Another bumpy week in the markets, ladies and gentlemen, so far we are down about 6.5% here as we continue to stumble around that $47,000 to $48,000 mark. But remember this is very, very similar to exactly where we were last week on Friday before we ended up getting that very nice spike over the weekend to take us back and close the week out in the green. Now to accomplish that same feat this week, we will need to close out the week above $50,089. Now I don't know if we will get there over the weekend, but I do think that we will at least close out above this 50-week moving average with 6 currently around that $47,000, $47,500 area. So yes, although sentiment remains very low, on-chain and historical data remain high and bullish. So stay tuned as we break down this week in the markets. Hey, what's up? Jay here and welcome to Bitcoin Daily bringing you guys the best tips, tutorials, and ideas to help you guys become profitable and successful investors. The goal of this channel is to empower you guys, the community with the knowledge and resources to take your wealth up to that next level. So if you guys are new to the channel, don't forget to subscribe, turn on notifications, and smash that like button. We're trying to get to 100 likes on this video. If you guys have any questions about anything that we cover here today, drop it in the comments. Let's dive in to today's video. All right, so taking a look here at the chart, you guys can see this green area, which is basically the bounce area that I've pointed out over the last few weeks. It's also where we bottomed out here during that flash crash. If you go back further, you'll see that we also had a bounce here. If you go back further, you'll see we also had a bounce here back in September. If you go back into May, June, July, you'll see that it was a resistance there. And prior to that, it was a support. And again, it was a resistance here and an all-time high. So I hope that shows you how important of a level it is here at that $42,000 to $40,000 range. Now the next thing I want to show you guys is this big support here that we've basically had since last year in October. And this has basically kept intact throughout this whole run. So as you can see, we've tested it on multiple occasions. I'm sure if I go back further, I can pull this back even further, maybe all the way down over here to March when we had the drop in March. So you'll see that we retested it here. We continued our uptrend and we came all the way back down to retest that support once more. And before we continued up, so we continued up here, we set up a new all-time high, and now we've been retracing back to what looks like another retest of this support. So now what you see here is not only do we have this big support here in this green channel that we've marked here, but we have confluence because we have this ascending support that's also going to bring some buyers into the market and hold the price up. So as long as we're staying above this green level and above this ascending support that's been basically holding up this entire move for over a year, we're good because even if we go down right here to the support, it's still a higher low.  So that right there keeps this entire run intact as long as we hold that level. We are fine. We have nothing to worry about and I'm expecting a bounce back to the upside to set up what could potentially be one more high and possibly the final high of this bull cycle. Now the final thing that we're going to be looking at here is this 50 week moving average. You can see that the previous two weeks, we bounced right off of it. So it's definitely been holding us here as support and if we look back, you'll see that it held here as support. When we got close to it, we had to bounce back. If we look back into May, June, July, when we had the huge drop off, it held up here. We flirted with it for a few weeks, but we ultimately ended up holding up and the last time that we fell below it was actually during the Black Swan event, which was the pandemic when things got crazy in March of 2020. Before that, you can see that while we were in the bear market, we were stuck underneath it and basically that cross below it is what kind of signaled our bear market there in 2018. And when we lost it back in 2018, that's kind of what signaled that bear market for us there. And all throughout of 2017, while we were in that bull run, you can see that we never lost the 50 week moving average all the way back until 2015 was the last time we were below it, which was right before that previous bull cycle began. So I would say that we are definitely at a crossroads here. We definitely need this to hold here. And I definitely believe that we will. I still think that this is a final shakeout for all the newer people in the crypto industry. The bigger players are trying to scare people off. They're trying to get you to sell so they could buy your coins cheaper before pushing the price up really, really hard one last time during this bull cycle. I know there's a lot of fear in the market right now is a lot of people panicking a lot of people scared. And that's exactly those are the exact ingredients that they want and that's needed to shake everyone out. And then just shooting the price right back up to new all time highs. This is something that happens over and over and over in Bitcoin. And you just have to be prepared for these scenarios as they happen so often. Now it doesn't mean that I'm 100% right or that this is 100% right of a signal. Just taking a look at it looking back at historical data provided in previous bull runs and even in this same bull run. If we're supposed to see a new high during the cycle, if this cycle is going to remain alive and going forward, then I'm expecting a bounce here. I'm expecting a bounce from 40 to 42,000. And I'm expecting us to start moving up soon at some point soon. So I mean, it might not be until the new year, but I am definitely expecting us to hold here. If we lose this and we lose that 40 to 42,000 dollar area, then we can start reevaluating where we are and look at those scenarios at that point and seeing what the best position is at that time. All right. So looking for some trade setups here, I'm still doing similar to what we spoke about earlier. I'm only really looking to add here to my long-term positions. As long as we stay below 50,000 and above 40,000, I'm looking to dollar cost average into my longer term positions here in both Bitcoin and Ethereum and any outcoin that I really believe in any project that I'm big on. So that's what I've currently been doing. The reason why is because look at how much chop there is right now in the market. It's really difficult to get a good high probability setup right now. A lot of these trades, since they're just kind of bouncing in a range, they're more or less going to be 50-50 as far as probability. Now we have caught some nice run-ups throughout this. When this chop you like this, it's difficult to make money in it, especially if you're not an experienced trader. You got to really be in and out on these trades. So you'll see here today, we swept the lows of the week. You'll see this is lower than any other level that we've hit this week. We went down as low as 45, 375 earlier today. So that could potentially be a spring to send us back up. But again, we got to wait and see. You'll see that we've had this, we've had this descending resistance here. So we need to break above that right now. The break of that is looking like it's probably going to be above $50,000 because to enter a trade right here at 48, you're entering right at that resistance and you've seen how much chop there is there. So I'm probably looking to get above these candles. And that level is going to be at least around $50,000. So for a long position, I'm looking for entries above 50 for a short position. It's tricky right now. It is definitely tricky. I would probably not be opening up any longs right now, maybe only at the top resistance. So maybe at $50,000, if I see it getting rejected at 50, then I could see the price pop maybe dropping and maybe open a short there. Again, it's kind of risky. Other than that, maybe below 42, maybe below 40, those would be the levels that I'm more targeting than anything if I'm looking for a short. Because at that point, we're probably going into a bear market. So that's it for today's video. I hope you guys enjoyed the analysis and breakdown and the overall sentiment of the market I know is very low right now. But again, this is my opinion based on my experience and the data that I have available to me, I believe that we should see a bounce sometime soon in the next, you know, few days could be a few weeks. We don't know when, but it should be at some point soon. If we break below these levels, then we will of course have to reevaluate the market at that point and try to make decisions based off of that. So thank you guys so much for tuning in for today's video. Don't forget to smash that like button. We're trying to get to 100 likes on this video. It helps the channel a ton to continue to grow. Also, if you guys are new to the channel, don't forget to subscribe. And if you have any questions, drop it in the comments. Have a great weekend guys. Happy Friday. I'll see you on the next one. As always, peace and love.


