how we share leadership. We discuss the ways in which Staibdance has evolved over the years, how George keeps the work and creative process fresh and exciting, and how the dancers he works with have become his collaborating partners. We also discuss our developing dance dramaturgy collaboration on Staibdance's newest piece ARARAT. And finally, we talk about competition and the art of letting go.
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Transcript
00:00:11
Speaker
you don't love. And because I think it can fulfill personally, I'm only going to do this, this and only pursue this, this and this and this. And if there's so much valuable information and checking out the thing that's the antimatter.
Introduction to Table Work Podcast
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to Table Work, How New Plays Get Made. My name is Amber Bradshaw, and I am a New Play Dramaturg arts administrator and educator. And in the context of this particular episode, I am also a dancer. On this podcast, I ask some primary questions. What is New Play Dramaturgy and how do we do it?
00:00:53
Speaker
What do creating artists want to see in the future? Where are we failing in the creative process and how can we solve these concerns? The mission is to demystify the process of creation and collaboration, explore ways to better our field, share tools to diversify and improve the work and record what we discover.
Amber's Role at Working Title Playwrights
00:01:13
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by Working Title Playwrights, a new play incubator and service organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, in which I serve as the managing artistic director.
00:01:23
Speaker
For more about WTP and me, check out www.workingtitledplaywrights.com.
Introduction of Guest George Stave
00:01:29
Speaker
I'd like to start today by introducing y'all to our guest, George Stave. Welcome, George. Thank you, Amber. What a joy. So George was born in Tehran, Iran. George is of Armenian descent and has been living in the United States since the age of 10.
00:01:47
Speaker
In 2001, George joined the dance faculty at Emory University, where he teaches a seminar created to examine the impetus and practice of consuming and making art. Since relocating to Atlanta, Georgia, Stabe's work and teaching have been commissioned across the United States, resulting in his recognition by Dance Teacher magazine in 2014 as one of the top five dance educators in the country.
Cultural Access and Art Barriers
00:02:11
Speaker
Of Stave Dance's many projects, they curated and produced the first ever Atlanta Multicultural Dance Festival. They also created a summer intensive in Sorrento, Italy that is now in its 11th year. And they also host a 10-part podcast series titled Secret Architecture, The Process of Process.
00:02:32
Speaker
And I also have attended a few different workshops where Stave Dance invited audiences to come and watch rehearsals, which was really, really cool. Very, very scary. I do remember you saying you were nervous.
00:02:49
Speaker
And I think we met very early on when I was working with Gathering Wild Dance and the show Circa 50 that I designed and developed and worked with Geraldine Warner very closely on. But we also reconnected as members of the 2020 class of the arts leaders of Metro Atlanta. We sat together at one of the monthly sessions and really hit it off.
00:03:14
Speaker
And we also got to connect at one of State Dance's incredible workshops recently and have planned some exciting collaborations. And of course, I'm a big fan of State Dance and have seen several shows, including your most recent project, Ever At. Thank you, Amber. To be seen feels really
00:03:35
Speaker
great and also to be seen by somebody who I respect who is so multifaceted and really dedicated to lifting up, really dedicated to kind of breaking down barriers of cultural access. It means a lot, so thank you.
Evolution and Reinvention of Stave Dance
00:03:53
Speaker
So tell us about Steve Dance.
00:03:58
Speaker
Maybe the idea for this came when I was an undergrad and one of my dance teachers had her own dance company was teaching dance and that was my first interaction with movement and I remember thinking, I'm just like you when I grow up and then
00:04:11
Speaker
The position at Emory opened and I joined the faculty in 2001, but I knew pretty early on that having some creative outlet would have been really the only way to sustain a career in academia because in our field it's called research. And I did understand likewise that one thing feeding the other would be incredibly valuable, i.e. teaching at Emory could somehow fuel the work of the company. Likewise, company work could fuel
00:04:42
Speaker
teaching in the studio at Emory. But since then, and since then, I recognize that the company is really not that different than I am. It's really invested in reinvention and kind of looking at something new and glittery and massaging it for a while and seeing how far it takes us.
Teaching and Dance: A Symbiotic Relationship
00:05:03
Speaker
And then
00:05:04
Speaker
Also, it's steeped in listening. And COVID, regardless of how that's situated with different lives, was a great pause for us to look back and say, hey, this is an opportunity to not rebrand, but to finally dive into some things that have been on the back burner and bring forward. So it is culturally rooted because of me, it can not be that, but also serves to lift up other cultures in the city as well as
00:05:32
Speaker
kind of drive forward maybe this wackadoo sense of contemporary dance and because it's undefinable and so we just contribute one of the little definitions. That's great and I also love this idea of how your work at Emory and your work with State Dance collides and and how they support one another. I always think you know if for some reason educator and education can feel like a bad word but
00:06:00
Speaker
I always, I feel constantly, if I'm not learning, I'm bored out of my mind. Yeah, absolutely. And so much of the process work we do is education and educating and training one another as collaborators, don't you find? I remember a long time ago, I heard this horrible phrase, those who can do, those who can't teach. Oh, fuck that. Can I say that word? Yes, you can. And fuck that. Simply because those two things can merge and
00:06:29
Speaker
The thing that I noticed, whether in other institutions, not higher ed, but in studios, or there's this teaching from nostalgia. Well, this is the way it's always been done. Therefore, I need to be a steward of that and push it forward. And I see that my interest is not really invested in that, although I do cling to the past a lot. I'm a worrier and like a panicker of the past and the future. And at the same time,
00:06:58
Speaker
Newness is so intriguing to me and scary, which means I should probably run to it in an academic setting, especially at a research institution like Emory where research is important. I find I'm less interested in researching the past and more interested in researching
00:07:19
Speaker
current moments or the past and how it relates to the current moment and people. I'm fascinated by people. I so resonate. I'm like, I don't need to be rude, but I'm really just interested right now. Exactly. We can dissect and dissect and learn from the past. We can, we can do so much studying, but just add up to
00:07:44
Speaker
Maybe this was a conversation we had last week, was that our association with the past or mine anyway depends on what mood I'm in. I'm in a really grouchy mood and I'll think back onto an event and think that was horrible. Or if I'm in a festive mood, I'm like, oh yeah, that was silly, whatever. And so I can't even recount history properly in my own mind.
00:08:06
Speaker
Absolutely not. I don't remember that stuff. The way it happened at all. Like a book about 1843. I don't know how much I should trust that. I completely agree. I completely agree, especially if you know artists who create the same story over and over again. Yeah. But like in 100 different iterations. How many of those do you know? I know quite a few. It's like the same story is just being told from all these different perspectives and life experiences.
