[MUSIC]
Welcome everybody and thanks
for joining us here at our show tonight.
My name is Jordan Rosin,
and I am a company member here with The Ume Group.
In a moment I'll find my notes,
and tell you what I have to say.
[LAUGHTER] Which is,
that tonight's performance is being recorded,
and may be released publicly as
part of, Storytelling On Screen.
Which is an Open Access Online Educational Resource
about Playback Theatre,
published by Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University under
Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial ShareAlike
4.0 license.
To learn more about this Creative Commons license,
you can click the link that we're dropping in the chat.
In light of the open access nature of this recording,
we do encourage you to monitor your own participation,
to make sure that you feel safe and comfortable with
whatever stories you may choose to share tonight.
If you have any questions,
or need to revoke your consent,
feel free to contact me,
Jordan Rosin at jrosin@vt.edu.
At this point, it's my great pleasure to
hand it over to our conductors for
the evening, Jorge and Yokko.
Hi everyone, my name is Jorge,
and I'll be the co-conductor today along with Yokko.
Hi, my name is Yokko.
I'm conductor with Jorge tonight.
We going to [OVERLAPPING] facilitate the event tonight.
Yeah, we're essentially going to be
hosting or taking you, showing you around.
Let's just get over some details of tech stuff.
First off, [NOISE] the show
is better enjoyed if you have
high non-video participants clicked.
For that, if you click on
the three little dots on any video,
and if not, I'll take you through the long way,
because that's the way I know actually, let's do that.
[LAUGHTER] If you go to Settings,
if you go to down by where your video is,
there's an upright arrow, you click on that,
you click on "Video Settings",
you scroll down on that,
and there will be a box that
says, Hide non-video participants.
It's right underneath where it says,
Always show previewed dialogue
when joining video meeting.
That should be clicked,
so that all cameras when they're off, they disappear.
We don't have that name up top, or showing.
Show is also best enjoyed if everyone is on gallery view,
so I want you to go ahead
and click on "Gallery View" right now please.
We should also go ahead
and practice muting, and unmuting.
You go ahead, bottom left corner of your Zoom screen,
there's a microphone there.
You click on that,
a red strike line should come up.
That means you're muted.
When you click on that again, you're unmuted.
Same for video. You can go ahead and practice now,
I'm going to do mine, Kapow.
You click bottom left,
where it says, Camera on or off.
Your camera magically comes on and off.
You're beautiful.
Practice. Lets heck on the chat and see what's up.
Welcome. Excellent. Beautiful. Let's just
go ahead and define what playback is.
I think I will do it in a very personal way.
I'm not the owner of Playback,
so I'll tell you what it means for me.
It definitely means, that it's about creating
a space where we can share or reflect stories,
that would otherwise go untold.
That would otherwise be put in the corner.
It's a place where we can get together and have fun,
while giving airtime to stories
that we don't often share.
We definitely believe that
everyone's story deserves to be told,
and everyone deserves to be heard.
I'll pass it onto Yokko.
I'm going to go through the guideline for tonight.
This is an audience participatory event,
I'm I correct to pronounce that?
[LAUGHTER].
It's like we ask you to share your story.
We will playback to you, your story.
Please tell your own story,
and it's not someone's story and that's part 1.
The second is, keep a story short, a little bit.
It doesn't need to be a super, super, short,
but as a little shorter.
Before telling your story, sharing your story,
please ask yourself that if this is
comfortable sharing in public space.
That's all three things is our guideline tonight.
We are moving into company introduction now.
Everyone please turn off
the camera, including company member.
Hi, my name is a Yokko.
I am a non-binary Japanese,
and double cultural holder,
so American and Japanese culture,
I'm here in 15 years.
What I feel rainbow.
[NOISE]
Hey, I'm Jordan Rosin.
I am a 30 year old, male bodied,
gender non-conforming, White, French ancestry teacher.
I feel excited to be with you all tonight.
Yes. Hi. My name is Kaitlyn.
I identify as female,
if you're female presenting body.
I am a caretaker,
and someone who has many cultures and many names.
I feel very intrigued, and curious.
[NOISE]
Hi, my name is Keelie Sheridan.
I am a people person,
and a Northerner living in the South, and a teacher.
I feel hopeful about those things.
Hi, welcome, welcome, welcome.
I'm hopeful, I'm happy,
I'm from the North,
and I'm here now.
Hi, I'm Joge.
I am a cisgender male and I am an actor.
