Welcome to a third episode on Decolonizing Dramatogy. I'm really excited to be here again today. For many reasons, first of all is that I've been receiving lots of emails, really those that are watching and those that watch later, really sending a lot of great comments and encouragement and that's very helpful. I know I'm not a radio presenter, I'm not a TV presenter, but it's just very interesting when people start engaging with the content and so I just want to say thank you and keep that coming. I really appreciate the opportunity to be part of this. My name is Taiwu Afolabi and I'm really excited today to be talking with three amazing scholar, practitioner, director, playwright, actor from different parts of the world. I'm dialing to you today from Regina here at the University of Regina here in Saskatchewan, Canada and I want to really acknowledge wherever you are. Thank you for coming from all over the world seeing this now and those that will be seeing this later. Today it's really an opportunity to really explore with Jude, Fumi and Aganser and they're going to introduce themselves very soon. I'm not going to introduce them because I think there's something interesting about introduction first of all. But before I call them to introduce themselves, I just want to also mention that a quick recap. The first episode, Fumi and I tried to situate the discourse of dramaturgy within the context of Africa and what that means when theater makers from the continent really speak about that and what do we mean by decolonizing dramaturgy. Last week we also had guests from Egypt, from Nigeria and from Zimbabwe, we were discussing dramaturgical skills and what that means and what are other big ideas that you know the concept of what we're engaging with kind of offer us to discourse. Today we're going to be exploring the idea of self-dramatogy and dramatogging with others. Dramatogy as a natural. I'd like to quickly appreciate all our partners, Pan-African creative exchange and they're doing a great job with your dramaturgical lab which for me is one of the coordinators and I'm really excited. I have a session with them on Saturday. Also thanks to HowRound, a really exciting partnership. Thanks to Theatre and Mystery International in Nigeria. Thanks to Safeword in Canada and of course to the University of Regina. So I'd like to start today by really asking the three of our guests to introduce themselves and what we'll do is once you do yours just pass the button to the next and to the third person and maybe we'll just ask Jude, Jude Idada to start. Speak your truth dub well. Let's go Jude. Hi everyone my name is Jude Idada. Welcome to this platform. Yeah so who's Jude? Jude is a 360 artist. I write, I direct, I produce. So that being said I work on several platforms, multi-platforms. So I work on stage, I work on film as it were and then the printed text which is books. I had my first degree at the University of Badon, the only university in Nigeria, Badon and I'm sorry Tyro for busting your bubbles. I did theatre arts after a journey that took me from other courses before I settled into my natural calling. I have several published books. It's a set now. I've won a couple of awards at the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Anna and the rest. I'm here to share the little that I know. I have been actively engaged in the theatre space. Both as a published playwright and as a director of plays that I have written and directing other people's works. I live in Canada, Toronto to be exact. That's the only city in Canada. And then in Lagos, which also happens to be the only city in Nigeria. So yeah so I tried to look at art as a very spiritual profession with such a talent like vessels that are which are calling. The kind of art I immerse is art that adds value, that has elements of activism and all of that. As my MLK said, so we spoke earlier about what the art forms we create, what they can do. So yes I hope that this session will be as light in viewing as possible. Thank you. So I hat on to I think I heard the ah at the end. I didn't hear that wasn't for me. Thank you, Jude. I think he's dropped off a nice back. Wow. Thank you, Ty wall for welcoming us to this platform. Welcome everyone to this wonderful conversation which I am excited about. My name is Aganza Chisaka. I am from Uganda. I'm an actress, a producer, a director, a playwright and now a teacher. This which is a area I like to hide but I am a teacher and I'll explain why very soon. I studied at New York University in Abu Dhabi Theater Arts with a minor in psychology. So I love studying people and I love acting them as well. I have a master's in education and so now I teach acting, voice and movement of course. I was going to say dance but that's not it. It's movement. My work is quite diverse. I've had a lot of opportunity to work as an actress first and that has led me into other areas and so I approach most of my work from an acting perspective. I approach my directing from an acting perspective and in the opportunities where I get to be or act as a dramaturg I wouldn't call myself a dramaturg or work with a dramaturg. I approach it also from an acting perspective and I'm looking forward to contributing to this conversation. Thank you. Pass it on to Fumi. Hello everyone. I was about to say good evening but you might not be evening where you are. So my name is Fumi Adewale. I'm really excited to be here and thanks to Taiwan Howround for having us. I'm a senior lecturer in dance at a university in England called Demogford University and besides teaching dance, my teach dance with an African basis in the university but besides that I'm also a dramaturg and I work mainly with choreographers who mix African forms with different other types of genres on stage or theater makers who mix different genres to create their work and people sometimes call them interdisciplinary theater makers for example. I still perform as a storyteller so I do some one woman performances and so I'm a drama performer and a lecturer but I began as a journalist and then went into TV production and taught for a number of years before I went into education and that experience of working as a performer on stage really fuels everything I do. It feels my academic work. I actually write my scholarly work from the position of what it's like to be a performer and as a dramaturg that helps me understand where the performers are going from or coming from sorry so that's me thank you. Interesting the three of you you have these diverse perspectives, backgrounds and practice so I think my first question that or prompt is really what does dramatogy mean to you or how do you conceptualize it whether for a dancer that you take everything from the acting perspective from an actor's perspective or for Jude who is all over the various levels and of course for Fumi who is a dramaturg specifically dance dramaturg and then teaching dramatogy and dramaturgical skills and then acting and all of how do you all conceptualize, conceive and talk about it what does that look like for you and maybe you can give us examples from your work I know that you all have amazing you know work out there and maybe we can start um we can go other way maybe for me can start and we go to Agenza and then to Jude. Well dramatogy you know it's like we discussed in the first episode Tywell it's a very wide it's very broad concept and it means different things in different places and different areas of the industry um actually dance dramaturgy is quite new to the game I think it all started with playwrights and and so when it came into dance it was addressed in a different set of issues than in in plays but I see as and well I come from the school of thought because I'm not the only person who sees it this way as looking for the logic in a piece when you're making a piece is looking for that logic in it and seeing what you want to foreground and juju's that word earlier what you know what he decides to put in the foreground what he decides to put in the background because in a performance we're not only using words we're also using a lot of imagery costume speaking music speaking so there's different ways you can pass a message across with those beyond texts and the language so what do you foreground it how do you foreground your the the meaning you want to produce and how does that meaning go take the audience on a journey but dramaturgy as we were um Agenza brought up some issues earlier and we were talking about dramaturgy as how does your play or performance make sense in a particular loco and she was talking about some things in Uganda and sometimes certain dramaturgs work in the area of marketing you could say marketing or audience development or public relations where they're making sure that that piece of work can be accepted or received or the reception is somehow managed or framed as well so a dramaturg might work on that end of things you know dealing with program notes dealing with q and a dealing with the media dealing with the academy so that the work is this work is received from the perspective or or the dialogue around the work is the kind of dialogue the producers want so and the layers of meaning are not you know are not hijacked by other bodies because you might bring out a play and this there's a certain protest group that might actually try and take over the meaning of your play you know so you you you you you protect your work so dramaturgy has to do with a lot to do with meaning making I would say in my experience yeah Agenza and and we're gonna once Agenza is done I'm gonna I'm gonna tweak that question for you the little bit so that we can kind of go to cut that background foreground Amiga because I love him to speak about that I know for me as Yolton that we go back to Agenza first of all I took that question for Jude in a sec once Agenza is over yeah I