Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You IN HIS NEW BOOK HEARTS IN MOTION, HEARTS IN PLACE, ENRIQUE LA MADRID, SHARES THE QUEST FOR QUERENCIA, THROUGH BIRDS, MEMORY AND PLACE.

[Enrique reading] A BEHIND THE SCENES LOOK AT THE CONTEMPORARY THEATER'S 40TH ANNIVERSARY PRODUCTION OF FAT HAM, THE BOLD, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING REIMAGINING OF SHAKESPEARE'S HAMLET.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

[Enrique reading] >> Faith: Hi, Enrique, thanks for coming Colores to talk about your new book, Hearts in Motion, Hearts in Place To start us off, I want to talk about this amazing painting that you brought along with you, which is the painting that's on the cover of the book.

Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Enrique: Yeah, the title of the painting is, La Querencia And it's done by one of Northern New Mexico's -- greatest artists, I think , Jim Vogel, who lives in Embudo I was born in Embudo -- I got his attention with this book -- his son, Sage, was my student at UNM and so, I showed the book to Sage, and he said, “my dad's going to love this!” Vogel means “bird” in German.

So, the All Stars of the of the book are birds the birds of the six directions in New Mexico.

>> Faith: Yeah, I thought that was wonderful, especially with the person in the middle.

Can you tell me a little bit about the man in the painting?

>> Enrque: Yeah, it's sort of an everyman figure.

What he didn't know is that there's a -- a moment like this with Saint Francis.

San Francisco gives his famous sermon to the birds.

He's walking along and sees a bunch of birds that have been migrating.

he tells them how beautiful they are, how they're just the crown of creation, and they have special access to the heavens and stuff like that.

And his message to them was to make sure they -- they thanked their Creator, and spread the word.

And so -- Saint Francis is looking down -- and this is not Saint Francis.

This is just a New Mexican guy, and he's looking up to the heavens like that.

It's kind of reverse.

>> Faith: Yeah, and what inspired you to write this book?

>> Enrique: Well, I've always been -- since I was a little kid, I've always been very attentive to birds and my dad -- in Santa Fe -- a nest fell down from some viegas on the porch, and he couldn't get it back up there, so he put it in a cage by the window.

And I witnessed, as a four year old, this whole thing of the mom coming in and feeding him.

And I think it goes way, way, way back.

And then there's certainly a prominent -- prominent feature of the landscape for me.

And they're so metaphorical.

There have so many different lifestyles and they're fascinating.

>> Faith: Yeah, and tell me about the concept of querencia, What does querencia mean to you?

>> Enrique: Querencia means -- the love, the deep love of people and place.

The place that you're born to, the place that you choose -- the people that you choose.

It's all about love.

It's all about deep love of place.

The great thing about querencia is -- it's not some academic theory or something, It is a folk term, people use it in love songs people use it, as a way of showing where they belong, and talking about that.

>> Faith: Yeah, I love that, and how the book is, a lot, about the quest for Querencia, >> Faith: right?

>> Enriqie: Yes >> Faith: So today you're going to be reading a poem for us.

Can you tell me a little bit about the poem, Faces in the Rocks?

>> Enrique: Yeah, it's a poem about being born because people are born to -- obviously the ecosystem that they -- they're lucky enough to be surrounded by, even if it's an urban ecosystem and all you get is grass coming through the sidewalk.

Young people -- it's been identified by psychologists as a developmental phase.

You bond on your ecosystem, and so, it's about being born and it's about -- seeing the light for the first time.

[Enrique reading] >> Faith: So birds are a big part of this book.

They appear again and again.

Can you tell me why the focus on birds?

>> Enrique: Because they're celestial.

Because they're in motion.

Because they're a great illustration.

They're a great metaphor for why this planet is so restless Before, when the Earth was forming, there were two celestial bodies that collided.

One became the earth, the other one became the moon, and it knocked the earth 23.5 degrees -- off of its axis.