I have to look at my notes to say those.
[LAUGHTER] I'm an actor,
I'm an artist, I'm a dad,
and I feel [NOISE] about that.
[NOISE].
That's us!
The Ume Group Playback Ensemble. For we can do tonight
First, we would have love to collective feelings.
How do you feel when you hear the word "identity"?
Could you please put a word or two in the chat?
About a word or two words about,
what do you feel to hear that word "identity"?
I put myself [typing] "confused".
Yes, thank you. Few more.
Fantastic.
Great job. Yes. We can wrap around.
Nice. Oh, beauty.
Great. Okay. We can
close up right now. Thank you, guys.
We are going to reflect to these collective, the group.
Tonight we're sharing same time.
I'm going to read this through. "Confused."
"Excited and confused", "blank",
[NOISE] and "pleased", "uncertain", "conflicted", "blend",
"sometimes proud", "adventure", "sometimes ashamed", "changing",
"go with the flow", [NOISE] ,
"complex", "secure", "me complex".
So ensemble, we're going to reflect
this collective feeling about a word identity.
We're going to do Fluid Sculpture for this.
So please turn off your camera everybody,
including me. Let's watch.
[NOISE]
You are me and I'm you. I know who I am.
I thought you were me and I were you?
[LAUGHTER] I know who I am.
I were you, you were me and I were you.
But I know who I am.
No, No, Ummm. [INAUDIBLE].
I know who I am. [INCOHERENT MUMBLING]
Thank you, ensemble.
While you're seeing this reflecting that are play
back about collective feelings,
is everyone feel reflecting?
You saw something, you're feeling reflected?
Please turn on camera as we practice.
Now is a participating part.
If you don't mind,
please turn on your video to be with us, everyone.
Thank you.
if you're having a challenging turn on the video,
please let us know.
I think everyone can, that's great.
If you see that I go what we played back,
anything that you felt like oh, yeah,
that's exactly reflected my feeling.
If you don't mind. Some nodding is happening.
Did it something you saw, what you felt?
I think someone nodding.
Anyone felt?
Yes. Michael. Hi. Hello. Would you mind to expand,
which one or which feeling that you felt that, oh, yeah,
that's exactly, I felt reflected your feeling?
Michael, I cannot pronounce
your last name. Maybe I should do.
It's Zaiontz.
Zaiontz, cool name. My God.
Thank you. Playback for me,
that really got me was the clue car.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, I'm like,
okay, this is me today.
I'm going to be on fire and happy,
and just like the superhero.
I'm like, okay, I'm going to start off my day like that,
be a superhero and I love that.
We would love to do the reflect on that.
Let's do Flare, company. Flare of Michael's
the superhero feeling, wake up.
Let's do that Flare.
Everyone turn off the video.
Let's watch.
[NOISE]
Great. Thank you ensemble and audience,
please turn on camera to come back, please.
Michael, how was it?
That just made my whole day.
It was so humorous.
I'm going to take on that for my day tomorrow. Thank you.
Great. Thank you for sharing that.
Now Jorge.
I'm passing Jorge.
Beautiful. Real quick.
Everyone, cameras on.
I'm just going to ask a couple of questions
just to really get us into it.
Are you a night person or a morning person?
Touch your forehead night person, morning person, ear.
That's awesome. I'm a night person.
Cat or dog or both?
Mine.
[LAUGHTER] Do you consider
yourself an introvert or an extrovert?
Introvert forehead, extrovert ear.
Awesome. [LAUGHTER] We probably
will identify with this one so hard in the age of Zoom.
Do you prefer working at home [NOISE] or
on the computer and at work in the computer?
Home, office.
[LAUGHTER] Home is the best.
Here we go. Do you identify more with
your nationality or your race?
Nationality for forehead or race for your ear.
Excellent. Do you identify
more with your gender or your sexuality?
Gender, sexuality. It could be both.
Excellent. Thank you for jumping in on that.
Let's just go ahead and collect
a first story so keep going.
Would anybody like to share a story
about their identity with us?
Raise your hand.
It'll take me a little bit to
get to you because I have multiple Zoom,
[LAUGHTER] all these screens.
Yes. Dave, but I mean, partner.
[LAUGHTER]
Hey, I'm Shlomit.
Hey Shlomit. How are you? I'm Jorge.
[FOREIGN]
[FOREIGN] [LAUGHTER].
Yes. Well, I guess my story of
identity is that I am half Colombian and half Israeli.