think for me you covered a great breath of what I also agree dramaturgy is about I will continue and say that the dramaturg protects the authenticity of the play protects the director from themselves as a I'm going to speak more from a theater perspective I'll allow Jude to cover the whole film area because he has more experience there but as a director I find myself either destroying the work or destroying my own interpretation of the work just because I'm a creative and I use destroy in a very you know shallow sort of nice way you know let's have this and let the lights go yellow at this section of the play and and that the intermission this shall happen and the dramaturge keeps you in line keeps the play of authentic and true to what you originally wanted it to be whether as a playwright or as a director um and sort of keeps the whole process together so in out name a dramaturge was as a protector uh in my own work worked with Charisma Bagani and I believe Ty will you be speaking to her in the next episode and she was so helpful in the process uh of a play in just making sure that I was asking the actors the right questions not just myself but the actors the right questions um throughout the play and sometimes dramaturges stop at the conceptualization and the readings and reading rehearsal table readings of a play but it's also nice to have a dramaturg who walks you through the entire process right into the blocking and final rehearsal just to make sure that we remember the original intent of the play when we go on to stage because you know how rehearsals is all things change things change we have jokes along the way so I would call it dramaturge a protector that's how I've experienced them lately thank you Aganza protector someone that mentions the authenticity of the of the piece Jude I want to come back to you you you did at the beginning you were talking about the idea of background meat ground foreground um how do you conceptualize dramaturge in your work okay um thanks about Ty for me um unlike um Aganza or Fumi I've never worked with a dramaturg never so I've always self-dramaturg myself and because of that I have been able to find um an ammo on how do I engage my work or how do I engage whatever work it is that I'm directing I have to learn when to distance myself when to disengage so that there is the how do I put it there is a collect caught delineation between what I am what I want what I see what the text is and what's the truth of the text as written and the message is as contained so what I do is that I'm always starting from that place of the wise wise so even actors that have worked with me chiles and the rest they're always like ah jude men you're always asking those wise and I think the wise if there was a dramaturg that's what they would do I'm always so why are we doing this why was written like this why is this what is the context where is the place so they tell me they say jude men you give us historical lectures you always telling us about this and that because I have to do it I have to put I have to provoke the dialogue I have to provoke the searching of the truth of the text so that there is that very similitude in the work as when it finally is presented in front of the audience I think I have to speak slow shut out the notes you guys gave so I'm so can slower now so that so that you know there's a connection with the audience and there is perfect communication which of course we know communication is perfect when there is feedback feedback that is instantaneous or feedback that is carried over so when we finally find out truth based on asking the wise based on starting provoking a conversation then we now have to decide how will the truth or the thematic concern or the central dramatic question of this work how can we present it and in trying to present it that is where we come to the foreground midground and background we say every work of art am I speaking slow enough we say every work of art is supposed to entertain hopefully and inspire or empower right so where do we put this central dramatic question do we put it in the background is it contentious enough that we do not want to put it in the foreground we don't want to put it right on the nose because do we want to extend or delay the reaction of the consumers the audience to this play is it a play that you know is high in motive content is it a play that people can just leave the theater and just go burn down some house you know what I mean when you know the kind of material you are dealing with then you start deciding where do I position the central dramatic question do I put it in the background so that it is it is not what is they see it is not what they hear but subliminally it is there it's continually resounding and how again are we going to choose or what kind of medium are we going to use to to sell it to the audience would it be nonverbal would it be verbal would it be musical would it be dance would it even be with the lighting structures and technical and all of that stuff so those are kind of things that I do but in answering your questions as your question as you guys how do I choose it I choose it based on that fact based on understanding that in the positioning of the central question central dramatic question of the central thematic concern of the play it has a direct relation to the consummation of the work of art in itself foreground is writing it's right to the face of the audience is right it's continually resounding background it is more of the paradigm within which it exists and then the midground is where the cerebral reverberation of the play is how do we so so you see a situation where I take a play I'm sure you said something earlier Tywin you said you work with community you don't work with you are not very textual in the way you you you take your artworks into the public I have done both community theater textual theater and all of that and just straight improvisational theater and all of that but I still use this as my guidelines as being able to be three in one not I have to be the audience I have to be the dramatorge I have to be the director writer if it is my own work or I have to be the personification of the writer what is his intention why did he do this in what context is it and existing what is the social what is the political what is the emotional what is the spiritual what are all this context around which the play itself is revolving so I have to be both an academic and also a pragmatic professional which is acting right into my profession I have to be all of those things and actors who have worked with me lots of them they to play because they are like okay Jude Serbia we're talking now which one is you know what I mean because I'm trying to tell them that and it's interesting the way I'm trying to tell them that we all have to engage this work in order for us to present it in its true I in doing that I'm also provoke dialogues and communication and you know I am also dramatologist amazing thanks so they themselves they're not just performing they're not just becoming you know yeah oh I thought you said yeah okay so that's it the actor themselves they're engaging and they are they are also helping in questioning the wise the where the who the when and the how at every single time why are we doing this what was the playwright's intention why are we directorally choosing to represent it like this what is the context within which it exists you know what is performance is there anything what is performance in itself is there any truth in performance if everybody that enters into a theater they already know that what they are coming to witness is already make believe so where is our allegiances are we trying to convince them that that which they're watching is real or are we trying to work along the fact that we're all doing make believe so so that's why I said it's it's an academic exploration even as a professional I don't want to seize time and all of that and I need to dub someone else so stop here so thanks you this is interesting because you've raised a lot of a lot of a lot of interesting ideas as same as a ganza and of course a poem in terms of a protector and the logic of the performance which I want to go back to something I've kind of observed which is interesting as I'm as we the three of you are talking is that fumi has drama talk someone else so she's drama talk the other another person um a ganza has been drama talk on if that if that makes sense and then jude you serve drama talk which is interesting you know when I was pulling this this episode together I didn't really you know I I probably three of you together just thinking you know but it never comes to me like this but then what that's the question that provokes for me then is how do you how do you make the choices that you make jude when you're self drama talk and then for fumi when you're drama talking the other person how do you how do you in the context of logic of the performance how do you how do you make that logic come together in the structuration and then for a ganza when they're drama talking you how do you pick and choose what makes what what's your like like you know to to dub jude it was talking about the the the vertex of the performance itself right and I'm hoping I'm dubbing well now um uh so it just this is a inside joke we're just kind of say your truth and dub well so it's just we're just joking here um but jude was talking about that idea of the vortex of the performance and knowing you know the language and you know the message you want to pass across and all of those things how the three of you in your different context um how do you go about that and then maybe in addition to that plot for fumi you're talking about institutional drama talking which you also had experience about and you've had experience with how do you go about all of that that's my