Victor Vazquez: Not simply how do you open up doorways for individuals of coloration—for Black people, for queer people, for people with disabilities, for Indigenous people—however how do you’re taking these fucking doorways off their hinges, which is extra of my politic.
Chorus: [sings “Remember”]
Yura Sapi: Welcome to season three. Welcome to our liberation. Welcome to the Building Our Own Tables podcast. The Building Our Own Tables podcast is produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. This is Yura Sapi right here to assist you in your journey of creation in the direction of our collective liberation. How thrilling is it to remodel our future, and be the long run ancestors we’ve dreamed for? May you obtain that which helps you in your journey and launch that which doesn’t. The universe expands as we do. Nature evolves as we do. We bear in mind. We bear in mind. We bear in mind.
Chorus: [sings “Remember”]
Yura Sapi: Let us name upon the 4 parts that assist us: The fireplace that burns inside igniting our creativeness, our potential to see into the long run. The water that holds us and holds inside our reminiscence. The air that lifts us up and carries our tales throughout to satisfy one another. The earth, which offers us sustenance, restore. To assist us on this journey, allow us to welcome in all of our ancestors.
We’re studying from visionaries who’ve constructed their very own tables, receiving gems of knowledge to assist us alongside our journey. In at the moment’s episode, I interview Victor Vasquez, the visionary creator of X Casting. I first met Victor at the Sol Project’s Latinx Theatre State of Emergency Talk. Like me, he had a lot to say, and I knew this dialog wouldn’t be any completely different. We share in our love for nature, our historical past as people on this planet, and the storytelling that comes with all of it. Victor Vazquez, X Casting, please inform the attractive listeners about your lovely self.
Victor: Hello, listeners. My title is Victor Vasquez. I take advantage of he/him pronouns. I’m presently in Los Angeles the place I used to be born and raised. I used to be born in Compton, and I used to be raised all through South Central Los Angeles. Both my mother and father are from Mexico, from the state of Jalisco, and I’m a casting director.
I began a casting firm in New York City about 4 years in the past. Now I get to work not solely throughout the nation and on each coasts however internationally as properly. I get to work in tasks that span not simply theatre, regionally, Broadway, off-Broadway but in addition movie and TV.
Yura Sapi: Please share with us extra in regards to the areas, practices, initiatives you’ve created and why.
“What a beautiful thing to dare so greatly to say you are building something not just for yourself but for others without really knowing the full structure of what you might be building.”
Victor: To be trustworthy, I need to speak about casting in a method that possibly we sometimes don’t take into consideration, or possibly we do. It simply doesn’t enter the dialog as a lot. I believe that there’s lots of duty in the best way that we think about. For me, creativeness work is so rooted in the best way that our ancestors imagined did their work, proper? Imagining not simply the present second however imagining generations additional, additional, additional, additional out.
For me, casting is figure of the creativeness that, for me, the thrilling half shouldn’t be that it’s rooted in leisure. I believe that’s only a byproduct of it. For me, the largest duty is: How can we infuse creativeness into the work we get to do by excited about the duty that we’ve, not simply to future generations however the present era, politically and culturally?
For me, these questions started and my work in casting in 2017 in March, which within the United States and our context right here, was two months into the Trump administration. My first job as a casting director was in Washington, D.C. at a significant theatre firm, a couple of blocks away from the National Mall on the White House. Our audiences consisted of Supreme Court justices, lobbyists, senators, congress individuals, people who find themselves actually concerned in conversations that affect us nationally. That was my local people.
When I first took that seat as a casting director of this main establishment, which on the time was a twenty-five-million-dollar establishment. I took this query of, “What does this seat look like when we think about the world in its current context? How do I think more responsibly about the bodies that our audiences are watching?” I began pondering rather a lot in regards to the work I do outdoors the scope of leisure, fairly actually, due to the political panorama that we discovered ourselves in.
As a queer, Latino son of immigrants who can be immunocompromised myself, I had to consider with this privilege, how do I’ve my very own radical protests within the work I get to do? I used to be asking myself lots of questions. Out of that got here lots of my very own ethos, it’s rooted in curiosity. What I used to be noticing on the time in 2017, we had this president who was demonstrating very forth rightly his pillars of white supremacy. So many people had been offended and outraged that any person will be so daring, not simply in a classist method however in an outright white supremacist method.
