1001 Arab Futures: Sharon Mansur

Today we have the chance to speak with Sharon Mansur and to learn more about her recent work in 1001 Arab Futures, An intimate outdoor site-specific dance performance and visual installation that contemplates imaginative visions, past reckonings, embodied truths and other future potentials from the Arab diaspora. Sharon Mansur created this work in collaboration with Yara Boustany, Andrea Shaker, and Metta Loulou Von Kohl.

While this effort weaves through the materials, memories, and lived experiences of this Arab diaspora across generations and continents, it’s being presented in Sharon’s home community of Winona, a Mississippi River town located in southeastern Minnesota on the the traditional lands of the Oceti Šakowiŋ, Sauk, and Meskwaki peoples

Sharon Mansur is a dance and interdisciplinary experimental artist, educator, and curator. Her creative practices weave movement making, improvisation, visual environments, food, screendance, and audience participation to offer multi-sensory and immersive experiences rooted in the body, imagination, and environment.

In recent years, Sharon has received support for her work from the McKnight Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, and Springboard for the Arts – and she was a 2019 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow. Sharon is currently the Director of The Cedar Tree Project, presenting and amplifying regional, national, and international creative voices of the Southwest Asian and North African diaspora.

Just as Sharon’s creative practice arches across many disciplines, and welcomes many individuals and audiences as collaborators, so to does her own creative path in contemporary dance extend across urban and rural communities. Thus, while, Sharon has lived in Washington DC in the aftermath of 9/11, and created work that meditates on the erasures, violence, and misunderstandings directed toward Arab individuals, her recent work has brought those opportunities for experience and exchange to the rural upper Midwest – and has opened up a space for folks beyond the city to sit more deeply, more intimately, with racial and cultural difference.

In a moment when the COVID-19 pandemic has created headlines about urban outmigration to rural areas, Sharon’s work underscores the immense potentials for sustained intercultural exchange on the local level. Just as her work supports a meditative space to sit with expanded understandings of Arab identity and diaspora, it also presents an exciting opportunity to think again about what we mean when we say “rural” or “rural art,” and how the ever-shifting movements of people and culture can enrich our understanding of how we are in relationship with others.

We are grateful for the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts in making this endeavor possible – and we welcome folks to check out and subscribe to these conversations on their favorite podcast platforms.

To learn more about Sharon Mansur's work pleases visit:
http://www.mansurdance.com/

To learn more about the artists, exhibitions, and publications involved with the High Visibility initiative, please visit:

https://inhighvisibility.org/

High Visibility is a longterm collaboration between Art of the Rural and Plains Art Museum:

http://artoftherural.org/

https://plainsart.org/

Transcript

Matthew Fluharty: 0:05

Hello, you're listening to High Visibility. This is a podcast produced by Art of the Rural and Plains Art Musuem welcomes into conversation artists, culture bearers and leaders from across rural America in Indian Country. It's offered in conjunction with High Visibility, a long term collaborative initiative of exhibitions, publications and events. My name is Matthew Fluharty, and I'm the organizing period. In the months ahead, I'll be with you, along with other posts from the Plains Art Museum and beyond. As we share the richly divergent stories, lived experiences and visions of folks across the continent. We also welcome you to check out the high visibility site at the inhighvisibility.org, where we offer show notes and transcripts alongside an online presentation of the recent exhibition. We're grateful for the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts and making this endeavor possible. And we welcome folks to check out and subscribe to these conversations on their favorite podcast platforms. Today we have the chance to speak with Sharon Mansur. And to learn more about her recent work with 1001 Arab Futures. An Intimate outdoor site specific dance performance and visual installation contemplates imaginative visions past reckoning body truths, and other future potentials from the Arab diaspora. Sharon Mansur created this work in collaboration with Yara Boustany, Andrea Shaker, and Mette LouLou Von Kohl. While this effort weaves through the materials memories, lived experiences of the Arab diaspora across generations and continents, is being presented in Sharon's home community of Winona, Mississippi River town located in southeastern Minnesota, on the traditional lands of the Oceti akowi, Sauk, and Meskwaki peoples. Sharon Mansur is a dance and interdisciplinary experimental artist, educator and curator for creative practices. We've moved with making improvisation visual environments food, screen dance, and audience participation to offer multi sensory immersive experiences rooted in the body, imagination and environment. In recent years, Sharon has received support for her work from the McKnight Foundation, Minnesota State Arts board and Springboard for the Arts. And she was a 2019 National Art Strategies Creative Community Fellow. Sharon is currently the Director of the cedar tree project, presenting an amplifying regional, national and international creative voices in the Southwest Asian African diaspora. Just as Sharon's creative practice artists across many disciplines and welcomes many individuals and audiences as collaborators. so too does her own creative path and contemporary dance extend across urban and rural communities. Thus, while Sharon has lived in Washington, DC in the aftermath of 911, and created work that meditates on the erasers, violence and misunderstandings directed toward Arab individuals, her recent work has brought those opportunities for experience in exchange to the rural Upper Midwest, and has opened up a space for folks beyond the city to sit more deeply and more intimately with racial and cultural difference. In a moment when the covid 19 pandemic has created headlines about urban out migration to rural areas. Sharon's work underscores the immense potentials for sustained intercultural exchange on the local level, just as her work supports a meditative space to sit with expanded understandings of Arab identity and diaspora. It also presents an exciting opportunity to think, again, about what we mean when we say rural or rural art, and how the ever shifting movements of people and culture can enrich our understanding of how we are in relationship with others. So without further ado, please get comfortable and enjoy our conversation with Sharon Mansur. Sharon, welcome to High Visibilty.