I have an accent in all the languages.
I speak Spanish, Hebrew, and English.
I never belong anywhere and I always belong everywhere.
I am fearless because of my nationalities.
I guess that's my story.
[LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING] I don't know
if it's a good story.
No, not at all.
This is great.
We're going to reflect on that and
we're going to show you.
I think that this is an amazing story
for a Song and Movement Pair.
We're going to go ahead and watch.
Everyone do me a favor.
Mute yourselves, and cameras off,
and let's go ahead and watch.
Here we go. Let's watch.
[MUSIC]
Thank you so much.
Everyone, come back, please.
How was that?
[LAUGHTER]
[LAUGHTER] I was laughing. I never heard
a song about having an accent in
three languages [LAUGHTER] and
belonging here, belonging there.
Yes, pretty much it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for sharing.
Anyone else who would like to share
another story with us about their identity?
It'll take me a hot second to go around
because I have so many screens.
[LAUGHTER] Anyone else?
Tasha.
Thank you, Yokko. I didn't see that.
Tasha, go ahead. [LAUGHTER]
It just occurred to me so I'm going to reel off some of
my checklists and then I'm
going to tell you the hierarchy that I have.
I'm a white, single,
childless female of 75 years old.
My hierarchy is being
single and childless comes pretty low on the list.
Higher on the list is divorce,
higher than that is married but not divorced.
Childless is pretty low on the list.
At least I had two abortions
so that puts me a little higher than
childless but having kids is higher than not having kids.
This is in my wishes for how my life had gone, hierarchy.
Not that we wish you divorce, no.
But still, if you had a divorce,
at least you got married.
So I don't score high on the hierarchy.
Interestingly enough,
I'm a pretty happy person and I don't mind being
75 but I missed out on
a lot of opportunities that people
who maybe were more functional than I had.
All right. Thank you, Tasha.
If you would have to give your
story a title, what would that be?
It would be "Lego Blocks".
Lego Blocks.
Everyone mute yourselves, cameras off.
We're going to watch Tasha's "Lego Blocks"
in the form of Fluid Sculpture.
Everyone cameras off please and mute.
Fluid Sculpture "Lego blocks" [OVERLAPPING].
Wait.
Yes. Thank you.
All right, let's watch.
[MUSIC]
Not so high and high enough.
I mean this is smaller than this.
But these are both smaller than that. Well, no.
I guess if you this and then this one.
[NOISE]
I can do whatever I want today.
[NOISE].
Not so high and high enough.
[OVERLAPPING]
I can do whatever I want today.
[NOISE]
Thank you, everyone. Come back, please.
Cameras back, please.
Tasha, my dear, How was that?
Well, I particularly like the logs
being stacked on top of each other.
That showed the hierarchy.
This hierarchy that I made up out of nowhere.
It was pretty ridiculous,
it's my hierarchy, and I'll play that game if I want to.
[NOISE]
Thank you for sharing, Tasha.
All right, Yokko, take it away.
Now [NOISE] anyone equal to the Tasha`s story,
are more than welcome to share.
We can reflect on that story,
[NOISE] for anyone has the conflicting feeling,
or it's more contrasting feeling towards that identity,
like a conflicting or contrasting feeling.
Rick, yes.
Yeah. Hey. I have
a little story that involves some contrasting feelings.
My partner Justin and I created
this song a couple of months ago.
It was about Elijah McLain,
who if you may know who that is,
he was a black man who was killed by police for
just walking down the
sidewalk dancing and having a mask on, basically.
They thought he was maybe a criminal or something,
and they ended up killing him accidentally,
but definitely, it happened.
We created this song about him,
and it was beautiful.
A very beautiful song,
and so we're really proud of it.
But then we also wanted to share it with more people,
so we decided that the smartest thing to do was
to send it to the mother of Elijah,
Shanine Mclain, to see if she thought it
was good or if she was comfortable with it, basically.
We got back a response on Friday
that she was very offended by it.
She felt it was really traumatizing.
That was devastating to hear, of course.
But it was also good to hear because I'm glad
we found that out from
someone who's very close to the situation.
But in terms of identity, here I am,
a white male who
chose to try to highlight some aspect of this tragedy,
and then I feel like I really maybe screwed up.
I may have been very insensitive
to some of the issues in this situation.
I feel very bad about that.
That's my story.
Thank you for sharing.
