Category: Interviews

Controlled Burn artist Rahila Coats on artmaking and choreography.

Tell us about the work you’re performing at Controlled Burn. What’s it about?

Not there yet came from a range of feelings, ideas. We tried recording moments of truth and absurdity that our body naturally holds. I usually like to choreograph with a structure that heavily relies on improvisation, so to change that practice I made movement that was inspired from moments of dance styles that were in my bones, the dramatization of a body’s capabilities. We have played with imitating each other, through movement, laughter to generate a structure of ambiguity.

What motivates your work as an artist in general?

Butterflies in my stomach, if I could describe the feeling.

Have you been involved with 20% Theatre Company in the past and, if so, in what ways?

This is my first involvement with 20% Theatre, and I am overwhelmed with excitement! I have been fortunate to learn from Taja Will this fall and learn Taja’s work in the Twin Cities, including 20% Theatre, and I feel so fortunate to be able to begin this relationship.

Which artists and/or performances have inspired you?

Abigail Atsenah Atsugah, Kyle Abraham, Nora Chipaumire’s #PUNK 100% POP *N!GGA.

Why do you think artmaking is important work?

We’re not exactly sure why art making is important, but it feels important to us. This artmaking, and spacemaking, does not have any quantifiable value, but we get the chance to care about this a whole lot. And we get to share it, and maybe it still changes something.

Rahila will be performing on Friday, February 14 @ 7:30pm at Controlled Burn: Queer Performance for a World on Fire.

Sound and projection designer Kassia Lisinski on their work in 20% Theatre Company’s world premiere production Unknown.

What is your role for this production of Unknown? What inspired you to join the design team?

I am the sound and video projection designer for Unknown. I have worked with 20% and associated folks in the past and it is always a wonderful experience!

Talk about your background as an artist and designer. How did you become a designer?

The head of the theatre department at my college (a sound and lighting designer) poached me from the art department after I took his class out of curiosity!

What sorts of stories or productions do you find most compelling to design for?

I really enjoy dark and scary stories as well as abstract and experimental pieces.

What are you as a person bringing to this production?

I’m bringing a great team spirit!

What have been some challenges and/or unique opportunities of designing for Unknown?

Time constraints! It’s such a sign of the times for everyone I know and work with to be exhausted and stretched thin all the time to pursue our art, and I’m no exception. I have never designed sound and video together for a straight show (no pun intended) and I learned a lot about how they can play together.

What social issues are important to you and how do they inform the art you create?

I think it’s nice to be nice to people and remember that we have always existed.

What artists, playwrights, and/or performances have inspired you over the years?

All of them!

Have you been involved with 20% Theatre in the past?

I designed sound for The Terror Fantastic.

Do you have any other projects coming up you’d be excited to share?

I am participating in Toot Suite as a performer and media artist on Sunday, November 10th at 7 pm at Fresh Oysters, as well as designing sound for Gadfly Theatre’s Final Frontier Fest: In a World, which opens November 8th at the Haunted Basement and Steadfast, a riff on the story of the Tin Soldier, which opens next month at Open Eye Figure Theatre on the 2nd.

When you’re not designing, how do you spend your time? What are some of your hobbies or passions in life?

I’m working on applying to graduate schools right now, and also continually composing several epic high-fantasy and queer hard sci-fi novels in my head…

Don’t miss Kassia’s work in the world premiere of Unknown October 18-27 at The Crane Theater in Minneapolis.

Lighting designer snem DeSellier on their work for 20% Theatre Company’s upcoming world premiere production Unknown.

What work are you doing for this premiere of Unknown? And what inspired you to join the team?

I’m really excited to be light designing ​Unknown​! The project was mentioned to me during tech [rehearsals] for Q-STAGE last spring, which had been my first real taste of the exciting work coming out of 20%. Within reading the first few pages I was ready to bring these sweet and complicated lesbians to lit life. A big factor was that I’m a journal person. I’ve been carrying one everywhere I go for years and years and often get fixated on the “what will become of these pages” and “how can I collaborate with my future archivist from today’s page”. The way those questions live within this play, combined with growing up closeted in my own family and with an Italian grandmother who shed so much of her Italian to fit into an American mold means that this story has its cords snaked in my heart. With its long love and new love and tricky love and recorded love—it’s full of things I love.