Sharon Mansur: 4:26

Thank you, Matt. It's great to be here.

Matthew Fluharty: 4:29

It's really great to have you with us today. And just to have the space to sit and be in conversation about your work and your creative journey through a lot of cities and regions and spaces and different conversations over the years. And on one hand to learn more about your futures, but also the thread that ribbon backwards through some of the inspirations and even the The intergenerational context that your work is really meditating on. So, so certainly, I'm just grateful for your time. And I'm wondering, you know, as we kind of dip our toes in this conversation, just wondering, like, what brings you to this work, and how, how you would welcome all of us as an audience into understanding your own journey, as as a creative artist, as a person who's a member of a family, a member of multigenerational knowledge sharing, and is a person who is lived and worked and been a member of many communities over the arc of your career.

Sharon Mansur: 5:44

Sure, it's interesting to be working on this project, which is examining brainstorming about the future for the Arab diaspora and for all of us who are involved in the project individually. And how much of that involves looking back at our pasts, and taking stock of where we are in the present. So I really appreciate this opportunity to do some reflecting with you in this context. Because we've been delving in for months, I've been thinking a lot about my childhood. A lot of tender memories are coming up, and some challenging aspects, which are really embedded into my path today. Growing up in New England, in the 70s, and ATMs in a town called Natick, it's like southwest of Boston, I was immersed in a community that was a lot of there are a lot of people who weren't looking like me. And then yet I was surrounded by a really large, extended family of Lebanese heritage on my father's side, and then a big, sprawling Italian American family on my mother's side, connecting into urban areas. Boston is where my mother grew up. My Italian grandparents settled when they came over. And then Lowell, Massachusetts, is where my father's parents settled, when they each came over individually. I feel like I've been always this in between preacher between the rural and urban, between white and not quite white, in between my creative imagination, realm, and the daily, mundane. And the best sense, the daily mundane routines that we all engage in. And all of that is mixed together. I feel like my work as an artists has just felt very natural. It's been just what I've been doing my whole life. to, to be to ask questions to figure out, like, what the heck are we doing here and why? As far back as I can remember, I've been creating, making experimenting, my father was trained as a visual artists, he didn't pursue that as a professional career, he became an engineer. But his love of the visual arts really infused our house growing up. I remember he used to, upon request, if we found a Sunday cartoon that we really liked my brother and I, he would draw big scale. You pick up blocks of it, and then he'd blow it up and drag big scale so we could color it in. We were always drawing, painting, sculpting, and then you know, messing around with all other sorts of making Tinker toys, Lincoln Logs, erector sets all of that at once. And then my mother, trained in piano, all the way through high school, she wanted to be a piano Skoda, Conservatory, and play piano, but with both of my parents with their expectations and hopes of their parents, pursuing the arts wasn't encouraged as a profession. The arts are very important to my family, very enriching, very spiritual. And so many of my family members express themselves in this way. But the act of being coming a professional artist following that path was not within my parents generation was not encouraged. It's not seen as practical enough or feasible enough. And so I feel like my household was fortunate was infused with art, and the way that my parents loved it, and my brother and I really benefited from being surrounded by music, visual art. Dance evolves, for me is my primary art form, but my training and so many other art practices, just naturally bubbles to the surface anytime I'm thinking about a particular idea. So my New England upbringing cozy comfortable, definitely my parents, going from a working class urban background into more working into a middle class lifestyle, they both benefited from being able to go to college advancing further than their parents were able to. And then being able to give my brother and I exposure to many culturally enriching opportunities, while also very family centered, you know, every Sunday, we would be at one family member's house or another. And I got that really close knit sense of family and culture through those continual interactions through food sharing, music would be playing stories about Lebanon came up often, and photographs of family members who I had never met. Like a sponge, I feel like I soaked all that in, and my own slightly hyperactive physical nature as I was steered towards dance as an outlet. My mother really appreciated how she gave me that opportunity gave me that context, because I really needed something physically intense, and yet expressive. And then that just became my love. And I never really have thought about it necessarily as a career so much as, you know, way of being. And so I've really tried to bring everything holistically to bear within how I ask questions, and what I feel like I can offer as a lens and connect with people and communities, through my art.

