Usman's thoughts

We are now in our last weekend of American Ethnic, and the fact that we have 4 sold out shows is an amazing testament to the beautiful artistic work, and excellent marketing of this production! I could not be happier with how things have turned out for us…the work is slick, meaningful and diverse. The production values are excellent, the talk backs with academics and civic leaders brilliant. I think this is the first year that thinkTank has really been what was first envisioned- a month of powerful eclectic and socially conscisous work.

As an actor and an artist its been a great growth process for me as well, giving me the opportunity to hone some of my writing, figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t, and what do I need to be able to tell a story clearly, AND stylistically. Its been dope, its been real, and I am excited to see where we can take this show- around the country, festivals…the sky is the limit.

IMAGES FROM THE SHOW!

Stage Management

I moved to Chicago to be a part of projects like American Ethnic. The pieces are personal and poignant; they tell a story of our ethnic past and present, they ask the dangerous questions about where WE are headed as a county - as people. Pieces that instill change into an audience, that help shape they way they view the world. I guess it may sound trite, but this is why I chose this as my profession.

We have just finished our tech weekend and are jumping into tech/opening week. Tech week is my favorite week...I get to be "hands on" with the production, helping to pull all the pieces together and watch it take shape. This collaberation, has been extremely rewarding for me - to work with such talented individuals and produce something that can cause change, it's a rarity (though not at Remy Bumppo :).

TECH WEEKEND

Well the weekend was grueling. A ten hour tech on Saturday and another 5 hours on Sunday, but it was well worth it. The show is in great shape, the lights and sound adding a great deal of color, vibrancy and immediacy to the production. It’s great working with sound expert Nick Keenan, and lighting wizz Stephanette. Under the guiding eye of stage manager Amy Bertacini and director Nick Sandys, tech weekend was unusually relaxed but efficient at the same time.
As for the performers, we are getting a little antsy, ready to put this show up in front of an audience! I can’t believe opening is so soon, and the nervous energy is getting the better of me! I am ready!
Shameless plug: Sunday evening Kelly and I will be at the Green Mill’s Uptown Poetry Slam this Sunday the 15th of March.

Then catch us at Café Mestizo Wednesday 18th March.

A Cricket fan's nightmare

For a Pakistani seeing images of gunman firing at cricket players in a bus is one of the saddest sights ever. Cricket is a more than a national pastime for my people. Its something that binds us all together, and is in fact an obsession. Pakistani treat cricketers from all over the world like royalty, amazed at the talent, aggression and intelligence they show on the field. It is hard for an American to fully understand how the term "aggression" can be used in the same sentence as cricket, and because of the terrorist attack today, the word term has found a new, completely disgusting connection with our sport.

Pakistanis love aggressive bombastic cricket, but we love to see it on the field. We love to see a batsmen thrash a quick bowler who has been sending the ball down at him at over 99 Miles/hour.
We love to see the wickets smash when that bowler has got his revenge, chest thumping and being mobbed by his teammates. We blow horns in the crowd, we dance, we sing, we taunt the opposition. The andrenaline is so powerful.
As someone who played the game competitively for many years, there was no better feeling than winning a trying, tiring test match.

We love cricket. We love cricketers. We even love cricketers from other countries. We huddle around televisions and watch, and for a moment all the rest of the hardships of life, the suicide bombings, the taliban, the political instability, all of it doesnt matter anymore.



So, when cricketers are the targets of attacks by fanatical idiots, we feel outraged, ashamed and at total despair. This attack will kill cricket in Pakistan, and the biggest step to the death of our people. I am thankful that our friends the Sri Lankan cricket team were saved from serious harm. But now, no teams will tour Pakistan, and the stadiums will remain empty.