Hey guys, it's Nate, A.K. The Foot Account, and welcome back to the channel. I just wanna talk to you guys today about how these brand new What If cards work inside of FIFA 21. We have the brand new What If promo dropping today on FIFA, and I wanna just talk about how these cards work, why they're some of the quickest, or in my opinion, they might be some of the quickest upgrading live cards we have ever seen and some of the crazy market movements that we saw today as well. Made a ton of coins on the live stream today. Of course, that link is down in the description.  But we got a lot of content today. We got new icon moments. Another set of 34 of them were released. These What If cards and SBC and an objective, kind of what we talked about in yesterday's video is what we expected and that did come true. And of course, with all the saved up packs, these cards started low and have exploded since. But of course, let's cut to the chase. These What If cards, and how EA words it is, with the football calendar reaching a fever pitch, the wave of current and soon to be leaders are rising to the occasion. This provides new opportunities for players to elevate their games with boosted special items with What If scenarios for potential ratings boost. So there is kind of a mix of like transferred cards in here, of course, with Odegaard and with Gomez. And then of course, you just have some, just random seeming guys thrown in, right?  And again, this is team one. So this makes us think two week promo for the What If promotion in FIFA. But this is how it works. These guys get a one time additional plus two overall upgrade based off their What If scenarios in real life football. And these are the two scenarios. Attackers and midfielders upgrade if each player's club scores at least six goals in their next five domestic league matches. So for example, Arsenal, right? The next five Premier League matches that Arsenal will play in if they score six goals, this Odegaard will go to a 90 rated card, right? And then for the defenders, defenders and goalkeepers upgrade if the players club keeps at least one clean sheet over their next five domestic league games. So for all of these cards, we have a five league game timeline. So all of these upgrades will either happen or they won't happen in the next five league games, right? So it's kind of short turnaround. I mean, that's of course going to take like a month or so for a lot of these teams to get their five games in. But that seems pretty easy, right? A clean sheet for some of these teams. Now I'm not guaranteeing that every card's gonna get upgraded, but it seems that most cards should get upgraded. And I honestly think, and we were kind of talking about this live on stream, we were thinking it might be easier to keep that clean sheet in five games than it would be to score the six goals. But both seem pretty easy. If you kind of boil it down, even for some of these teams that maybe aren't the best or sitting like really high in the table, you still think, yeah, they should be able to keep a clean sheet. Or yeah, they should be able to score one goal per game and then score two goals in one game. You think that will be pretty possible. So we already have some live games going on. We'll talk about that. But these upgrades start tracking literally today. They start from the date and time they're first released into FIFA Ultimate Teams. As they said here, if the team plays on the same day, it will only count towards it if it's a domestic league match. And then they release this little table here. Release dates for player items can be found here. And they just made this table right here. I'm not entirely sure why we needed this, but I guess that way they can show us and prove to us like when the players came out and when they get upgraded. So again, some of what matches are available or count for this, only the eligible matches are the league matches. So only those matches, the ones that were required for the upgrade. And then this is the most interesting thing too, just like headliners, after a what if player fulfills their requirement, the earliest corresponding player item will be upgraded is on the following Wednesday. So on the team week drop day, that's when we'll see our first upgrade for these cards. That's when they will get upgraded on Wednesdays. And team of the week, man of the match, no other individual performance items will boost these other cards. And then of course, if the player is no longer on the roster of that club, they will be no longer eligible for upgrades. So kind of like Quincy prom as we wrote to the final situation right there. Now, of course, some of the guys that actually got into the team today actually had games. We had three players live in action today on Friday. We had Lace Melu from Nice. We had Jovic from Frankfurt and Yuri Barchiche from Bilbao, which those games are actually going on right now. Bilbao did not keep a clean sheet. So this Barchiche guy went up to like 190K pre-game and he's now being sold off a little bit. We've got Frankfurt has scored one goal and Nice have scored one goal as well. So obviously with the midfielders and attackers with Lace Melu and Jovic, they've already got one goal on their tally for that potential upgrade. But of course, this game is the first of five games from Bilbao. They did not keep a clean sheet because they gave a penalty. So Barchiche is not gonna get upgraded just yet. But there's more games coming tomorrow on Saturday, right? And there's just a lot of potential for more goals to be scored and stuff like that happening. It's also been a crazy, crazy day on the market. So let's talk about that after now we have talked about kind of the live cards and how they get upgraded and stuff like that. But we had an objective today. His name is Caputo from Saasuello. Again, this Saasuello would need to score six goals in five games, pretty dope looking card. You know, a serious striker with some pace going to an 89 rated, this card would look pretty solid in my opinion. And it's not super duper hard to grind but this difference makers friendly mode is for bronze players and no gold. So it's kind of interesting that game mode to grind this card.  Now we had some code added yesterday for a five times 85 SBC, but we did not get that today. We got this Raphinha SBC, which is coming in right around 500,000 coins, which seems to be a bit expensive.  So I understand why EA priced it pretty high. Do I think it's really worth it? No, but according to Footbin, actually it's about 427,000 coins. SBC fodder is dropping off a little bit. But I think this card's pretty expensive. I know the links are really, really good. Right mid Brazilian. There's a lot of good links there, but I do think with the three star week foot, four star skills, I think this is a bit overpriced unless you're gonna craft it later in the week when they would release upgrade packs. So let's talk about these new cards and what happened on the market today because there was a lot that has happened and a lot that could happen as well. These cards are crazy high right now. All of these cards are basically way higher than what they were during the first set of lighting rounds. Just to show you, you saw there on Footbin that Jaden Sancho is 1.47 million coins right now on the market. You're gonna be, if you weren't on the stream or live on the game when you saw these cards drop in packs, I missed a couple Sanchos at the 1.2 mill range. I did not buy them there. I missed some Gomez's at 1.2. He's now 1.5, 1.6 mill right now. So as we were expecting that insane amount of packs that were saved up in the past week with weak league rewards, marquee matchups, you wait for marquee matchups, all of those saved up packs were open in the first hour or so and that flooded the market with supply. Guys like Smalldini, right? Mr. Smalling has a pretty insane looking card. This guy was 500K flat. He's now up to 700,000 coins. 700K for the Smalldini card. Kante was 2.3 mill. He's now 3 mil. I bought two Oda guards at 500K. I sold them for about 550 and now he's up to 600K right?  He's now at 600K. Why in the world did you sell those at 550? Well, when I sold those at 550, I was going out and looking for other deals because some icons I was wanting to trade with. I bought this at 1.7. I bought this at 1.6 and this at a million coins flat. So I wanted to trade with some other icons and for me it was the quick flip that made it worth it. Yes, I could have made about 90,000 more coins between these two cards, but having those coins available allowed me to make about 200K from these three cards alone. So I think it was a pretty nice trade-off and I'll honestly, I made a lot, a lot of coins today if you bought cards in that first timeframe. Now, of course, these cards are probably hitting a peak about right now. Do I think they stay this high? I don't think so. I think these guys start to drop off. They have already added the what if card quantity search filter, which is nice from EA. We appreciate that. But I think what you're going to start to see is people who have tried these cards for a little bit of week in league and as of course Europe goes to sleep, these guys are going to get supplied. They're going to be dropping and they're going to kind of do the normal Friday night dip into a rebound. So definitely keep an eye out for some of this, but if you want to try to buy any of these cards for a rise Saturday morning, if people want to try them out, make sure the cards that you're looking at have games that are going to be happening today on Saturday. Oda Guard right there at 580. That's not really even a snipe because he's selling at 600K and there's not enough profit there because we have 30K of tax. But you're going to start to see these cards kind of dropping on the market a little bit because that supply is going to come in. Arsenal do not play on Saturday. Arsenal play on Sunday against Leicester City where they will then start their quest for scoring goals to get this Oda Guard upgraded. But especially for the defenders that play tomorrow, all it takes is one game, one clean sheet and you could have yourself an upgrade. So we're specifically watching a guy like Mbabu who right now I think is about 500K, which I believe is his price cap. His price cap is 500,000 coins. He is almost extinct. This card with a dynamic image, it looks pretty dope in my opinion, but this is a card that I would 100% watch because they are playing Hertha tomorrow. Wolfsburg have been on a tear in the Bundesliga and they do not give up many goals. They've only given up 19 goals this entire season. They're sitting on 42 points. 19 goals is the second fewest amount only behind Leipzig in the Bundesliga this year. So definitely watch a card like Mbabu on the sell-off. There's some other defenders that are in the team that we want to watch as well. I don't know if Marcelo play tomorrow. Roma play on Sunday, I believe, yes. Roma play on Sunday, but in France, no. Marcelo is not playing tomorrow. And then Bercice played today. So for the few number of defenders that could have a quick clean sheet, Mbabu is the only one that plays tomorrow. So you're definitely gonna wanna keep a watch on that. But what we're starting to learn is for a defender, he's probably gonna rise up into the game. But if they get scored on in that game, he's gonna get sold a little bit, right? We saw that with Bercice. He was up to about 175,000 coins and he was getting panic listed right after they got scored on when that penalty was scored. This guy was getting panic listed down like 150K. Now, of course, he's still getting listed a little bit and this is just the supply starting to come in. But this card, that's just one thing to note is when they do get scored on, if it's a defender for one of those four defender cards, it looks like they do kind of drop off as we're learning how these cards work. But I think the concept is pretty cool. I think the stat boost that they put on these cards again today is a pretty solid stat boost. I'm a big fan, right? Now, these cards are very, very high right now. And if you have any of them still and the prices haven't dropped too much, I would look at being mindful of taking the cash, honestly, and getting them out because I think it's very possible that they drop down later tonight, but then possibly rebound into the morning. One thing we also saw today was another set of icon moments. So we've got guys like Rio, Maradona, Yashin, Ronaldinho is a center attacking mid. That is a GG. Katana, Mateus, Hullet, all those cards look insanely cracked. They gave Haji five star skills. Zenetti is a left wing back. And I think that was the biggest news. Van Basten has 96 agility. That was pointed out to me. That's pretty crazy. But like some of the cards got snubbed a little bit, right? Like Schweinsteiger only got like plus one pace over his prime card, which is a bit of an L. But again, we have a new set of 34 icon moments. So probably the rest will be coming next week with the team number two of this promo, the what if promo right here. But there was a lot, a lot of market movements and you can still be trading with these guys tonight. Now, of course we're expecting possibly, market, sorry, man of the matches, possibly man of the matches tonight on this game. So we'll be watching to see if that happens here in the next couple hours or so and road to the final upgrades as well. A lot of people have been asking about road to the finals. I actually have a Kessie still on my transfer list. So that is something that we could be seeing tonight that will be coming shortly. And we'll cover that as it happens in another video at the usual upload time later tonight. But I wanted to make this video really fast. Again, just to kind of talk about how these new what if cards get upgraded to talk about them and the amount of coins we made today. I'm seriously thinking we made, I'm gonna have to do the math really fast. But I'm thinking with that Linux or flip selling made about 350,000 coins today or more depending on what the Kessie sells at. So a big W for a day where I think we just gotten it all right in terms of what we were expecting with the market. What I was talking about yesterday, it basically happened honestly right in tune with what we were expecting. So that is always nice. And of course, if you were making some coins today, that is a big G. G, of course, road to the final stuff coming out later will affect some of that. But it should be a good day overall. So let me know what you guys think about this promo. I think it's pretty cool. I think it could be pretty fast upgrades on some of these cards. Because again, all it takes is one clean sheet or a game where you have four goals from one team and then boom, the next game they score two and then bang, there's your upgrade for the attacker. So we'll definitely kind of keep an eye on those cards. And as they get closer to the upgrade, you'll probably see them, especially the attackers will probably increase over time. So we'll probably be looking at these cards as an investment out of packs because they'll get closer and closer and closer to that goal of scoring six goals. So we'll definitely talk about that in the next few days as well. But if you enjoyed this video, smash your thumbs up on it, comment down below if you have any questions and subscribe if you're new. It's been Nathan Foot Account and I will catch you guys later. Peace out.