Matthew Fluharty: 11:48

As one person who has been really lucky to be in the presence of your creative work over the last couple of years, it's really interesting to me how this narrative about the arc of your own creative development kind of runs on a parallel river channel, to these forums of honoring cultural heritage and transmitting those cultural expressions. I'm just so interested since for so much of your work, that the act of creating and sharing food and being in social spaces together is such an engine, and such a powerful way of being I think that's a really beautiful word to describe a kind of ethic that is communicate to the audience themselves. And there's a suggestion of a specific way of being, for folks to be in that space that you and your collaborators create. I'm just curious, even selfishly, for those weekends, where you're gathered with food, and just those elements of family life, what were those what were some of the foods and some of the activities that still have a tether leading back to those childhood memories? Hmm.

Sharon Mansur: 13:03

So I grew up outside of Boston and Natick, Massachusetts and my dad's sister and Julie and his brother, Uncle George took care of their father, my jiddu. Thomas, for many years, and they were in the family house on Adams street in Lowell for many years next to the store, the family grocery store that my grandfather ran when he immigrated with his mother, my great grandmother. And I have a couple of vague memories of visiting them in Lowell, Massachusetts, with my parents and going to the store, getting like these big pretzel rods or licorice there. And knowing that the family was very centered around that store for decades. I think that seeped into so that maybe that so that blurring but that integration of family life and the store and the food that they were offering the Middle Eastern ingredients for Syrian and Lebanese who were living in low there was a big neighborhood of Middle Eastern immigrants who came over to work in the textile mills during that time, so that all felt very natural and so I feel like probably that was a outgrowth didn't going to have dinner at the house next door. And the big meals my aunt Julie would make this stuffed rolled grape leaves or cabbage leaves, the kibby the tabouli just big pots and bowls of it and the conversations. And I remember reading these, I was learning to read I remember these big Richard scarry books, picture books that I would be sitting in the kitchen, and older cousins would be trying to help me read while the cooking was happening. While my uncle's were talking. And all of that I loved I loved being in the middle of all of that, and the different generations. And in a way, I try to recreate that. In my collaborative settings, I love working with artists from different ages and entry points. I love working Yeah, with the audience when I'm with them, I love inviting them to participate and share food at your space public launch, that was such a joy to be able to share my dreaming under a cedar tree solo, which involved the Middle Eastern meal, at the end of the performance with the conversation. And that brings me so much joy, the sense of the verbal and nonverbal exchange, I feel that the meal sharing Not only is about the cultural carrier that food can be, but also the nonverbal actions and proximity is important to me, I feel like I'm looking for ways as a dance artist, which is primarily a nonverbal art form. And I do a lot of mixed media work at this point, which includes text and film and visual elements. But I'm always curious about how, what's the embodied activation of witnesses, others involves, as audience watching, maybe some participation, but just being nearby that I feel a lot is absorbed and understood beyond the verbal. So people don't have to be, quote, dancing, or what how we think about what we're defining as dance in maybe our Western culture, or even just in the United States. For me, dance is change, dance, is action. And action is about changing, right, a changing state moment to moment. So that out of having dinner together, is a dance, the art of being just sitting nearby someone is a dance. In a sense, I feel I've been asking that question of, are we all engaging in a dance together? And if so, how can we honor that. And maybe that's what organically evolved over the years, the many layers and levels of the dance and not just about myself, or who we call dancers or dance artists as being the only carriers of that dance.