question for the three of you sounds yeah I hope that it's articulate enough yeah I'll um I'll start with drama talking someone else usually when I start I ask them what they're trying to achieve what they want to achieve I'll make them committed to writing um I find out where they are in their career what their trajectory is i.e what they're trying to which kind of audiences I try and make them understand there's not a general audience out there there's not a general black audience because you know every black person is thinking the same you know um so try and get them down to what kind of issues they're trying to do with would they define themselves in terms of their themes or their aesthetics especially in dance because sometimes dancers are not using many words and so in terms of aesthetic is do do you want people to um engage with your dance on the level of its cultural renaissance is like people see the performance and they think home or they're using african perform forms so they want to think could be in terms of oh I recognize that I'm your about or I'm from West Africa I can see those forms or are you more about um you know communicating concepts for movement so even though you might be using forms from Africa but it's more about the message you are sort of channeling through the forms that you're more interested in so find out what they're trying to do and then see how they're trying to achieve it now sometimes people bring you in at the at the conception stage they're thinking through the idea and they want someone to brainstorm who would push them in different ways and question them because someone questioning you gets you to think deeper and actually can speed up your speed up your processes of making the decision you might not make the mistake I mean my job is not to try and get them to agree with me but to dig deeper into themselves and if I say why do you want to do that they might uh the idea is that they have to find an answer so they might go and research they might go and talk to somebody have to come and give me an answer that I find convincing not necessarily agree with but I feel has conviction in it and by that pushes them deeper into where where what they're trying to achieve through the play so together we develop a frame as to what what where they're going forward most people however invite me into fix a problem they they're they're in rehearsal it's not working the artistic director is not getting on with the choreographer the artist you know the maybe the actor the dancers they're not seeing eye to eye maybe the director feels they're so close to the work they can't make any kind of um uh you know they feel they're now making decisions or they have babies they don't want to kill it's not a nice term but some people say you have to sometimes throw out your best you know the thing you really like maybe even the thing that inspired the piece you now feel is not fitting into the piece again you don't want to let go of it and you need someone to come and say okay let go okay you know they need someone to come in and help them fix and um or they are trying to achieve something and they don't know how and they don't have the time if they have the time they might be able to step out of the process take off the hat of artistic director puts on the hat of movement director come back into the process and fix it but they don't have the time so they need a dramaturge to just come in and help them with that and um for example I worked with someone who was using text and movement and the problem this choreographer was facing is that the performers were dance small and after they danced they bit they will stop and talk and she found the dancing and the the speaking was so separate it didn't allow the audience to suspend disbelief and also it didn't create a the kind of universe she wanted so she wanted how do we go from acting and slowly into dance and back without the audience knowing they're switching art form so I went into rehearsal I looked at the dancers I looked at the actors I looked at their strengths their weaknesses and we started devising creative tasks and then she started using it with the artist and once they had got it they actually didn't want to talk to me anymore they wanted to get on with their production so sometimes dramaturge is fixer but you're trying to work in the frame of the artist you're not the artistic director so you're not taking over the vision of the play you're there to support it so maybe I've talked enough I'll come back to institutional dramaturgy later but um that's how I work with someone and I'm a very bad dramaturg for myself actually because I'm not able to switch and um yeah so I'm looking forward to hearing you do that too Aganza what about you that someone has done that for you oh yeah I'm looking forward to hearing Jude as well because I'm very bad with myself as well I I hate asking myself those tough questions and killing my darlings like when me was saying that's the tough part but my experience in being dramaturg is twofold and one is an experimental theater where it was my own work and another was when it was someone else's work and we were all new to the play in my own work I experienced some of the challenges that for me was talking about my play was a choreo poem so that meant it encompassed dance, poetry, music, drama, all these performance art forms and I was writing it as I was you know rehearsing it and so my mentor at the time was asking me all these questions I said I don't have the time and so in came the dramaturg to fix the process to help me along the process and every decision that was made in the rehearsal room had a question why why are you blocking that why are you saying that word as opposed to that word why is that poem there why are you using that movement why aren't you using that movement and it was irritating and it was frustrating but she did enable the process or the play to come into a place where I understood it and I understood what I was trying to say until I was able to have an aha moment and I said I no longer need you thank you so much Duce's you may go but it was challenging because everything about the work was mine the movements were mine the poetry was mine the blocking was mine the cast was mine and I'm sort of you know we're talking about the dramaturg as a natural I'm a director in nature I want everything to be protected and nobody to get hurt and it's all okay but sometimes you have to be tough with your decisions and tough with yourself and the dramaturg allows you to do that and I was quite thankful to have her in the room there when I was working with someone else's play the dramaturg fitted the role of enabling the cast and crew to understand the nuances in the play which it was it had language that wasn't familiar to us institutionalized language it's it had colloquial terms that one knew it it had blocking that was unique to the spaces of that kind of caliber of people so the dramaturg came into give us knowledge to inform us of this means this this is actually what that joke how that joke would go down and so there are a lot of table reads just to have a ha moments and oh this is how we behave ah this is how we hold a glass of wine okay I see I understand so the picking and choosing in that context was quite easy because it was just telling us of what already existed and it was just a matter of understanding as opposed to pick and choose between two darlings like in my um situation uh thanks a ganza jude the the flow is yours okay everyone's waiting for me to be okay so um it's a very interesting challenging place to be being very um self will I say self provoked to stand into roles and I'm not necessarily comfortable but for me I've always um approached the art in the creation of the art the presentation of the art from a very um human kind of um a perspective where I just go ahead and I do it and because of that that is why I you know I self turn the torch and all of that and again the core of my the embrace of the art for me is very spiritual and that helps me excuse me that helps me to understand that it's not about me it is not about my vision my understanding and all of that that the best interpretation of this work of art will come about and when I say spiritual I'm not talking about Christianity Islam or whatever I'm just talking about the energies or the super conscience that exists that is outside me so when I engage the work of art I can I can delineate it I can draw lines and say this is Jude these are the borders the thing which you you you work this is Jude that is Jude the person Jude the director Jude the playwright and Jude just like what um Aganza said Jude the natural the one who really wants to midwife everybody including myself for us to be able to because yeah you have to be merciful to yourself sometimes for us to be able to together in a very collective way bring about this work to the best way possible we can so how do I how do I do it I'm a research broth so when I first engage the work I read it then I go I find a context within which it exists being that you know on the bigger perspective time you know time in terms of period and all of that cultural norms ethical laws and all of that so I go back I leave the work and I go back and I do my work on that so when I'm doing my work as a researcher I'm doing it from a place of a provocateur as I said for me as I said earlier for me it's all about the why why why why why why why why did you do it why did you choose to do this why did you choose to do that I come from the school of thought that says that for every written so now I'm talking textual for every written work of art every word has to audition for its place on the paper so every word I believe that was chosen by the playwright had to have had a purpose why why did you choose to use this and not that when I know what you know the