We're at the Martin Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center CUNY, Midtown, Manhattan. It's 12 noon, and it's slightly getting colder in New York City. And people on the farmers markets will seem to be one of the very few places where one can go and see these groups of people. They're already wearing scarves and longer jackets and everybody looks in other's eyes and who can feel that sense of uncertainty, of not knowing what will happen, what is going on, what will be, and these catastrophic handling of the corona situation of the US government. These days in Washington seems like the end of an open empire or something. US empty halls and the staff infected and people not telling the truth. And now Trump calling for imprisoning Joe Biden, like the burst of dictatorship moves one can think of. And in these days, I think it is important also to really question what we are, where we come from, where we are going, what art and theater is all about. And with us today, we have a worker in the vineyard of theater, as Tom Walker said on Wednesday about his work with the Living Theatre. We have the greatest Avianos Stanescu with us, a Romanian playwright and poet, and she is based in New York, is in the New York state teaching in Ithaca. And she has done many, many plays, I think the bio is listed on the how long and on the seagulls side by Lenin Shul, Waxing West, the Iocastas she did with Shackner, Zoom birthday party, which she now did and many, many, many other things on her credit. She has an MFA in Traumatic Writing from NYU and Performance Studies. And she also founded the Immigrant International Artists and Scholars in New York, an organization, IASNY. And so Savyana, welcome, you have been to the Seagull Center many times. So where are you at the moment? Thank you, Frank, for inviting me. I am in Ithaca, New York this time. So, yeah, I teach in Ithaca College. We teach online, but I left New York City in March, late March, actually, after the theaters got closed. At that time, I was working on a project with IASNY, indeed, at the New Recon Poets Cafe. We have these regular project, Liberty's Daughters, Immigrant Women's Monologues. And at that time, we were working to present them live at the New Recon Poets Cafe in East Village. But then we presented them online. And we've done actually three more of those events. And another one is coming up on October 25th with some great playwrights and writers presenting Immigrant Women's Monologues. So is it the New Recon Poetry Cafe with Daniel? And so you write those monologues? You co-write? For these particular events, I curate and host the evening. I organize it. So we have great playwrights. I present one of my monologues as well. But I also, of course, want to give other voices a chance to show their work as a community of writers who write immigrant stories. So for the October 25th one coming up, we have great playwrights like Corey Thomas, Nancela Said, Jessica Litwak, Alice Ifcoe, and Mariana Karenio. And others, they will present a short monologue. And this is what we are doing. That's part of my community building and highlighting other immigrant voices or immigrant women's monologues. Yeah, next to your also successful careers playwriting, you always have been someone who also organizes, curates, produces. And you have seen this as part of your work. You contacted us also. We were on contact. Our prelude festival that's coming up October 27 has the theme of revolutionary sites and sites and the idea of site and also the websites and the sites. And you said you were working on a project at the time in Bucharest that is connected to that and this idea of crisis, of revolution, of something that a turning point to revolve. So tell us a bit about it. Yeah, yeah, now, as you know, the revolution is a topic and an important concept and idea and everything around revolution I care about. Because as a young college student in Romania, I was in the streets at the revolution against the totalitarian regime of dictator Ceausescu. All I knew in my life was dictator Ceausescu's regime. I was born during his presidency. So for us, it was this huge change to be in the streets. Many people died. And then how old were you and what happened on the streets? Well, I was a college student. And on December 21st, basically when in Bucharest, things started, they started a little earlier on December 16 in Timisoara, a town in Northwestern Romania. And many people died there. And Ceausescu. They died because. They were killed by the political police and the dictators of people. They were shot on the street. Yeah, and buried actually in secret, many people. They were trying to keep this secret. And then Ceausescu organized a sort of meeting for the working class and the youth on December 21st in Bucharest in the hope that he would convince the people that no, everything is fine in Romania. And that's when actually everything started, the unrest. So people started to boo him and the whole revolution started with the masses booing him. And of course people got killed, got shot by the time the army and other political police agents. And what happened, I'm gonna make a very long story short. On December 22nd, actually the army turned against the dictator. And that was of course a turning point for us as well. That's when the revolution was somehow officially winning on the national TV. People went and claimed the victory of the revolution. People still got killed and we didn't know for sure who's shooting, who are these people still shooting us. And this was one of the slogans on the street at that time, who is shooting us. So it took a while and then Charles Esquin, his wife actually were put on a short trial, controversial trial and they were executed on Christmas day and the execution was broadcast for all of us on the evening of Christmas evening in 1989.  Yeah, so that's why for me, these times of unrest actually these days and these past months brought me back this feeling about the revolution of course with Black Lives Matter and people who really need to change the system because the system here has been oppressing Black people and people of color for so long. So there is a change in the air here as well I feel. And people are indeed trying to change the system in theater as well in many ways. And I feel that vibe honestly in the air, of course I don't want to have any violence or nobody wants that, but there is a feeling of change of a big change that is happening and has to happen. And I know that in theater it happens on many levels with the pandemic people, theaters are revisiting the ways in which they make theater and they are revisiting the inclusion, the diversity and inclusion strategies they have in order to fully include the artists of color. How was your experience? You in a way also an immigrant or you're living in exile, you are from Romania. You also thought, Roma, if I understand right, you came to the US, which has been accused as the DIY theater as institutional racism. How was your experience in the US? Oh my God, yeah, no, this is such a long story and I'm really trying to make it short. Don't have to, we have time. Okay then, then I'm gonna start from the revolution. So basically after the revolution, I always wanted to actually be a writer, an artist. You were already right during the revolution. What happened? Was theater done? Were performances part of it? Where was it? I was a poet, I was a poet at the revolution but at that time I couldn't publish because there was censorship and my poems were too dark. So there was censorship and they would censor different topics that couldn't be published. So the revolution actually meant freedom of expression for me maybe in the first place. So I could finally start writing for the free press. So I couldn't be a journalist at that time. Journalists meant lots of propaganda before the revolution, obviously. So there was no point for me to really be a writer because I'm the type of writer who likes to speak truth to power. So I'm always the type of writer who goes for the difficult topics, challenging the status quo and that couldn't be done during the dictatorship. But I started to work in the free press. I worked for major daily newspaper like Adevaro, The Truth which was one of the most circulated newspapers. I started to also work for TV to be a contributor for Radio Free Europe. And the 90s for me were part of this great energy of change. And I was in it. I was inside it because as a journalist I was covering all the hot topics. I even got to interview the first human prime minister of Turkey, Tan Suchiler. I was on the plane after the embargo with Serbia the plane to Belgrade to report on that. So it was a very exciting time. And this journalistic spirit never left me. Even in my place I always try to challenge and interrogate the topics that are hot that address our immediate history. So after a while actually working as a journalist I published three books of poetry and my third book of poetry called The Outcast was actually a dramatic poem, my long dramatic poem about a woman running from everything. And that dramatic poem got actually produced in theaters. It got produced in a theater in Galat, in the Southern Romania and different actors would perform my monologues. Actually my poems, but they were considered monologues. So, you know, I made this transition to theater almost because people started to perform my work. In 1998 I was invited to Paris to do that with Gerard Philippe de Saint-Denis for a festival called Du Monde d'Anteer and they selected one playwright actually from each country that was part of the World Cup, the Soccer World Cup. And from Romania they selected me. I was considering myself a poet but they called me a playwright. They produced this Outcast dramatic poem and I started to believe I was a playwright actually. It was also funny that our soccer team lost to Cameroon, I remember and the newspapers would say our boys lost but Saviana Stanescu is still in competition. So it was interesting and cool for me to become a playwright that way. But I needed to study playwriting because, you know, I'm this type of lifelong learner and student and we didn't have dramatic writing or playwriting departments in Romania at that time. Late 1990s. Lots of European countries didn't exist. Even in Germany you would not be talking about it. Yeah, that's why I was actually very happy when I was offered a small fellowship to go to study playwriting in Germany at the International Summer Academy in Rur, in Bohem. And I studied in English with David Harrowar, Scottish playwright, Olivier, Olivier Award winner and Phyllis Nash, who's an American playwright and screenwriter she wrote the screenplay for Carol. I think she's based in LA now. So that's how I actually brought my very first play, short play in English, Final Countdown. And then that play I worked on the Romanian version. It got translated into French as well. It got published in Paris. So I was a little bit up on the wave in the late 90s in Romania and Europe a little bit. And yeah, the roads were opening up for me. I won the best play of the year, UNITER Award in 2000. UNITER being the theater guild of Romania and they have many awards for actors, directors, of course, producers, set designers, but they also have won award to the best play of the year. And I won it in 2000 for the Inflatable Apocalypse. So things were opening up. I got invited to, I got accepted into the Royal Court Theater International program. But at the same time, I got the Fulbright grant to go to New York University as a Fulbright fellow. So it was a difficult decision. That was with the Elise Dobson was in London, Royal Court, the internet. Yeah, I didn't go to Royal Court. I went to New York. So basically what happened at that time I was actually on a fellowship in Vienna, a Kulturkontakt fellowship. So things were happening. I was a writer in residence to work on a play about Egon Schiele. So Kulturkontakt, which is a great organization offering fellowships to artists to really work on projects got me to Vienna for three months. And when I got the Fulbright fellowship that was a huge turning point for me. I didn't come just as a visiting artist. I decided to get enrolled again as a