For me, what it was doing on the time too was like, properly, we’re mad at him, however it’s all of us. We’re all concerned on this system in a method or one other. He’s simply the face of it however we’re all answerable for it. As I thought of my very own privileges, within the spectrum of Latinidad and the spectrum of my very own entry, coloration of my very own pores and skin, I assumed, properly, what do I need to do about it? Those questions actually infused themselves into the work I used to be doing, get to do, and proceed to do in casting, which isn’t simply how do you open up doorways for individuals of coloration—for Black people, for queer people, for people with disabilities, for Indigenous people—however how do you’re taking these fucking doorways off their hinges, which is extra of my politic.
We know that there are about a little bit over a thousand casting administrators globally who’re answerable for curating the best way that tradition imagines itself fairly actually. If what we see issues, and if the factor that we’re consuming on a mass degree is story, consistently, via commercials, via movie, TV, audiobooks now, who you hearken to is telling the story, who you see. It’s the best way, to me, that we then think about or ourselves within the present second and picture ourselves ahead.
It’s no shock that illustration is vital as a result of once we see ourselves mirrored, there’s a form of sacredness to that, to seeing somebody such as you in a narrative that’s past you. There’s one thing sacred in seeing a brown-skinned Latina lady in house. There’s one thing sacred about seeing a Black lady being the chief of a spaceship on Star Trek. There’s one thing sacred in seeing a Black president. There is one thing sacred in seeing ourselves surviving and thriving. That’s the form of duty that I believe that casting administrators have on a world scale now that globalism is such a factor.
Before, we had such localized imaginations, however now we’re actually speaking about even a world one. Then how can we take into consideration that responsibly? That’s why for me, casting is absolutely the best way that we’ve conversations about tradition and politics. When you see any person like Tenoch Huerta in Black Panther, that could be a platform that you’d have now given one artist to amplify the conversations that he’s been having all through his complete life about racism, about Indigenous people, about his expertise in Mexico. These should not conversations which are shallowly primarily based off simply on field workplace numbers or coaching or leisure. For me, casting additionally has a curatorial course of. If we take into consideration casting as curatorial, then that’s a complete completely different method in imagining our positions.
Yura Sapi: What practices would you prefer to share with somebody who’s seeking to construct their very own desk?
Victor: There’s a recklessness that’s obligatory. Lean into that. How do you construct your creativeness? There’s no a method to do this. When I began X Casting, it was outrageous. I assumed on one facet, who am I to simply say that I’m beginning an organization in New York City? Who am I to say that I’m opening up a casting workplace? Lots of people affirmed to me in that worry, however then the opposite a part of me was like, why not?
Also, I noticed a gap on this dam, even visually like a dam, like holding water again. And I noticed a gap and I used to be like, “How do I solve for that when I am here in this position and I could but am I just not going to?” My recommendation to individuals is go for it. What a phenomenal factor to dare so tremendously to say that you just’re constructing one thing, not only for your self, however for others, with out actually understanding maybe the complete construction of what you could be constructing.
Yura Sapi: An vital a part of envisioning to manifest shouldn’t be getting caught up within the how, in that second, particularly of envisioning. This setback that may occur if I’m all caught up in determining the main points of, “Oh, I have this idea, and then all of a sudden now I’m like, well, but this and this, and this to get there, but wait.” Let’s simply deal with seeing, experiencing, listening to, feeling, understanding this liberated future that exists in a actuality on the market. Everything that’s begins as a thought, begins as an thought, a imaginative and prescient, an creativeness, the facility of with the ability to construct our creativeness.
Victor: Trusting that a part of ourselves is absolutely lovely as a result of it’s devoid of all the large questions of how. It requires trusting these components of ourselves that simply desires to throw themselves at activating one thing. Then there’s the opposite half that’s additionally required, which is the persistence of letting that preliminary power that you just throw out in such an enormous method. By saying, “I am going to activate this,” there’s an incredible persistence that then is required to let that power rework outwardly. We must belief that that can be the opposite facet of this course of, and that that persistence would possibly require years.
For me, these matters that I’m actually interested in, these questions that I’m actually asking, I knew immediately that these weren’t questions I’d reply within the second or anytime quickly. In truth, there are questions that I hope turn into clear questions and a long time. It’s not an issue that I’m attempting to resolve. It’s an issue that I’m attempting to be in dialog with. That is only a completely different reframing for me, of what it means to be in relationship with that power.