synonyms would have been and why didn't I why didn't you use this when I know what the anthonyms are so by the time I'm done with actually masticating this play as it were when I mean you know chewing it and masticating it then I I think I have become is that the best word to say I have become I have the the spirit of the work has merged with me so when I'm now coming in I can sorry I don't want to go ahead because I sound as though I'm some crazy dude but that being said so when I when I come I the first meeting I have with my cast and my crew I tell them and we're always I'm very much into village theater when I say village I mean we're all equal we all sit around the table I'm asking the drama what do you think about what you know there's a lot of artists who work with me there they feel insulted when I'm asking the drama so I'm asking they feel that everybody should have lines you know and I tell them I said these these are our audience this is our audience let us see how they they got it how do so I'm asking questions did you get the idea we're trying to did you how did it sound do you can you you know and then they say well you know I think that so when I say I sell drama towards I do that with the village concept that means people are also checking me as I am checking myself and as I'm checking the text and as I am checking the actor and as I'm checking the director which is now a separate entity for me I don't know if you get that so there is Jude Jude the human who has engaged this work of art with my prejudices my prejudices my biases and all of that there's Jude the director who has an overall directorial vision knows what he wants to put on stage there is of course the text that's it where what I've written by me is written by me then there's Jude the playwright and I know one thing about being a playwright which I'm sure Maganza knows is that the minute we write and the work leaves us it is an entity in itself so when you call the playwright and you're like why did you choose this and choose that and the bamboozle you it's not true they have no idea why they wrote it that way if something happened to them at that particular point in time and the work so I already know that so I don't fool myself to think that there's always this technical reason why this was chosen or this was chosen you know sometimes you just smile and you say oh and you say wow you're so intelligent to have done that you know you just oh yeah you know I'm always intelligent but you know that is my chance you know what I mean so because I'm because I understand that I understand the spirituality of the creative process it helps me first and foremost humble myself to be able to surrender to that process that happens when we take work from either idea or written um concept in terms of a published play or even not a published play written play towards bringing it onto that stage that sometimes the naughty issues which they had to call for me for the naughty issues which Aganza had to call some other drama church for sometimes the drummer one chorister the costumier sometimes they have the they have the solution they are watching they are seeing and but when you give them that open house you know that everybody can talk come to me there is no you have to go to the stage manager or whatever of course I don't want to row the chaotics um you know group but everybody knows you can always walk to Jude and tell him even the actors Charles will tell you that now you can interrogate me at Charles will say Jude I think we should this whole page should go and I'll ask him why and sometimes I'll ask him I would say are you sure it is not Charles the actor who doesn't want lines talking who's tired of lines or is it you know what I mean I try to find that truth in every decision every confrontation with that art form why are we doing it are you sure you filter yourself just like how you're asking me to filter myself you filter yourself so that we all come with our truths and and it's I'm always happy that when this play is put on stage if it's not authored by me authored by someone else the person comes watches it and the person's like wow I never saw it through this and the person says how do you picture it and I say well this actor was the one who actually spoke to me about you get what I mean that means I am humble enough to understand that because I'm director doesn't mean that everything should come from me everything can be worth the credit interesting yes so everything can be midwife by me where it doesn't have to be birthed by me so you have to bring it out into the open and because I have an overall concept I can now say hmm it's interesting how you you know so let's change this less because because very few people have the overall concept it's my job to have that overall concept but once I can open up those avenues where every other person can engage with the work knowing that their opinions are respected knowing that we interrogate everyone's opinion and everyone's decision then it helps that that creative process come about so that I'm not only self-dramatogen myself everybody is also self-dramatogen and I think at the end of the day we get the best work possible yeah so for me it's spiritual you surrender to the process interesting I know that Ganzer's hand is up so I'll allow Ganzer to to to go ahead Ganzer yes man I'm about to jump off my seat uh Jude I have a question about the process because dramaturgy is time and you said you research and you ask yourself all these why questions and so when I am creating I immediately want to jump into the rehearsal and you know start putting this thing out there so how much time do you give yourself to research and dramaturg the heck out of your work before you share it with people on your team I think first and foremost for me I'm great great question of Ganzer for me it comes from my discipline as a writer from knowing that great writing comes from rewriting so I have been schooled through that prison knowing that the first time I engage is the paper it's not the best it's not the best version of the work I've always been able to finish what I'm writing disengage from it give myself other times of going to just be crazy and then coming back and reading it again and rewriting and read that so so that discipline has come so it also follows me when I read a work I read it and I distance myself again and all the questions and notes I make I go and I go research the notes I find answers and all of that come again and I read it again because sometimes the answers you're looking for are also in the work itself where you just haven't been exposed to the work enough to be able to find those answers so I do that and it's and I I'll go back to being a writer as a writer sometimes you know when you should let the work go you know when okay I think I've edited enough I think it's enough to go so I think that is the same way that I instinctively know when it's time to engage every other person when it's time to take it there and sometimes you see me the first person I share the the the work of art with or whether it's mine self-authored or someone could be the lighting designer and I say hey please read this tell me what you see likewise no other person has seen it and they tell me that I see reds and yellows and all of that sometimes the music you know like the composer because sometimes I need to hear the music of it I need to hear the music of the play because I think for me I first distill it and because I write multi-platform I write poems I write all of that so it also helps me so so I shouldn't be like a guinea pig because I think I'm pretty strange well so because I write all this I write plays I write films I write songs I write all of that when I confront an idea I ask myself what should this idea go into the world as so that I make sure I don't make the mistake of having an idea that comes to me and should be a song making it a play and there's the disjoint you know what I mean or a poem or a short story you expand it into a whole feature-length novel you know so I have to ask myself over and over again what should this idea exist as so I think answering your question at Ganza it all comes from training from the discipline of it because whether we like it or not being an artist being a talented person is 20 percent of it all the other part is hard work diligence repetition perseverance you know mastering of all your emotions being to your primary emotion secondary motion tertiary emotions being able to put yourself through the fire to discipline yourself because at the end of the day we're existing beneath a cloud like the effort of creativity and the ideas that are floating above our heads it finds somebody to birth and when it finds you ready to be obeisance to the sanctity of it it embraces you so that is how I come on well I knew what I was starting off for so interesting interesting metaphors interesting process to your work I wanted three of you to speak to when you're working across geographies what does that mean for example Fumi you've worked you've worked in Nigeria you're working in South Africa in the UK Jude you kind of straddle Canada Nigeria Ganza Uganda and in other places what how does that what what's the the rule of the place the rule of the geography the time the culture the nuances of geography what does it play in all of these things there in all your process that you're talking about yeah meaning meaning can shift from place to place I mean the common one is to say that whilst this means knowing some cultures this means yes in others you know that's a a brief way of sort of saying meaning shifts from place to place but I can't really talk about geography until I've talked a little bit about process and and the importance of process to understand understanding dramaturgy so whether you're self-dramaturging whether you're