student a graduate student in performance studies at New York University, T School of the Arts. And that was because in Germany actually I met Barbara Kirchenblatt-Gimblett who's a professor at NYU Tish. And I worked with her we did a science-specific project in the Tulfurine mine, I remember, in Rur. And it was fascinating. So I realized that my world was somehow small. I needed to go and understand more about other cultures about other people. And BKG helped me to get accepted with the Fulbright fellowship at NYU. And actually that's where I met Richard Schechner who was already a legend in Romania as well. So it was huge for me to get to be his writer-in-residence and to work together on Yocastas and Yocastas Redux. It was actually the first time I was writing in English such an important work of full-length play. So that was in a way the best school for me to write in English. I wrote for Richard so many scenes and not all of them made it of course in the final script but that was the beauty of it. That would Richard Schechner, you as a playwright need to be in rehearsals with the actors, with the director, with the creative team. And I would write scenes and we would try them with the actors. And it's such an interesting and collaborative process. And I loved to work with Richard and that was a big point for me. And then I was offered a fellowship to do an MFA in dramatic writing at NYU. So I stayed a little longer, especially because actually when I got to New York, it was first, it was two weeks before 9-11. So we experienced the 9-11 moment during the first days of school at NYU with the performance studies colleagues. And for us the, you know, 2001 and 2002 became this major year of transformation. All our work was somehow connected to 9-11. We all bonded so much because we were part of New York at that time, you know, when the city was wounded. So we all felt New Yorkers, like we are New Yorkers. And ever since I fell in love with New York and I still love it, I feel I'm still a part of it, even if sometimes I'm in Ithaca, sometimes in Bucharest or in other countries of the world. I think it was Hans here who talked about that we need to reflect, you know, on the awareness of the complexity of a historical situation that poetry and theater is part of the reflection of it. And so you were there for that quite, you know, quite a quite traumatic revolution in Romania, which has been still talked about as something that's very different than what happened in East Germany, they went on the streets, but there was never, you know, a fight for it. Actually, it's solidar knowledge. I think the Polish movement accused the East Germany that was not a revolution to call for it. But I think they really did went out, they put their lives at risk, but it was very different than what you saw, you saw 9-11 and now you feel something in the atmosphere. We said, it reminds you of the complexity of these historical moments where life changed, where the world changed. What traces do you think will be left, what should people be working on at this moment now? What do you think? Well, first of all, you know that I was in Romania during my sabbatical semester in the fall of 2019, precisely to be there at 30 years after the revolution and to write and develop a play about the Romanian revolution in Romanian. So it was very powerful for me to go back and bring my knowledge of dramatic writing and craft back to Romania and the new play development process, which is not so well-known over there, to bring it back and develop on display called Kilometreur Zero, Kilometreur Zero, The Revolution Project to my Romanians. We developed it from scratch, first with four actors. So when I was in residence at the National Museum of Literature in Bucharest and then I directed two stage readings at the Cultural Center of Bucharest in October and December, 2019. The first one was part of the International Theater Platform, the Bucharest International Theater Platform. They commissioned us first to present and actually to develop this play about the revolution. And then I came back to the US, to New York, actually in January, 2020. And I was working in New York, as I said, when the pandemic happened. And then I got here in Ithaca to teach. But a young director in Romania, Andrei Majer, a very talented director, very visual wizard of stage images, he attended the stage reading. He loved the play and he proposed it to Odeon Theater in Bucharest. Odeon is a very prestigious theater in Bucharest, Broadway-like house, very beautiful. And Andrei worked with four actors from the Odeon during the summer. They rehearsed with masks on and it was very difficult and very brave of them to rehearse at that time. But finally, with a very big and interesting set that was created by Konstantin Chebotario, a wonderful set designer. And these four actors from Odeon, Ioanna Bugarin, Diana Giorgian, Nicoletta Lefter and Alexandru Papadopoul, who are both film and theater actors, worked so hard and they all managed to open actually the play in a very visual multimedia production on September 27, 2020, just a few weeks ago. They had a few shows I hear. It went very well. I got many messages. I didn't see the production. And unfortunately yesterday, theaters got closed again in Romania because the COVID cases spiked again. So they had a run of 10 days, incredible. So Saviana, I think I'm not miscounting, it's 30 years since that December uprising. Does it take 30 years? Will it be 30 years for artists to work on that time we live in now? Well, for me, it took so long to be able to write about the revolution. I remember in 1990, immediately after, Kerry Churchill, a British playwright that I admire, came to Bucharest with Mark Wink-Davie and today did a workshop and research on the revolution. Then they went back to Royal Court Theatre in London and Kerry Churchill wrote this wonderful play, Med Forest, they opened at Royal Court Theatre. And ever since, Med Forest is one of the most produced plays and maybe the most well-known play about the Romanian revolution. So I feel that maybe British playwrights and US playwrights, many of them, might be better than us, the Romanians at responding to their own history or to the events that are hot. And this is what I learned actually by studying in New York and NYU and working in New York for so long that it's important to be there and to write a play to respond to your own history and to your own identity. So for me, it became a sort of self-imposed mission as well that I needed to go back and get some sort of closure on those events for me and maybe my friends and some of the Romanian people and to interrogate those events. So we can bring a perspective from inside as well. I mean, I really appreciate Med Forest. I think it's a great play and it was needed. It's important to have perspectives from outside but it's also necessary to have some views and perspectives from inside the culture. So that was one of my main motivations besides the personal needs for closure and for interrogating those events for really trying to figure out what they meant for me, what they meant for our friends. And I must tell you that the talkbacks that we had after the presentations were so powerful. Young people in Romania, they were saying, wow, I didn't even know about these things. It's so great that you are doing this because we get to finally talk about the revolution. We don't learn about it in the history of textbooks. Why don't we? So I felt that I brought a small revolution as well in just talking about certain issues that people don't talk enough in Romania. For instance, I have a gay character he the character would be based in Berlin and he's married over there or happy marriage. They adopted a daughter but in Romania, LGBTQ issues are still problematic. Homosexuality was criminalized until 2002. So there is a lot of stigma that's still associated to LGBTQ issues. So I felt that it was important to bring this character on stage. I actually invited the New York actor, Romanian actor, Philip Condescu to read that character and to talk about his experience a gay man in Romania during the totalitarian system and after. Then I brought many feminist teams on stage. So I feel that I'm doing something necessary over there although it's hard for me. It's hard for me to go back and to write in Romanian. And I think I'm trying to do the same here in the US and it's hard here as well. It's hard to be a immigrant writer. How do you see like Carol Churchill saw the revolution or whatever, so how do you look at the New York or American theater system? How did you experience it? Yes, I feel, yeah, there's a lot to say but I definitely feel it's very hard for us international artists, international writers in particular because I feel that the directors or set designers because they have mainly a visual vocabulary, their work can be easier understood and accepted and admired, but for writers and especially writers like me who write in English. I haven't worked with a translator since 2001. It's very important for us to also feel that we belong here as immigrant writers and our work matters as much as the work of US-born writers. So for me, especially it was very hard because I got here in my early 30s. It's one thing to start writing English after you went to school or high school here in the US and another thing to come like me and write your first place in English in my early 30s. But I still think that I've been doing a good job and I have many plays that have been produced of Broadway and downtown and in regional theaters but I must not lie, it's a huge struggle that I constantly I try to get better and better. And now after 19 years in the US I feel that my writing has finally gotten more sophisticated and this is the moment when I feel, yeah and now I need more work and more recognition. Now I finally am a 19 year old American writer writing in English. So yes, so I'm trying hard to balance my own work with the work that I do for the community, for the international community, for the work that I do for my students because I teach playwriting, I produce the new play incubator, a festival of new plays by students and alumni, at Ithaca College. So I feel that I've been doing a lot for international exchange, for promoting international playwrights but how and when do I find enough time and resources to focus on my own work because you need to make a living, you need to have some money to pay the rent. So it's been a constant struggle for me as well. I just wish I would get some of those big fellowships that would allow me to just focus on writing and my own artistic work for a couple of years but you know, probably not. So I do the best thing, the best next thing I try to teach and I try to do my artistic work. And in terms of theater during the pandemic, well, actually we did lots of online theater. I worked with the Cherry Art Space in Ithaca. They actually opened their space a few years ago with a new play that I wrote for them, What Happens Next? What Happens Next is a sort of science fiction play and they opened a new space that they built from scratch in Ithaca. Cherry is a very experimental and interesting place that not many people know about because it's not in New York. And they also commissioned six international playwrights. We had them a very cool, I think online show back in May, you know, the beginning of online theater. And my play, Zoom Birthday Party was produced as part of that project. It was very exciting to write a play for Zoom. And actually that play now will be presented in the National Theater Festival in Romania. They asked me to provide Romanian translation so they can put subtitles. So it will be presented at the beginning of November at the National Theater Festival in Romania. I just got some emails to make this happen. So I'm happy that in a way the pandemic put me back on track with the work I do in other countries and particularly in Romania. I wish there was more of that happening with New York as well. I wish that the New York City theaters would work more with global writers and immigrant writers. At this point, I only got a commission from a theater company called Transforma for a science play festival. So I wrote for them a play called Zebra 