00:08:34
Speaker
That is completely it. And whether it's self-awareness that brings him to that or unconsciousness, I'm still fascinated in many ways. It never bores me. Absolutely. I do think and I in the podcast, I've talked a lot about this idea of maintaining the ecstasy of being an artist despite the scarcity we live under. And I think this is also so important is what is now and what is coming and how are we a part of what's next?
00:09:02
Speaker
Yes. Right. And how exciting and electric that is and as an artist to be a part of that, you know, but you have to have your finger on the pulse and you have to be willing to let go of what you used to believe. And that can be really hard. Right. Again, I'll use
Challenges in New Artistic Directions
00:09:18
Speaker
this word quite a bit. It's frightening, but that's the only way to encounter new territory. And then the hope is that whoever might choose to join you as an audience member or supporter or feedback giver
00:09:31
Speaker
is open to that electricity as well. You know, it's either you really look at a beautiful menu at a restaurant or you look at the laminated page and just, if that makes sense, you know, you're just choosing to engage a little bit differently and ask a question rather than only embrace the familiar and that's scary.
00:09:55
Speaker
Because I don't know what people want, and I think that governs sometimes production and output. Trying to guess what people might want and what a futile attempt at anything. Oh my gosh, right? And how often are we wrong? Almost always. Almost always.
00:10:15
Speaker
Well, that's great. And so how has this exploration taken you through the journey with Stave Dance, you know, in terms of like, kind of how you were mission driven at the beginning and where you found yourself now? Well, as you say that immediately, I'm thinking about the trajectory, let's say 2007. That's when we say we began, but it's really fuzzy. And I've recognized that even the dancers who engage with us
00:10:42
Speaker
are either compelled by something recent that we did and want to become part of it or fall away because of something that we did. And that was a tough thing to navigate at first when there were dancers who I really respected a lot. They're like, you know, I'm not so much into this kind of work anymore or
00:11:05
Speaker
you know, whatever personal reasons. And once I shook hands with that and recognize like, Oh, it's okay. It is a mirror for the way we live our lives. I mean, I'm still not best
00:11:18
Speaker
I don't even know if I would know anybody. And I think it's an evolution and I had to reconcile that. So State of Dance as a vehicle for that kind of exploration artistically is really rooted in a mutual trust among collaborators and the dancers and inside the space. And even as you had mentioned, error is preparing, it was preparing to be presented. In my panic moments, a dancer said, George, there's a lot of brilliance around you.
00:11:48
Speaker
It's going to be fine.
Empowering Dancers and Shared Leadership
00:11:50
Speaker
The composer is amazing. The lighting designer and seating designer is incredible. The dancers are phenomenal. So if the ship sinks, we'll all go down together. But there's plenty of light preservers out there, I think. Yes, yes, absolutely.
00:12:12
Speaker
And also, I mean, I've seen an evolution for you in leadership in your organization. I mean, you've given some of your dancers a lot of opportunity to step up. And that has been very satisfying. And sometimes maybe that was way back in the day, 10 or 15 years ago, a point of qualification. I would think no one could ever like what I'm doing, but they might like what that person's doing. So I'll latch on to it. Yeah, there's been a really
00:12:42
Speaker
and so forth that have come forward. Things that are more firmly rooted in the practitioner, whether it's like Melia Reiser, Anna Bracewell-Crowd, or people who I often go to to teach other dancers in the company. There's an ownership there that I don't wish to claim, but I know is
00:13:03
Speaker
fruitful, it's beautiful, it's evocative, and I wouldn't dare take it out of their hands. I might steal an idea sometimes, but if the horse's mouth is there, I'd prefer it to become this information of the flower should come from them, if that makes sense.
00:13:22
Speaker
Well, yeah. And I also hear you saying it's like even if you come up with some of the court, the choreography, which I know you work in collaboration with your dancers and choreography, but even things that you might be deciding on, you know, that choreography is going to work itself out individually through each body, each dancer. Right. And it's never going to look exactly as you performed it for them or as you showed them. Right. That is so true. And this would be a great conversation in terms of
00:13:53
Speaker
playwrights and people who put text to the page because it's going to have a resonance in your head. And then when you hear somebody else speak it, you're like, hmm, I like that. No, like this. And that was, um, or do the move like this or do it like that. And then after a while I thought, well, I don't need other people to look like me. In fact, it's better if they don't look like me on stage because many reasons. And
00:14:17
Speaker
Coming from a background where meticulous unison was such an integral part of what we did, marching band, color guard, and all the stuff, everyone had to look at like there was some gratification in achieving that, but then I realized, hmm.
00:14:34
Speaker
We've proven we can do that. But how does this seed grow, whether it's movement or text inside somebody else's body? So the thing we think about, the molecules are effectively the same. How the physical being reacts to it or the output is going to be different. And we welcome that inside the studio and inside the work.
00:14:55
Speaker
Oh, I love that. Yeah. And that shows in the work, right? It just it feels so much that each dancer gets to have full agency over their movement. Right. And I just don't see like, you know, a hand over them. It's more about the message of the piece that the choreography is telling rather than like exactness. Yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
which the exactness is the dancers understanding the mission of the piece, right, rather than the exact movement? Exactly. It's almost like traffic. We're all going in the same direction. Essentially, there's so much differentness going on in each car, but we're all going there. And maybe that's the cool part of it. And that's what I love seeing. So it's why auditions are a bitch. I can't stand them. I don't do them anymore.
00:15:46
Speaker
We talked about perhaps over rehearsing is that possible and i kinda think it is possible you do too. I think in theater there's almost never too much because it's such a scarcity model but i do think sometimes things can become too polished.
00:16:06
Speaker
And so we've adopted this thing where I tell you, you can't mess this up. If you are listening to yourself and to the environment and you're attenuated to this world that we've constructed, you really can't mess up. Therefore, live in this and react accordingly. And again, I have to make sure that I'm not checking myself.
00:16:33
Speaker
On the other hand, it does put more vitality. You mentioned at the start of this conversation, the electricity of it. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, even in the, you know, a lot of dancers aren't trained to use facial expressions at all. Right. And I'm sure that's less now than it used to be. But I still see that a lot with dancers.
00:16:56
Speaker
And I feel like your dancers have a lot of facial expression. There's a lot going on on their faces. I appreciate about that because the dancer's body isn't the only thing telling a story and the face is very key as well. And I've always sort of wanted more of that from dancers, probably just because I'm a theater artist, you know, and I'm looking for that connection.
00:17:17
Speaker
I also, and I believe if it works, and it sounds like it does for you, it's because it starts internally. It is the analogy of a soap opera actress or actor where the drama starts in the face and then it goes in the body, which feels very canned or
00:17:33
Speaker
cartoony, and you'll hear whether it's on a dance mom. They're like, now where are your facials? Do the facials correctly. Mine is the facial expression, the decoration. Isn't the facial decoration? Yeah. I don't watch those shows I didn't know. I never watch them. I only see a clip here and there.