Its interesting watching these images on the screen from here in the states, so far away from the devastation, and then hearing my fathers voice on the phone lamenting the death of all civilization in Pakistan. He has a tendency to be melodramatic, but I have heard him say this over and over again this year and the last. This coming from a man who only a few years ago would never have said something like this about his own country. Pakistan is being slowly overrun but a small minority of nutjobs, who are unfortunately misrepresenting the entire population. How much can I really blame the media representations of me, when I see this violence by my people against my own people. How often can we shift the blame, pass the buck.

Over there bombs are going off, over here I'm writing a show about how unfair it is to be an actor of color. Sometimes, our perspective is so out of whack.
But, I know that just because things are worse somewhere else doesnt meant our own country should be immune from criticism. Voices of dissent, and outrage are what separate us from crazy nutjobs....both the Taliban types, and the ultra nationalists here in America.

-Usman

Idris Goodwin talks about American Ethnic Rehearsal

Weds Feb.25

We are butchering Ol man River. No, we aren't doing showboat but elements of the song appear. (Did I just give away something important?) I feel Paul Robeson's spirit in the room and he is vomiting.......even that sounds better than our poor rendition of the song.

Nick knows a lot about how to stage violence (and quite possibly off stage violence). I have begun to ask him about random scenes in movies and plays to see if he knows how they were done. I have yet to stump him. I need to go into my blaxploitation film grab bag. Lets see if he knows how they did the fight scenes in Black Belt Jones! There is no physical violence in our show though nunchucks are referenced - the word BOMB shows up quite a bit as well.

Amy, our stage manager, typically reels our focus back in when we go off on tangents about movies and medieval weaponry (that's all Nick). Though she did join in a conversation about the plays of Martin McDonagh.

Usman and Kelly are very good actors in addition to writers. I have such regard for the craft of acting. Acting is hard. It looks so easy because that's the point - to do it so well it looks natural and effortless. But its very very hard. As a spoken word performer I typically perform the words and not the moment as Kelly would say. I know, I know, if it wasn't hard everyone would do it. I know I should be grateful and I am grateful.....I'm just sayin.....for me spoken word is fun, acting is work. Don't tell anyone. I got a reputation to maintain. I'm just sayin....

The themes of the show aside, this fusion (or maybe I can say exploration) of different performance styles is what has become the most interesting for me. collage, monologue, song, sketch, commentary, commentary, commentary - the specificity of current experience - the sweeping indictments - the odes - the pace that we move from piece to piece - the windows into culture - the celebration of both community and self - this feels like just the beginning of what is possible for us nerdy hip hop kids with aspirations for the stage.

idris goodwin

http://www.idrisgoodwin.blogspot.com/

Flexing the Writing Muscles

When I moved to Chicago, I was filled with ambition, both as an actor but particularly as a writer/spoken word artist. I had been doing the whole SLAM and Hiop Hop Theatre scene in both Portland, OR as a student, and in Florida during my MFA, but i was now moving to the self proclaimed "birth-place of spoken word!"

I had told myself to immerse myself in the writing scene, and hit up all the spots regularly performing my style of spoken word....but that didnt quite happen. Instead I've hit up the Green Mill a few times, been a featured performer, and done Public Enemy last year for thinkTank. The focus for the last two years in this city has been on acting...only. And thats been great! just fine with me, since thats what my degree is in...so I've worked with Victory Gardens, Steppenwolf and Lookingglass to name a few, and been gaining really important professional experience.

So as you can imagine, its taken me a bit to flex that writing muscle and get back into the writing, while during the rehearsals so much of my energy has been in the actions, the motivations for each piece. I hunger to find specificity in choices on stage, how to enliven a piece, but thankfully with the editting and conversational help of my co-horts, the writing has come along grandly! as well!

Its an amazing feeling when it feels like things are chugging along, and you are artistically connecting to a piece both as a writer and hip hop kid, but also as an actor.

So for me, we are in that place right now, where the writing is all coming together, we are more and more satisfied with what is on the page, and now its time to build, create, make choices, make more choices, and bring it all onto the stage. That great, nitty gritty stuff that all actors love.