2.0, a play about the friendship or maybe love between an artificial intelligence and an undocumented janitor. So I'm very excited about that play but I don't know when they will be able to produce it. So I do have another short play, Don't Dream, a monologue of an undocumented worker that can be presented by actresses of any ethnicity and race. And I was very happy to have this short play presented by the National Black Theater, by the American Slavery Project, by the Royal National Theater in London as part of events regarding women's rights to vote in London. And actually right now it's still online with two other plays by Judy Tate, four-time Emmy winner Judy Tate. And she's the leader of American Slavery Project and they have this project, Black Women and the Ballad. And I'm very honored to be included in this project with my short play, Don't Dream, performed by a wonderful black actress, Lynette Freeman. And that's still online. Yeah, go to the American Slavery Project, Black Women and the Ballad. It's still online. You can watch it for free until the elections. So these are only a few things that I've been working on. I wish, yeah, I wish I could do more. So, Saviana, for months at the Segalier, the first four months, every day of the week, from Monday to Friday, we talked to artists that was about corona and the situation. We also appeal now, we open it up a bit to curators, thinkers, but also to the political, the idea of theater and the politic, political, not politics, but the political. You worked as a journalist, also you said these themes of significance to you. Do you see yourself as a political artist, our activist? And if so, how do you define that? Yeah, thank you for this question. Yes, I do see myself as a political writer and an artist, artist, not activist. As you know, unfortunately, the term activist has still a negative connotation in Romania because of the totalitarian system.  So I'm trying to be clear that what I try to do is, yes, to use the power of theater and the power of playwriting to tackle and interrogate teams that are relevant for our times, teams that need to be interrogated and challenged and the truth that needs to be spoken to the power of the moment. I mean, ever since my first dramatic poem, The Outcast, I have written plays about outcasts, about people that are marginalized, that are misunderstood, that are outsiders, people who would like to belong and they can't fully do that because the society doesn't allow them to do so. So I do feel that I am a political writer in the sense that I really try to bring the voices of outsiders to the main stages. And I really try to bring these perspectives that challenge the power dynamics of the moment. So I am interested in power dynamics and exploring the power relationships between individuals and between countries. So I feel that ever since I arrived to New York, I started to understand better the bigger picture, the bigger global picture. So I consider myself a global artist as well. I am trying to address these issues of power between humans and between and among countries. And yeah, just interrogate these issues and speak truth to power. In a way that has a little bit of humor because we know what George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde said, if you are to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh, otherwise they kill you. So I always try to bring a little bit of humor. Maybe because the old Romanian saying, one eye cries, one eye laughs. So I come from this tradition of things that can be done at the same time. You can address important issues and be political, but also laugh at certain things. So that ambiguity I'm trying to bring a little bit on to American stages because I do think we need to address these major issues and political issues, but I also think that we need to be able to be comfortable with the multiplicity of voices and meanings, be comfortable with non-binary thinking, non-binaries, multiplicity of roots and belonging. I love this concept of a professor at Columbia University, Vishakadis Desai. Yes, this multiplicity of identities needs to be celebrated, not uttered. So I think that that's my somehow core message that I'm trying to bring through my place while also creating engaging characters and powerful stories. I also think I bring a poetic realism, stylized realism, not necessarily the mainstream realism, psychological realism that the American stages might be used to. So yes, it's hard on many levels to bring these different voices and storytelling approaches to American stages. That's why we do need this revolution. We do need to challenge the mainstream aesthetics as well in all these terms. I mean, which is interesting, the remedy protocol, for example, says we are architects, but we're also journalists, and they say we also make theater. And I don't think they're just joking in a funny way, but they see them as their work, as research. We're gonna have a series coming up also, as Carol Martin on the theater of the real that became also in the pandemic, I think a new meaning in a way where research and putting the real whatever it is, but theater always has investigated what is real, what's reality, what's not, what's not on mind. So it's all these things where we see the apple and the image of the apple in our mind and the image of the image of the image. How do you approach your work then?   How do you produce your work for these new forms? What can we learn from the way you do it? Thank you. Well, I have different approaches because first of all, studying both performance studies and dramatic writing at NYU, I got different approaches to being a writer. From performance studies and generally from experimental theater and environmental theater and downtown theater, I learned to work more collaboratively. Yes, to do documentary theater or site specific projects or develop projects with the company of actors. But then when I started dramatic writing, I learned to be more rigorous as a playwright and working with the Lark Play Development Center to develop all my new plays. Actually, I learned about the playwright as the center of the room and with a team that works around the playwright's voice to make that play better and better. So I think I've been using these different approaches in my work. I realized that the playwright's voice approach can bring you closer to mainstream theater. I mean, off-Broadway plays, Broadway plays are generally focused on the playwright's voice. It's not so much about ensembles or collaborative work. Yeah, as the downtown theater might arguably be. And I'm simplifying these things. So people, you know, there is a nuanced discussion to be had and of course, the books like Carol Martin's and Richard Schechner's and many other books to speak better than me about ensemble theater and the theater of the real and the downtown theater. But at this point, I feel closer to the idea of being a playwright to have having the concept, writing, doing my own research, writing a first draft or just a few scenes and then hearing them all out with actors. And based on the questions and the input that I have from the actors, I go further. I work with the director and other actors or the same actors, you know, they are committed to the work, to write a new draft of the play, to do a stage reading, to maybe do a workshop. So this is pretty much the way in which large play development center or New York theater workshop or ensemble studio theater EST work to bring new plays to life through a new play development process that is centered on the voice of the playwright. And I like that because yeah, I feel that in Romania I didn't have much of a chance to, you know, just to be a playwright that drives the process. While here in New York, especially I did get the chance to the lark, to have my voice heard as a playwright and develop New York. For instance, I like this process of being commissioned by a company to write a new play. Most recently, the Civic Ensemble, a very interesting company focused on social, you know, theater for social change and political theater commissioned me to write a play for them. And the producer got three Siemens who's a wonderful actor and producer and director, asked me to write whatever I wanted. He really liked that monologue about the undocumented worker. So I started with that monologue and wrote a play called Be Trapped Inside a Window, which actually discusses three women of different ethnicities. One is white, she has a black daughter. So it's very interesting to explore that dynamic. And the other one is the housekeeper, the domestic worker of their neighbors. So it interrogates these relationships, you know, not just between ethnicities, but between people engaged in different activities and how they relate to each other. How can people be really seen? Do we really see our neighbors? Do we really see the person next door? And I'm really, you know, concerned with these kind of issues and I am trying to explore them in my plays. And Be Trapped Inside a Window had a few stage readings and we are hoping for a production soon. It's been directed by the wonderful Vernice Miller, who's a great actress and director as well. So this is the most recent project that I'm working on and I enjoy the process very much. So again, I wrote the first draft. I heard it with actors. I wrote a few new drafts. I gave them to the producer. They organized a workshop of a week to develop the text further. We had a drama tour, Walter Sean. So I like this work of collaborating with a team but I also like at this point to, you know, write my own plays, to write my first draft and drive a little bit the process of new play development. So in the way you agree, Bonnie Moranka talks about that. She feels perhaps we live in a time of writing, of golden writing, where it again becomes at the center, there's the misunderstanding of post-traumatic theater that writing wasn't, you know, a center anymore. I think Hans-Tieslemann always would say that writing is significant as light and as movement, also light and movement. And stage direction is as significant as writing. So we have to pay attention. That is actually what made new work, contemporary or post-traumatic work. So interesting and exciting, but writing of Yellenek or Polish or others or a Handke, who we favor so much. It always has been a part of it. And there was a feeling that also in a lot of downtown theater, but perhaps also in the off-Broadway scene, it was so psychologically realistic and repetitive, not full of surprises. And that perhaps now there is a resurgence that playwriting is again, or writing itself, perhaps novel, it's also poetry, you know, is perhaps a stronger form and to capture and the historical significance at the moment, we are into to capture traces of it. Do you feel that this is the case that Romania also is a director-driven theater, like most of Berlin's or European theater is, not in London, but do you feel writing and words are at the center, should be at the center of trying to create meaning of the time we're in theater and performance? Well, you know, things have changed for me many times in terms of how I understand the theater and the performance generally. Strangely enough, I think I was more post-dramatic when I started in Romania with my poetic texts, non-narrative, non-realistic characters, absurdist, a poetic, long monologues, but starting at NYU in dramatic writing, I became more, I would say dramatic, not post-dramatic. I went a little bit back into the dramatic work with a story, fleshed out characters, dramatic arc, dramatic intention, all those things. I cannot fully say that I'm still, and I could ever be a fully traditional writer in that sense. So my plays will always have elements that are non-narrative, that are post-traumatic, that are post-modern, that are non-linear, that are poetic or stylized. I always worked with other media as well with dancers and choreographers. I wrote a text for Dan Safer's Witness Relocation. So I feel that I've always collaborated with visual artists very well. I like all these things. So for me as an artist, as an interdisciplinary artist, to a certain extent, all these forms of creating art make sense and I embrace them. However, the