If you can put a title that your conflicting feeling,
or two feelings that you can name it,
this feeling and this feeling.
Which one [OVERLAPPING] is more comfortable,
the title or two different feelings?
Sure. I'll say
proud and devastated.
Proud and devastating.
Thank you for sharing.
We are going to reflect this story
in a Song and Movement Pair.
Audience please turn off your camera and mute microphone.
We're going to watch
Rick`s story.
Let's watch.
I want to touch this,
but I don't know how.
I feel compelled to touch it,
but I don't know how.
I want to touch it,
but I don't know-how.
I want to touch, to help.
I tried to touch it,
but I didn't know how.
I tried to touch it and I tried to help.
I tried to touch it and I know something now.
I tried to touch it and this is where we are.
Thank you, ensemble.
Please audience camera back on.
Rick, how was it?
Thank you. It felt very healing to hear your performers
sing about the longing and the disappointment,
the deflation that I feel.
That was really helpful.
Thank you for sharing that story tonight.
Anyone who has a like can be a reflecting, a echoing,
a story that it's a provoked to you to share tonight?
Or it could be something, again,
a different conflicting story related to identity.
Could be the identity that changed in your life,
that something transform happened
in your lifetime, something related to.
Would you like to share one story?
Yes. Two. Oh no [LAUGHTER].
Next we will cover you.
I saw Mountaine.
Can I pronounce correctly, Mountaine?
Very close. Mountaine, yes [NOISE].
Then we go back to Chris later.
[NOISE]
I had a really good idea
and now it vanished [LAUGHTER].
Big time.
But there's so much in identity. I know what it is.
I was the one who put the word pleased in
the chat and what I meant by that was,
I was pleased that your company had chosen
this subject because actually with Queer Playback NYC,
many of us are here tonight.
We're having a little field trip from
our rehearsals and we worked with
that theme just so happens a couple of
weeks ago and explored it a little bit in one rehearsal.
I'm pleased because I think it can
be a place for very rich stories and I'll be
interested to see if someone will have
a longer story about dealing with identity.
But mine is just being pleased for right now.
Great. I think exactly we want to hear
the longer story from this point,
but let's do pleased with a Flare.
How's that sound?
Great. Every audience turn
off their camera and we're going to do Flare pleased.
[NOISE] You're doing that
[LAUGHTER].
Oh [NOISE].
Great. Thank you. Audience please turn camera back on.
Mountaine, how was that?
[LAUGHTER] That was cute.
[LAUGHTER] Thank you. That was cute.
I feel like my pleased was honored.
Great. Thank you for sharing your feeling.
Yes, I'm going to pass it to Jorge.
Let's do it [LAUGHTER].
Can someone tell us about a time that
was emblematic or definitive or
symbolical of who you are or want to be.?
I'll say it again. Can someone tell us
about a time that was emblematic
of who you are or where you want to be?
We need to go back to Chris.
Sorry. [OVERLAPPING]
I'm so sorry. We can do that.
Well, Chris, do you want to answer that question?
No [LAUGHTER].
I think previously I
asked transformation happening in your life.
Is that related to your story, Chris?
Yeah, transformation resonated with me.
Let's do that.
Yes, let's do that. Thank you.
I had a career as a computer programmer.
At the time, I really didn't
enjoy it and I didn't have any passion for it.
I would go to meetings and
just feel like I didn't belong and just like,
"Why am I doing this?"
Then I finally changed careers and I
became a therapist and now I have
a lot of passion for what I do and I
enjoy learning more in my field.
It went from really feeling like I was
missing out on something to feeling really
fulfilled in my work.
Chris, so then if you would
perhaps like to give
a title to that story, what would it be?
First word that comes to mind [LAUGHTER].
Can you title it for me?
The Journey.
Sure.
Beautiful. This is an amazing chance
to go ahead and go for a Three-Part Story.
Everyone, cameras off, please.
Make sure you're muted and
let's watch Chris's, The Journey.
Jorge, could we get just a few more details from
Chris about his journey, before we begin?
Absolutely.
If you're willing to share, Chris,
just a few more things about
your new career perhaps
[NOISE].
I was in therapy myself and I started to think
about I wanted to change careers and I was unsure.
I pursued social work and then I learned more
about training after social work and
then I became certified as a gestalt therapist.
Then I just kept going and one thing just led to
another in a really fluid, easy way,
which was completely unlike
the programming where I was, I don't know,
just disinterested and do I really have to feeling
passion for different opportunities.