00:17:51
Speaker
But I always think that should be the last thing that comes out, because whether it's anxiety or anger or fear, I always feel it in the body first, then on my face. And if I register on my face, it's because it's already started somewhere else. So it's not something, so I'm glad, because if you see a dancer struggling, like, ooh, I've got to jump to the floor one more time, and that grit is in the fatigue, it's real.
00:18:20
Speaker
Love that. So let's talk about Arrow Rat. You just had a preview of the show at Emory in January, which was really a first look. And I got to see a little bit of the
00:18:35
Speaker
the sort of foundations of that show because I attended a workshop that you did right beforehand. It was about a six hour workshop, and a lot of it was led by your lead dancers. And I've been one of them. And please, I know I'm going to not remember all of their names, but wow.
00:18:54
Speaker
They were incredible. And actually, I actually remember them leading most of the workshop and you were really a support leader there, which was really cool because you're always very present to introduce the shows, to talk about rehearsals. But I really felt like you really sat down and you let them take care of it. And it was really nice to see. I'm glad that was appreciated because I appreciate their willingness
00:19:22
Speaker
to do that, the generosity in that. It's a lot of intellectual labor, physical labor, and it's essentially a manifestation of their own research that they've done outside. I think it's really marvelous now. The organization almost feels like a collective of different ideas and
00:19:41
Speaker
bodies and experiences in the room, whereas I think dance in the 80s and 90s, when I was aspiring to be in a company, really did have this sort of thing. You had either to have the look, the aesthetic inclination, or the drive to do the same thing that that company is doing. And so if the doors feel open, that's really wonderful. And inside the workshop, admittedly, some of the prompts, I think they would, I would call them 50-50.
00:20:10
Speaker
on her own or things that I would drop into the space. And there's an infinite amount of trust inside of that. And I just take a lot of pleasure out of watching as well. And I wonder about you as a, there's a letting go of control, which I've noticed personally, and I'm so gleefully trying to do that. Whereas I remember a piece I did maybe let's say 2008 or nine.
00:20:39
Speaker
called gargoyles. There was a 30-minute piece, so all this broke music. Every second was counted. Every hand was placed in a thing. And so that kind of neuroses governed the making of this stuff. And now, like, oh, well, that's cool. Again, maybe do that tomorrow night's performance. And tonight's performance, try this. And so I think the same thing occurs in our workshops. We'll just look to see what's happening among the five in the room.
00:21:07
Speaker
if you might be doing something like, oh, let's play around with that idea and see where it goes. Yeah, absolutely. Watching your work with Stayed Dance has been just like you have really listened to your community and you have welcomed these dancers into your leadership circle in ways that a lot of leaders I have not seen do, right? And I want all leaders to do this. I want everybody to be like,
00:21:34
Speaker
You're really smart and you really have something you can contribute to the work that I'm doing. And you have been untrusted and honored collaborator. How can I give you more space? How can I give you more of a voice, you know? And so I just love that about hearing you talk about it, because I also think you're coming from an educator place of like, if you are always what I learned from becoming a teacher more recently, the last three years teaching dramaturge is that it's all learning.
00:22:02
Speaker
I didn't know teaching was all learning. I had no clue.
00:22:08
Speaker
I think, well, if you're seeing that, I think that's magnificent. And if I'm doing that, that's great. I'll say on your podcast, this is a resolution to really jump into it even more. So thank you for that. And I also feel as though it's a life lesson as well, because I might assume that I have finite interests, but they're really
00:22:33
Speaker
Just as soon as we think that, some surprising pops up. Exactly. And I think maybe if there's a stem or a root of that, it could be that as well, because even my executive director would be like, George, you don't always have to chase all the shiny things. So in terms of Ararat, tell me a little bit about where the show began for you and where it has moved to. Well,
00:23:03
Speaker
In some funding circles, as I'm sure your listeners might know, you have to know a thing well before you even hit the studio or put paper to pen or make a move, right? So as Pence was wrapping up, we were thinking about the, I was thinking about what next. And it had just been, we were right before the shutdown. And I started thinking even prior to the shutdown about this idea of newness and kind of
00:23:33
Speaker
resurrecting the self or the idea a friend handed to me was the idea of remnants. And so relating to my people, Armenian people being all over the world and that diaspora. And it's not, if you ask a native Armenian who's in the Erevan right now, they're like, oh, we love new things. We love all of this stuff. Nobody wants to stay put. And I said, well, you know, I think that speaks very well to our culture. And
00:24:02
Speaker
It was also at a time where the idea of resilience wasn't being spoken of so much. And yet I saw resilience all around me in many sort of demographics and economic situations. And there's still a lot of sadness and burden and heaviness inside of that. And on a parallel track, I think, well, we're still here. So the COVID shutdown, it's not a COVID dance by any means, but it's a reflection on, it just so happened to coincide
00:24:31
Speaker
with the fact that mythologically nose art resides at the top of Mount Ararat.
Themes Behind "Ararat" Dance Piece
00:24:38
Speaker
And it's a mountain in Turkey and this mountain serves as a source of inspiration and hope for the Armenians. So if we think, okay, if you believe in the great flood, that was a giant shutdown and everything started afresh. And after the Armenian genocide, 1912 through 1914,
00:24:58
Speaker
many Armenians fled. And that's also a new beginning inside different territories, whether it was in Jerusalem or in Iran, which my family ended up California, Lebanon, Greece, and so on. So there's prosperity in this relocation yet at the same time a holding to some sort of
00:25:18
Speaker
you know, that thing, everyone's talking about mushrooms communicating under the ground and trees communicating under the ground. So there's that thing connecting Armenians under the ground, whether it's language or music or food. But it's this connectivity that resides inside of this. And so Ararat is that new beginnings and without understanding where it's going to go. So intentionally this work
00:25:46
Speaker
has no logical resolution. And in fact, inside several moments, things begin over and over and over with different opening lines. So that's the idea. And dialing behind that, the scariest moment, which I've expressed to you is the first five minutes where quite literally nothing happens.
00:26:11
Speaker
Except for every minute on the minute somebody sits up or somebody stands up. And that is frightening and in many ways alludes to the fact when all things are possible, what do you do? Which direction do you swim in? And I find personally that thought is liberating and also suffocating at the same time. Here, you can do whatever you want. Great. Now what? I need a nudge some way.