dramaturging someone else or co-dramaturging or using a dramaturg it it's effective when people understand the process of making theatre because you can't you can't be an outside eye if you don't understand you know you know for example someone brings you into rehearsal and they are doing a staggers through the first the first time they're trying to run the play and then you start giving them feedback as if it's a finished product you can actually crush the process you have to understand that they are they're just staggering through they're doing the first thing and your feedback should refer refer to where they are in the process and the fact they're still flexible to be able to make some changes in a particular direction rather than you're giving them feedback the day before the opening night you know there's a difference so it's understanding the process and like Jude was saying when I'm when I'm a playwright I'm in that writing mode then I move to this writing mode so it's understanding the process and the different roles in theatre like Anganza was saying that when she's making her own play she needed someone to come in to to ask her those questions but the movement was hers the text was hers the performance was hers but she's taking this other feedback because the person is helping her to go deeper into the into those processes so the understanding the process of theatre making and also understanding the conversations that go around the making of theatre why people buy into it why audience buy into it why someone wants to fund it why they want to place it in a particular venue or not why is better to tour this piece or keep it on a in a place so if the dramaturgs sort of understands these processes too so they're trying to institutionally help situate the piece they understand what kind of conversation a funder is interested in they understand you know it's a youth theatre that is trying to engage you they understand what their interest of somebody running a youth theatre is to someone who's running the national theatre you who has a different kind of agenda and the reason why I'm bringing up all these things because all of this has has to do with dramaturgy and I guess the reason why the three of us on this platform tonight is that we play multiple roles because usually people who use dramaturgs or actors dramaturgs tend to do more than one thing because they have to know how to what they have to know the feeling of what it means to be inside or outside and what it takes to nurture someone you know somebody can come on set and say everybody move and they feel they're nurturing you they might feel but because they don't understand the artistic process they might actually shut down the people's confidence you know rather than open it up so I'm just saying it's a prelude to if you're going into a different geographical space you go into a different space of translation because dramaturgy is a lot about dialogue and sometimes dialogue is you're using different languages and when I say different languages when like like Jude gave an example if he shows his play to a playwright and to the lighting person the guy the guy goes I see red I see blue I see green you know it's a different language that person's going to say if he shows it to the choreographer they will say oh there's a lot of movement in act two I really you know people are speaking different languages and then the shift into the geographical space and you're taking this play into a space do people how do people read movement in the next country who's going to help you find out what audiences here respond to and which venues would are the best venues because the venue has a marketing list and they're targeting a certain type of audience so which venue is best for this work in the same city which you put it in one venue it will fall flat you put it in another venue it will be a raging success because of who that venue is marketing to so when you go into another geographical context who are your who are your guides so where to place it to get the audience in to the themes in the play how to interpret that does it need much change or not if you're circulating the same you know you're circulating a certain circuit it might not need to change even in different countries so if a if I'm going to national theaters in different places of the world then you know it might not be much change because the audience is open to that or the audience is quite literate in a certain kind of theater and your work fits into that genre but if you're going to a different circuit so it's not just country different circuits I'm going to fringe venues the audience there that maybe they don't want something so polished they don't like such such polished work they won't work in which they could even somehow enter the stage with you and you understand I remember performing in Amsterdam someone came on the on the stage and danced with us and then got off and we did you know it was a street performance he felt he could do so you know and he would that kind of person might not want to go to the national theater because he cannot get on stage with the performance and dance with them you know so so it has a lot to do with understanding these processes so when you shift geographical location you start thinking in terms of the dialogues around theater and the processes of making theater and where does the translation need to take place interesting Aganta they performed in New York and Abu Dhabi and Uganda and Nairobi and I think whenever I shift place the question that comes is who the audience understand and as a director I think I'm sort of a rebel because I'm not looking to change my piece to suit my audience I want to see how my piece fits the audience so I want to hear and see if they laugh at the same place Ugandan's laugh to see if they cry the same place Ugandan's cry I don't want to change my piece to suit their cultural content and sort of you know make it comfortable for them to understand which takes me back to what we were saying that foreground background concept in a play so does it change if you change the place does the meaning and in the foreground and background also change and I think it does to give an example there was a musical I was rehearsing in New York and we showed it to our colleagues in New York and they were like ah nice sweet very good technique you know and then we took it back to Abu Dhabi which was the place the piece was set with the jokes for the place and with language of the place and the response was so much more bigger and and so in that sort of way the clandestine themes and motifs that were in the background came to the foreground when we took to Abu Dhabi and so as a director and thinking dramaturgically I would say allow the piece to remain as it is and see how it how it fits the context and the culture of the people in that place and how they derive meaning new meaning to your piece or attach their own meaning to it and see what kind of learning can be taken from there. Jude. Yeah you know Ganza was so very right and so also for me and I think that you know there's a time and a place of external engagement when the work of artists traveling across borders going to a new place new geographical setting which has its own cultural symbolism as it's where how does it understand things concept and all but we still have universal themes of hunger love the trail those things that you know we are where wherever it goes people connect to it but how what is the journey of connection is where the concern is what is like you know if you take a play to you take a play to like Abu Dhabi or to an Arabic country where you don't show people the bottom of your shoe because they find it highly insulting and maybe in Nigeria you know if you know showing you can sit down and put your legs all our parents they do it they come back from work they sit down next thing they do they take their legs up they put it on the chair or sorry on a stool it's nothing it's not but if you did that in that culture it is insulting so those so those are the kind of tweaks that you you do because it's what it does it it's it causes misrepresentation in that in that new geographical confine but going to what Aganza said it all also this depends on what is the goal of your play is it to educate these people about a foreign culture for them to understand that the bottom of the shoe is not an insult in every culture do you get what I mean so if you are going to educate them then you have to show the bottom of the shoe in a context where it does not insult the people in the scene and they're like oh Uganda you people do that you know what I mean so it also provokes a dialogue and that also comes to play with what Fumi had said earlier in terms of institutional dramaturgy and you know the marketing dramaturgy and they are telling you this is the goal why we're taking your play from Kampala to Abu Dhabi this is the reason this is just like what what we're saying here decolonizing dramaturgy when we saw the topic we knew there was an agenda so once you understand the agenda why people are dropping money on the table to make sure your work of art travels that you you step in you know you coming you you you fit into it if you are not fitting into it then you just stay home you know so yeah so there's a place for all that you know for me as a self dramaturgy I know when to also add that external person who gives a certain understanding or direction as a concern because if I was if I was going to Scotland now I don't know jack about Scotland apart from their skirts and you know backpiper and all of that is it Scotland or Welsh yeah Scottish backpipes and all yeah so once once you know so I I now have to go to a professional somebody who is more versed and say hey give me direction as regards ABCOD give me understanding as regards this context that context of