Episode 41: Pangea World Theater - Chapter 1

Pangea World Theater Ch.1

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[00:00:21] Dipankar Mukherjee: These are the questions we ask ourselves every day, as a theater with a 25-year history of standing for justice. We hold ourselves accountable to these questions. We create our program. Accordingly

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[00:01:03] DM: It's almost a new nomenclature is required to describe the work that is demanded when a community is burning, when it is attacked. Pangea offers up the possibility of healing. When artists step up in the front lines to document, to listen, to create. To envision to move, to organize.

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[00:01:44] DM: Pangea is relevant theater. This moment now. It demands renewed courage and shared imagination.

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This is. Change the Story, Change the World. My name is Bill Cleveland.

Part One: Total Theater

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[00:03:16] BC: And my part of this conversation is originating from Alameda, California, which is located on the unseated homelands of the Chochenyo people, of the Muwekema Ohlone tribe.

So when you encounter people anew who do not know your history and your story, how do you describe. Pangea and its work?

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We call ourselves theater because in India, theater is defined as many things. It's not limited. It's got music, dance, visual artists. All of that is part of our theater of life, and I would describe Pangea as a space which brings together people from many different backgrounds and ethnicities from across differences, to create work together in a way that is real and authentic and messy. [It] is truly a space of collaboration where process is as important, if not more than the product that we create, and the work has always been relational and, organic in the way that is created. That's how I would describe Pangea where we care for the whole person, where people bring everything that they have, into work. And this artificial separation between work and life doesn't exist, and the work still gets done in a really beautiful and rigorous way.

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[00:05:08] DM: Yes. First off, it is an honor Bill to be with you again. I consider you my mentor in many ways, and I've learnt a lot from you, and you are a friend of my soulmate J. Otis Powell. And so it's sad. It's so great to be in the same space with you.

My name is Dipankar Mukherjee. I'm a co-artistic director of Pangea World Theater, and what we are today is different from if we had to introduce ourselves last year, before May 26th. Now we are an expedited space of accountability, relevance, at the confluence of social justice and art. We swim in that water through listening, through activating, through stewarding, through standing in support and constantly redefining what solidarity means, and moving the word solidarity away from the dusty shelves of philosophy, to the practical rigor of,of doing and that's who we are today.

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[00:06:38] MN: I think because theater is an activity that actually requires other humans to be in the same space, the epidemic has been very hard for us in that way. Because you know, theater is a living human beings performing in front of other living human beings and you've seen the breadth of that person, and it's so immediate and so visceral. And that's hard to capture in any other medium.

One of the things that we've done is taken a lot of our work outdoors, and it's hard to do that in winter in this community. We've done a lot of zoom in winter.

I would say for me, theater is that space of immediacy, that place I can really emotionally move people in such an amazing way. Coming from the dramaturgy that we do, which is Indian theater… In India, like what we believe in is something called a total theater, which is music, dance, words. It's not separate from each other. They're all part of the same equation. They're all in the story, and it's always a circle.

There's a theory in, the Natyashastra, which is the Indian treatise of dramaturgy, that says that 50% of the work is done by artists on stage, but the other 50% requires the audience. And so for me, that theater is that sacred space that we create between artists and audience.

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[00:08:20] MN: Yes, definitely. it's a ritual, right? So, it's that creating a ritual between the, actors and then the audience.

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[00:08:40] DM: What is, never ceases to be. What is not, never was. So geologically, the word Pangea is a "pan" is all and Gaia is the goddess of the earth. So before the continent separated, we were together, that land mass was called Pangea. So the land existed before humans did. So the Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis came about when we really dreamt of a space that was needed of intersections. The rivers meet.

I came to the Twin Cities, as a resident director of the Guthrie Theater, and I was there for a few years, and I went and saw a different theater. There was Theatre Latino, Theater Del Pueblo, you had The Asian American Renaissance Theater MU, Penumbra, and all these, places had their own small sectional audience. But when I went to see a film festival, when the credits roll up [it would say] “Unit in Ireland”, “Unit in England”, “Unit in Afghanistan”, "Unit in Fiji”, and then I go to see the (Cedar) Cultural Center over here and that whole curatorial vision of world music.