How did you become a designer? What sorts of stories are you most excited to design for?

My making has always been very webbed and organic and sticky. I’d say the core of my making is devising, often via dance, poetry, and design. Sometimes I think I’m more design-dancer, light-poet. I fell into design when all my directorial proposals were actually fully articulated set plans, and then again when I found out that you could paint mood and breath in light choreography. Light is such an in-between medium, and as an in-between maker it took my heart on impact. Since then I’ve spent a lot of time with creative teams and new scripts building a repertoire of light language. In my design, I’m drawn to stories that shift through time and place and proximity, stories that can believe in light, that can lean into it.

What are you bringing to Unknown with your designs?

Unknown exists in a split but tethered world. We have a clear tether in the overlapping of space, we can feel the whole story as layered and connected, but I think light can give us the tones we need to hold these worlds distinctly. Lights are a key part of the shift that demonstrates the two worlds are separated by physical distance, time and generational intimacy.

What have been some challenges or unique opportunities about designing for Unknown?

Well, it’s my first time designing at The Crane! Every new space brings a new world of possibles and also a host of learning curves. I’m figuring out how to still be in a learning process while also remembering how to trust myself and my ability within this craft.

Don’t miss snem’s work in the world premiere of Unknown October 18-27 at The Crane Theater in Minneapolis.

A little chat with Unknown actor Ankita Ashrit.

What role do you play in Unknown?

I play Sophie’s on/off girlfriend Imari. 

What has been challenging and/or rewarding about working on Unknown?

I think a challenging aspect of the show is finding the humanity behind a character that is generally disliked by the other characters. I’ve had a lot of fun exploring Imari’s softer, friendlier side. 

When you’re not acting, what are some of your hobbies and interests?

Well I love dogs and plants. I had a garden over the summer and, if I somehow have free time, I try to volunteer with a local animal rescue center. I try to practice witchcraft as often as I can. Mostly that involves collecting rocks and lighting candles.

Catch the world premiere of Unknown October 18-27 at The Crane Theater in Minneapolis.

Actor Gina Sauer on her character Sydney in 20% Theatre Company’s upcoming world premiere production Unknown.

Without giving anything away, what does your character bring to the story in Unknown?

Sydney has led an interesting life, to say the least, and one that has been difficult at times. She has known a great deal of loss, but has persevered, and maintained her sense of self. She has kept a journal for many years, and her memories serve as a backdrop for the play.  

What has been challenging and/or rewarding about working on Unknown? 

Sydney is one of the most challenging roles I’ve ever played. For starters, there’s the physical challenge of playing someone so much older than I am, and the challenge of mastering an Italian accent (one of the harder accents to do!). But as an actor, I want to continue to learn and grow, and push the boundaries of what I can do, so I’m loving the challenge. I also love how Sydney—and specifically her friendship with Beverly—evolves during the show. She starts out very closed off, and little by little, reveals more of herself and lets her guard down with Beverly. It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion, and allows for a lot of nuances as an actor.  

Talk about your background as an artist. Have you worked with 20% Theatre Company in the past?

My theater career is one marked by detours! I studied theater and acted when I was younger, then took a 20+ year hiatus to pursue a different career, raise a child, etc. Six years ago I took a leap and went back into acting, and have been fortunate to work steadily since then with some wonderful Twin Cities theaters. 20% Theatre was one of the first companies to take a chance on me when I got back into acting (I played Hannah Gold in Leah’s Train), and I will always be grateful for that.  

Don’t miss Gina in the world premiere of Unknown October 18-27 at The Crane Theater in Minneapolis.

Unknown playwright Alexis Clements on queer stories, LGBTQ women’s spaces, and writing to make sense of the world.

What can you tell us about the stories behind Unknown? What inspired you to write the play?

In 2010, I started coming to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, NY, to attend events and occasionally volunteer. I was there not only looking for histories I couldn’t find elsewhere, but also to meet other lesbians.

