Sharing Power with Groundwater Arts
Sharing Power is a podcast and performance series about distributed leadership and consent-based processes. The podcast, co-hosted by Flux Creative Partners Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Corinna Schulenburg, and Jason Tseng, invites other creators and organizers who are practicing distributed leadership/consent-based processes to discuss how they’re doing it.
Our fourth Sharing Power episode was with Annalisa Dias and Tara Moses about their collaboration in Groundwater Arts:
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“The four of us, when we started, was the right four… especially because what we’re doing is very much outside of the white supremacy or centric way of working. It was very, very well balanced. I don’t think it would have worked as well…with any other conglomeration of people.”
-Tara Moses“These systems of oppression are in the groundwater, the pollution and the oil and the extraction, which is all tied to colonial capitalism, right? And that Black and Native peoples have been telling us [this] for like hundreds of years…And so the groundwater metaphor is pointing to that legacy too—that we are standing in the footsteps of work that has been going on for generations.”
-Annalisa Dias
Groundwater Arts braids together new ideas, living knowledge, and immediate strategies to bring the arts and culture field to the decolonized and climate-just future faster. Like mangrove tree roots, we are adaptable, committed to protecting frontline communities, and ready to face the biggest challenges of our time.
THE GUESTS
Annalisa Dias (she/her) is a Goan-American transdisciplinary artist, community organizer, and award-winning theatre maker working at the intersection of racial justice and care for the earth. She is Director of Artistic Partnerships & Innovation at Baltimore Center Stage, where she is responsible for new work development, civic programming, and BCS’s rentals and shared space initiative. She is a TCG Rising Leader of Color. Recent work includes THE CARLISLE PROJECT, a musical song cycle in collaboration with Ronee Penoi (Laguna Pueblo/Cherokee) about the legacy of the Carlisle Indian school; and THE EARTH, THAT IS SUFFICIENT, a performance project about hope for the future in the face of the climate catastrophe, produced by The Welders throughout 2019 in Washington DC and globally. Annalisa has facilitated dialogue and presented on anti-oppression and decolonization at numerous national conferences including Theater Communications Group, Kennedy Center Directing & Dramaturgy Intensive, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, American Alliance for Theatre Educators, Shakespeare Theatre Association, among others. Annalisa has published several articles and book chapters on the subject of decolonization in artistic practice and higher educational contexts. She has been an invited guest speaker on issues of anti-racism, decolonization, and new play development in graduate classes at Tisch NYU, American University, Hollins University, George Washington University, and The Catholic University of America.
Tara Moses (she/her) is a citizen of Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Mvskoke, award-winning playwright, director, and co-Founder of Groundwater Arts. Most recently, her work as a director has been seen with Mixed Precipitation (Minneapolis, MN); The Eagle Project (New York, NY); New Repertory Theatre (Boston, MA); San Francisco Playhouse (San Francisco, CA); Brown/Trinity Rep (Providence, RI); American Indian Community House (New York, NY); Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.); Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (New Haven, CT); Safe Harbors Indigenous Collective (New York, NY); telatúlsa (Tulsa, OK); Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company (Edmond, OK); Serenbe Playhouse (Chattahoochee Hills, GA); and Amerinda (New York, NY). As a playwright, her completed works include Sections, He’eo’o (Winner of the 2019 Native Storytellers Contest), Quantum (2020 and 2021 Finalist for the National Playwrights Conference), Bound (2019 Native American New Play Festival Winner), Hamlet: El Príncipe de Denmark, Don Juan, Arbeka (Supported by First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship), Patchwork, Snag, Billie, Sugar, Poyvfekcv, and Haunted. Her plays have been produced and/or developed with Audible, Company One (Boston, MA); American Indian Community House (New York, NY); Safe Harbors Indigenous Collective (New York, NY); Sound Theatre Company (Seattle, WA); Good Luck Macbeth Theatre Company (Reno, NV); American Indian Artists, Inc. AMERINDA, (New York, NY); Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (New Haven, CT); Native Voices at the Autry (Los Angeles, CA); Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company (Oklahoma City, OK); telatúlsa (Tulsa, OK); University of Central Oklahoma (Edmond, OK); No Peeking Theatre Company (Jersey City, NJ); Furnace Fringe Festival (Boston, MA); #BingeTheatreCompany (Washington, D.C.); and Echo Theatre Company (Tulsa, OK). Additionally, her plays have been taught and/or are currently in the curriculum at NYU Tisch, Marymount College, Brown University, the University of Arizona, UCLA, University of Washington, Oklahoma City University, Northeastern State University, and the University of Arkansas. She is a Participant in New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NYSAF NEXUS project (2021); Playwright-in-Residence at Alter Theatre (2020/21); a commissioned playwright for the New Now Commission with Lauren Gunderson (2020); a Cultural Capital Fellow with First Peoples Fund (2020); Invited Playwright with HBMG Foundation’s National Winter Playwrights Retreat (2020); fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute (2018/19); the Native Storytellers winner with the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (2019); an observer with the SDC Foundation (18/19); fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute (18/19); member of DirectorsLabChicago (2018); member of the Directors Lab at Lincoln Center (2017); Senior Artistic Director Fellow, Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship at Arena Stage (2016/17); recipient of the Thomas C. Fichandler Award (2016); Management Fellow, Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship at Arena Stage (2015/16); associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society; and Dramatists Guild member. She holds a B.A. in Theatre from the University of Tulsa and is an MFA Directing Candidate at Brown University/Trinity Rep. She is from the Muscogee Creek Reservation.