What is it about theater where we become so sectional? We wanted to create a safe space it is not in a Pollyanna-ish “we are the world, God is in heaven. Everything is good on earth,” type of… but a space where all of us sit in a circle and only the work is in the center. A collaborative space of debate, of agreement, disagreement, listening, non-listening with all its dyfunctionality, and functionality, and sanctity, and profanity, and everything but we had one request that we will not leave the room with residue in our heart. And of course we come together because of theater. We come to work together because of skeletal, muscular rigor, and a shared imagination. So we wanted to create that space. And I think in North America it is so needed, because I think in a larger context, our identity based politics is actually, a hindrance to genuine solidarity. I would say once upon a time, the people existed, the art has always existed. Imagination has always existed, but we wanted to create a space where we co-exist and really honor the interdependence of a sociopolitical cultural reality And that is the field, which we have tilled for 25 years now.

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[00:12:49] MN: Yes, absolutely. And so much gets solved in that embodied practice as well. Often I feel being used so many words in this culture. And so so much is also in the unsaid. And, and in some ways in this country, it's difficult to leave things unsaid because we all come from such different places and worldviews. And at the same time, I think the is one place that you can actually work through things in an embodied, kind of way.

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[00:13:37] MN: Yeah, and I think a facilitator in that process is such an important practice, right? You're an amazing facilitator. You've facilitated many programs for us. So it is important to actually to have good facilitation. It also doesn't happen by itself I think, and there's also the intention and the commitment, to do that, and I think that's why the intention set of let's not leave the room with a residue in our hearts… and frankly speaking, how on us can we expect to have peace and harmony outside in the world If you cannot have peace and harmony between the 20 people that are willing to get that in a piece?

Part Two: The Corner of 12th and East Lake.

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[00:14:37] MN: Definitely performances with the people on stage from completely different backgrounds, possibly different languages in the same piece. It could be a classical text, or it could be a lot of original work that they would come and see in our theater. Also, we have been commissioning a lot of visual artists, more in the last few years, so they might come and see a mural in our beautiful city of Minneapolis at the corner of 12th and East Lake Street, which we created.

Right now we're in the middle of a piece by Angela Two Stars. who is a Dakota artist. It's a piece called the Transition Stage, and we're, collaborating with the church and I've commissioned this piece for the healing of our neighborhood. And as you know, Minneapolis has been the site of an enormous upheaval, ever since Mr. Floyd got murdered on the street, which is about two miles from our offices. After that, there was an uprising in the place that we live less than a mile away in front of the third police precinct. A lot of the buildings around there got completely burnt to the ground. Restaurants that we worked with closed, businesses that we worked with closed, nothing is there anymore.

And so right opposite the third precinct there was a liquor store before and now it's just land, and the store owner has graciously given us permission to do something in that space. So we have commissioned, this, Dakota Artist. So she's building a giant cocoon, and this is commissioned by the local church around the corner and Pangea, and people are putting their lamentations and their hopes for the street on the cocoon.

which we've been doing since: 2014

We just recently completed a program called, Poetry in the Windows where we went and stuck the words of poets on the windows of businesses to bring people into Lake Street businesses so that they can, then, experience the amazing people who live on Lake [Street], who work on Lake Street. The immigrants, the indigenous people, the people of color and all the other businesses that have been there for a hundred years.

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You suggested Poetry in the Windows, the need, when there was construction on the street or Lake Street. Most of the businesses over here are owned by immigrants, and the moment winter finishes you have construction. Who wants to deal with that traffic? And so it really affected the business. We live in Minneapolis, along Lake Street, our friends owned these businesses, the idea that we'll do a poetry crawl, so the poet will read the poem, and then the idea that all these people outside, we go into the businesses, and then of course, that was the first incarnation of poetry in the windows when we did it. And the second incarnation is post, brother Floyd’s murder and everything is boarded up now to the businesses are open. So the need is the economic vitality, or economic livability, for these immigrant businesses to sustain themselves, and therefore, Ellen Hinchcliffe with a brilliant curator curated this call-out for poets to talk about Lake Street, to talk about memory of whatever gone down on Lake Street, and then we curated about 25 poets, and there two feet by three feet poetry clings. First we develop relationally, then they give us a window, and then we put it up, and then all on lake street, the idea that we'll do a poetry crawl so the poet will read

Documentary Excerpt: Poetry in the Windows poets

Louis Alemalyeu: If you look deep into my grandparents' faces into their eyes, you would see that all the world merges into one dream. One linking unity, like the earth, the sun, the righteous rain

Rush Merchant: Strength has always been a numbers game. We all add up to one.

Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe: Now say black — not a question. Universes are speaking the back of your throat. Felts it unfurling.

Rush Merchant: There is a dangerous thirst for all to be right with the world, no matter who must pay with their lives.

Sagirah Shahid:. Don't confuse what people survive or how they are stolen with who they are. This tolerance I felt guilty for wanting in the middle of lake streets for you to tease our out your white boy grin. Again, my insights purged the reaper. The street was like flypaper then after that

Louis Alemalyeu: Caked with a muddy love caring, our one soul to a new earth, a new birth

DM: And the people outside go into the businesses, and that's the dream. Each of our programs, there's a need you know, and therefore the programs get birthed. We have never had the privilege of, what is it? A room of my own. Our privilege is that we are on the soil, and the need of the soil dictates our season.

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[00:21:24] DM: I love that “as it ever was”, it never was what it was.

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[00:21:24] MN: There are so many stories, both inside the theater, as well as outside the theater. In 2012 to 2014, we've worked in our Lake Street Arts Program prior to being called Lake Street Arts, it was called Hyphenations. So we were working with a Latinex community. in Minneapolis. So what happened was that we were doing a play about crossing the border, about what it meant, how difficult it was, because these were all people who are immigrants.

And I remember there were several people from the Somali community who came to that show and they looked at that show and they said, whatever it is that you're doing here with that community, we want that. And that was a very moving moment for us. And what we said instead was, that we would love that to happen, and we could do that. But what we really are also passionate about is bringing Latinex, Somali, and indigenous communities together on this. And if you are up for that, we would love to make that happen.

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[00:22:13] MN: Yeah and I think that I prefer the word solidarity, because solidarity is a more active word, but perhaps that's just a dancing with words is as opposed to actually doing the thing, which is doing the indescribable, and words are so inadequate sometimes.

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So what you're describing is something that is not common in traditional theater, which is, we don't have a piece we're making a piece. The piece is made by the people whose story is being told, and the process has structure, but each piece will be a different journey, a different path, Dipankar could you describe for someone who is not familiar with this kind of making? What happens when you get people who are, new collaborators, new to a community of making together? How does it go from beginning to middle to end so there actually is a piece that occurs on stage?

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You know, Bill, we all know our stories, so they know their stories. Maybe we provided the scaffolding in which the stories are, or our sacred bulls in which the stories are honored, and their stories are validated. And that's why I'm very consciously using the word sacred bulls, because the words have always been there, the stories have always been there. Nobody gets up in the morning and says, I am a marginal voice. Nobody gets up in the morning and says, “today let's gather the children and say, let's go stay in the margins”. This center margin mindset never existed. It has been enforced by people who are particular, [and have a] particular mindset, which are afraid that the membrane is porous, and so the stories have always existed, the stories [just] needed to be shared, the stories desires to be shared.

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[00:26:12] DM: It begins with number one, how do we amplify those stories? But then when we enter and start building the scaffolding, we do it in a very definitive gingerliness, because while you are just bringing the scaffolding there, there are elders from that community who come and say, “no, put it there, put it here.” Then they know how their stories need to be told. They know it.

But of course, just like in every story, there are some patriarchs who need to be listened to, but they cannot hold the whole canvas. So what we do, yes, we identify, progressive voices, youth voices, elders, people that are marginalized, LGBTQ communities, and what we do is make sure that the multiple voices, multiple realities are present, and then once their stories are told, we have a process of asking people, okay, what are the five, top five issues of five topics that we want to say. From five we say, okay, let's choose three. Then it's amazing how, ultimately there are some intersectionalities, and we arrive at certain stories in which everybody has been the architect. It’s not that we direct it all the time, we write it all the time.

Within the community, by that time, a writer has evolved, a director has evolved, a choreographer, etc because it always existed. It's just that you don't know them because you have never invited them home. That's why I take umbrage when people say, they give voice to the voiceless. The point is you have put a hearing aid now, that's the only thing. You’re not giving any fucking voice to any voiceless.

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When you enter a room, the ensemble gets created every day. The circle actually always quotes you Bill. And he says every time you come back, you have to create the cycle all over again. And he knows how to get really the best embodied work out of the actors There is a common sense of space that people enter into, so that people focused on the work and not themselves, and those are very important little practices that help create the work in a way that people bring their best selves.