that context and then I take that understanding of that guidance and I bring it back into the work and of course I morph or merge or do something to it to encapsulate that but that being said just like what Aganza says from even writing I'll just give you a little analogue analogy when I write as I say I write novels and all so you know when you write a novel they tell you you have to italize foreign words or all of that kind of stuff and I say why do you not italize lasagna and you want me to italize a goosey or matoki why and they are like well lasagna is popular I said no if you go to Osho the market and tell it the woman there lasagna she doesn't understand what you're talking of so you get what I mean so I think that sometimes we also have to be able to stand for the greater politics the greater identity politics and say we do not have to always explain ourselves we do not have to always morph to be understood if we can understand you without you muffin then you can as well do the same for us so there's an identity politics that also plays into the whole mix and that has that has to come either externally or from the inside that means if you have enough or toriel deep independence where you can decide what not and what not because I'm sure there are some producers or you know funding organizations who would just drop your play or drop your production if you're insisting on certain things you know but if in the case where you have certain liberties I think you have to stand for the things that do not make you always try to call to or explain after a week we embrace kabuki and theater from Japan and you know all that stuff we appreciate it we come in contact with it and we say this is an external cost this is a culture that is not ours so we come to learn so once your audience is there to learn then you have to have the confidence to also teach and not apologize for or over explain that which you are or that which you're trying to show as long as those things have been modeled or presented around universal themes that are understandable across borders and culture love is love hate is hate betrayal is betrayal and all of that stuff the minute you can capture that is the zeitgeist of it then I think it's home selling free I mean go ahead sorry I was just going to say understanding how to translate doesn't mean you will necessarily have to you necessarily start pandering to the audience it doesn't mean that it's just like you do a saying that you might you understand you understand the context into which you're entering and therefore you understand for example I am going to get my actor to put his feet on a stool and the audience is going to see the bottom of the shoe and they see this as an insult in this country you you're doing it knowingly do so I mean if you just do decide to do it you do it knowing and you know how to frame your production you know so that that is what it requires because then you can make make those decisions and you and you know you know there was a situation in London I think a few years ago where there was an artist who did a production at the Barbican and there was a riot you know he was doing depictions of you know the human zoos in that happened in colonial times where black people people of color were exhibited in in a zoo context you know and a group or an organized a black led organization shut the production down and you know some black people said no you should have gone ahead we wanted to actually have the historical experience of it and of it and they said oh but it was a white director who staged it you know and he has no right to tell that traumatic history it's not his history so why is he telling the history um I wondered and so this is a high I wondered if there had been other discussions prior to the discussion prior to the staging of that because there were black actors in it who you know they wrote an article saying the reason why they agreed to be in this production and they're performing in it is that it is a part of a traumatic part of black history and they wanted that history to be recreated and asked to reflect on it again so it wasn't everybody in the black you know it wasn't every black audience that didn't feel this human zoo should be staged so I did wonder whether because of the type of story there needed to be some communal discussion you know some educational projects some discussion where different groups different black black-led groups may get to discuss this maybe they would have wanted to be in it or have some role in the curation of it for it to go ahead so I'm talking about depending on the nature of your production I do think there's a drama because the production has political social cultural spiritual ramifications and certain plays like you know really take it you know on the nose sort of you know and in that case if you look at yourself and this is why sometimes one has to as an as an artist you say who am I that's part of the drama tragedy who am I in the telling of this story um and the artistic director who am I in the telling my story was are there certain groups that will will will accept the story but not you telling it then how do you mitigate that so you know the the whole thing of translating is understanding art and artists and processes um not necessarily to do everything to please the audience but to know when those conversations need to be had or how to frame or where to give space for the audience to speak back is it a q and a is it a workshop you know where they can have this you know engagement interesting and the three of you you've clearly kind of switch us to the second aspect of of of all you know the the intention of this of this series itself by by really using the the idea of decolonization you know decolonizing dramatogy and I'm and my next question then for 43 of you will really be to really speak to that what does that mean for you or and how do you how do you see that when we're calling for in the first episode one of the things and for me did ask me the question just to give you you know more context here what am I calling for drama to decolonize dramaturgy and I said well I think for me the main you know one of the basic thing I'm hoping that these can help us to offer the opportunity to speak about bigger issues within the context of theater making on the continents and from theater you know makers you know who are Africans or from whether but even other part of the world and of course considering you know the political the the the aesthetics the humane components of what it means to to to to put your performance and stuff on stage so I think the prompt for the three of you to and you kind of started that already and maybe I'll start with Jude when you think of that what does that when the calling for decolonizing dramaturgy what does that evoke for you what ideas does that evoke for you considering the fact that you've worked across you know different continents and you're still working and of course for guns that is something I think it's something I just want to put that out there for three of you and and then I also want to encourage our audience that are here to you know if you have questions please feel free to put that in the chat you will get to us and we can attend to that over to you uh jude yeah thanks a lot for that um yeah for me um it's it's it comes to me when I saw that um as the title as you were of this experience of this webinar or whatever we call this I had said to myself how do we decolonize dramaturgy and first things the first things that came to me was the amount of inherited paradigms within which we exist as people both as people who are schooled through a certain doesn't even have to be tertiary wouldn't write from our childhood the kind of symbols you know the kind of books we learn with they're all foreign as if you go to a certain kind of school which is basically I think I think it's just recently now that they're encouraging more African authorship in you know pre well I said pre primary school primary school and secondary school and all of that but before then we were reading the same books that children were living reading in the UK or in Germany or in France for people who were coming from France from Africa and we what happened to us was that we started looking at what was of us as in theory and we started looking as being educated as being western we did not understand that there is something that has to do with your inherent unnatural state of progress as it exists in the local within which you were born we even coined the phrase they'll say man that person get native intelligence and native intelligence wasn't as even though it was as it was it helped you survive more in the local within which you existed but it wasn't something you were advised to have if you were crossing if you were traveling to london as hell forget is your native intelligence don't go down you know what I mean so so when we decolonize we have to first and foremost first we in the identity politics which is what fuming said and and ganza first ask ourselves who are we are we enough are we full are we complete as we are do we have anything to add into the global discourse of self that itself is enabling enough towards a higher purpose do we always have to take from the external do we always have to take to be added upon for us to become shouldn't we also contribute so that others too will become so the minute we start understanding that that we also start approaching dramaturgy from that same kind of construct by saying that if I'm going to do death and the king's houseman today which I had I'll just do a little analogy so they are adapting it for cinema death and the king's houseman it's actually being shot at the moment and I was speaking to someone two days ago who has some you know was speaking to the I think the PA I've forgotten the person on the set but