00:26:40
Speaker
in one direction. And so that this work tackles that. And to me, that that's the theater of the work is the the five minutes of watching them jump up like that. There's so much theater to that because it's like. What the hell is going on right now? Yeah. And you're just like on the edge of your seat, just waiting. Oh, I know. We're not going to. Oh, my gosh. But, you know, the the
00:27:10
Speaker
there's sort of a director tool in directing plays where it's usually younger directors who are experimenting with directing and how to impact the audience. And it's like a 30 second blackout before the show starts.
00:27:26
Speaker
Oh, right. So it's actually I've seen it many times and you did it for way longer. But you had them. You actually had things happening. Oh, yeah. So to me, not exactly the same, but it's doing something similar. It's sort of putting the audience in a state of discombobulation a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then that's gratifying to hear because I know for me, entering the world is thrilling, whether it's a sound installation
00:27:55
Speaker
or like an immersive theater experience, or even putting on headphones and walking around campus and listening to not pop music, but something else.
00:28:04
Speaker
if I find a lot of joy in putting myself into my own movie. And so if there's a translation into that, then perhaps this was it. And if it resonated, then great. And we'll keep it five minutes and nothing for the premiere. Absolutely. And also, like, how many people in the audience think something is wrong? Something? Did somebody miss their cue? Right. That's also what I hear is like, who is willing to trust the process?
00:28:31
Speaker
And who is like freaking out? Exactly. Right. This is how we see ourselves. You know, it's like observing yourself while experiencing a work of art is one of the most exciting things that artists can do if they actually know how to tap into it. And, you know, dramaturgs and process people, I think, do it all the time. Right. Because we're doing it to other people. Yeah. And we really want to know what it feels like. Exactly. It's like this theater version of turbulence.
00:29:00
Speaker
I think the pilot's got it under control, but you're like, now this is it. We're going down. But just ride out the turbulence a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. And I really enjoyed in the workshop that y'all led. I think the first thing that was done was laying on the ground in a total blackout, really high ceiling space, probably 40 dancers in the space.
00:29:30
Speaker
Seven minutes, blackout, only light you can see is coming from the windows that are really high up. And we are told to hum into a yell. Yes. Is that correct? That is correct. And that is an embrace wall. Original. And as an observer, I mean, I'm wondering what a listener would think, like, well, seven minutes.
00:29:57
Speaker
as an observer of that, which I feel guilty observing it because I know it can be very personal, is really moving and it's cathartic. And because what I see is eventual buy-in because who's going to make the first audible thing?
00:30:15
Speaker
And then once that's there, I would love to know for, well, yeah, am I doing this right? Is this, am I accelerating it and am I getting too loud? Am I being too quiet? And I feel that when I'm watching it, which is also a cross section of all the people's things maybe. And it feels really like tapping into
00:30:37
Speaker
tapping into one, your courage to take part in this group activity that feels weird and you don't know what's going on. And two, like it's like a willingness to explore it at all, like as an experience, right? And so,
00:30:59
Speaker
Actors have this really special thing where they've been jumping into these kinds of practices a long time fearless Yes, right, but it's because they've had so much practice doing silly Exercises all the time like the kind of things I did in acting class crack me up I mean, it's really funny the kind of stuff we did and goofy and silly and I often felt really dumb doing it but I think that it allowed me to approach
00:31:28
Speaker
Things that were scary or that I didn't understand in a way that was safe for me. You know, I just I and I think that's what those exercises train us to do is like you said. But it's also like the courage to just become a part of it and like the courage to be heard by others and like
00:31:50
Speaker
Let them think something and not care, right? Like that's the part and to get to the end there and and everybody screaming Like it was fantastic. Oh, I loved it. Oh, that's wonderful. I'll pass that along Because I should also confess that my deep down passion has always been to
00:32:16
Speaker
I was a dramatic arts major in undergrad. I do recall very much similar exercises in acting classes, which I found cathartic and liberating. And I think in terms of process, what occurs or what I might see, if somebody encounters this seven minute thing or something beautiful that happens in a class, the inclination is like, I want to put it on stage.
00:32:46
Speaker
I feel as though then there needs to be another filter because many things happen in process for Aerorat I'm sure for developing a new play that is simply a doorway into something else but I find
00:33:00
Speaker
there's often a hunger to share that cathartic moment and it doesn't translate very well. Do you, is there a resonance? For sure. I think, I think there's like this, sometimes I think that when we're creating, especially when we're newer at it, like let's say we're like really good at this, but we're newer at it.
00:33:22
Speaker
that we often don't realize what the audience experience is going to be. And it's not that we're not thinking about them, but I know for myself as a young director, I selected a play, and I'll just say what the play is, just for the sake of it, it's called Tone Clusters by Joyce Carol Oates, who actually is a novelist but wrote a few plays.
00:33:44
Speaker
Well, it's a crazy play and a beautiful piece of work, but it really devastated the audiences, you know? And I feel like, I mean, they literally left looking completely emotionally devastated. Just devastated. And I was like, I don't know if that's really what I wanna do with my work. And I maybe thought it was, but I think that we don't always think about
00:34:13
Speaker
the thing that feels good for us as the performer and how that's going to appear or seem like or be experienced by the audience member, right? I think it's often difficult to actually even know that, which is also just another reason for me to advertise for New Play Dramaturgs and Dramaturgs in general, right? Because they're acting as audience members. They're watching, they're experiencing, they're reading, and they're telling you what it feels like.
00:34:41
Speaker
And it's like so intrinsic to any playwriting that we have that feedback and sometimes when we're working in experimental spaces.
00:34:52
Speaker
We're not always thinking that way. And I think we're thinking more, honestly, a little bit of usefully towards the audience. I'm just gonna say, I think it's a little violent to a certain extent. And that's a decision that we are making, right? And so, you know, like there's all this talk about consent right now with experimental theater. And if people are gonna be immersed in something, are they gonna be prepared for it? And I'm like really for that.
00:35:17
Speaker
Because I think if people are going to show up for an experimental piece, I'm going to want them to know that that's what they signed up for. Yes. Right. And I think because I just don't think any work of art shouldn't come with some sort of prepping because it should be a journey that you take. Yeah, I think you see it in the film industry from trailers and not yet not even warnings or trigger warnings, but the trailer can give you an
00:35:44
Speaker
I'm not a big fan of like really frightening slasher movies. But I think you're right. And so what I'm hearing if this is fascinating for the dramaturgical aspect is more empathetic to the viewer rather than the artist on stage. You know, it's like it's like the dramaturg is the bridge. Yeah. OK. They're the bridge. That's satisfying to hear because, you know, and maybe
00:36:13
Speaker
then the beauty of it is somebody who really is outside of the momentum of the process too, because there is, we talked about preciousness or an inclination to lift up the artist who's making themselves vulnerable on
Role of Dramaturgs in Storytelling
00:36:25
Speaker
the stage. However, the dramaturg will say, it's not translating, it's too much, tone it down. I also think there's some stories that artists like should just tell whatever way they want and those aren't necessarily
00:36:41
Speaker
like the ones that are big productions. Those are just work they needed to release. Yeah. Right. And I think there's a difference. I think you should do both, but I think there's a difference. You could do one as like an intimate salon. And if the other stuff, I can just say if you wanted to have a little bit more appeal, I mean, I'm certainly not a fan of pandering, but nor am I a fan of alienation.