Twitter/Instagram: @taratomahawk
www.taramoses.com
THE CO-HOSTS
Lori Elizabeth Parquet, co-host, (she/her), is a Flux Creative Partner and actor, director, and playwright from New Orleans, Louisiana with a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Cornell University. Her New York City stage credits include Macbeth, Dispatches From (A)mended America (Off-Broadway, Epic Theatre Ensemble), The Providence of Neighboring Bodies (Dutch Kills Theater/Ars Nova), The Honeycomb Trilogy: Sovereign (Gideon Productions), Medea (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble), Dog Act, Ajax in Iraq, Honey Fist, Operating Systems (Flux Theatre Ensemble), and Republic, Baal, Murder In the Cathedral (JACK/Hoi Polloi). She made her international debut performing in Pillars of Society at Teater Ibsen in Skien, Norway. She also performed in The Providence of Neighboring Bodies at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018. In 2019 she was nominated for and won the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Lead Role for her performance in Operating Systems. As a director, Lori has directed Topdog/Underdog at Princeton Summer Theater and assistant directed The Public Theater’s most recent Shakespeare in the Park productions of As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. She was alsoas an acting coach on Disney’s Hercules, a Public Works production. Lori just served as Associate Director of New York City Center’s Encores: Off-center production of Maria Irene Fornes’ Promenade and has directed many readings and workshops with Public Works, Flux Theatre Ensemble, The Brooklyn Generator, and other theatre companies across New York City. As a playwright, Lori was selected as one of six featured playwrights for Season Five of The Fire This Time Festival, which produced a reading of her full-length play In Communion, and her short plays have been produced through Flux Theatre Ensemble, New York Madness, and other NYC indie theatres and festivals.
Corinna Schulenburg, co-host, (she-her), is a Flux Creative Partner. She is a trans artist and activist committed to ensemble practice and social justice.As a playwright, her work with Flux includes Riding the Bull, Rue, Other Bodies, The Lesser Seductions of History, Jacob’s House, DEINDE, Honey Fist, Salvage,The Sea Concerto, and Operating Systems. With Flux, she directed Ajax in Iraq (NYITA nomination), A Midsummer Nights Dream, and the Food:Souls Goldsboro and Volleygirls. As an actor with Flux, she has played Sam in Metra: A Climate Revolution Play with Songs; Max in World Builders, Dr. X in Hearts Like Fists, Ezekiel in 8 Little Antichrists (NYITA nomination), and the Professor in Rue.
Jason Tseng, co-host, (they/them) is a queer, non-binary Chinese-American playwright based in New York City, originally hailing from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Their plays have been presented and developed by Flux Theatre Ensemble, Judson Arts, Mission to dit(Mars), Theatre COTE, Inkubator Arts, Second Generation, Downtown Urban Arts Festival, and LA Queer New Works Festival. They are a Creative Partner of Flux Theatre Ensemble, a member of The Civilians’s 2019/2020 R&D Group, a member of Mission to dit(Mars)’s Propulsion Lab, and their plays have been honored as Semi-finalists for the New American Voices Playwrights Festiva, Bay Area Playwrights Festivall and the Eugene O’Neil National Playwrights Conference. Jason’s full-length plays include Rizing (World Premiere, Flux Theatre Ensemble), Like Father, Same Same, Ghost Money, Fear and Wonder, and The Other Side. Find more at jasontseng.com.