Does that help? Great [NOISE].
Thank you.
Cameras off and let's watch Chris's,
The Journey
[NOISE].
[NOISE] Oh shit.
No [NOISE]. Come on.
I don't think [LAUGHTER] I fit. I don't fit.
This doesn't fit. Let's try.
No.
You guys, I don't think I fit. [MUSIC] [NOISE]
I like
this one. [NOISE]
Everyone come back, please.
Chris, how was that?
Great. [LAUGHTER] Definitely, saw my story. Thank you.
Excellent.
We can go to that one.
Sorry, I interrupted.
[OVERLAPPING] [LAUGHTER]
Well, how dare you? [LAUGHTER] No.
The symbolic, emblematic.
[NOISE]
Yes. Can anyone tell us about a time that was definitive,
or emblematic, or symbolic,
or a great symbol of
a definitive moment [OVERLAPPING] of who you are?
Roni is raising his hand and Noha.
[OVERLAPPING] We will come back to Noha. Then Roni.
Roni, let's hear you sir.
I grew up in Israel.
I grew up in this very tough neighborhood,
so I had to be a tough kid.
When I was 15, I fell in love with a girl,
and she was in the drama class.
I said, okay.
I didn't know how to approach her,
so I went and I joined the drama class.
I was doing the rehearsal,
and I wasn't really into the drama.
I was more into her.
One day, the director,
he put the music, classical music.
He put everyone in one side of the studio,
and said you have to cross to the other side
and you have to dance like you're
a ballet dancer or [NOISE].
I started to really get nervous about
this because it was really out of my comfort zone.
I cannot do something like that.
I fight with other kids.
I don't dance like a ballet dancer. It's not me.
Then it's my turn and everybody is looking at me,
and my legs are frozen.
It's like every conditioning that I ever received in
my life was coming against me in that moment.
I stood there for a few moments.
I couldn't move, and
the director said, "Are you going to do it?
We're waiting for you.
You can do it." Then I decided to let myself free,
[NOISE] and I started to dance,
and I never stopped.
Since then, it's my world.
My world was dance,
the world of theatre,
the world of healing.
That moment changed my life.
I chose a different path for myself.
Thank you for sharing that.
Roni, if you would have to give
a title to this story, what would it be?
Unlearning.
[NOISE] Excellent. This is
going to be an amazing story for Perspectives.
Everyone cameras off please,
and let's watch Roni's "Unlearning." [MUSIC]
[NOISE] You looking at me?
Hey, you
looking at me?
You want to fight? You better
look away unless you want to fight.
Yeah, all right. Here we go.
Here we go, tough guy.
Here we go. You looking at me?
[MUSIC]
[NOISE] I am the floor, and
these kids keep running back and forth.
Sometimes, they kiss and hold hands,
and now they're doing improv,
and now they're doing ballet.
[LAUGHTER] What's this guy doing?
He's sitting, standing, not moving.
What's this guy doing?
[LAUGHTER] Get a move on, bud.
[LAUGHTER] You're squashing my nose.
[LAUGHTER] I promise you,
you'll have more fun if you do a little chardonnay.
[MUSIC]
[NOISE]
Come on, you can do it.
Dance, you can do it. I see it.
I see it in you. I know you want to. Come on.
No, move. You can do it. [NOISE] Oh my God, yeah.
That's wonderful. Come on.
Do another one, yeah. You're doing it. You're amazing.
Yes. Oh, yeah.
[MUSIC]
Everyone come back please.
Roni good sir, how was that?
It was wonderful.
Thank you so much for
the great perspectives. I enjoyed it.
Thank you. Yokko, would you remind me.
Noha.
Let me see. Noha, How are you?
I found you. [LAUGHTER] Hi.
Would you like to share a story?
Sure. I have been
stopped several times in airports,
about a total of nine times,
and it's happened to me,
domestically and internationally.
But the last time that I was stopped internationally,
and this was in London,
and it was the Department of Homeland Security
that was requesting a secondary search.
I decided, being that it was
the ninth time that I've been stopped in an airport,
to contact some of my lawyer friends, I'm a lawyer.
After the ninth time I remembered
a lawsuit that I had been a plaintive in,
and I had sued George Bush and the whole cabinet.
Since then, I've been getting stopped in airports.
But I was able to speak with
an attorney at the ACLU and I told them I was like,
I think it might have something to do with this case.