I was reading Hanif Kureishi's Strangers When We Meet, and he has a great thought in there. He says "The depth and passion Florence has on stage is clear to me. But, I know what an artist finds interesting about their own work, the part they consider original and penetrating, will not necessarily compel an audience, who might not even notice it, but only attend to the story."

Very well put.

Usman

Director's Take- HipHopHopeLand

Today the show started to really take shape and find its direction--which is good for me, as director! As we began to put sections together and see how they fit, I realised that the initial sections that we had created early on were not quite making sense--which makes sense! As our three intrepid writers are still writing, and have responded to their recent experiences and feelings (Usman's return to his Pakistani homeland, Kelly's response to current hiphop music), the shows pieces begin to change tone and to crossfade/mix with each other in different combinations. Now a section on television can be divided into two, one half on role models and creation myths, a second on news and its censorship of experience. This devlopment then changes the section before, and changes where the comedy and lightness needs to be. So this process, so alive and so exciting, just took another step into scary territory, since I am far more comfortable, or expereinced at least, in carving up Shakespeare's text, than I am in analyzing Idris', Kelly's, and Usman's soft rhymes, riffs, ragings--but I love their passion, their opinions, and their words. This is a wild ride into hiphophopeland, and today the show just grew another super power!

Nick

Global Media

For this week's blog entry, we borrow a post from Usman Ally's own personal blog.
Usman recently returned from Pakistan, where he was fascinated by what he calls the "creeping Americanisation of Pakistani Media."

Here's his excerpt: (for more of his blog check out http://usmanally.blogspot.com

PAKISTANI FOX NEWS

I’ve been here just about a week now, and I have to admit there has been quite a bit to take in. Everything from uncovering of old family stories that make us laugh and ache deep in our hearts, to the unavoidable reopening of old wounds that never fully healed and become part of our unspoken family history.

Life is strange: I finally become used to sitting next to my mother, watching Pakistani dramas and Indian movies when the world outside all of a sudden rudely interrupts our awkwardly beautiful moments of reconnection. The news on the telly has been flooded with images of death and destruction in Gaza, and the perception of the Arab-Israeli conflict is presented in a completely different light than it is in Chicago, Illinois.
However the media here uses much of the same tools. There is a FOX News here too, and it features radical perspectives calling for an armed military intervention by Pakistan in Gaza to “teach Israel a lesson” much in the same way Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity wanted America to “bomb them to bits” a few years ago. Thankfully the sane, sober news stations far outnumber the crazy ones, but it still leaves an impression in your mind when you see how different yet similar things are here.
As the conflict in Gaza grows many Arab nations and peoples have been looking to Pakistan as a muslim force that might be able to halt Israel. I say hogwash to that. Pakistan has plenty of its own problems to deal with what with inner turmoil of terror organizations, the Afghan border and India. And besides Arab nations love to beckon Pakistan to do something because this country has armed nuclear power, but Arabs still treat Pakistani people in a very pejorative way. But, I think I have mentioned this in a previous post already so I won’t waffle on now. I’ll just say that hopefully the armed offensive will end soon before more Palestinians are killed.

Back to war time terminology though…here terrorist organizations that lurk in the shadows of the northern areas of Pakistan feel galvanized and find justification of their actions because of the United States’ inaction, and seemingly pro-Israeli standpoint. Today 2 bombs went off in a part of Punjab that is not too far off from where we live. Far enough that it doesn’t affect us here in Islamabad at all, but still eerily close. I wonder if Americans back in Chicago realize that the terror organizations that plant these bombs that kill women and children use the same language as the US armed forces. When innocents are killed they call it “collateral damage” and those that have been killed are “casualties of war.” When more Pakistanis die than those who are targeted they say that it is due to “friendly fire.” They justify their war in exactly the same way that the US Armed Forces justify their own military actions in the Middle East. Interesting huh?"