closest to my heart is indeed writing and having the words at the center of what I have to express. I'm, and I do that in my plays. I also write fiction. I'm working on a novel. I still write poetry. I'm writing a memoir. So while I always like to also do some works that engage with the audiences in a more interdisciplinary way, visual or multimedia, I do go back to writing. And I hope to find, I always hope to find collaborators in which, with whom I can really collaborate well and they can bring their own expertise as visual artists or directors or choreographers. But at the end of the day, I feel that, oh, I shouldn't say that, but I will say it. I feel that I just want to be a writer at the end of the day. A writer that does engage with visual elements and multimedia and interdisciplinarity, but I do want to be a writer. And for instance, speaking about theater during the pandemic, I just wrote a short monologue of a fortune teller, Flora Wisdom, for a company called Nomad Theatrical of run by Grant Neal and Leanne Hutchinson. Grant Neal is an actor who I wrote to Polanski Polanski for. One men show that we toured over to Romania and in other countries at the Hungarian State Theater in Kluge. And he was also in Porgy and Bess, an actor as the detective at the Metropolitan Opera. So I am saying this is that I feel that now people intersect more than ever in terms of downtown artists, interdisciplinary artists, experimental artists and mainstream artists. So I feel that now there is an opportunity with this revolution to stop thinking in these terms and in terms of mainstream Broadway, of Broadway downtown and try to embrace these multiple possibilities of what we can bring on stages. So do I want to work on Broadway? You bet I do. I hope actually Broadway producers would come to me and would be interested to develop one of my plays or yes, some musical. At this point of my life, I feel the need to have the freedom of expression in a full way. I worked hard for it. I struggled for so long. I do want to be able to bring my voice with all the nuances and the knowledge that I embraced and I gathered during the years. So yes, I guess at this point I like to be working as a writer. I like to be commissioned to write plays for Broadway or Broadway. I like to write for TV. Many of my playwrights, friends write for TV and I love TV as well. So I would totally embrace the chance to be part of a writer's room or develop a new show for TV. I mean, we are here on Zoom. It's time for us artists. I feel, at least I feel so, to work in different media and embrace the creativity that we can bring in different media. To also live the multiple identities who you feel you have to reflect on stage. So they have to reflect on life. It's true in a way when you said that the Broadway and Off-Pro and Down-Town are equal options. And right now, I guess for the first time they all share the same experience. They're all closed down, whether you're Broadway or Off-Arm. And it doesn't used to be. If you had the money, you could. Now you can't. And there's something interesting in that and to see who does work now, who produces, you know, we're gonna have. Handan out from LaGuardia College, he produces online festival, the festivals you talk about, but we do not see it from a billion dollar industry of Broadway to engage, to do mass, to have food cushions, support artists. Even the Met, if I understand why it hasn't paid the artists, the opera since March.  Because financially, it doesn't make sense why aren't they singing in the parks, you know? And I'm sure the people in the offices are all paid. So what's going on here if it's about creating work and art for the people of New York City? But I also wanted to ask you and good to see an update from you, what's on your mind, but you're thinking what you're working on, but how are you as a person? How is Savyana experiencing this time? How do you feel? Well, yeah, thank you for this question. You know, what can I say? You know, I sacrificed so much as a person to just be able to do my work, my creative work. That's why in a way for me, these things are, you know, equivalent. My career, what I do for my art and my well-being as a person. When I don't work on a project, on an artistic project, when I don't write something with the idea that with a sort of clear goal that it will have a reading or a production, I don't feel myself. I get literally sick, you know? I really enjoy working with directors like Tamila Woodard. We developed so many great projects together and she was on your show as well, on your talks. With Tamila, we developed a project called enslaved about sex and human traffic. I love to really be working and collaborating with artists. So it's very hard for me at this time because, you know, I live by myself. I'm trying to do my best to teach my classes as well and support my students. But, you know, as a person, as an artist, what do I have for me? What I have for me at this point in my life is just working on the projects that I love and seeing them on stage or at least on screen. So, yeah, it's hard for me to say how am I doing as a person because I invested so much in this life, in my writing, in my artistic work, in my career, in starting all over again and being resilient and in this continuous struggle of, you know, having my voice heard as an artist, as a writer, that I cannot even make, you know, the distinction between me as a person and Saviana as an artist. So maybe, you know, I can talk more about me as a person where we're gonna meet over, I don't know, a glass of wine in New York when the restaurants are open and the theaters are open and we can go see a show and then talk about that show, you know, nice restaurant. So, you know, I like this kind of stuff. That's why I love New York and that's why I love and I still love that beautiful artistic spirit and community of New York because over there, yes, you feel that you are present. You are a part of the tapestry of that wonderful city of people of different colors and races and ethnicities and genders. And that multiplicity I was talking about, I think it's best represented by New York for me and I know this is such a silly, you know, love letter for New York, but it is how I feel and I hope we can be back soon into, you know, that wonderful spirit of artists in New York. However, if that's not possible too soon, I hope we can do more, you know, theater and art and film and TV and do things on the screen and in any other form that we can do our art because there will always be a need for storytelling, there will always be a need for art and we artists have always found different ways to tell our stories. I mean, look what I have here, I have a, it's a queer, I mean, you know, writers had to write in different ways in different media, so we're just gonna survive and tell our stories in any new possible ways. Yeah, yeah, and the way we write, you know, I think Goethe who was right was the quill and the post-carriage on his way to Italy, that's what he did, you know, it was jumping or first writers using typewriters, you know, which was an offense in the very beginning to get a tip type written note from friend or from an embassy and then computers and then handwriting and so yeah, so there, and it influences us very deeply. Kittler, the great German linguist said, you know, big revolutions actually changes in artistic expression and capturing the importance of historical moments through the arts actually happened when these new mediums came up, you know, when Bob Dylan was playing all of a sudden electric guitar and it was people were furious now, everybody does it or when the first computers were used, the first typewriters, when the poets heard a recording of their own voice through Edison, the first of the shark they experienced or when the first story, this little story all of a sudden we're on a screen, like the Blue Angel by Heinrich Mann, a small novella all of a sudden went around the world and something completely changed and I think this is a time where we do also live and something is changing, something has changed and we have to find a way to understand it better than artists are the ones who really are part of it, anticipating it and also making us comfortable with what's coming and I do hope that what is coming is better as it is now and things, as you also said, have to change, they have to be better ways if art is there for the people, for everybody in New York, in New York City, all five boroughs we need to find new ways, we are trying to create a new festival also in 2022 engaging all five neighbors but also all New York presenting organizations and New York International Festival of the Arts where we hope artists from the Segal Talks will all participate and be part of it and also something radically different like the Berlin Festspieler, it was Thomas O'Brander who had a project now that's what's called Unplugged where there was no electricity used, significant artists no electricity used, no lights, no air conditioning and they said no flights, you know and so they, how does it, how would that look like and it's like in many, many other things and we are coming close also to the end and really, really thank you for sharing this moment in your life and your experience and to talk about your work what inspires you, what artists are you look out to in theater but also what do you read, what are you listening to what keeps your motor warm or running? Well, it's very inspiring for me to read the novels actually, I'm a big fan of Toni Morrison and yesterday the Cornell University organized a very impressive marathon of reading the whole novel, The Bluest Eye I love that novel, so it was amazing to have these different black artists and scholars read the entire novel I love that her writing, I love the language I love, yeah, I love everything about the type of writing that's very rich and poetic In terms of theater, I love many playwrights and directors and many people I had a chance to work with and I love Lynn Nottage as a playwright for instance but there are so many that I'm sure that if I start saying a few names I'm going to miss others so what can I say, I also love directors that are creative I love Taylor Mac and they're flamboyant and unique and multi-dimensional creativity what can I say, I love Rajiv Joseph who was my classmate at NYU, I love his work as well there are many, many people whose work I love and I'm just proud to be working with them in other projects, so for me I tried to be with other inspiring artists, so you know any chance I get to work with others is a pleasure, a blessing and an honor And what are you listening to, what are you reading? Yeah, well, I'm not listening so much music at this time because it's such a busy time with teaching and I have to prepare for my classes so I still have to read lots of the re-read the plays that I teach, the scholarly work that I teach so I'm very much immersed in reading the works that I need to teach in my classes I also, again, the spirit of our time I raise talk and the conspiracy of silence I read a lot about anti-racism about how can we talk about race I'm trying to be as present as I can and understand as well as I can the spirit of the moment here in the US and it's not easy to leave this in between us of cultures because there are certain values and certain things that have relevance in Romania and other things that have relevance here in the US some things have relevance in New York others in the regional theater so I'm trying to constantly navigate this intersection of perspectives and cultures and find my little place and center somehow as an artist Yeah, and to have that, you know you have that photo of New York City behind you but through the curtain we see the landscape of Ithaca and maybe some Romanian painting of flowers, maybe I don't know, maybe I might imagine it so really you carry all these worlds with you on your shoulders, in your handbags, in your toolbox and you invite audience to share your experience and to celebrate it and to maybe even ask bigger and better question and I think it is important for all of us also to really listen to Saviana Cristina Mondriano who wrote I think a history of the Romanian theater and she said why it was