I believe that these two issues are positively obligatory. The preliminary avientate, do it, after which the required, okay, now let it play out, decide to it, chill. Let it do its factor. That’s additionally obligatory.
Yura Sapi: Plant a seed and do the work of cleansing the weeds, giving the water, ensuring the daylight is there.
Victor: Yes.
Yura Sapi: Also, yeah, I imply earlier than a part of planting a seed, it’s important to ensure clear the world, prep the soil, possibly do a mix of soils, observe how the sunshine is hitting that spot. Yeah, planting it’s a large deal. The second you plant it, however the greatest half too is the observe via and maintaining. There are so many issues that may kill the seeds and so it’s all of that nurturing.
Victor: There’s lots of care concerned.
Yura Sapi: How do you take care of your self?
Victor: For me, even activating this concept of beginning my very own firm is a option to look after myself. There’s a mutual profit right here. So a lot of the best way that I’ve envisioned what I get to do, it additionally returns to me lots of autonomy and it provides me monetary safety. It provides me the flexibility to look after myself in lots of, many alternative methods. It provides me the flexibility to take day off after I must, and it’s as soon as once more permitting me to dream.
The work I do shouldn’t be the whole lot of me. It’s one dedication I’m making that truly pursuits me. There are different components of me that I’m additionally now beginning to try and and look after due to it. That’s my very own writing observe, that’s my very own dedication to my very own physique and caring for it. That is my very own worth set of what household means to me and the right way to decide to that. It’s asking the query, even in remedy, what does enjoyable seem like for me? Now, I’m about to be thirty-five, and I’m asking myself that query in a brand new method. What does it imply for me to play? What does that imply for me now? How can I prioritize that? What does that seem like? For me, care can be being interested in these different components of me that I get to care for too.
Yura Sapi: I need to uplift the birds which are supporting what you’re saying all through your talking. There’s completely different moments the place they’ll be like, sure, sure.
Victor: Do you hear the hen chirping within the background?
Yura Sapi: Yeah. Animals, I’ve seen as I’m studying extra about connecting to nature, the knowledge of nature, whenever you acknowledge an animal or a plant, they acknowledge you again. Oftentimes, I’ll expertise the assist of birds. Rain right here is big. Just the rain normally, hook up with the feelings and emotions of everybody, however yeah, the birds, particularly. Dogs, even issues that occur, a sound of one thing in a selected second. Different recordings, and there’ll be a selected sound, an animal simply amplifying that. Yeah, there’s moments the place I’m like, “Let them speak.”
Victor: We labored on a movie final 12 months and it takes place in Cuba. We, when working within the casting of it, wished to actually solid Cubans out of Cuba. It appears apparent however there are lots of challenges to that. One of our fundamental processes of accepting tapes was by having—not even actors. There had been residents of Cuba who most of them had by no means acted earlier than, however the factor that was most constant in all their self-tapes was the sound of Cuba outdoors their window. You heard rainstorms, you heard the streets alive, you heard honking and vehicles passing by. You heard individuals speaking actually loudly, you heard music. It was some of the magnificent issues ever for me to hearken to all these tapes that had been coming in nearly and to know that the sound of Cuba was very current in all of these.
It was some of the lovely issues. There had been moments the place I’d simply cry as a result of it felt like this particular person is in relationship to their location in such a distinct method than we function, even right here within the states. We attempt to quiet every thing down, and it was such a stark distinction that it made me very emotional.
Yura Sapi: Being in a position to determine that and share that with others, it’s positively one thing that… it’s a part of what I’m doing now, is with the ability to assist present that lots of this rhetoric round third world nations, creating, all these items—this concept of hierarchy of the West, English talking locations, which most of our listeners are seemingly listening from these locations. That there’s rather a lot we will be taught from non-Western, English-centered talking locations all over the world.
Being in a position to be in relationship with the place you’re and what you’re round, it permits us to make selections which are extra according to what you’re speaking about, the seven generations sooner or later and being extra in tune with what’s occurring, not solely in our thoughts and never solely excited about making the subsequent paycheck or getting issues on time and filling in a sure field as a result of that’s what possibly was mentioned in a distinct second, a distinct place. But the truth of what the state of affairs is, is completely different and so with the ability to dwell in that second and make selections primarily based off of what’s occurring, responding to the wants of our neighborhood.