And so in the two hemispheres, the further you get from the equator -- you get the seasons, and you get -- people and animals just scurrying around, just trying to figure out how to survive.

And it's so different than on the equator.

And it's just -- birds are such a great illustration of that.

Back to the title of the book, Hearts in Motion, Hearts in Place They're finding their place -- like we do as human beings.

Everybody's looking for the place where they belong.

>> Faith: Can you tell me, was there like 1 or 2 birds in particular, that really stuck with you?

>> Enrique: Oh, yeah.

No, all of them.

All of the corvids, the crows, the magpies, the ravens, are really, really intelligent.

I wrote a poem towards the end of the book, about crows.

Because they're teachers.

They teach three generations of young crows, that are adults.

They hang out with their parents for a third of their lives, kind of like we do.

So, crows are right up there and magpies are -- are really, really, intelligent.

They can solve problems.

They can recognize you like crows do.

So, I love the corvids, that's their species.

Yeah, it's a great question because -- I'm a linguist, you know, I'm a language scholar.

And I love the terminology that people use for birds.

Why they pick up the words that they do.

There's so much knowledge in the language itself.

So I was attracted to this bird that I first saw in the Las Cruces area, up in the Organ mountains, it's called, by various names, Phainopepla It's called the Silky Flycatcher.

It has two lifestyles, and it's kind of like Mockingbirds in that it's a really terrific mimic.

And Mockingbirds just mimic everything in sight mostly to say, “here I am.” And the Phainopepla actually targets other species and calls them up and communicates with other species by imitating their cries.

And so they do about 25 different -- very specific, targeted cries asking for help, saying, “here's where the food is, come on over,” that kind of thing.

>> Faith: Yeah, it's amazing how birds have like, their own language.

That's so cool.

So you also talk a lot about how the names of places carries memory and history.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

How do names of places carry memory and history?

>> Enrique: You get a place like New Mexico where people have learned together and they've learned to have conflicts and resolve their conflicts.

You find layering of languages.

You find this big stratovolcano volcano that's west of Albuquerque.

Is known by surrounding peoples in numerous indigenous languages.

Zuni, Keres, right there next to it.

It's one of the four sacred mountains for the Navajo.

They call it, [Speaking Diné] Tsoodzi' which is, Turquoise Boy Mountain -- Turquoise Bead Mountain, it's a southern mountain.

And when it became safe enough for people to settle out there, they realized, how important it was.

And they called it, San Mateo Mountain because it's one of the four Pillars of Heaven.

They realized that their Navajo neighbors - they realized the importance of that mountain.

And of course, with English place names -- we find -- this love of alpha males.

You name a lot of mountains and features after alpha males.

And that one's particularly humiliating for us because it's Zachary Taylor.

He's a general that was sent to South Texas to start the Mexican-American War.

And so, every time people bring up the name, it's like a reminder of how many times -- this land has been conquered.

So, just the fact that the stratigraphy still exists is a great indicator that people have learned a lot about each other in New Mexico.

>> Faith: Yeah, and talking about that what do you think is lost when a name of a place is like forcefully changed?

>> Enrique: Oh, boy.

When you get erasure of place names.

It's part of the attempt to erase the culture and the identity of the people that used that place name.

And this occurs all over the world, of course, but in New Mexico, you still find -- indigenous names and Spanish names and English names, right next to each other.

>> Faith: Yeah, wow, and what do you hope readers take away from this book, especially in terms of their own querencias?

>> Enrique: Yeah, well, human querencias are particularly complicated because, of course, you fall in love with the place you're from, and the people that you come from.

But if you -- if that's as far as you get, you haven't dug far enough, because this place has been home to people since the Pleistocene, and so all of those people -- their presence is still here.

And so, you have to learn how to -- see who might have been here before you, how to how to relate to that.

It's not just about you, it's about this place and, everyone who's enjoyed it, everyone who's lived here.

So the human querencias are really complicated.

Animals have querencias, and so we can learn a lot from the natural world.