Matthew Fluharty: 17:40

Sharon, thank you so much for that window into a weekend, as a child surrounded by family, which feels so powerful and filled with so many ripples that connect to the work years later, I'm grateful, so grateful for those thoughts. What you shared, it leads me back to something that in an interview with The Washington Post, you shared, and this was an interview that was associated with some work that you were sharing during your time in Washington, DC, and in particular to pieces called unidentified and off white, you're talking about being in these spaces in between states. And that sense of play that's there when there's that feeling of liminality, or meaning and movement can kind of slip between sort of signifying different things. And what I what I love here is it leads this idea that as you just shared, we're thinking about this embodied participation that is beyond the verbal. And so that we have on one side of it, that work, which opens up this wide space, and that it still is connected to a form of seeking and cultivating generational knowledge, and honoring it. And I just wanted to share this for folks who are listening, and we'll have all of this linked in the show notes. But what you shared in this Washington Post piece about unidentified the pieces on identified and off white, you said there were a lot of questions that I had about my family. But I just hadn't gotten to the point where I wanted to ask too much. When I started interviewing my family about Lebanon, I became intrigued with how people remembered the same life experiences and how different the stories were. And I believe just for context and this piece, you were speaking to the journalist about sort of balancing those earlier life experiences with just the process that any artist goes through when they filter that through their creative process later in life. So it It struck me in terms of the very verbal of gathering stories and how that leads to work. in those ways of being you speak of where a lot of space has opened up for interpretation and for existing in kind of an in spaces of Unknowing where an audience is challenged to think again about words and associations and relationships that maybe they haven't thought deeply about. So I'm wondering, given where your work has moved from that point, I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about that work in Washington, DC, off white, and unidentified, and maybe how that that sort of presents a threat for us to understand some of your more recent work.

Sharon Mansur: 20:34

As much as I enjoyed the closeness of my family. In New England, there was also a context of like a lack of knowledge or recognition of Arab Americans during that time, that when I went away to college, I went to Connecticut College for undergraduate work. And from there pursuing dance, I started to go towards more urban areas. So first Washington, DC and later New York City, where I felt more immersed in more, you know, a wider range of multiculturalism and more Arab Americans. And yet, I felt for all the closest and recognition within my family, my immediate family unit, I felt like I didn't have a lot of understanding in terms of my identity as an Arab American, and would come up. When I was in New England, it came up primarily with people making comments or asking questions, as though I would understand or could I could speak for, you know, everyone within my cultural background. And also, I wasn't from the Diaspora directly from the Arab world directly. So I wasn't, didn't feel like I was well versed. And I only knew what my family decided they wanted to tell me at certain times, or maybe I would overhear, but I was never taught Arabic. And so I never even spoke to my grandfather directly, ever, because he spoke in Arabic. And when my father understood Arabic, he didn't speak it in our house. So going to Washington, DC was started and awakening towards wanting to understand more about why why I didn't know more, maybe about my heritage, in the broader context, not just being a mentor. In my own family. I understood that, but what was it to be in a broader context and how I could also maybe engage in more conversations, or deep conversations with people who would just out on the street asked me who I was, or where I was from, or from that benign, curious question to whether I was a terrorist. When you know, whether I was Muslim or not, in 911, was a real turning point in DC. And that was a galvanizing moment when I really felt like I really wanted to understand more about my family and their opinions as well, as far as being of Arab heritage, and politically, socially. So that started the family interview process after 911 and grew into off weight, which is a term I started to call myself when I became frustrated with input into different boxes that I hadn't chosen, whether it was like, Oh, you're white, he is legally, Arab Americans are considered white. But yet I and other folks of Arab heritage often feel that they're not seen as white in certain frameworks, certain occasions. But yet there it wasn't clear or sort of clear designation, so that in between this became off white. I just said, I'm going to put that on the next census. That right in other and that became the title of the work that synthesize a lot of my family interviews I interviewed not only my father and my aunt Julie, but also a lot of my cousins. So looking at my generation, and