00:37:08
Speaker
To me, it's less about any of that and more about intention, right? And it's like, well, the audience is here. Why are they here? Yes. If this is cathartic for you as an artist, why am I here? Because I am part of this show. I am an audience member, therefore I'm part of this show. And that's how I approach the audience. They're very much a collaborator.
00:37:32
Speaker
I think that's beautiful. And I guess I hope everyone thinks that way because the cynical side of me is like the audience member is like, I'm just here because my friends on the show. Oh, sadness. I mean, not to say those people don't exist, but to me, those people are an opportunity to surprise and convert potentially, you know? But yeah, I think there's room for all of it.
00:38:01
Speaker
But I also think younger artists are naturally going to explore relationship with audience because I don't think it's necessarily a given to fully understand it as an artist. And I think sometimes we treat the audience like an antagonist. I've even had her say that to me specifically. I feel like the audience is an antagonist. I think to myself,
00:38:25
Speaker
Why would you want those people in your space? Yeah, exactly. Get out of here. I don't want an antagonist here. My antagonist is in my story, not not in my community. That's so true. And I do feel whether because we're inclined to be in front of critics and other people who do the same thing that we do. Exactly. And and I think maybe delineating that antagonist. You might. And just defining where is it coming from.
00:38:58
Speaker
of work and artists who are right now just throwing their middle finger up at the idea of being seen and performing and then the question is well then don't say yes to this. If you're going to say yes to being in front of you will be objectified you will be criticized you will either secretly or in public through the thing and so and but do it anyway and and trust the resilient nature because
00:39:27
Speaker
Just like, I can't tell you who won the Oscar for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just this past February. Likewise, that moment will kind of disappear. You allow it to. Yes, yes. And I think too, like, as artists, we have to fail as many times as we succeed. And because I think I used to look at the audience more as an antagonist, and I've grown into seeing audiences as collaborators.
00:39:51
Speaker
But I think it took like some really cool immersive experiences for me to realize and to see audiences devastated by the work that I chose and like to see all those things like just because I thought it was cool may not translate. Every great idea I have isn't going to translate. Exactly. Well, that's really beautiful. And if there's any kind of staying power, then I think the battle has been won.
00:40:18
Speaker
for the audience member or the performer. If there's something that sticks, regardless if you love the thing that stuck or not, then I think that's success. Yeah, absolutely.
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're just so, we're so hard on ourselves as artists. It's just, it's just really too bad because we have all of the tools we need. It's just a matter of like believing in ourselves, right? And doing it anyway. Doing it anyway. Doing it no matter what anybody says.
00:40:56
Speaker
In terms of Ararat, you know, you and I have talked a little bit about dance dramaturgy around this work, in part because I expressed a lot of appreciation for the show, the preview that I saw, and saw a lot of theater in it. And so let's talk a little bit about that first meeting and some of the questions you had for me in regards to dance dramaturgy. Yeah, well, because I didn't know what it would look like, essentially, because
00:41:26
Speaker
For the most part, many dances or even like works are built from maybe a personal experience. Rarely are they translations of, I'll say in the contemporary world, translations of something that already exists. So when it's original, I didn't know what that would look or feel like. When it has maybe a tentacle in history, that clearly felt like
00:41:51
Speaker
jumping off point for a dramaturg. But in conversation with you, I realized, oh, the questions that I can ask down to like, does this go on for too long? Or is what is this and is this too ambiguous? Is this too literal? And that translation from what makes so much clear sense in my mind, or even in digesting a completed idea,
00:42:20
Speaker
It makes sense to me, but does it make sense to somebody else? Is there an invitation to dig in deeper to an audience member or is it?
00:42:31
Speaker
holding a hand up and saying accept it as is. So these are the questions that I have. And I'm guessing that that do you want to respond to that? Yeah, sure. I guess it's when the dramaturge role then be to agitate in the best way to understand how to wake an audience member up to and to relay
00:42:54
Speaker
It's okay, whatever you're thinking, feeling or not thinking, not feeling. Is there some alignment that way? Because that feels like it would be the best security blanket in many ways. Because I think we could grandstand like, well, this is what I want. And therefore, it doesn't resolve it. They don't get it. Who are them? But that's not that's not me.
00:43:17
Speaker
Right. And it doesn't sound like that's not your goal. Right. And then likewise, the questions that surrounded this number that I've asked you were that there there's definitely historic context and facts and figures. I'm not necessarily interested in reciting those in 1912, Ottoman officials. That's not the work that I'm interested in making. Pick up a history book. So where where do these
00:43:43
Speaker
tickets make their way in the way that feels potent or something examineable after the thing something you might want to research in yourself or historically these are the valuable components that i just don't know how to do and i'm really.
00:44:03
Speaker
real to embrace. I don't do write script. I don't do I write a script for this dance. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm my head's running. I can see that. Yeah. Well, I mean, the the the historical context becomes a narrative of its own. So you really have to be
00:44:25
Speaker
like be very intentional about where it is because people are just going to immediately connect those dots. Exactly. So you have to figure out what is the audience going to understand with this one is here and this one is here and this one is here and this pops in here. What what story are you then telling if you change around when they happen or where they happen? Right. Just cracked open the answer to this. It really did. Maybe that is. Yeah. In one way.
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, potentially maybe it's a neighbor and it doesn't have to be linear either. Like at all, you know, and so you can, if there's a narrative there, that's that. And, um, I would also say arrow rat also includes a live DJ. Yes. Right. Um, there is, um, a live mic being used at several different points. Um, the DJ and the music,
00:45:22
Speaker
communicate with the dancers, like a literal conversation, just really fun. There is humor in that communication, right? Which I really, really enjoyed. And then there's sort of sections that feel sort of theatrical where questions are being asked on the microphone.
00:45:43
Speaker
But they're sort of a dissonance created by potentially repeating the question three times or changing the question slightly or making it sound robotic or changing the way that it's spoken. So really exploring performance art in some of that and like what does it look like to communicate these different forms and put them together. Exactly. So then the role of this person
00:46:11
Speaker
is to stitch it together to remove the fragments. And along with all the listeners, I'm figuring this out right now. Because the absence of the through line, if it's conscious, I suppose can have value. But in this case, there is the need for it
00:46:37
Speaker
the dramaturge brain. Because as we processed many ideas in the studio, we would just start an idea and when we got to a moment where a definitive end was making itself known, or an idea was going to go via right or left, we stopped it, conscientiously, which is all well and good.