We can learn a lot from birds because they're always looking - they're always looking for home.

>> Faith: So why is a book like this needed?

>> Enrique: Because we need to look at -- we need to look at not only other people, but, we need to take -- to have a really panoramic perspective of -- of the planet to understand -- why things can get so out of balance when they do get out of balance and -- and how everybody that lives here, all the plants and animals are always -- they're always moving, with climate change and stuff like that.

They're adapting -- it's constantly in motion.

And if we can observe and understand things in a more panoramic way -- we'll understand ourselves better.

What's better than observing what birds are doing?

They have a lot to say to us.

FROM TRAGEDY TO JOY >> Hoffman: Welcome to The Contemporary's 40th Anniversary season and our production of Fat Ham.

>> Hoffman: I'm the Artistic Director, here at The Contemporary, and what that means is I'm in charge of all the programing, so I oversee what goes on stage, our education programs, what happens in classrooms across the city.

And so all of the programing that you see, community engagement, productions and education are all under my umbrella.

As Artistic Director, I also pick the plays with advice from lots and lots of community members and staff and artists in town.

And so, Fat Ham , is a show that the first time I heard about it, I went, “I think this is going to be the play for us.” I work with the director to cast the production and find the actors to put the design team together, and then I'm sort of just here as a cheerleader in a support system throughout the rehearsal process and the technical rehearsal process all the way through till we close on Closing Night, >> Glover: I am the director, So that means essentially, I'm in charge, question mark.

Ultimately, it means I get the opportunity to bring together a group of artists to get at what the heart of the show is and make our version.

So I take the work, I take the research, I take the moments in the room.

And ultimately, I'm in charge of crafting that all into the show that our audience gets to see at the end.

Fat Ham is phenomenal.

It's a show that resonates with me.

When I first got to see it as a black queer man in theater, I was like, “yes, this is a gem.” And I'm really excited for it's both connections to hamlet, but also the idea of stepping out into something new on its own.

Ultimately, I ask a lot of questions.

We've all got the same script, and we've all got time and space.

So we read, we talk, we discuss their backgrounds, their interests, what they're bringing into the room.

And then once we get up on our feet, we're really doing this ballet of what makes sense for that moment in time.

They bring suggestions, I bring suggestions.

I'm a very hands-on director, so I will physically, sometimes with permission, get up and move people, to look at topography and patterns in space.

So, it's really -- I leave room for everyone to bring themselves into the space.

I'm not the director who's gonna be like, this is what we're doing x, y, z. I get people in the room, get the material, get the bodies, and we build together.

So it's kind of a game.

I love games as well.

And you kind of treat a play as a little game.

Questions, problems arise.

You must solve.

And how can you have fun with it at the same time?

>> Koehler: I'm in the Production Manager here, at The Contemporary Theater The Production Manager is in charge of all of the shows.

They're essentially the project manager of each show.

I also think of it as the air traffic controller of the theater.

We're sort of in charge of everything, and we're making sure everyone is going in the right direction.

The baseline is I'm in charge of the people.

I am in charge of the story.

I'm in charge of the budget, and I'm in charge of the safety of everyone.

theater takes a long time to produce.

A show can take anywhere -- almost a year from when we choose the story to when we get on stage.

And there's a lot of work that goes in between -- a lot of people.

We have actors, performers, designers.

We have all of the administration, advertising -- technicians.

So it takes a lot of people to -- it's not a one man show, you know, even if it is a one man show, there's still 100 people behind the scenes making it happen.

[performing on stage] Everyone is there to to tell the story and to uplift whatever the intention of the tale is.

And that's what you'll see.

It's the most beautiful part of theater.

Is everyone working together to to tell one story.

[choreography session] >> Wilson: Choreography in itself is the -- expression of movement.

[choreography session and music] >> Wilson: My first process when I'm getting ready for a show is making sure that I see what's in the text.

Sometimes there's already music in the text in.