the stories, what they grew up with, in their New England communities. My cousin David remembers he was teased, he was called Ahab the A Rabb next door neighbor of another cousin was trying to work out where he was from. only go as far as well. You're not Japanese. But otherwise, I don't know. Anyway, it's just a lot. It was a lot of a lot of connectivity. I hadn't really talked to my cousin's to compare notes, actually. It was helpful to be in that generational community with them. And offwhite was a group piece that I created with three amazing dance artists I've been working with for years, Ginger wag, Marcy schlissel and Katie Clark, in the Washington DC dance community and none of them were of Arab heritage, but they brought a real sensitivity and generosity to their work. And from there, that piece evolved into a gallery installation. So I expanded on all the visual elements. And there was also text read in English and Arabic, Persian photographer friend of mine, le hurry sheet was able to do the Arabic translations. And the visual elements, including milk was a strong theme that really represented the whiteness I was grappling with. And a lot of windows to these questions of portals, and viewings perspectives. And that was like from 2002 to 2006, I worked on off weight and overlapping that I had a chance to receive. Kennedy Center local dance commission was very fortunate to be selected to create evening of dance in one of their spaces. And the commission involved me inviting artists to work with me who they wanted us to really stretch ourselves challenge ourselves, artistically. So I invited four collaborating artists in the DC area who I've been wanting to work with for years. Oh my gosh, it was it was a dream team of artists. And we came together around this idea of the complexity and ambiguity of identity is ongoing for everyone. So I really wanted to expand the conversation, and at least put my own questions in context, right. That's the broader questions of Who are we? Where are we from the questions we can get asked by others, the ones were all grappling with. Naoko ma Sheba is a Japanese American dance and theater artists does l Mason, incredible African American Dance artists, and Tyler, brilliant queer artists who had such a strong visual sensibility and or suillus, another African American multimedia artists, and along with videographer Todd Clark, so I'd never worked with any of them artistically. And so we just dove in and took on and created almost this montage or mix of not only multiple identities, but hybrid identities, projected identities, desired identities. So this solo, I was performing, like, technically, like you saw me visually, but really, it was everybody was infused within the solo gel. And I did this interesting exercise where we looked at all the commonalities we had and created this hybrid persona, ultimately, where we couldn't necessarily tell what their cultural background was gender Eve, any anything, we just picked out markers that we felt were significant that we shared, but really took away any of the typical markers. And that you know, was a type of character that was in that section. At Tyler had me shredding paper, almost as this like identity eraser exercise, to like shredding, I was shredding paper on stage in blue, a paper shredder, while it was a giant wall of paper behind me. And then eventually, like paper shreds came like raining down from the ceiling. On top of me, it's just like, the sense of which even more potent now, right, the amount of identifying markers we have out in the world. And yet is what is that really identifying about us? Are those really identifying markers that we would choose? Or do they seem really at the heart of who we are? Or could that change tomorrow. So those two pieces overlapped. And, well, identity work isn't all that I make. I feel like that's been a strong thread over the last few years, including a couple of other pieces. I feel like the sense of identity and has abstracted in the best way abstracted meaning getting to some universal elements, towards identity of presence, towards feminine identity, in that we all have some aspect of towards identity of the in between space as the pivot point of the cusp of change. Sometimes those moments when we're aware, a change is happening when we've let go of something that we have outgrown about ourselves, and yet we're not ready to fully Move into the new aspect. It's like we've shed the skin and then we're in that goo. And we're just flopping around. This is how I feel. Maybe I'm the only one and then we're not quite ready, we haven't quite formed reformed. So in the space between that a recent work I did, I've done since 2018, has been a meditation on that threshold spot. Nancy Stark Smith, who was a contact improvisation, Master, teacher, luminous performer, who, who died last year, she talked about that spaces, the gap, and how it's like one of the most potent spaces to be in as an artist, and to honor and be in that space, as long as you can, actually, to honor that moment for as long as it needs to be. Once I feel my identity work, sometimes it feels like oh, I'm looking to really clarify, or name or be acknowledged, and that is one aspect. But another aspect I feel is wanting to hold space for others to meditate, if they want about the beauty and the complexity and the mystery that we all have, within our path of being human. Sure.