00:47:01
Speaker
However, the why I suppose is the thing that would be fortified by this investigation. Sure. Yeah. And you've done so much of the intuitive work already, which is really cool, which means the personally, that's the way to go, because the historical narrative could really take over if you started with it. Yeah. So bringing it in after actually just allowed so much richness and texture to come from.
00:47:31
Speaker
the emotional foundation of the work. That's gratifying to hear because I do notice that if a choreographer is going to tackle something like this, the easier thing would be to put on audio that references a timeline and move around to it.
00:47:49
Speaker
So you're merging news and dance. And I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in the stuff, the interpretation of the two. Yeah, I get that in the work. I really do. And I think traditional dance dramaturgy
00:48:08
Speaker
would be a little more focused on that particular choreo means this to me versus if you changed it, it means that to me in a story. Whereas we're talking a little more about the combination of performative art, live performative art and dance, right? And also, yeah, in this case, we're talking more about
00:48:37
Speaker
that it would be more about how the choreography is interacting with all the different mediums and what kind of story that's telling. Well, thank you for that because it's something, perhaps in playwriting, I'm going to throw it back, sometimes not all the words have to relate to the
00:48:53
Speaker
ultimate narrative, right? So all the moves don't have to relate to the thing. And in fact, that's almost asking an audience to be first in some weird, hieroglyphic form, because they would never know that. And so what a disservice to do, like, well, you rolling to the ground clearly meant blah, blah, blah. That's just kind of me. So it's the frame around it that feels incredibly valuable. And the fact that we get to jump back into another hardy
00:49:23
Speaker
process and do it again in October to revisit the ideas and cut away the things that no longer resonate. It's not like throwing them away. They just don't have any purpose. It's like introducing new members of the family and divorcing other ones, which is such a rare occasion in our field, the delivery of new material, whether it's a new play or a new work.
00:49:52
Speaker
to get to do it again and also see it through many iterations, not through consecutive runs, but like runs that have months between them to pull something out of the attic and do it again, really so invigorating.
00:50:10
Speaker
Yeah, I love this. And I love that you have the opportunity to get to bring these pieces back and work them again and work them again.
The Importance of Constructive Feedback
00:50:18
Speaker
And, you know, it's not something we get to do a lot in the theater. And, you know, we have our Rolling World premieres and we have our previews. You know, that's not the same thing. Even if we're doing workshops, like this was a fully produced preview. It did get way more fancy than ever.
00:50:37
Speaker
It was a really high tech workshop production in my opinion. If you were going to call it what we would do in theater, it would be a workshop production because I think for you it felt not fully completed and not fully produced, which would be more of a workshop production, which you said about lights and sound.
00:50:59
Speaker
And you really have a form and you really know what it looks like. And all the things that were there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What I love is that the questions that I had were also among the audience like, oh, wow, you didn't work with the walls. You didn't do this. You didn't play with the paper. And like, yeah, I know is these elements just kind of manifested and how fantastic that we're on a similar trajectory. Like there's an opportunity. The audience is witnessing an opportunity as am I. And I find that
00:51:29
Speaker
But I think I may be cut off a thought. No, no, no, that's absolutely true. I think I think it's if the audience is having similar questions and you're still in process, that is I've heard that a million times. Like that's sometimes why extensive feedback can be a little exhausting because you're like, well, I already know a lot of that. I don't need to hear 20 more minutes of it.
00:51:55
Speaker
But let me hear 10 minutes of what I haven't heard or what I don't already know. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Which is why it's so good to remind people like the feedback is for the artist rather than for them to just like share whatever they want to share. It's like we appreciate you being here.
00:52:12
Speaker
This session is for efficiency and for the artist getting what they need from it. You know, do you find that do you do feedback sessions with your audiences very often? I'm afraid to. I'm not afraid of the feedback by any means, but I'm nervous about is that I think I know how people feel about that process. Anyway, they don't love it. Well, maybe the good thing is, is that it was populated by people who
00:52:44
Speaker
necessarily seasoned dancegoers. For me, that's the ecstatic part of it. It really is if somebody
00:52:51
Speaker
witnessed it as you did and chose to stick around and wanted to hear how other people processed it. That is the sweet spot and that's where I love to live. So I don't mind it. I'm not really necessarily thrilled of grandstanding and saying, well, this is exactly what I'm thinking. I found a lot of value in pre-show conversations, not necessarily here's what you're about to see, rather
00:53:19
Speaker
introducing questions that we were thinking about and hearing the audience's answers to that if or nothing else to prime the brain. Yeah. Yeah. To situate the brain in that world, much like this 30 second blackout that you were talking about. Yeah. To wipe a slate clean or go in with this sort of stirring and then move from there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. So
00:53:46
Speaker
What do you find are some of the more challenging aspects of your work? Where are there pain points for you achieving your goals? Okay, not as in the work as it translates to an audience, but for me as the person making it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it could also be challenging just the making of the work too. Well, a pain point is recognizing that many people do the same thing that I do.
00:54:15
Speaker
And if there are always going to be opinions that are contrary to the version that I put out, that is definitely a thing. And I know it exists. And I've learned to become comfortable with it. That's a lie. You continue your journey. You still do the journey. Yes. Yes. And I don't know that I could ever be convinced otherwise that that underworld doesn't exist because for better or worse,
00:54:45
Speaker
I would even call myself a participant in that sort of opinion jostling, which is fine. That's a pain point. There's also a pain point in recognizing maybe that doesn't exist unanimously, and that someone truly did invest in this moment and trusting that.
00:55:08
Speaker
And I would say another one that I think it's more personal, and I'll reference Neil Brennan, who's a stand-up comedian for the moment, but it's the recognition that we're all encountering this fear simultaneously. The dancers, like, is this what George was looking for? Or did I do this in a way that doesn't defend other dancers in the room? And especially in the work that I know that
00:55:33
Speaker
you're doing with your nonprofit as well as mine, there's a lot of listening. And I celebrate that and lift that up. And so at one point, I don't know that all the voices at all the moments will have equal volume. And so it's adjusting one up or down that feels uncomfortable sometimes. That's hard to navigate. I could go on and on about the importance.
00:55:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, something that really I think resonates and what I hear a lot from artists is just the competitive nature of the work and how hard we are on ourselves and how hard we are on each other.