One day, while volunteering at a time when special collections (collections of people’s personal papers) were being processed, I remember going through a few boxes of materials from one woman in particular. The boxes contained diaries and writing and audio recordings from throughout her life. As someone who has kept journals my whole life, and knew the intense feeling of violation that comes from someone else reading them without permission, it felt particularly powerful that someone would choose to let others into their diaries – all those deeply felt emotions, the banalities, the confusions, the excitement, the loneliness – all of it. Why would someone do that? Was she still alive? What did she hope others would find there?

Of course, I tried Googling her, but she was clearly of a generation that lived most of her life before the internet, and she wasn’t a famous person who would garner lots of web links late in life.

As a writer, as someone who was actively seeking stories of other queer women, it was an incredibly rich encounter. That was the seed from which the play grew – that moment of encountering another person’s life through their most intimate thoughts.

I should add, however, that no facts from that person’s life were included in the play, and all of the characters in the play are completely fictional, they are not based on anyone in particular at the Archives or elsewhere. The situation itself was the catalyst, rather than specific details.

We’re so excited for Unknown’s world premiere! Tell us more about your background as an artist and a playwright. What kinds of stories inspire you to tell them?

I loved reading, telling, and writing stories from an early age. Like a number of other writers, I was a bit of a loner as a child. My family moved around a lot and I changed schools often, so stories and writing were a form of companionship, a way to explore, an attempt to understand or come to terms with things that didn’t make any sense. And they were also just fun.

But the thing that has really stuck with me over the years is the desire to make sense of a world that rarely makes sense, to understand why we do the things we do. In particular, I’ve always been interested in questions of how the things we believe (true, false, or something in between) shape our actions. We create worldviews, we learn them, we wrestle with them, and they impact so much of our lives. Beliefs about how and why we are or not loved or accepted. Beliefs about what success looks like. Beliefs about our value in the world. Beliefs that differ dramatically from the people who might be sitting right next to us, people who might be taking the same action, but for wholly different reasons. That’s usually part of the spark that gets me going on a new project.

Unknown is a story that addresses social complexities as much as personal relationships. What social issues are important to you and how do they inform the art you create?

The truth is that there’s not a single issue or single set of issues that I have always focused on in a singular way in my politics or art. I started getting politically active as an undergrad primarily in anti-war organizing following 9/11, and also a bit around labor rights, but that wasn’t necessarily apparent in my creative writing at the time. And I would say that’s true today as well. The particular issues I end up engaged in activism around don’t always directly link to my art-making. In my writing and creative work at this moment, I’m really interested in the idea of community. “Community” is a word we use a lot in the US, but the things we’re signaling with that word don’t really link up with the experience of being in community with people, of the messy realities of being accountable, of encountering conflict and challenge. I’m really interested in that disconnect, and I see it a lot in the political spaces I participate in.

Creatively, are there artists, playwrights or performances that have influenced you?

I’m restless and disloyal when it comes to influences. I’m always willing and ready to discard one in favor of something that’s new to me. I feel like there’s so much I didn’t read and learn as a young person, even though I feel like I had some great teachers (my parents as much as the adults I encountered at school), and I was a voracious reader and inhaled every cultural experience I could. I feel like I can never be exposed to enough, I always want more stories, more histories, more perspectives and arguments that I haven’t yet heard. Because the reality is that I was educated in a history and a literary and artistic canon that taught me that if I wanted to be taken seriously as a thinker or an artist I needed to emulate or aspire to be like the white men who were at the center of those histories and canons, and who were most of the ones telling me how to interpret those legacies, leaving so much of the world out. I grow more skeptical of what I was taught and the influences that got me here with every passing day.

Do you have any other projects coming up you’d be excited to share with us?

This play, which I wrote a bit over 7 years ago, ended up pushing me off on a journey that took me around the country, visiting spaces that are primarily run by or center the experiences of LGBTQ women. And that journey became a feature-length documentary film, my first film, titled All We’ve Got, which will have its world premiere in New York City at NewFest, one week after Unknown receives its world premiere. It’s a remarkable coming together of two projects that are, for me, deeply connected, and wrapped up in similar questions about how we find connections with other people, why we need those connections, and the ways our encounters with community are not always what we thought they might be.

When you’re not writing or creating documentary films, how do you spend your time? What are some of your hobbies or passions in life?