Matthew Fluharty: 31:25

And what's remarkable to me in thinking about what you've just shared, is it those pieces like off white, and identified that they're that they're occurring concurrently, and then after this moment of crisis and reexamination after 911, in particular, just even thinking about them being in DC just was very, very powerful, very potent. And this idea of the gap, that on one side, we have this urgent need, that regenerates within all of us and within cultures, for us to clarify our individual and collective identities. And once we have that, and on the other, we have this opportunity to create a space for meditation. And then as you just shared, there's this in between space, where if we can be within that space, we could be on the cusp of change, as you said, I thought that would just is powerful to think about that work in DC in that moment. And that local moment, but also that national moment. And I can't help but think about some of the more recent years, in particular, your move to rural Minnesota. And the emergence of the cedar tree project work, which itself is it's a move to a region in a moment after the 2016 election, where a great deal of attitudes, and I think, a great deal of perspectives about the kinds of change in the kinds of liminal spaces we could even occupy. I think we're deep, deeply troubled, things felt very concretized. Speaking from my own experience in a rural area after the 2016 election, getting into that space of meditation, where we can think about these terms, I think isn't the space that is afforded to folks who don't live in urban areas. I think that those are associations that the sort of the urban creative and critical community thinks is not possible in rural areas. Certainly, if one reads the New York Times one gets that impression. There's that on one hand, and yet, there's tremendous work to be done with folks in non urban communities. And I think about just how you've written about your creative process you've written and I'll quote here, my creative practices rooted in tender in deeply cherished relationships with other artists and creative folks. I offer audiences immersive art experiences that they're invited to dive deep into, and make themselves at home in. And in thinking about that kind of creative call in particular in the cultural moment, that it takes really different forms across I think non urban areas, but it is a kind of cultural moment where that kind of work. And that kind of perspective, in and of itself is an act of enormous generosity, to create the kind of space for us to be together. So I think in some respects, this ramble that I just offered is hopefully an articulation of thanks for having experienced this. You Your tree project and a lot of the work that you have been able to do in our region. But I'm just curious what this period has been like for you as an artist, especially given this cultivation of that in between space that can lead us to a cusp of change how, what has it been like to navigate these various cultural currents in the last couple of years, in particular, in a rural region?