Chorus: [sings]
Yura Sapi: The Building Our Own Tables podcast is produced in partnership with Advancing Arts Forward, a motion to advance fairness, inclusion, and justice via the humanities. We create liberated areas like this one, that uplift, heal, and encourage us to alter the world. Check out advancingartsforward.org to see our gatherings, programs, teaching, and artist residency program. You may donate to assist this podcast in different areas.
Victor: One of the primary issues I inform actors is like, “Okay, so a lot of you probably have a binary understanding of your craft that has been conditioned and rooted in this pass/fail system, which is rooted in our educational system. Your understanding of success is pass/fail, and therefore, you think if you don’t get a job, you’ve failed. You only succeed when you pass.” That’s the primary form of delusion I attempt to break.
Again, once we’re excited about, such as you mentioned, the generations forward, once we’re excited about this sluggish dedication, that could be a lifetime of labor. We can’t proceed with that sort of binary in place. It will eat us. That is such a Western understanding of the best way that we do our work and even only a Western understanding of labor normally. What classes are realized outdoors this context? What you’re saying actually helps break that open and that there’s truly extra beneficiant options on the market.
Yura Sapi: Here for the beneficiant options we’re naming and imagining and bringing into actuality.
Victor: They must be. What else are there?
Yura Sapi: Yeah, yeah. Going forth in the direction of the best way every thing works out and projecting that imaginative and prescient into actuality, believing in that imaginative and prescient as a result of if we select to consider in any other case or consider that it’s not doable, that finally ends up turning into the truth.
Victor: Initially studying Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown years in the past was such a pivot for me as a result of it helped me bridge or begin a bridge in the direction of understanding in regards to the classes that nature presents us already in its personal design. And so, I began diving deeper into what meaning for me as a result of I did discover it to be extra beneficiant. I did discover that it was serving to me break open lots of the myths I had believed to be true, that truly, nature presents us techniques of generosity.
For me, some of the vital techniques is that of relationship. I believe typically in regards to the work I get to do, not a lot as a panorama or a discipline, however as an ecosystem. When I give it some thought that method, I take into consideration myself as an lively participant in it. I consider us as lively contributors on this ecosystem. I take into consideration the alchemy of what it means to be in lively participation and the way we need to be in relationship with each other and with it. How can we replicate that generosity amongst ourselves, amongst one another?
When it involves issues like time, in relation to issues like monetary boundaries, wants for survival, our duty to at least one one other and to all of the issues that aren’t individuals on this ecosystem, which is what precedes us and what will probably be right here past us, there’s a large duty for a way we select to dwell in it and with each other. That’s why, for me, being beneficiant is a way of thinking and it’s an lively observe of relationship, that I’m not anticipating it to be beneficiant with me, I have to be beneficiant with it.
There’s an adrienne maree brown quote: “What we pay attention to grows.” I believe rather a lot about that duty, which is like, properly, what do I need to take note of, as a result of it’s going to develop? Not solely is it in regards to the duty that we’ve to one another and the duty that we’ve to the long run, it’s additionally the duty to have religion that the smallest interactions rework into or plug into these bigger techniques that we’ve to think about, that aren’t working to remodel the world round us. We don’t must be these magnificent beings, activating, constructing large tables. Actually, the smallest work is our most sacred act, that we will have religion that that duty alone is transformational, not only for ourselves however for others. I’ve seen that, now, play out for me in lots of, some ways, the place a small interplay from 5 years in the past leads into, for another person, even within the function I’ve, leads into them getting a job 5 years later that I will help join.
I take into consideration that rather a lot. I’m not constructing relationship with individuals in a transactional method. It’s a religion that I do know that down the road, that we’ve been related for some purpose, and what that may play out of because it ought to, as it’ll.
Yura Sapi: Paciencia y fe. Knowing time is on our facet, residing in that fact.
Victor: Yep. It’s so laborious. It’s so laborious to be affected person. At least I’ll communicate from the “I.” I prefer to struggle it so actually because there’s a lot of that preliminary delusion of now, now, now; this binary method of understanding Western versus non-Western. From a Western context, we dwell in such a market alternate tradition. We even need to be in an alternate tradition with time. We suppose that point owes us issues, that if we make investments time, that we’ll get one thing again.
We suppose that we will management it in some ways and that we’ve objectives and expectations that are rigorously architected to present us X, Y, Z outcomes. If not, then there’s an issue. It’s no shock to me that even with time, we attempt to commodify it however yeah, you’ll be able to’t do this. Like you mentioned in your ballot: What does it seem like to take pleasure in refuge on this collusive factor that’s out of your management? That is a observe proper there.