A few years back, I became a birder. Thanks to my parents, hiking and camping were always a big part of my life, but being in a big city now, it isn’t so easy to access. Birding has become a really enjoyable way for me to stay connected to a sense of wildness and the rhythms of the natural world. It also offers an incredibly intimate and direct understanding of the consequences of human influence on the environment, for good and ill. Not to mention it is its own subculture full of interesting twists and turns, which makes the people watching sometimes as interesting as the bird watching!

Catch the world premiere of Unknown October 18-27 at The Crane Theater in Minneapolis. Check out Alexis’ website.

Q-STAGE 2019 artist D. Allen on their new work NET/WORK.

What is the inspiration for NET/WORK?

In early 2018, after doing final revisions on my first book and starting research for a very heavy nonfiction project, I had no words left. I was experiencing a deep depression, which combined with the increasingly difficult symptoms of my illness to leave me both speechless and physically isolated. I had trouble leaving my house and found it difficult to talk about what I was going through with even my closest people, but I still wanted to connect, to communicate, which is what art-making offers me. So I started knitting, a skill my Nana taught me when I was a kid. Each stitch felt like a word I couldn’t say. While my hands were busy my brain began to make connections between silence/stillness, sensory pleasures/comforts, trauma, mental illness, physical disability, and queer & trans embodiment, and NET/WORK was born. It was the only work I felt I could make at the time, so I just followed its lead.

And why do you feel it is important to share the stories of NET/WORK with the community? 

I am sharing my personal story because it is what I have to offer and because I was gifted the incredible opportunity of Q-STAGE, but the major threads running through this work are not unique to me. NET/WORK is part of a lineage of queer, trans, disabled artists and writers who have put forth their bodies and stories in direct opposition to the deep history of disabled folks and queer & trans folks who’ve been forced into isolation and silence. I want to participate in that creative ecosystem in the hopes that other disabled queer artists in and beyond my community will know that there is a place for us in the art world, the publishing world, on the stage.

Talk about your background as an artist. What sort of artistic experience are you bringing to this production?

First and foremost, I’m a poet. I make a lot of visual work along with some sound/music and other uncategorizable stuff, but all the creative work I do, no matter the form or discipline, stems from that core poet identity. I perform sometimes, but I by no means see myself as a performer or theater person, so creating a full-length solo show has been both intimidating and exciting.

Have you collaborated with other artists to create this piece?

I’m consulting with two dear friends on the creation of this work: Merle Geode, multidisciplinary artist and poet, and Beth Mikel Ellsworth, theatre artist and dramaturg. On some level, every meaningful conversation I’ve had in the last 8 months—with friends and chosen family, my Mom, healthcare providers, and artist-poet-queer-trans-disabled-ill community near and far—has been a collaboration that allowed NET/WORK to grow into what it is.

What social issues are important to you and how do they inform the art you create?

I make everything I make with queer, trans, and disabled folks in mind. Not issues, but people. I’m invested in our collective flourishing, not just our survival (but definitely also our survival), and a big part of that for me means making art, sharing stories, witnessing each other. My story is what I have to offer, and it connects me to so many others. By sharing our own stories, naming/paying/lifting up the artists and writers whose work has informed our own, and caring for each other in very practical ways (through food, support with daily tasks, rideshares, showing up, making a call or text, etc.) so that storytelling isn’t competing with basic needs, we invest in the long-term survival of our communities. I believe that art is a powerful tool for advocacy—for connecting us to our collective power, getting better policies in place, and breaking down/working outside of systems that kill or silence us. So a big part of my practice takes place quietly behind the scenes, conspiring with my fellow queer/trans/disabled artists to create conditions under which we can make the work we need to make.

What artists or performances have inspired you over the years?

Whew! I could go on forever about this, so I’ll just name some of the writers, artists, scholars, and activists whose work has informed NET/WORK: #AccessIsLove, @TheNapMinistry, Mia Mingus, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Ellen Samuels, Johanna Hedva, Chely Lima, Eli Clare, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Angel Dominguez, and many others.

Do you have any other projects in the works that you’d like to tell us about?

