Post performance Q&A with the cast of #Cartography and the students of @acsabudhabi
Q: why is a piece like this important?
A: there’s so much talk about migration and the framing and statistics impact policy. We can forget that those stories represent individual people with dreams that we can relate to #heroesjourney
On a show of hands, almost the entire audience from @acsabudhabi have lived in at least 2 or more countries. Migration is a common story in the UAE
Q: why does art matter?
A: like doctors, it’s our tool for sharing what we know, and for telling stories. Creative pursuits can be universal on an emotional level, and can bring different people together “on a level of the heart”
Art matters because it’s a language we all speak.
Student Q: what is the story of Cartography based on?
A: creators Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Myers met young migrants in Munich and spent time together. The youth asked them to share their stories. Not necessarily as “documentary” but as a telling of larger truth
Q: during a wordless scene of a raft, beautifully lit, what did they want the audience to take away?
A: you don’t want the lighting to take away from the story. When creating Cartography, they met two people from very different backgrounds who shared experience of raft travel
Q: how long did it take to make the play Cartography?
A: first workshop was 2016, then @BrooklynCollege in 2017, 2018 at @NYUAbuDhabi and world premiere was at @kencen in 2019. @NewVictory was also among the development and presenting partners
Q: why were the transition sounds so loud and jarring?
A: the boxes refer to having to leave quickly and then become waiting rooms. The loudness capture the sudden emergency and frantic need to move.
Q: There are so many issues in the world. So why this one? Why Cartography?
A: the writer Christopher Myers asked a 17year Syrian boy old whether he wanted to write a book of his story. The kid asked him “do you have dentists where you are from? When I have a toothache...
...I go to the dentist. You’re a storyteller. You’re the expert. You should tell our story” (paraphrasing)
And migration is such an urgent story of our time. Theater is a great tool to discuss it. #cartography
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