Sharon Mansur: 35:27

That's Yes. It's been a lot to work with. Yeah, I was, when I first came to Winona, Minnesota in 2005, right after I got my dance MFA at George Mason, and I really wanted to be in a more rural area, I love urban areas. And I really grew and learned so much really appreciated in Boston, New York, in DC. And I also felt I needed to switch it up and be in a just being in a new place a new space. And I felt I could offer our community, my own experiences, and maybe some tools or maybe some framings some ways to be. And I also felt like I wanted to be able to be closer, more access to the natural environment more readily. So in a way, I was hoping for that sort of partnership. And we notice State University, the dance faculty position, there really helped bring me to this area, and I just fell in love with the community. And this places and spaces here. And I kept a lot of context, on the east coast. So I've been back and forth for years. When I decided to be back here full time in 2015. As you were mentioning, the presidential elections, the next year, really heightened my desire to bring what I could my artistic lens towards trying to keep that open space towards more nuanced, complex conversations. I had a sea Mac grant that I had been working on right before the election results. And as soon as they were announced, I drew out that project I was thinking about, I can't remember what project I was writing, about making. And I dove into what I don't know if it's a direct companion piece. But certainly I had offwhite in mind when I proposed making dreaming under cedar tree, and I felt the most genuine way I could offer a space to try to keep educating or keep open dialogue was to dive into my family heritage again. And so I wanted to be that vulnerable for myself, rather than retracting, receding from the hostility and the polarizing. I wanted to find my own grounding and in that perhaps offer a chance for others to find their grounding. And be willing to take some risks or have a little more courage. If there were others who were willing to, you know, engage in dialogue, the window was through my Arab heritage, but that was really just the start of conversations about difference or otherness or language, human nature, governments, politics, any number of us windows in but just to be able to sit together and look each other in the eye. One story was is was hopefully about many stories and many people and I found that I felt that was a worthwhile risk to take. And so the my cedar tree solo, then expanded, I was invited by Teresa remmick, the managing director at the Paige series at St. Mary's University here and when she saw the Sita tree beaming under see a tree solo that was at public launch invited me to expand into curating and create three events for the next season and I was so excited. One of my favorite things to do is to support other artists so I was so thrilled to be able to invite Fadi bucaro, an incredible Lebanese photographer and highlight his Lebanon, USA, cross country expedition and photography and storytelling project and bring him to anona zaatar I was thrilled to invite and highlight Palestinian American artists Lila our dolla Based in the cities, and internationally as she wanders, and then lay him on a two wheel, a Syrian Palestinian American artist based in California, again, the sense of talking about Palestine, here in our rural context, we're all upper Midwest contexts to open up that space be a little more direct, be a little more particular, be more specific, right about what it means to be treated humanely in the world, and what the US is, you know, what our involvement is. And, again, to look at the complexities of the cultures that were all immersed in, what were the kinds of conversations that were cultivated in the community? So I remember from the dreaming under a cedar tree solo, we had multiple nights of performing, so multiple meals, multiple discussions, and I just loved how, when people were feeling comfortable enough to ask me, you know, very simple questions that were on their minds. And yet, maybe they just hadn't felt they knew where to ask, mean, asking whether my father was Muslim or not. And had he converted, because he's Christian. I mean, in a way, it's, the assumption was that he was Muslim. But yet in the context of that discussion, and meal, and after seeing the work i'd shared, it was just a great entry point into looking at assumptions we all have about a certain area or a certain culture, and to build up the connection, and I would, what I felt was some trust to ask me directly about my father. And for me to respond, and talk about the multiplicity of religions that exists in Lebanon. I feel like this is like the best way I've learned when I've been in learning more formal learning contexts. And then my joy as an educator, too, is you're just setting up the conditions for us all, to have just a chance to think through a reflect a little bit more. And so that brief exchange about asking if my pursuing my father was Muslim, if he's not, then he must have converted, but then the person I was talking with just watching them go through their own thought process of looking and saying, Oh, well, of course, the complexity of any region, there's going to be a complexity of religions. I remember as the audience, I have those had those topics that those off when I call with my off whiteboard, in the middle of the show, I would write a topic each show, and the debate about whether I was white or not white. I mean, that was a really powerful moment that then led into the discussion during the meal afterwards, of the origin of the bipoc, acronym and person of color. With that phrase, the origin of that phrase, again, the complexity around those terms, like how we're choosing words, who's using them, how they started to be used, that that discussion really struck me as well. And then when setar in terms of Palestine, you know, the powerful work that both Leah and Layla presented, Layla decided to use a lot of samples from recent news, you know, very direct, very specific news clips, and interview excerpts to really bring that into the forefront with watching her moving body of Palestinian heritage. And then layer two, we'll who in that moment, and that time with that work in progress was essentially saying, Well, my work moving through being transmitted through my body from the Arab diaspora isn't itself enough of a statement or discussion point. So again, that's I think that goes back to that verbal and nonverbal discussions. So within the discussions after the show, and during an artist talk, the three of us did, a lot of that was centered around what our instruments are as dance artists. And I know a couple people were asking us about, like how much our political points of view really play in versus our own personal journeys. And in a way, that sense of Here we are, like we can't separate from our bodies. So in a sense, it's always about it, and then maybe it's not. Maybe it's also very universal. Something that feels really significant for me.