My first book, A Bony Framework for the Tangible Universe, is newly released into the world, so I’ve been slowly but steadily getting that out into the community. After Q-STAGE wraps up I’ll focus on a new collection of lyric essays about queer/trans/disabled embodiment and the natural world, which I’m very excited about. I’m also looking forward to doing more durational multidisciplinary work and short- or long-term collaborations.

When you’re not deep in Q-STAGE rehearsal and development, how do you spend your time? What are some of your hobbies or passions in life?

I spend a lot of time caring for and talking affectionately to my house plants. In the warmer months, I garden in the backyard and raise Monarch butterflies inside my tiny screened porch.

Describe your pre-performance ritual if you have one. 

I’m not sure I have one, but if I did it would be rooting down in my senses by holding something small like a river stone or a piece of cloth, drinking water, and doing 5 minutes of self-Reiki.

D.’s piece NET/WORK will premiere at Q-STAGE: New Works Series on May 16, 17 & 18th at Phoenix Theater.

Q-STAGE 2019 artist Keila Anali Saucedo on their new work Brujería for Beginners.

Where did the ideas for Brujería for Beginners come from?

My play Brujería for Beginners was first only a dream. As I was delving deeper into my own spiritual practices, so much was coming up for me. I was raised in a strict Mexican Catholic home. I was exposed to church services around two to three times a week. As you might know, Mexican people can make anything dramatic and exciting—even church! Catholicism meant less and less to me as I learned about the religion’s painful past, as I understood the mission for the Spanish. Unlike the attempted genocide of Native folks on this land, in Mexico the colonizers had a different dark mission: to create a new race that would be closer to them, that would relate more to the Spanish culture. So they took the language, the kinship structures, and the spirituality of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and replaced it with their own. This isn’t just history. It’s the reason my face looks the way it does, it’s in the land where my family is from, these are stories alive in me. The only thing I could think to do is make art about it and this is the art that came of it.

Why do you feel it is important to share this with the community?

I think I said it best in my application for this program: the work, which exists now in only vignettes, lullabies, and prayers, is about Mexican children of varying ages and the stories of their interactions with the holy, their magic, and their ancestors. For me, this work is so urgent. In an age where dehumanization is the norm for our people, an offering of healing and truth that is rooted in our forgotten indigeneity is paramount.

What is this performance about for you on a personal level?

It’s funny, I was recently in Chicago (my hometown) for the National Performance Network’s midyear meeting and I had the opportunity to visit Root Work Gallery. Here, I was sharing a bit about my piece and I called it an autobiography, which is not necessarily true. I am not any of the characters in this play. I think I’m every character. I see myself as proof of survival from all the atrocities that have happened on these lands. Perhaps because I hold myself in this way, stories pour out of me like water. Maybe this is a play about my ancestors or about my forgotten spirituality or about the way my parents raised me to understand the holy. Either way, it all comes back to telling the stories in an effort to heal.

Who are your collaborators for Q-STAGE? Tell us about them.

The artists involved in this project are lifechanging. Marcela Michelle, my dear friend and teacher, is directing. My friends Eric Gonzalez and Kieran Myles Andres Tverbakk are providing sound and set design, respectively. Then I have this luminary ensemble working including Lelis Brito, Stephanie Ruas, Johanna Keller Flores, Atquetzali Quiroz, y Xochi de la Luna. They are an intergenerational, bubbling burst of creativity and willingness to jump in. One of my most treasured communities. They are each Latinx-identified, many are also queer, and each have a beautiful light that they bring. I am overjoyed and humbled to have their hands in my work.

Talk about your background as an artist. What sort of artistic experience are you bringing to this production?

I am a graduate of a predominately white institution where I earned a degree in theatre arts through the lens of dramaturgy. I have extensive production experience as a stage manager, board operator, and have a special place in my heart for scene shops. My craft though is really in playwriting and ensemble creation. I led a playwriting troupe in college for all four years, and I continue this leadership in my role as a facilitator, teaching artist, and artist for hire!

What social issues are important to you and how do they inform the art you create?

I think that’s quite clear in the past answers what issues resonate with me. I don’t actually understand the question regarding my art because there is no informing-of-social-issues that’s in my art. My art is a social issue, my art works to illuminate stories of those who have been underserved. It is a process of joyous booty-shaking resistance to the dirty rotten system of Western theatre.