important to listen to she said they are victims of totalitarian regimes people in the post-communist countries turned overnight into heavy users of kind of a Western consumption society and again they felt they are victims so one train was replaced with another but they also were on the passive side the victim side of the abuse side and you go through these two systems on both and your observations as a traveler, as a wanderer as a nomad between the two worlds it is really of significance and your research what should we present as civil ceremonies you know something that I think Kroncia talks about what do we place the pump of the kings and the religious ceremonies and all that we have to replace it with something new and it is the art but what is it that we really offer what really is it that carries meaning makes a difference helps us to understand where we are and I think your work is a real research towards that contribution well actually Cristina Mondriano who's an old friend of mine she wrote for the same newspaper the newspaper yeah actually after I left that newspaper so you know I had to leave Romania she was one that took my job basically so we are old friends and she's the one who commissioned the revolution project for the international theater platform so we go way back and we'd be working very well together I love Cristina and she's for me an old friend and a great collaborator yeah yeah that is important you know she wrote about that we're mini director of Pintile who was about to set himself on fire he said if you censor my play I'm going to burn myself you know I mean there's serious work that has been not only Shaban so many Chiulei and so many others it's a great great history that comes out and we don't know as much here in the United States but it's a significant contribution UNESCO of course everybody has heard and but it is a significant force in the history of theater and you are part of it yeah but as you know I mean maybe the most arguably the most well known Romanian artists in the U.S. are men artists, male artists you know wonderful directors like Andrei Shaban of course Chiulei and Pintile and Belgrade and the wonderful writers like poets and fiction writers like Andrei Kodrescu but you know I wish that we women writers have a little bit more of a voice here and yeah I'm trying to bring a little bit of maybe at Giannino Nario here and Mikaela Dragan you know and and others and also you so we are trying to make our contribution you know to to extend our view of it and this is also one of the ideas you know of the CETO talk so yeah I love Mikaela Dragan actually I talked with her a lot when I was in Romania she created a great group of Roma artists and I have Roma roots on my father's side we never really talked enough about that in my family so that's why I don't talk enough about that because I feel that you know I wasn't raised in a Roma community but Mikaela she's the real thing I love her as an actor, as a writer and her company Gubri-Plan is wonderful she performed at the CETO center what beautiful work her interviews so yeah so I thank you thank you thank you and we're coming to the end of this week and we're coming up next week also a big lineup Milo Rao is going to come back and talk about his book Why Theatre each he did was Katja de Garetin and Karaman and others so he really wanted to come back and also tell us about this significant I think also collection of ideas of the time we are in now Florian Maltzaker the German curator will talk about his ideas of games for society like the theater perhaps of games or instructions and engaging audience of what we will do and then we have Handan Osbilgin who puts together an online festival especially for communities, immigrant communities communities of people of color and she has done that for a very long time and it's also coming up so she will talk also about her experience as a Turkish woman you know to to work in the arts and her divided loyalties in a way in her experiences so I say I really thank you thank you I hope it was as inspiring for you as it was for us and good luck with your work and I admire the discipline you have that you keep on writing and working and yeah I can only imagine how hard it is especially also for someone like you to be in the time of corona to be in your place and that world of the sudden is reduced to screen like no when you click on leave it's over right and we adjust again with us there's no drink after no coffee no noises of buddies in rooms and hellos and outside so it's a very hard time for everybody in the arts and but nothing lasts forever not the good but also not the bad and there will be different but we have to be ready we have to prepare now and we have to implement the real change so thank you thank you all for listening this is all what Savyana that is for you actually she might look like she wants to talk to me but actually she really does it because of the listeners we have here and what you think and that it hopefully you know create something real that thoughts travel and have an impact so please do consider very carefully all what she said and what she's thinking about and what she is working on and thanks to Hal Rowdy again for hosting us the VJ and Andy from the Cedars Center to make this happen so I'm gonna have a good weekend and hope you all will join us next week stay safe stay tuned and all my best bye bye thank you so much Frank it was a pleasure to talk with you and hopefully yes with the audiences all our


Sticking in section 8a, Fauston squaring off with Lake of the Woods and Fauston dominated set one after tying things up at 10.  Lake of the Woods would come out stronger in the second set though as Sonia Stimphill delivers the kill for the point and then Jordan Airy serves up the ace but it wouldn't be enough. Fauston takes set two 25-22 and the match three to zero. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


So brief introduction about myself. I work in the Red Hat Developer Group. We are a globally distributed team of about 300 people working in our 16 countries, five time zones, contributing to our 100 plus projects. So I'm sure you have attended to Tecton, core-ready containers, core-ready workspaces, all these are stuff that our team develops. So this is a kind of a brief introduction of what we do. So the question that I have is like, I'm sure a few of you might have worked on enterprises before coming to a company like Red Hat. I was wondering, what do you feel like? Are enterprises doing it better or open source doing better? Actually, I'm dealing with an execution because these are like large scale projects and enterprise also kind of manage it. So we talk about agile and enterprises kind of try to do it with safe or the disciplined agile methodology or large scale scrum. So this is basically what I've been observing. So when I talk about agility in open source, I'm not talking about scrum, Kanban or XP, extreme programming, we are talking about true agility which is kind of more at a grassroots level because when we go into this specific methodologies, everybody has a very specific idea of agile. So let's go one step beyond and see actually how open source fares in this realm. So like safe, they probably have, they want to ensure that everybody has a job. So I guess they have many roles and even after switching from waterfall to agile, you'll find most of the roles are still relevant and I think they have very, very fine, minutely kind of crafted that. Less is a little more, less formal but still they do kind of advocate a more formal structure. And this is, again, discipline agile which has kind of a same similar flow more or less kind of a safe or less. But when we come to open source, we really don't see any framework but we see a lot of stuff being delivered on time that most of the products are being executed on time. So one of the things I was wondering is like, how does agile look like in open source? Who are the players? And most often it's just people like us, companies like Red Hat, because we have a lot of maintainers, we have a lot of approvers, we have board members everywhere, we are part of working groups. And as a group, we kind of help open source to kind of adopt to this agile methodology or frameworks and help them to deliver seamlessly. So let's take example of two projects, Colonel Kubernetes, because both have the scale and complexity which kind of rival most of the projects out there. And based on that, we can compare how we fare in open source versus typical enterprise. So on a note, one of the things I noticed is Jim Whitehorse, the CEO of Red Hat had actually posted something on how open source was winning and on CNBC post on LinkedIn. And I had this comment, like the way we do it on open source actually can put a lot of enterprises to shape. And surprisingly a lot of people liked it and that shows that actually we are actually doing a little better job than most enterprises do, at least when it comes to how innovating and growing with the last trending population, because most of our projects are huge, they have global reach, compared to any other close source project, but we still managed to do a great job. So I feel like clearly we are definitely winning that award when it comes to handling project with massive scale with minimal process. And when we actually get into it, a lot of time we might feel that these are kind of not, doesn't go hand in hand, because agile kind of advocates for co-location and importance of face to face meetings, whereas open source anyone can contribute from anywhere and it can be done in asynchronous process. So most probably like anytime, but if you look closely again, the first values and principles are not very different from agile, because if you look at what agile talks about individuals and interactions over process and tools, this is exactly what we do in the first projects. And the same thing for working software or comprehensive documentation and again customer collaboration or contract negotiation. And of course responding to change your following a plan. So these are going to align very closely. And most of the two leaders, like when they kind of want to leverage, delivering a project, whether in a closed source or open source, they kind of have the same few things, right? We want transparency in our projects, we want meritocracy, we want the best people to rise to the top and we want the diversity and inclusive so that we have diverse perspectives in our projects. So the best ideas kind of bubble up to the top and again, sharing and collaboration. These are kind of very true to both agile as well as the first projects. So there's a lot of synergy between both. And these are very, both of them are very powerful moments. I don't know which one is the butterfly and which is the elephant, but both have been around for quite a while, probably fast for much longer than agile. And today they kind of recognize that it's becoming essential even for fast to kind of embrace agile a bit, mainly for a few reasons. Because today you see a lot of VC funding also coming into fast projects and the large corporate companies are fueling dedicated teams to work on projects and they all want to see something being released early and often so that they can actually validate that the money is being put to best use. So this is also kind of fueling a little bit of agility into projects where we don't have the luxury of waiting for a few months or years before we can actually see the deliverable. Now, let's see if we can actually qualify and quantify how agility kind of looks in open source projects. And maybe we can take a look at that by contrasting a few workings. And even Red Hat, like, you know, how we combine agile with open source and to create great products. So one small example that I have is like, you know, in agile we talk about, you know, whenever we create initiatives or epics, we always need to break down into smaller stories or bite-sized consumables. And in open source, we find the same thing. Whenever we get up, everybody encourages people to have an issue at a level where it can be or a pull request, which is small enough, which is easy enough to be reviewed. Because if you have a large pull request, then actually it gets delayed and sometimes your request might actually be sitting there for quite a long time before it's reviewed. So these are kind of, again, very similar concepts. The idea is to, you know, when you have smaller stuff, it's easier to digest and easier to kind of come up with a more accurate deliverable. And this one is, again, what we see in most of our projects. Like, now we are trending to more of time box releases than which is a feature-based. Previously, most of our open source projects used to be feature-based. And they used to set a random date, but now we're kind of moving to a more of time-based. And this is very synonymous to what we have in Scrum, the time box prints, or the time box, what we call the release cycles that we have. And so we see that, again, they're very similar and the same philosophy is being adopted in most of the prefast projects as well. And this is an interesting thing that I found on Kubernetes.  