Matthew Fluharty: 45:00

In hearing these direct ways in which yourself and your collaborators open up the space for dialogue, specifically, here in a rural region of the upper Midwest, I think is that it creates the space for audiences to sit with various embodied forms of cultural generational and racial difference, as opposed to sort of what I think I think can happen in a really broad macro cultural level, in the Midwest, speaking out of my own experience, like oftentimes a really quick reaction towards, we're just gonna find commonality. And that'll be a thing. And it is sort of a euphemism towards, not existing in, in an uncomfortable indeterminant space, that that gap, you're talking about, where the where the change can occur, and the action can be taken. And just as someone following your work, it feels really powerful with that as well, is there's the cultivation of that kind of space, to sit together and to meditate on difference and to ask questions. And that the cultivation of that as a quality in your work is emerging. As you share some of these creative projects with a sense increasingly, that you are an artist, you are someone who works really deeply in collaboratively with folks, very interdisciplinary. But there's also, I think, a really unique form of curation that happens to and that maybe has developed in developed really organically over the arc of this work that would trace itself back to pre 911 moment in DC. And I guess that leads us to your most current work 1001 Arab futures. And I'm wondering if you could just share a little bit about that work and how it came together. And you know what, you're excited for audiences on the ground, but also online to experience?

Sharon Mansur: 47:13

Yes, 1000 on air futures. That all started with a McKnight foundation dancer fellowship in 2018. was so fortunate to be selected and be part of an amazing cohort. And be really mentored by Mary Ellen child, who was the dance fellowship coordinator, who was recently retired and it's now Dana castle, who was Mary Ellen's associate. And so Mary Ellen and Dean, I've been really so instrumental and in our futures coming to be because shortly after we found out part of the fellowship included a solo commission where we can invite an artists to create a solo for us. I wanted to invite three artists to work with me, and they both they generously agreed to try to make that vision happen. And through the CDBG project network through Layla and Leah. I reached out to them and asked who they might recommend. I really wanted it to be an outgrowth of the web that I was evolving, and so they led me to Yara Boustany, who's an incredible Lebanese dance artists usually based in Beirut, currently in Europe, LouLou Von Kohl, who is Palestinian, Lebanese Danish dance artist based on the east coast in New York City primarily. And then Andrea Shaker, Minneapolis based visual artist, and similar to unidentified I really want to launch myself into working with new artists and new processes really challenged myself. And then similar to zaatar, I was so thrilled to finally be able to be in proximity and in process with other artists of Arab heritage. That's something I didn't have growing up or in college or professionally at all. I had never had that until I brought this guitar artist guitar trio together. And so having all of that together was really such a dream for me to be working with these three amazing artists directors. Of course, COVID tossed all of our plans and lives into new stratosphere ears, and the process became mostly online, as opposed to me going to visit each one. And we had to really work how in terms of maintaining that embodied connectivity, and I thought we did a great job between even our zoom connections or emailing or writing some snail mail. sending some packages to each other, I still feel like we kept centering around the body and our senses what we were each seeing and feeling and thinking and responding to, you know, COVID in that sense of the vulnerability of the body that we all we were experiencing globally became a strong thread. And the upheaval of our lives talk about the gap space, we all were in the gap space continually to current events in the our Arab worlds, the protests in Lebanon, we follow closely, starting in fall of 2019, to the horrible exposure at the port in Beirut in summer 2020, which damaged Jaras studio art studio, we helped her raise money to repair it, and to the ongoing but then the current intensity, increasing intensity in Palestine, and putting our thoughts towards Palestinians. still needing and deserving the freedom that we all you know, every human should have that all wove into the work and the generosity and insight they all provided me in how to look back at family, how to pick up on details that are personal and universal how to ask questions and be curious about what we don't know, or we're not sure about, but keep following the thread, pull on those threads to trust our imaginations. And our dreamscapes, I mean that all they took lots of twists and turns with me because we went from having an indoor theater performance, to pivoting to an outdoor site specific extravaganza. That is a nonstop adventure, logistically. But they've all been just so creative and wonderful senses of humor, we've supported each other through job changes and meaning to move house and car accidents. And just as friends as people who care about each other. And when things have been very chaotic. This has been a grounding point for us, just to come and dialogue with each other. So what we're sharing this weekend, we really see is just your part of the continuum of this like year and a half is really in 2019 is when I invited them when we started. What the audience's will see either in person or online is just meeting us along this continuum of dialogue, of asking questions about the future futures, which again, I think COVID has been just an amazingly unique and surreal and heartbreaking context to be talking about future. I brought up that theme originally because I was curious about our futurism, you know, movement to really envision what could the air bachelor be, and really trying to break out of other narratives but a lot of colonial frameworks, language, in positions violence, and what what could it be and then yet futurism as a general concept, worldwide, what is our future, when so much was totally in upheaval, from our daily routines, everything right? How we interacted with people. And so much art was taken away. to like, we were all making art in our living rooms. And through a computer screen, so coming out to this weekend to be able to share with the intimate audience 20 people each night, outdoors, but in person to share some of our struggles and hopes and dreams feels really potent and very moving to all of us, actually. And then to translate that online. We have some ways of approaching that the watch party we're offering we hope to engage in some of that conversation that I love so much later to we'll be moderating a discussion among all of us. And yeah, just the idea of being open to future and also honoring where we are in this present moment. Future being the very next moment, future, honoring where we have been trying to locate where we are, which a lot of times that was a struggle to even understand where we were in a certain moment. And accepting all that was in that moment, the loss, the tragedy, but honing into an essence that can we take ourselves into that very next moment and really that next moment, is the next smell, when is the future like that very next moment. And it's really, I feel like what we bring to bear is what I learned from these, this trio of directors, the incredible presence and curiosity that they each bring. To support that next moment.

Matthew Fluharty: 55:19

Sharon I'm rateful for your time in this onversation. And as we look, stepping out of this shared space together, maybe with notions of futures, on on a space in front of us on the table here, I want to offer a couple things to our audience. First and foremost, all of the amazing collaborators that Sharon has shared with us, all of these projects can be visible and linked to through our show notes on your various podcasting platforms that you prefer. Also visible on inhighv sibility.org as well as S aron's website, man, sewer d nce.com, this will all be in t e show notes for you all, as w ll as links at those various U Ls. So folks can check out b th the the online performance a d the conversation to follow. S all this is available to f lks, regardless of when you m y have the chance to listen to t is conversation, and sharing a we cut out on our separate w ys here this afternoon. I'm j st wondering, a question we a k folks. Is there a book a p ece of music a place food, a t adition, something that's i spiring you right now, as we l ok ahead to the summer s lstice and a couple of days, a d it's hotter than normal in t e upper Midwest? Is there a ything that's inspiring you in t is moment?

Sharon Mansur: 56:46

Well, Matt, I've been listening a lot to that anthology that you had suggested. For me to anthology of electric acoustic Lebanese music. You remember recommending that to me? I've been playing that over the past month and how I'm just sort of been jamming on that. Yeah, if you want to cook some like cooling Lebanese foods and some salads, some refreshing flavors, I check out Julie Taboulie's Leban se kitchen cookbook. very engag ng and accessible. A lot of simi ar recipes to what I grew up wi h. Oh, is there one in particu ar that springs to mind? First ut of that book? Oh, the to bul y. Really? All right, typical y. Are you going to make some

Matthew Fluharty: 57:43

sounds really good.

Sharon Mansur: 57:47

Let's make a date.

Matthew Fluharty: 57:50

Oh, man, that sounds great. Sharon, thank you so much for your time today in this conversation.

Sharon Mansur: 57:56

Thank you, Matt. Always so good to talk with you.

Matthew Fluharty: 58:02

Thanks again to Sharon for her time and generosity in this conversation. Please check out the show notes in the high visibility site at high visibility.org for further information on all the artists work she shared with us today. Thanks so much for spending some time this conversation