What artists or performances have inspired you over the years?

Suzan Lori Parks is a sharp teacher in each of her plays. The performances at Pangea World Theater, where I serve as an ensemble member, have taught me the way to decolonization through storytelling. And of course, the performances of NOCHE BOMBA and Demons in America, which were both a part of Q-STAGE last year.

Do you have any other projects in the works that you’d like to tell us about?

I am happy to announce that I am a co-producer for Mother Goose’s Bedtime Stories, a fantastical cabaret that celebrates the art of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists. Our next performance is on June 15 & 16 at 711 W Lake St, Suite 101.

When you’re not deep in Q-STAGE rehearsal and development, how do you spend your time? What are some of your hobbies or passions in life?

I am hard at work! I am horribly devoted to ‘the grind’ mentality, I am working on getting off of it before I burn out. A passion and ritual practice of mine is Don’t You Feel It Too? DYFIT is a mind-body practice of moving as your honest self in public with a pair of headphones. When I’m dancing, I dream of new plays, brighter futures, and my child self. I miss her so. I highly recommend joining me.

Describe your pre-performance ritual if you have one.  

I sing Naranja Dulce and kiss one part of the theater. Also, I pray.

Keila’s piece Brujería for Beginners will premiere at Q-STAGE: New Works Series on May 16, 17 & 18th at Phoenix Theater.

Q-STAGE 2019 artist Dua Saleh on their new work Diaries and Displacements.

Where did the ideas for Diaries and Displacements come from?

This piece is something that came together from my personal narrative relating to displacement. This piece is a retelling of some narratives that took place in three locations: geo-location, social-location, and bodily-location.

Why do you feel it is important to share these stories with the community?

Sudanese people have a long history of oration and storytelling. It is important for me to continue on with this ancestral legacy that has enriched the lives of my people and to provide people insight on the complexities of carrying both indigenous identity and gender non-conforming identities.

What is this performance about for you on a personal level?

This performance is chockfull of reimagined memories and stories that I hoped to pass on to people in the audience. I reformulated real memories to be better adjusted to the stage. Stage performance is another way to further express my story to the people that I’m surrounded by, so each performance is extremely personal and stays with me a long time after I leave the stage.

Have you been collaborating with any other artists for Q-STAGE?

I am working in collaboration with two artists for this project. The first is Beth Peloff who is a Twin Cities-based animator that has been producing work for the past decade. We have collaborated on an animated short called “Underground” that I have vocally composed a soundscape for. The other collaborator is Psymun Christensen, a producer who is internationally recognized for his amazing work. We have collaborated on the song “Pregnant,” which he has produced and which I have written poetry and lyrics for.

I have also been taking time to reflect internally for this performance project while seeking inspiration from places that I have lived in the past and identities that I have connected with. With the use of mixed media arts, I hope to better expand the breadth of my work through different lenses.

What social issues are important to you and how do they inform the art you create?

The social issues that I hold the dearest to me are resource deprivation and resource hoarding, as it relates to genocide and displacement. This can be found in a number of different sociopolitical contexts in the world, but this is especially a concern in Sudan as the third revolution since the nation’s inception ruptures the sociopolitical climate. The rising effects of heteropatriarchal violent crimes enacted by the government and military officials, the rising cost of goods, the effects of resource insecurity due to hoarding and crop burning, and the censorship of journalists and social media have been ever present during this revolution. These issues have directly informed the work that I have created for Q-STAGE, shaping the landscape of my narratives for this piece.

What artists or performances have inspired you over the years?

The artists that have inspired me the most have been artists within the Twin Cities. Primarily, the people who I have been impacted by are poets and theater performers. These people are often a part of grass roots theater initiatives. One artist to name is Fatima Camara. This poet has is a youth poet that has been very active within the poetry slam community.

Do you have any other projects in the works that you’d like to tell us about?

Nothing that I would like to reveal at this moment due to the secretive nature of the projects, but I promise that something is on its way! Be sure to pay attention to my social media content in the next couple of months!

Dua’s piece Displacements and Diaries will premiere at Q-STAGE: New Works Series on May 9, 10 & 11th at Phoenix Theater.