And they scratch it out and say, okay, you'll release two days later. But it kind of shows that they're getting serious about delivering on time, I mean. So even if you have to miss out a feature or if you have to push a feature to a rate of release, it's better to kind of release on time so that it gives your whole of partner ecosystem or customers kind of a time-based release so that they can actually build stuff or dependencies based on that. And this is a similar thing that we have noticed in federal Kubernetes OpenShift. Most of our projects have kind of moved to time-based release and also more frequent than what we used to be. So this is a growing trend in most of our projects and even the most complex and the huge projects that we have. And one of the things that we have noticed in Agile is a lot of importance is given to backlog grooming, which is essential part of the scrum practice. And open source projects typically didn't have this role but nowadays we see we also have six kind of dual product and project management and they kind of help out in kind of prioritizing the stories and siding them up and things like that. As an example, I have like what we noticed on the Kubernetes site is that they have clearly said that they do not set schedules, dictate features or set head count, but their goal is to serve the individuals and companies within the Kubernetes community by communicating the value of produced by the SIGs. So this is kind of a very typical thing like a product owner does for a scrum team. This is the SIG, PM SIG is doing for the whole Kubernetes community. So this actually helps in the prioritization of things. And now we can take a look at the communication tools and the feedback cycles that we typically observe and then open source project. So once again, we are no longer restricted to IRC. I know a lot of Red Haters still love IRC and they kind of dedicatedly use it. But video chat is kind of taking hold now. And here you have two examples from the Kubernetes community where they have community meetings. I know we do the same thing and on the chase side and the developer group and we have all the community coming in on a video call once every week to discuss what the priorities are, what their interests are, what their contributions have been and even to kind of share demos. So this is almost like a weekly standup as opposed to a daily standup which is recommended by scrum. But the idea is very similar that to get everybody on the same page. And finally, like, I don't know how many of you been a part of Retrospectives in the company as well as in open source. But one interesting friend that I've noticed is that this have actually taken hold in the part of the open source projects as well. So like, for example, in Kubernetes communities, they have input retrospectives, they actually create the whole document and they discuss it over a video call to see what went wrong, what they can do better. The same thing with Fedora, that they kind of reviewed what went well, what could be improved. So even the concept of retrospectives has actually taken hold in the open source. So most of these agile concepts have actually helped the FOSS projects to grow. Actually, that's probably the last slide I have. This is just a recap. There's definitely lack of formal framework, but actually FOSS actually is being using agile in a much more effective manner. And this trend is actually on the uptake. A lot of projects are actually sticking to more or less formal work trends in agile. And it's people like us, the SIGs, the working groups, the community approvers and the leads who actually help in agile adoption into the community. And actually most of the, a few communities actually much doing better than most enterprises do. So that's all I had. Any questions? There are some practices that you really want to take at the end of the day that you also have. Which are some of the most common practices that are used in most of the customer states? And you know, what are some of the four important frameworks? I think for the enterprises, mostly it's been Scrum and Kanban have been the most popular frameworks that have been used. And when we look at the scale framework, some of the examples I gave are safe for what they call large scale Scrum. The less framework. So they are scale frameworks, but essentially they're based on the Scrum. And that is the basic one. That most people find it easy because it doesn't require a lot of training. Like once you kind of get the team acquainted with the basic principles and walk them through, maybe three days or four days is good enough for them to get acquainted with the process. Yeah, definitely. A lot of times we have to choose what makes sense. In the developer group, we kind of went with three week rather than a one week or two week because the projects that we work on are quite complex and it takes a lot of time to reduce the time that it takes for planning overhead or the retrospective overhead or the sprint reviews. We have read kind of, because it's like 20 teams trying to coordinate everything, we have kept it at three weeks. But if you're like a startup or a small company and a very small project, one week's sprint makes more sense. So it just depends on the use case. Any other questions? Stop. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


This video was animated by Ways2Grow. Be sure to check out her channel. She has some great videos about self-development and other topics. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This saying is a bit of a contradiction in the sense that dealing with the hardships of life is not as easy as it seems. Dealing with it would be the ideal and the most obvious thing to do. However, do we have the characteristics to deal with unfortunate situations such as being rejected from graduate school, or being dumped by a significant other? And if we don't have the characteristics, is there a way to acquire the traits to overcome difficult challenges to become successful in life? Traditionally, success was believed to only happen to a certain few who were blessed with unique innate characteristics such as one's IQ, social intelligence, or good looks. However, in a study by Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly in 2007, one prominent characteristic was found among most successful leaders across different settings, grit. Grit is defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit involves working persistently towards challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. In other words, someone who is gritty approaches every situation as if it was a marathon, that is internal motivation, and has an end goal for the task that he or she has taken on. That is, external motivation. To validate their assumption about the power of grit, Duckworth and her colleagues examined the combination of these two dimensions across four different populations and found some impressive results. In the first study, Grittier's soldiers were more likely to complete an Army Special Operations Forces selection course. In the second study, Grittier's sales employees were more likely to keep their jobs. In the third study, Grittier's students were more likely to graduate from high school. And in the fourth study, Grittier men were more likely to stay married. All research has shortcomings and Duckworth and her colleagues have acknowledged the inherent limitations of their research. Firstly, a self-report questionnaire was used to measure grit, which makes them prone to social desirability bias. Secondly, the wording of the questions of the grit scale can have a huge influence on how the examinees measure grit. For example, each question is focused on identifying the respondents approach to goals, setbacks, and challenges. Though the wording uses present tense verbs, like I am a hard worker, more than likely respondents will reflect over historical moments when they were either hard workers or not hard workers. As such, the questions may reflect the respondents' past perceptions rather than their present beliefs. Lastly, Duckworth and her colleagues underscore that although perseverance and passion may be characteristics that lead to success and achievement, it is quite possible that there are other internal characteristics such as optimism or external factors like mentorship that are associated with success and achievement. Now, how does one become gritty? Duckworth believes that building grit is linked to a growth mindset. Pioneered by Carol Dweck, growth mindset is the idea that the ability to learn is not static. Rather, learning is fluid and can be attained by mostly anyone. More specifically, Dweck claims that individuals with a growth mindset believe that basic abilities are developed by perseverance and hard work. In addition, individuals with a growth mindset persevere through hardships because they understand that failing is a part of learning and is not eternal. As a result, a growth mindset makes learning more enjoyable and builds and fosters resilience. Alternatively, Dweck notes that individuals with a fixed mindset believe that their abilities are carved in stone and cannot be altered or improved, thus creating a constant urgency to prove their worth continuously. Developing a growth mindset may be a difficult transition, but it is not impossible. According to Dweck, the goal is to change from a judge and be judge for a fixed mindset to a learn and help learn growth mindset. Listed are five ideas from Dweck's book, Mindset, to help you develop a growth mindset.  Two, believing your qualities are carved in stone, the fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. Three, people in a growth mindset don't just seek challenge, they thrive on it. Four, the growth mindset does allow people to love what they're doing and to continue to love it in the face of difficulties. And five, those with the growth mindset found success in doing their best and learning and improving. And this is exactly what we find in the champions. In summary, there are two things you are guaranteed to experience in life, hardships and successes. In some cases, you may have to endure a hardship like cramming for an exam to get to succeed like graduating from college. In other cases, you may succeed like graduating from college and then endure a hardship like not being able to find a job. Whichever the case, it is important to understand that every situation, whether positive or negative, comes to an end. Everyone experience the setbacks and never compare your successes or failures to others. We may not be able to control the situations we face, but what we can control is the mindset that we have as we endure hardships and celebrate successes. Do you consider yourself having a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? Let us know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to hit the like button and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching.


Thanks for having me aboard. Yes sir, you please. Yes sir, I'm here. I was in this chair. I was in my next wheel. I was an able aviator. I understand what you're saying. I had a real type of connection with that. What is the individual? What is the individual? I'm just a team's regular. So, after the flight they get in there, I'll send her a map of the public.