I was able to speak with the attorney
and the first thing out of the attorneys mouth was,
"It's an honor to speak with one of
the original plaintiffs of the Pearl case."
I was just like, what
the fuck did I get myself involved in.
Then the attorney was like, yes,
you're being stopped because they are
targeting human rights activists at borders,
and this is one of the ways is that
they are trying to stop people from activism.
That was my aha moment
of the fun that I would be dealing with as an activist.
Thank You. Noha, can
I trouble you for a title for this piece.
Busted at the border.
Everyone cameras off please,
make sure you're muted.
This is an amazing chance to go ahead and
try a Three-Part Story,
and we're going to watch busted at the border from Noha.
Let's watch. [NOISE]
Why won't you let me light this?
[NOISE] Just can't light this candle.
[NOISE] Come on.
Let's try another one.
[NOISE] Come on, just light already.
[NOISE]
Yeah. I'm so sorry,
can you hold on a second?
You needed to see what?
I've showed you my ID.
Can you please tell the client to
hold? What are you looking for?
No, this has definitely happened to me before like 1,
2, 3, 4 any of these?
Five, six times at least, well no.
Seven, eight,
this is the ninth time this has happened to me.
[NOISE]
So that's why the match wouldn't light.
[NOISE]
Everyone come back, please.
Noha, how was that?
That was great.
I especially loved Kaitlyn
and Jordan how it tied into each other.
That was really brilliant.
[OVERLAPPING] They play together pretty well. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing.
Yokko, would you like to go ahead and take over?
I think we have time for one more story tonight.
If there's anyone who wanted to share,
but they couldn't share because the subject wasn't quite.
But there is a story about identity,
related or something for.
The story that choose between being true you identity
or wanting to fit into the identity like a expectation,
is something in that story or so that anything that you
wanted to share but didn't quite have chance today.
It could be anything, transformations, work also.
This is our one last story tonight.
It can be transformation,
can be anything that speak to you to share.
Can be conflicting between two,
or the moment finding.
It could be short, it could be long.
Yes, Dave thank you.
Hi everybody.
Hi.
This story takes place when I was very young,
like three years old.
It's like the true story of the epiphany of me
realizing that music was my thing.
I was in the back of my mother's car,
and I'd be listening to songs.
I would understand that there
is this thing in the melody.
I was able to pick out scales,
not knowing what they were.
But I could pick our scales
and pretty soon I realized I could
pick the scale out in anything that I heard.
I had an epiphany, I realized that this is
something and that I can do that whenever it is,
on whatever it is,
I like doing it and I want to do it.
That's short and sweet.
Thank you for sharing that story.
Would you like to name a title of this story?
Just Music Fascination.
Music Fascination.
I think we can do narrative V for this story.
Everyone, please turn off the camera.
We're going to, Music Fascination.
Let's watch.
Dave was just a little child.
When one day, while listening to his favorite song,
he realized he could
see things that other people couldn't see.
He could hear the patterns in the way things worked.
He could understand the mechanics behind the universe.
All of this was hidden in a song,
Dave the universe, a song.
Thank you. Dave, everyone's camera back on, please.
Dave, how was it?
That was fabulous. I really like that.
Yes. I love the narrative voice, Jordan.
It was very compelling
and rich sounding and that was really,
it just added a cool,
smiley energy to it.
I appreciate it very much.
Thank you again, that was great you guys.
Thank you for sharing that story.
Keelie, and who was the other with the whole array here,
I can't see who the other actor was.
Keelie and Kaitlyn.
Keelie and Kaitlyn, yeah, great. Thank you.
I love that the fascination
of posture you had, really nice.
Thank you. It's 8:11 PM East coast time,
but I will say last call [LAUGHTER].
If you have that one story
that after you hearing other people's story that,
"I actually wanted to share
this one," even little things,
really short stuff, or long stuff,
I mean medium. Anyone? Michael, please.
Hello, well, I guess it's something
about being really tired of explaining who I am.
I guess I can think of maybe three moments.
One was when I was a teenage boy
and I was in an all boys school,
I was in the drama club and I was really effeminate,
and people automatically assumed that I was gay.
That continued as I was
in the arts and I was in my early adulthood.
I grew out of being a effeminate.
But people somehow still said,
"No, I'm sure you're gay.
You have that energy or something."
Then after while it was just whatever.
Another moment is probably current or
the last 10 years or so of explaining what I actually do.
Because I do a little bit of everything,
I teach in an institution of higher education,
but I'm not an academic.