00:56:12
Speaker
that a lot of that for me really feels like capitalism getting into our brains and convincing us that there is a best or a one of. Yeah. And I really I still absolutely do not believe in it. I mean, you were joking. You didn't know anything about the Oscars. Me either. I don't believe in awards. I don't believe in first and second and third places. Like I just when you're comparing apples and oranges, what is the purpose? I don't get it.
00:56:41
Speaker
And who died made you an expert? People ask me sometimes, do you enjoy teaching? I say, honestly, not all the time. I feel like when I teach, what I'm saying is that I'm an expert and I'm not an expert because I'm always going to be learning. I am never going to know everything. I could never leave a room believing that I knew everything.
00:57:04
Speaker
I feel that that would be a really stupid room and nobody would want to be in it because nobody else would have anything worth saying. Right. So I hear you on that, I think. And that's sort of our own worst enemy. That's us. That's us going to our social media, reminding ourselves that there's millions of people in the world, all of whom are creating things at one time. It's like, take a break, go on a hike, like.
00:57:27
Speaker
Don't worry about what everyone else is
Impact of Art and Audience Engagement
00:57:29
Speaker
doing. Like, who are you? Who am I as an artist? And what do I want to contribute to the world that will never go away, right? Like this podcast, every episode I launch, it's out there. It is there, yeah. And that's how everything is. When we put it online, it is out there. When we launch something, when we make something,
00:57:51
Speaker
When it's theater, it's there and it's gone. When it's dance, it's there and it's gone, but you're still making it and you still have that chance to do that. And to me, that is everything. It is. It's very comforting having this conversation. I was thinking about my students at Emory right now who are presenting their own work in a concert and putting myself in that headspace, each of the six choreographers as their work is being performed. I know for them, because it lands with me
00:58:21
Speaker
everything is. That is the only thing that is occurring which for them is absolutely true. Take a step 10 feet away from the studio theater and you hardly know that it's occurring but it's phenomenal how I can let myself get
00:58:38
Speaker
pulled into this pool downward, and also recognizing my own inclinations. And it's okay to transfer those inclinations to others. And I learned this from my ex-wife Kathleen Wessel, who helped me find found this company when I was convinced that there was only one thing, as you had said, there's only one way to make dance. There's only one kind of thing that's appreciated. And she's like, you love steak, right? Yeah, I love steak. You love pizza, right? Yeah.
00:59:06
Speaker
Get it? Oh, yeah, you're right. And if I can do that, so can an audience. So can a dancer. So can a choreographer. So I will happily watch any like really cool minute and a half hip hop thing and think that is what I want to do for the rest of my life or jump into. Then she fell in New York and be embraced by this wild, wacky Alice in Wonderland thing. And this is the B&N doll.
00:59:33
Speaker
But it's that universe in that one second that can feel powerful. Oh my gosh, yes. And artists, we fall into this so quickly. I mean, we were so engaged in our work. We forget to market it. Yeah.
00:59:49
Speaker
You know what I mean? It's like, well, nobody's there. Nobody's coming to see it. What are you doing? What are you doing with the life? And it's like, well, I'm doing my art. Well, you need an audience. You do. Right. And I have to often remind artists, I'm like, you also have to make sure people come to see the show. Yeah. Because there is no show without an audience. True. You know, true. We want to tell ourselves it can live without them.
01:00:17
Speaker
And the ability for us to grow and change and to create intuitively and to believe in our work is something that we get to have, that the audience gets to see as a reflection
01:00:32
Speaker
And then they get to take it with them. You know, I mean, art is so much deeper than the content of what we what we see on stage. You know, it's like it's an experience, you know, it's an experience. And I think in many ways we don't realize the way it changes us until much later. No. And I think the alignment is with more
01:00:54
Speaker
at our fingertips kind of art, whether it's a film, you might hear a friend who can name every scene from every movie he's ever watched. I don't know, understand how we can pull this back. Obviously the thing landed. It had
01:01:08
Speaker
But I don't know if people necessarily think, oh, that Marvel movie was art. But if it steered you down a road that you continue to reference and if you continue to massage that and break it apart, like, oh, ultimately, this is about and it's connecting me to sort of thing. Yeah.
01:01:27
Speaker
No, I love that. And I think that moves me into my next question, which is what do dancers and choreographers need from the field, from the dance field, from the creative field?
Advice on Overcoming Depression
01:01:39
Speaker
I got such sage advice from this phenomenal website app kind of thing that is it's called TikTok. I love it.
01:01:52
Speaker
this one 20 something thing, a person that hops on there. Hey, if you start to feel bad about yourself, or you get into a depressive state, here's the solution. Stop thinking about yourself. It works.
01:02:09
Speaker
And inside of visiting somebody else's work that I happen to find really good, I can become really upset. I'm like, I didn't think of that everywhere. It's gonna love this more than my end. Like that shitty committee that's on my shoulder is gonna preach. And I'm like, well, what if I stop thinking about myself and just enjoy this thing? Maybe that's...
01:02:30
Speaker
I don't know. I'm certainly not positing that as a universal thing that everyone does that. But it's hard to step away from that competitive thing like, oh, that that's going to go on tour and be funded, which circles back to this Neil Brennan show that I watched stand up comedian.
01:02:48
Speaker
maybe the last 10 minutes were next position on the journey through depression. But more than that, the journey through, even in the stand-up comedy world, looking at, oh, so-and-so's got this gig. How did they get this theater? Why are they there? You do that too? Major earner in stand-up comedy, and me, little dance company owner, we're both doing the same thing. Amazing. We stop thinking about ourselves.
01:03:16
Speaker
Sean Wendt Hilton, who's an artist in town, who acted as our rehearsal director for Fens, whenever there is an agitation, whether it's interpersonal, me with the work, whatever, the reconciliation for all of it was about the work. It is really about this thing that none of us can hold. So if we are in service to that, great. And that feels like the answer.
01:03:45
Speaker
For me, I'm not suggesting that. In service to the work. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think with with playwriting, we always say in service to the playwright as well. But you're talking about ensemble device creation. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Because the playwright I'm assuming has dramatically it might feel like, oh, it's so easy. It's just you and a computer. It's me and 10 dancers and a studio and a schedule.
01:04:14
Speaker
But the demands are incredibly, because I can be fed by these 10 people in the room who will have the thing.
01:04:22
Speaker
And if a playwright, I'm assuming, thinks it's a singular endeavor, it could be torturous. Exactly, exactly. And your dancers too, I mean, working in workshop with them, just very courageous, very willing to engage. Dancers usually are pretty engaged, but I would say these dancers even more so, very courageous.
01:04:45
Speaker
Showing everyone maybe who was new to the workshop how to do it you know illustrating illustrating the commitment to the prompts I mean it was cool to see you know there were people in leadership but like it really felt like everyone.