Part Three: Directing for the Ritual Fire

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[00:29:15] MN: Right, and so we run this directing institute since 2012, and it's called the national Institute for directing and ensemble creation. It really was specifically created for people of color and women directors, because when we were doing our research between 2008 to 2012, we found that there were not many people of color directing, or even women directors directing, and especially main stages of even regional theaters. They were in the little boxes.

So we felt that we really needed to create this pilot, and it's been going on amazingly. We've also had pre gatherings of indigenous theaters again, because we felt that that was one community that had been overlooked.

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Documentary excerpt with various Director’s Institute participants~

Malek Najjar: We are truly one and interconnected.

Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe: Just the humanity and the room is going to change my bravery.

Haili’opua Baker: Connections that we've made here today, I think will impact me for the rest of my artistic life, and perhaps personal life as well. We are creating a support system and network, so that we can draw upon each other, I think for years to come.

Keryl McCord: I hope that the Institute ultimately turns the idea of directing and acting on its head. The impact that this will have on the field as it continues is huge.

Walken Schweigert: It’s deepening my practice in ways that I didn't know that I needed. It's affirming things in myself that I didn't know, I needed to be affirmed. It's giving me insights into the incredibly varied ways that people are like really committing themselves, and diving deeply into these questions of art related to ceremony, related to ritual, related to justice, and it’s beautiful.

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[00:32:00] DM: Absolutely, absolutely, and Bill, just to go back in the process, we have professional playwrights directors, lighting designers, sound designers, and some of them have degrees, some of them have no degrees. Most of my teachers in India never even saw a degree, in fact, they make fun of my degree. But the point is, there is this terminology, I used to speak so powerfully about my community. Then a friend of mine said that, “you're not doing communities yet”, and I said, “what do you mean you're doing professional theater?” I said, “of course, what else do I do?” I then I realized that, oh my God, there is this hierarchy, the caste system, the unspoken caste system of theater that is university theater, there is community theater, then there is professional theater.

I said, man, we have to take all these definitions, and burn it in the ritual file of art, and then from the ashes, let's start creating work that matters. So to me, It's like jazz. Like J. Otis says, the cats get together. and the cats go to play, and then out of five, four people step back and one leads, and we are holding the rhythm. And then that person steps back.The other person comes back.

So these are all ace, fucking professionals. Sharon Day she's 69, she has spent more than 45 years of her life creating theater, creating art. She does not have a degree, but she can take multiple MFA, BFAs together, chew us together, and spit us out.

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Missouri River Walk Documentary Excerpt

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You spend your entire day, passing the water from one person to another walking a mile, handing the water to another person and saying, you know, Ninga Izhichige Nibi Onji, I will do it for the water.

We walked through so many, uh, tribal lands, and beautiful lands, but we also saw, um, what we've done to the rivers.

There's a largest earthen dam in the world in Montana, on the Missouri. You have the Bakken oil fields, and of course we walked through standing rock. If we can learn to make that connection with the water, and respect and honor the water, love the water, ask for forgiveness that we can then treat each other that same way with respect and kindness and love.

It's unbelievable to me that people can not look at me and see a human being, that people can not look at my grandchildren and see them as human beings, that they can not look at them and see that they are a precious star.

So, hopefully this play will get people to say a group of women, five women, who didn't know each other embark on this journey of 53 days, and at the end that we became family. And hopefully people will see if we can become family in a particular act of trying to save the water. That that can transform itself into other work in their day to day life. We just had a water ceremony here this morning, and I told everybody in the circle, “you must do more, and we all most do more.”

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[00:36:15] DM: The craft does not build the pyramids . Generation has dug the foundation, and other generations builds the foundation. [The] third generation builds the temple.

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[00:36:46] BC: That's a powerful and straightforward question, Meena, and a good one, I think, to end the first part of our conversation, which will continue in our next episode.

So listeners, please join us for chapter two of the Pangea World Theater Story. Change the Story, Change the World, is a production of The Center for the Study of Art and Community. Our theme and soundscape are created by the brilliant Judy Munson. Our senior editor is Andre Nnebe. Our FX department lives on the web at freesound.org. And our inspiration as always comes from the mysterious lurking presence of Uke 235.

Thanks to you for tuning in and please keep safe, stay well, and spread the good word.