someone up there and they were having this huge argument about the role of horses in the transformation in the adaptation of play to screen that should there be horses and a certain number of them will say no they don't have no you don't have to put horses because the horse is a symbolic is a symbolic representation it did not mean that the horse man actually who had the horse that it meant more like he was right I don't know if I'm sure you guys have read of course death and king's houseman that it just meant he was the rider into just like when when they say the the four riders of the apocalypse they don't you know what I mean that so but the question is when you go to to the local that the play itself was set you ask yourself when the king comes out the oba comes out how does he come out is there a rider but the funny thing is that there's actually the riders they're actually the horses that have garlands on them beautifully embroidered clothes on them and everything so in our culture there's actually a representation of that horse but these people who want to make this film are thinking of how the film would translate to the west because obviously it is Netflix and Netflix has come from America so even without I don't know what the brief is maybe Netflix said they should but we find ourselves that even when we're not asked to do it we're always thinking about how do we receive it our default is to panda is to explain is to apologize for and all of that stuff so when we start decolonizing dramatic such things we have to start asking ourselves do we also have our own body of thoughts body of understanding constructs ways because remember how how the theater how did theater exist here you know I went to the University of Nevada when they start teaching us about theater what did they start oh um um first being in greek in the greek whatever in the this in the that nobody's telling you how it started you know what I mean so even our schooling is already telling us that these things did not start from us but we know because our parents have been they understood theater even just the worship of of the ocean river was was theater there was a space there was an object there was a goal there were characters what is a play again what is a theatrical um um performance if that is not it you know and there was actually an orgasmic experience that took place so there was a beginning a middle and an end do you get what I mean so we have to start coming back to the table and say hey no no no no let's revise these things let's revise these things that exist in your own um microcosm of thoughts also exist in ours and now let's start comparing and appreciating ourselves across the aisle so that you will learn some things from us just like how we've learned from you you know things like that so I think that um for me that's against the same I haven't seen her work but if you confront my work is the same thing you will see I'll do another quick analogy I did a play called threesome here in Lagos and um it was a very sexually themed play and I was going to I was going to show sexuality without apology because everybody was like oh Jude you couldn't do this and I said I was going to put nudity I was going to put nudity on stage and they said oh it's never been done in Nigeria they will kill you they will hang you by your neck they will do all of that stuff and I said well somebody has to do it and it's going to be me but I also understood how do I present nudity that it doesn't come across as nudity for nudity sex so I had to play obviously not only the politics of sex itself I also had to play the gender politics so if the woman was going to be nude the man had to be nude and I had to ask my question I had to ask myself the question the embodiment or the visual of a naked woman is it as contentious as the visual of a naked man and I realized it is different you get what I mean so I had to say okay so since it is different how is it that I will show the naked woman and show the man in a sort of nude way that it ameliorates whatever argument will come but at the end of the day to cut a short story long story short I put the naked woman on stage I put the naked guy on stage but in a different construct of you know what part of him you could see and immediately people appreciated it more and when they were asking me questions oh Jude how can you how can I said no no if you go to the villages if you go to Bennet Republic to the market in Bennet Republic all the women are topless they are topless because in our social systems we never looked at the breasts as a sexual object it was the worst that sexualized it the brazier it's it was imported right it was the breast that you know it was mammary glands it was something to nurture the child and all of that this so I said look we cannot say that because these people say the Victorian their Victorian sensibilities are pretty shantighted you cannot save the demonized sex we should also demonize it for them to accept it no we have to introduce sex the way we sought sex so I think that when we decolonize decolonize dramaturgy that's where we're coming from we're coming first from the place of understanding who we are understanding that we have a voice understanding that we also have a as glorified a body of knowledge as they have that has that has roots in our century you know and then we also have to have the guts to say that we will do come what may and as they say when something's repeated over and over and over again the people that we see if it have no other choice but accept it thank you thanks Jude which is a Gansan and for me and maybe as you answer the question there's a question in the chat already I know that thanks to Jude he gave up some examples already in the context of the question that he's answering but there's a question here this is so pleased to be part of this can any of the panelists share an example where production successfully consulted with a specific cultural community to develop and stage a production I'm not trying to shift our attention away from the question on decolonize dramaturgy but if there's a possibility to bring them together in your response with especially with examples that would be very helpful and we have 10 more minutes to wrap up so I want to respect your time over to you Aganta and then after Aganta we go to Fumi. Okay thank you Taiwo I don't think I can comment on the question in the chat so maybe for me or Jude can take that on with regards to decolonizing dramaturgy I think it's an opportunity I say it's an opportunity because we have an opportunity to unlearn and learn new ways of dramaturgy or dramatizing ourselves at my school I love teaching because our approach is to bring the western techniques you know all these drama techniques and find their equal in a Ugandan context and I love doing that in class because we say a word very simple word like gnarled and you know in class people be like gnarled what's that gnarled and so we'll find what it is in Uganda or whatever language the participants in the class are speaking or take something in voice class like saying ah what is ah in a Ugandan context it's cut and sharp so we're taking these techniques and we're questioning them for ourselves and sort of rewriting drama for ourselves because it's there we have it but perhaps we don't have the wording for it the knowledge for it so let us let us write it for ourselves let us unlearn and rewrite for ourselves so I see it as an opportunity and I think Jude hit the nail on the head but I would say before we show them who we are we have to show ourselves because there's a whole lot of decolonizing that has to happen generationally we are ingrained in this I was born into it so before we we take this out I'd say we have to take it to ourselves and teach ourselves what we already have and show ourselves how to appreciate it from changing our books to our songs our terms our techniques our definitions our sounds our pedagogy right from the roots talking nursery and kindergarten and showing that we are enough the the storytelling we do around the fire that has a five-act structure a three-act structure that's enough but let's let's learn how to see the dramaturgical opportunity in it let's still learn how to see the director opportunity in it the playwright opportunity in it and after we can embrace ourselves and and our stories then we can show it to the world in an authentic self without what Jude said without apologizing without explaining we take it with confidence that's my two cents on that for me well wow that was lovely to listen to because you both approach the same topic with different lenses both very very relevant and yeah I when I think of I come very much from institutional context and maybe that's driven a bit from academic side dance companies the national dance company started to be started to be established in Africa running up to the independence a lot of companies ran their own national troops or to project the identity of the independent nations how many books have you read on a national dance company from Africa I know someone's written on Senegal Ghana I don't think we've written very much we have departments of theater arts all over Nigeria we have so many universities in Nigeria alone I know that their directors actresses and performers who have developed techniques of performance for the stage for the television like a ganza is saying a ganza is in a process of creating a form of pedigogy right now and you know the academic in me is is very excited but I know people have done that and there's no documentation and there's amatu braid of blessed memory she was doing her master's degree when I was a BA student and she created a technique which people used to call the brady and technique and she used to use a rhythm to develop a rhythm scape into which you could incorporate several traditional