01:05:02
Speaker
was a part of the process and every voice counted. Maybe it's a different kind of properness because historically art, whether it's reciting Shakespeare perfectly or playing Beethoven perfectly or ballet, there's a proper way to do it. So I don't know that we embrace the proper way to do the move, but we have a proper way of interacting with people. And that feels like that a different kind of proper
01:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's a different kind of system. Yeah, it is. And one that I feel like I want to bathe in that all the time. A place where everybody feels agency and feels safe and feels like their voice is heard and feels like a contributing artist. What a special space.
01:05:45
Speaker
and aligning with individual truths because to create a new collective truth of that work. So true. I think that is so key. Becoming a collective does not mean losing your individual truth. So key. Love that. And I think that's also a thing. How do we kind of inside our work
01:06:07
Speaker
where dance is concerned, unlike theater. I'm guessing where they're definable characters who have ilks or idiosyncrasies that are really identifiable and clear. And in dance, maybe not so much. So the dancer herself, himself, themself is going to have to say, I'm going to align with this kind of weird narrative, though the nuances of me will come out through movement, but not through understandable language.
01:06:36
Speaker
And so that's the thing that I grapple with as well, like how to let the person truly be the person on stage and yet still create theater in one way or another. Not about, but yes, and. Right, exactly. Well, I think, too, we've talked in this podcast about trusting artists. And that's kind of what I hear you talking about, is really trusting the artists. Exactly. So that's great. We don't we don't think enough about actors in that way.
01:07:06
Speaker
We often think they are vessels rather than human. We need to be thinking more about their welfare. So I really like the way you talk about the dancers and your care for them. Do what I do without them. I know, right? They're the courage inside the group. Yeah, yeah.
Influences and Growth in Dance
01:07:28
Speaker
So do you have any dance or creative references or inspirations you'd like to share with us? Yeah, there there's a lot of dates back. I'm thinking about Pina Bausch and what a leader her work, what leader she was in her time and how much that is
01:07:47
Speaker
It has a lot of verve still. There's really nothing dated about that material or the concept. And that directs me back to the Germans. We're kind of, we're just relentless in terms of like charging and fueling this world so robustly. And Anna Bracewal Crowder introduced me to go to Johannes Wieland. It was phenomenal, highly theatrical work in Germany now.
01:08:14
Speaker
Amsterdam and then MFA from Tisch and then went back to Germany and creating really exciting physical theater that's as wack as it is moving, as physical as it is subtle. And inside that there's this series of workshops that occur in Berlin called B12 and
01:08:40
Speaker
I've never been. So I'm only speaking through hearsay, which is inadmissible in court, according to Judge Judy. But it is a lot of experimental. Excuse me.
01:08:53
Speaker
stuff that occurs in workshops, crafting open the austereness of pride and the self to get to the fiery parts of emotion, the fiery parts of physicality. So from people that I've heard on there, they really love it. They propose it as a great place for older artists, though it could be populated with younger ones wanting to show fancy stuff.
01:09:17
Speaker
But from what I understand, this is really a system of explorations that really rely on a dancer or a participant's ability to go deeper inside themselves and not show off, but show in.
01:09:32
Speaker
Oh, cool. I like that. Show in. And you said that's B12 in Berlin. B12 in Berlin. So I'll have a friend, Leah Cox, who is developing this thing called the Failure Institute, I think, but she can't call it Failure Institute. I think the word Institute is used somewhere else, but it's a meeting place for creatives to gather, put their expertise aside and
01:09:52
Speaker
do stuff and fail or at least not produce. Love it inside of that. So that's coming. I love it. I like to say I love to see artists fail as much as I like to see them succeed. Absolutely. There's no absolutely nothing wrong with failure. It is a part of the journey. It is. Enjoy your crash and burn. Exactly. Yeah. With the gusto in which they burn. Yeah.
01:10:19
Speaker
Because, wow, you learn so much from these opportunities. And somebody might love it in the right way. Totally, absolutely. I just, yeah, thank you for that. So what is your best advice for artists, your best advice for creative? So I think perhaps I alluded to this a moment ago, and that's get in bed with the enemy.
01:10:46
Speaker
you don't love. And because I think it can fulfill personally, I'm only going to do this, this and only pursue this, this and this and this. And yet there's so much valuable information and checking out the thing that's the antimatter. And understanding the antimatter can really, it's always going to be there. There's an inclination to shroud the self.
01:11:11
Speaker
with all the comforting things and all the people who are gonna boost you up and say, yeah, that was the best thing ever. But supposing you let yourself rub shoulders with the thing that's prickly. Yeah, that's great advice.
01:11:27
Speaker
You think so? I think it's a hard one to swallow. And it always, the value of it happens afterwards, never in that moment. People don't usually like to hear it, but it generally I think is the way the work gets better, stronger and more resonant for others. Because then you can conscientiously dig your heels in or
01:11:49
Speaker
invite something else Steve ever who is a musician at Emory Since moved said the values the silence in music the negative space in the sculpture and Stillness and dance often speak more than the actual thing So I wonder if that could be true with people and the person that or the thing that's opposite of what we're looking for
01:12:14
Speaker
up the mic on that. Oh, really? For sure. Cool. Yes. So where can listeners connect with you and keep up with your world? Well, we have this multicultural festival that happens in June. Is it okay, like daily stuff? Well, I know this is going to live forever. Absolutely. It's the week after Memorial Day. So it's an assembly of nine cultural companies from Atlanta, under one roof for community conversations and a panel discussion about these
01:12:42
Speaker
Forms that come from different continents that are alive and well in our city. ARAB has its full premiere in October. We just learned today. So, yeah, October 26th through the 29th that week, as well as a repeatary workshop, our Italy program. So state dance dot com. And truthfully, it really is. It's about community and culture and an assembly of that. What we do doesn't matter unless all these different histories unite.
01:13:11
Speaker
and the greetings together. So that's what's coming up. Love that. Love that. That's amazing. Well, George, thank you so much for all you do. Thank you, Amber. You're a gift. You really are. And there's more to come between the two of us. Yes. Cannot wait to work with you all. Likewise. Well, I'm your host, Amber Bradshaw, and I will chat with you next time. Thank you so much for joining us, George. Thank you, Amber. A thrill. A joy. Thank you.
01:13:42
Speaker
Thank you listeners for tuning in to Table Work, how new plays get made with Amber Bradshaw. This podcast was brought to you by Working Title Playwrights. If you like what you've heard today, support this podcast and all our initiatives by leaving us a review, following us, and or consider making a tax deductible donation to Working Title Playwrights at www.workingtitelplaywrights.com.