Chorus: [sings “Time is Not Linear”]
Yura Sapi: It’s a cool method of seeing how time shouldn’t be linear as a result of slowing it down or rushing it up, I believe additionally will be, after which going again sluggish, tangible methods to expertise how time shouldn’t be linear and that it’s one thing made up. Even the concept of the calendars that we run on, the dates that we put, there’s all types of solutions in there, all completely different sorts of the way. I’m simply pondering even of those instances of 12 months which are gathered upon for people and beings normally, in numerous components of the world and in numerous cultures, issues that sort of go previous the calendar that we’re in now—the moon cycles and the seasons that you could be be in, you’ll have, aligning to that side of how time strikes. The day, following the day, the solar rising and setting and sort of syncing as much as that point.
Victor: As a West Coast boy, there may be such a lesson in that after I moved to the East Coast and I used to be residing in D.C. and New York City as a result of my physique didn’t know or perceive seasons in that method. It was so laborious to give up to how time modifications in that method. I hear what you’re saying, and I’m like, “Ooh, that’s why I was.” It’s so lovely and so fascinating. To hear about observe. Then on one other degree, placing that observe into observe is so laborious to let your self, your physique, expertise other ways of transferring via time. Then typically, it accelerates after which typically, it slows down, and that typically, you simply received to relax. Sometimes, you simply received to go very actual. Such a fantastic lesson too is then adapt that into so many different components of our lives, whether or not it’s our careers or creative practices or {our relationships}. Same factor.
One of the issues I discussed earlier was even similar to the dissecting of the phrase solid versus caste. For anyone on the market listening who’s on this idea of casting, the explanation that I root it within the house of creativeness is as a result of I believe that for thus lengthy, the opposite method of claiming the phrase, the opposite that means, has been true for a lot of, many generations, which is that we’ve imagined one another or each other or others in ways in which have impacted generations of peoples in violent, political, cultural methods. Talking about creativeness work shouldn’t be at all times rooted in generosity. It can fairly actually be rooted in genocide. It will be fairly actually rooted in violence. That understanding of the 2 sides of that coin is the place this duty comes from; that imagining ourselves and folks like and in contrast to us in beneficiant methods is a radical act. Imagining individuals like us and in contrast to issues, and envisioning their futures, is a radical act of their survival too.
Yura Sapi: An envisioning observe that can assist you see, really feel, style, scent, hear what liberation could be. I do that observe rather a lot and welcome sharing it with others, particularly once we could really feel like we’re attempting so laborious to suppose our method out of an issue, when actually, the options are so shut. Take a second, really feel your toes connecting to the earth, taking a breath, feeling the air rush via your physique, supplying you with vitamins you want.
Close your eyes if you want and begin to let your self see, hear, style, really feel, scent. What does your liberated future let you know? What indicators or symbols, locations in nature, what’s there? Trust your intuition. Trust the primary issues that will come up. Getting curious, in search of to think about, what’s there? What does that imply for you, that coloration, that picture, that sound, that scent?
What does it really feel like whenever you attain your liberated future? How will by what you are feeling when you’re there? Take a breath, indulging and refuging on this feeling and this imaginative and prescient and this sound and this scent. Go forward and begin to come again into our current second, trying round, rejoining the place we’re.
Victor: I need to finish this dialog by simply going again to the duty and the severity of creativeness work. It is important for all of us to decide on what sort of creativeness work we need to be answerable for. I don’t suppose that we will be passive about this work and that I consider that that task of the way you want to think about your future in different individuals’s futures finds its method into the work you presently do on the market. I actually do suppose that it’s our method, our trendy method of storytelling.
Before, we used to assemble across the fireplace to inform tales on the finish of every day, classes we’ve realized that day, most of them rooted in survival. Do not journey in the direction of the river that method as a result of there’s a click on hidden. Travel this manner as a result of there’s satisfactory meals sources. I can simply think about the form of storytelling that was occurring round that fireside, and that in our DNA, that we had been educated to pay attention to those tales out of an act of survival to think about ourselves ahead, to think about our generations ahead. I don’t suppose that we’ve let that go.
I consider in some ways, that we nonetheless do this sort of work to one another and each other, via most of the work that we collectively do on our every day lives. What sort of tales do you need to take part in, do you need to inform, do you need to think about? How are you able to guarantee not simply your survival however the survival of these round you too?
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