dances and create you know quite a spectacular performance and people were you quite mesmerized with how she'll bring dancers in and dancers out she passed away and as far as I know that that knowledge has gone with her accepted I managed to track down some of her students at University of Port Harcourt in the 90s and we've we've we've all had with the coming of TV and the coming of a film and stage in Africa we've had great performers and directors and choreographers who have created methodologies in order for their work to work in that context yes they usually bring traditional methods and cultures and performance practices into these institutions but they've created a method of using them there because we don't really name our processes and because we haven't really written history of television in Africa history of theater in Africa history of you know we haven't written written that we let a lot of the knowledge we create disappear now the problem I have with that is this young people born in Africa today were born there with television and the internet and mobile phones and film if you tell them this came from the white man they'll just look at you they grew up with it yet when they want to read the history of it they will probably have to refer only to foreign counterparts but we have actually run these institutions ourselves for at least 60 years post independence and we still talk as if we don't we don't own them we own them sorry they're indigenized now the way I run theater in Nigeria is not the way I would run in England there's an indeed yes we've taken a western framework but we've made it our own if you talked you know we've made our own traditional people have never gone to uh you know western style school they take they take they've taken the stage you know um Herbert Oguinde who was ran the first professional theater in Nigeria in the 1940s did not study abroad he didn't go to Rosebrook or rather you know he learned some things from the church he learned some things from masquerade performances he created his own theater technique he sometimes went abroad and took summer uh summer courses but basically it was what's due to the native sense that he used to create work that went international his films went abroad and they came back there's one book on the man Laban Rudolf Laban Rush German who created a system of movement analysis I've read about 12 books on him alone let alone Herbert Oguinde has one he did several things you know and I think this idea when I say the institutional modernity we've absorbed so many uh western frameworks post independence but we should stop calling them as if they belong somewhere else because we have used them we've made them our own we've created techniques but I feel there's a problem in that we're not recording what people have done with them and until we do that we are going to feel um we don't we don't appear in these histories like um Aganza was saying before we came on air that a lot of people do dramaturgy in Africa they don't call themselves dramaturgy because they don't call themselves dramaturgy what they do is not documented it's not put in a book it's not told to anyone and if someone wants to become a dramaturgy they have to make um always take a foreign reference point so that's where I'm coming from with this idea of drama uh of decolonizing dramaturgy like Aganza said we have to decolonize it for ourselves and say who we are and what we've been doing with with a western framework of theater which we've adopted we've adapted we've made it our own what have we done with it I would like to know the history of that I would like to see it documented I'd like to see it talked and then people can be happy I like Japanese butto I also do some of that but hey ho I know you know what my grandmother did in the village um she was an amazing dancer that also is a technique oh interesting we have just um how many minutes just no more minutes to wrap up so we have to wrap up now um this is really exciting uh Jude do you have any last thoughts I know that you were we started on on your note do you have any last thing to say I would totally just allow you to ask that question because someone was asking if there has been any successful production where there was an engagement with the community you had spoken about that so want to um share that with them or if you want someone else to I'm happy to but does anybody when I know that um would love you know you are you are for me to share that doesn't want to share that I don't want to take the space from both the three of you as to anybody any of you do you have any any response to that question so I would just jump in quickly go you want me to go yeah go ahead Jude if you have an example go ahead please yeah I could I could um okay um I would just share a quick example of a sort of provisional play um of mine where we had to tell a story about um a village in Badden which is when I was school I finished and I had to go back there to tell a story about a village where they were using we're trying to the reason why um a lot of twins were being born in the community like it's I think they've had and they wanted to find out what the reason was at all and the united I think was UNDP or one of them in UNESCO or something like that they wanted to engage the community and in engaging the community that's where community theater came we had to first get their buy-in so that they open up to us to reveal to us what and what was the issue or what the reasons were and before they were very who's not who's style but they were very close towards this these foreigners coming to find out stuff about them so I had to construct or conceptualize a play that showed that a futuristic play so I really play that posited that if you did help us this was what and what and what this is how it will look like if you and I work together so I showed them the future in the present and when we brought that into the community some of them engaged with us and at the end of the play I remember the performance once it was done people were crowding towards and trying to explain to us and I was like ah Irone that thing we showed is not that's not the real reason and immediately this information that the UNDP or UNESCO I can't remember one of the United Nations bodies have been trying for years to get from these people right there that night they said they were like we've gotten so much information I wouldn't even know what to choose but we had to show them what their engagement with us will look like in terms of what the future will look like and all I just needed was a couple of them like you know the village head and all those kind of people people in leadership to accept me coming with this theater and concept to share it with the entire village before it um it um it certainly got embraced and the solution was good so I think that can answer that question at a time where um I engage the community just need some certain um key policy holders once those ones engage with you then they introduce it to the community community embraces your if your work is all inclusive it does not denigrate the right to get their customs and all of that and then it shows them what the future will look like those were the things that I did and you know respecting their culture using their languages and their idiomatic expressions and symbols and all of that and you could see even after they played it we're coming back and they'll say that's that's part of the lady wall she was supposed to tie it up here not here we say oh sorry we didn't know now we know next time we'll tie it and when we did the next presentation the next day they saw that we had made all those adjustments based on the feedback they gave us and immediately they were telling us when next time we're coming they're going to bring people from the next villages and we ended about something I was supposed to be for a short while we ended up staying so far because we wanted to take us everywhere so I think it's wonderful when the community buys into um whatever you want to do theatrically because you show them that their worthy of some their worthy of being studied their worthy of being documented as what for me said which is very very important that documentation so the minute we told them that we've recorded it we're writing about this stuff and we're telling us oh when we bring it they want to give it to their children because their children now nowadays they just want to go to the city and forget about what was done in the village I think it's it was a great experience and I hope that there'll be other forums where um I can replicate that engagement and any other person out there who's listening can also um replicate it so always remember it's all about respect respect the people and they will embrace you now thank you so much Jude and to add it later just to say that I think the ethics of community engagement the ethics of knowledge generation and knowledge mobilization so that even whatever we document it always go back to the people not like you know so that it not like it becomes extractive those are all those ethical issues that really make those kind of engagement and partnership very successful I'd like to thank you the three of you Aganza for me and Jude thank you for taking the time we're five minutes ahead of our time my apologies to our viewers and to the three of you and to to Brendan and and Sarika and of course to Akira Kapsuna thank you so much for taking the time to be here today we look forward to seeing you next week for the fourth episode which is going to be recorded we've recorded it we're going to play it it won't be the same like this live Q&A session we're going to add next week thank you so much to all of you and then we really appreciate you for your time for your resources on your thoughtfulness on my end I'll see you next week and bye