Sometimes there's a feeling that's there, and I take that and I also like, enhance that with my own experiences.

So I'm black, I'm queer.

So I got to pull expressions from that, for Fat Ham in to telling that story through a black lens and through a joyful lens.

And sometimes that's something you get to do with your text and get prepared for your show.

For Fat Him , I think because -- we're talking about a queer black story, I got an opportunity to go back into our history about -- what that looks like, what that visually looks like.

So I took inspiration from Vogue.

I took inspiration from the ballroom culture, took inspiration from queer liberation and how that expression can be played through the body and allowed it to put on everyone's body.

So I didn't want to make it exclusive only to queer people, but to black people in general.

And that's how we approached it in the show.

One of my favorite moments is Rabbi being this church woman, but when we got into rehearsals, I said, “okay, you're the fiercest person in the room.” So she said, “yes, I am.

“Yes, I am” [laughs] >> Simon: A Scenic Designer is someone who creates the visual world of the play, the physical things that people stand on, touch, the things that make up the physical space of it, and then they get lots of help from their friends, lighting and sound and costumes.

But kind of the basic world of the play is the scenic designer's job.

So start off with some research and that can mean a lot of different things.

I can either be the actual physical things that you want to design, or it can be things that are kind of evocative of the feeling or the kind of mood that you're trying to get at.

And so you just kind of start researching things and then you go, “okay, what does this look like to me?” I start sketching and some of them are really terrible.

And I usually start with like the first idea I had and then something really crazy and then somewhere in the middle is where the set usually ends up being.

And then there's sketches, and then you end up putting it into technical drawing programs and creating drafting that the shop uses to create their drawings that they'll use to build the set.

And you do paint elevations and find out how paint goes on it.

And so you do all of these different processes to decide and then communicate with other people how it's going to look, because you're usually not the one building it.

So you have to make sure you've given other people all the tools they need to make the thing the way you see it in your head.

The shop downstairs that is run by Columbus Children's Theater.

They are building a house, there with a porch, and they're putting up some fence for us, and they're laying some fake turf and they're making a whole backyard.

So when the audience comes in, they should see a backyard, and they'll go, “oh, yeah, that looks like a fun place to hang out.” Scenically, this play kind of lives in this weird place between reality and like, really blatantly theatrical moments.

So that was kind of a fun thing to try to figure out scenically, because you want it to look like a backyard barbecue.

You want it to look like the thing we all think we've come to see.

But then also there are going to be these moments that totally break from that.

And so there's this kind of need-desire to like set that up a little bit.

So when it happens, it's not fully shocking.

It's something that you're like, “oh yeah, that makes sense.” >> Abney: I'm Tabby, the Costume Designer for Fat Ham.

And what that means is I get to take the script, the words and kind of interpret as a visual for that, but in the form of the way of clothing and fantastic costume elements.

So jewelry and accessories, things like that.

Taking apart a script and just imagining for yourself what that character looks like and what that character would wear.

And based on, you know, their personality, how do you present that?

So there is a bit of my own family history incorporated in each of the designs for Fat Ham , but I think I'm most excited for everyone to see character Larry's finale outfit when he comes out.

And he sings his song, that I'm most, especially looking forward for people to see.

I love the collaboration with set and with the actors, and with the rest of the design team.

It's always fun to just kind of -- when you're seeing it in tech, it's great to see how everything comes together.

>> Hoffman: I love plays that are full of joy.

I just think that's such an important idea in the theater and in life.

And so Fat Ham is a comedy based on Hamlet, a play that normally ends in tragedy, and this time it ends in joy.

And so it's just so funny and so joyous, that I knew that Columbus really had to see this production.

It's also a Pulitzer Prize winning play, and so it is being done all over the country and The Contemporary really is the theater in Columbus to do this play.

I just wanted to make sure that this community got to see it.

...and now, Fat Ham.

[audience applause] [peformance on stage] The award-winning arts and culture series ¡COLORES!

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Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You