I do applied drama,
but I'm not an actor.
I do playback and many other forms,
and not just a play backer.
It gets tiring, explaining that to relatives and
people who are not so much into the arts
about what applied drama is.
How I don't identify
as a performer and so on and so forth.
I think the last one is explaining
that I am Chinese but not from China,
I'm a Singaporean and I dream and
I speak in English and Chinese while mandarin,
it's not my first language.
That becomes complicated when I
am dealing or working or being with friends from China,
Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
It seems sometimes there's an automatic assumption
of understanding the nuances of the politics,
the language, and so many things that goes into it.
Even something that's irritating as,
if I'm teaching in China and I would love to have
translators or interpreters and it's
automatically assumed that I wouldn't need one and yes,
that's true to a certain extent.
But again, as I said,
I dream in English and I speak English most of the time.
My spoken Chinese is possible,
and it works with
the terminologies that I'm supposed to be in parting,
but I think it's the assumption that is uncomfortable.
Thank you for sharing.
I heard that you also do Playback Theatre,
and I actually want
to ask a few question that would come up.
One is, would you like to name
a title or could be picking
three emotions that you
would think or even would you like to choose the form?
That's like I'm even thinking.
But this could be a Fluid Sculpture that I'm
thinking could be different form.
Would you have some preference Michael?
I'll leave the form to you.
Okay, [OVERLAPPING] title or emotions
if you will love to share.
I guessed that the two primary emotions are two or three.
I'm resigned, I was really tired,
I guess I'm still tired of it, I'm resigned.
I think I'm in the process of accepting it.
I'll be whatever you think I am,
it doesn't quite matter, I know who I am.
That's it for me and I function wherever I am
and I think I do a pretty good job
of being whoever I need to be in different contexts,
and that would be enough.
Yes, I'm an actor.
I would say that now,
instead of going into a 15, 20 minute's bill.
Great. Actually, I changed
my [LAUGHTER] mind to three part of story.
I think, if you don't mind, Michael,
that what I'm hearing it's
getting so many things as identity.
There are so many things happening,
but it's getting tired of it to
those categorizing
and all those things are getting tired.
But then, getting accepting right now.
It's a Three-Part Story, I think works.
We'll feel comfortable, Three-Part Story.
Let's do Michael's story then Three-Part Story.
Everyone, please turn off the camera and let's watch.
[NOISE]
It's for you. [NOISE] Come on.
It's for you.
Okay. [NOISE]
Thank you on sample.
Please, audience come back on the camera.
Michael, how was it?
Thank you. That was really great.
I love the elements of deciding what must wear.
I really like the elements of fitting in,
but the first one just
struck the right note from the very start.
It was just really tiring
climbing up that set of drawers,
and I guess part of it is tiring because
it's also that I'm figuring out what's my identity.
I was just really tempted to open up the drawers and
really figure out what's is inside in each of
the drawers. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that story.
I think this is all set tonight.
We're going to do reflect
each stories that were ritual way of ending.
For example, audience can participate too.
You will say that.
Please, participate in biting.
Once upon a time,
there was a story
of three-years baby boy is finding the music,
is my thing, and anyone can join the same form.
Once upon a time, there was a story of being pleased.
Once upon a time,
there was a story of an activist.
Audience can join too, unmute,
and you can share what you heard tonight.
Once upon a time,
there was a story of 75 years of being myself.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who
spoke three languages with accents.
Once upon a time,
there was a man who wrote a song
with really good intentions
but was very upset by the impact of the song.
Once upon a time, there was a man who
stop fighting and learn to dance.
Once upon a time, there was someone
who went from computer programming to
finding a new path to start theory for therapy.
Once upon a time, there was a man who was just so
tired of having to find the right niche.
I think we covered.
Great. Thank you so much for
participating in the ritual at the end,
so we'll end. We'll close that.
Beautiful. Thank you, Yokko.
I would just like to take
a moment for whether you told your story or not,
we believe that even though that story was not told,
though that story has a space and time and it's as
important as every other story that was told.
I would just like to take
a moment to acknowledge the stories that were not told.
Thank you very, very much for your generosity of spirit,
for your willingness to participate, for your openness,
for your beautifulness, for your gorgeousness.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for allowing us a pleasure
to serve you and to show you.
Have a beautiful night.
We can stay for a hot second, I believe,
to chat if you want, and if not,
have a beautiful rest of your weekend. Thank you.