OBAMA-MANIA

With the election of our lovely new and improved President, one can’t help but notice the wave of anticipation, and excitement in the air. Most everyone (yes even some Republican Americans) cannot help but be swept up into the electric atmosphere. I have never seen people so giddy every time that man comes up on the screen. People smile when he bobs his head to Aretha Franklin, people tear up when he speaks about his mother, people applaud when he quotes the great Sam Cooke saying “A Change Gonna Come!”
Of course all of this has begged the question of whether we live in a post-racial word. In an earlier blog entry my co-horts Kelly Tsai and Idris Goodwin responded to the bizarre question posed in the Chicago RedEye “Is Racism Dead?” If I can be permitted to paraphrase them, “Hells No!” I perfectly understand that it is monumental and historic that Obama is now in the white house, no longer is a man of color (not a black man, but a man of color, lets be real) unable to go higher up than a General Colin Powell, or a Condi Rice, this man of color is DA MAN! But, this means very little in the real day to day world. There are still forms of institutional racism that exist today, still a lack of investment in schools in poor neighborhoods, still a disproportionate level of punishment for African American narcotics offenders, still a lack of representation of people of color in investment firms, in the legal system and in HOLLYWOOD to ever say that racism is dead or that we live in a post-racial world. Obama’s election does not in the slightest way make everything ok, and while that might seem an obvious statement, you would be surprised to know how many people interact with me as if I have suddenly been liberated.
At the end of the day, I am still a perceived threat to many in this country because of my ethnicity, I am still suspect. I am still having a harder time getting apartments to rent when people see my face after talking to me on the phone, and I know that if I lived in Inglewood, Chicago and decided to raise a family, my kids would get a poor education based on the demographic and geographic environment.

Now, what the election of our President does pose is….(drum roll please) HOPE. Obama brings the possibility that the ball will start rolling on these issues, that he will kindly remind his advisers that they need to think about what the little guy needs, that other people of color who are consistently overlooked or misrepresented need to be brought to the table. Here’s hoping.
I feel for him though…coming into this economic climate, the mess from the previous administration and the war in Gaza it almost seems like he has been set up to fail in some way.
I don’t think my expectations are lofty though….I think he just needs to deliver, like any president would have to…regardless of race.

Remy Bumppo's thinkTank "American Ethnic"

This spring, Remy Bumppo's thinkTank returns for its third year. thinkTank features dramatic works with a focus on provoking timely conversation about a social, political or economic issue in which Chicago citizens have a stake.

We are pleased to announce the cast and topic of American Ethnic - the third annual production of thinkTank. This year's presentation features three nationally recognized spoken word artists - Idris Goodwin, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, and Usman Ally - who will collaborate on an original work combining hip-hop, spoken word and theater aesthetics to examine the mass media's role in perpetuating cultural norms surrounding race and gender. This world premiere production will be directed by Nick Sandys.

Tickets go on sale in January. http://www.remybumppo.org/

Click here for videos, podcasts, and more.

Idris Goodwin is an award winning hip hop playwright, break beat poet, recording artist and teacher committed to making work that incites, inspires, and engages. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Idris a Playwright-in-Residence grant to explore hip-hop aesthetics in theater. Idris' break beat poetry was featured on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam" as well as the Spoken Word Revolution Redux Anthology. Idris frequently teaches and lectures at institutions across the country on themes of art and activism.

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based, Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who has given over 275 performances worldwide in notable venues like the Nuyorican Poets Café, House of Blues, Apollo Theater in Harlem, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and three seasons on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam." Current projects include her recently released CD "Infinity Breaks" and her solo show "The Grieving Room."

Usman Ally A Pakistani national who was born and raised in Southern and Eastern Africa for 18 years, Usman made his Chicago theatre debut in Tranquility Woods at Steppenwolf Theater Company. His one man show Public Enemy was featured in Remy Bumppo's thinkTank last season. He has appeared in productions at Victory Gardens Theater, Lookingglass Theatre, and A Red Orchid Theatre. He is founder of One Nation, the first Hip Hop Theatre troupe at University of Florida.