Jan Cohen-Cruz: Episode Ten: Reflection
This podcast features stories and reflections about the prison system, theatre, collectivity, and love from six sets of people who met in prison theatre workshops. Finn and I fell in love in one of them, he joining from the inside and me from the outside. Our story runs through it all.
Two or three years ago, you said, “Why don’t we write about that time?” And then a lot of it got filled in…
Finn K.: And the thing about that was—I had this thought, I’m never gonna be able to explain to Jan anything about me. But if we write a book together, she’s gonna be forced to. That’s all it was. And you did get to know more, right?
Jan: Oh yeah. But then we did this whole deep dive. We had this correspondence, wrote half a book, now here we are turning it into this podcast. Even though you say you didn’t learn a thing. You already knew it all. That’s amazing to me but okay…
Finn: Well, nobody knows it all… I knew everything that I wanted to know.
Jan: Okay, so then what was this for you, that we did this writing back and forth, that it became part of a book, that—what would you say about what this has been?
Finn: It’s great. It’s fantastic. Because my whole thing is I live day to day. And everything is just as real as it was. I don’t know anybody like that.
Jan: So, there it was. We picked it up, and here we are.
Finn: And here we are. See, the thing to remember is this thing at the center of our hearts.
Jan: In this episode, the podcast contributors share final reflections on their workshop experiences and the importance of being seen in all our complexities.
We did not go into Trenton with the intention of changing anyone. It was a space to reflect, but not for me to push for particular conclusions. Take Kuwasi, who was a Black Panther and clear about being a violent revolutionary. He came to that decision in response to the world as he saw it; it would have been presumptuous of me to try to convince him otherwise. Kareem also saw the virulent racism, but post-prison, he chose a non-violent route, with service to community as the highest good. Certainly, Finn and I went on to work more collectively than the paths we were on would have taken us.
Saul Hewish: What the fuck does it say about us that we’re more interested in the experience of working in a room in the back of shit with a bunch of guys to make something than we are in wanting to be famous actors, or wanting to be on television?
Jan: Here’s Saul and John.
Saul: There’s a fundamental thing for me, that doing drama and theatre in prison is so core to my identity and my sense of myself that if it wasn’t to be there, I wouldn’t really know who I was. Maybe because I came to this work when I was barely twenty-one years old, and for a period of ten years between beginning in 1987 and going to work with you in the States in 1996, I didn’t talk about anything other than prison, prisoners, and theatre. It was certainly formative of my professional identity, but I think it goes deeper than that.
John Bergman: And I had a friend who called this work throwaway theatre, really put it down. She hated it.
Saul: Yeah, but the thing is, it’s not throwaway theatre, or you could say all theatre is throwaway. It’s temporal. I mean, it’s fucking there, then it’s gone, right? But actually, we know that it wasn’t throwaway because it was real. Even when the stories were invented, it was all about the men and their struggle right there to get it right, show their kids, show the officers. It was about them trying something new. And we helped them get there.
For me, one of the biggest learnings about making theatre in prison is that we have to trust the art form. Do you remember when we would be making a show with prisoners getting really anxious and kind of going, “Is there a show? I don’t think there’s a show. It looks shit. It’s gonna be awful. It’s a disaster.” All of that. Just nerves! Then it would happen and their adrenaline would kick in, and everything would happen. Even if the show wouldn’t necessarily happen how you expected, something good always happened. We’d always say yes to our process. Because in the end, we just have to trust our process. In the end, of course, we had to trust theatre.
Jan: Kevin—
By manifesting the imagined world on stage we’re simultaneously manifesting it in the real world.
Kevin Bott: Enacting the parts of the self that one seeks to grow into connects with Jill Dolan’s idea about theatre as utopia: by manifesting the imagined world on stage we’re simultaneously manifesting it in the real world. Alex, who co-directs Ritual4Return with me, talks about putting on different hats, trying different roles, and the opportunity it affords. Then, it becomes true; he becomes that person in real life. When I met him, Alex seemed very uncertain of himself in the world. First, he went through the Ritual4Return program as a formerly incarcerated man; then, because he was a social worker, I asked him to join me in that capacity. But then he started experimenting as an artist and intervening in people’s stories, making suggestions, and by the end of it, he felt like an artist. Now, he sits in meetings at the Ford Foundation, and with other funders, talks about this work, and describes himself as an artist.
Saul: I think what we do is important. We enable possibilities and imagination—could I live my life differently? We can’t do that all on our own.
Jan: George and Jess—
George Ferguson: When people are sent to prison, their punishment is a loss of liberty, but they still need to be engaged in opportunities for learning and growth. They still have that right. We still need to provide experiences for them to move forward in life.
Jess Thorpe: There’s a tension, isn’t there, between punishment and rehabilitation. How can both things exist at the same time? What are we hoping will happen if we lock people in cages on top of each other and make them alone most of the day? Is that going to make a safer society? What happens when they are released?
Last week I was doing a lecture with a group of students and one of them said that they didn’t think that murderers, for example, should be allowed to do drama. I hear this view a lot, but I find it utterly perplexing. It speaks to this idea that drama is somehow a treat or an extra or even a luxury. For me it’s the absolute opposite. The arts are fundamental to who we are and how we process as human beings.
Maybe the problem is it looks like “fun.” And maybe it is sometimes. There can be something incredibly healing and pro-social about fun. But let’s be really clear—it also requires a lot of bravery and a lot of deep digging, a lot of communication and collaboration and essentially outing yourself in front of others. It is positivity and change and growth. Isn’t that what we want?
I felt like replying to the student, “Are they allowed maths? English? What are they allowed?” I guess it comes back to the idea: What are prisons for? We are speaking about Scotland, and in lots of other countries they will of course have different versions of this, but I feel like sometimes—and I see it in the general public as well as in the system—there’s a tension between “Are we punishing? Or are we trying to support positive futures?” Essentially these are two different things, and sometimes I don’t think we know which one we are doing.
That and the fact that we know—we actually know—that most of the young people that we are imprisoning come from a handful of postcodes in Scotland. Statistically, they have experienced a huge amount of childhood trauma. They have already been let down by the system, so as painful as it might be to the general public, is punishment even the right conversation to be having?
George: What would you rather have: somebody who does ten years in prison but learns nothing and returns to the community, or somebody who comes in, engages with projects and services to try and better themselves, takes part in education, learns a trade, etc.? That person has got more of a chance of surviving and being accepted within the community and never returning to prison. The difficult part isn’t doing the time in the prison but re-engaging back into the community after a lengthy period of time or going back to the same situation they were in before. Because if that continues, then we have a continuous cycle of short-term offenders, you know? Doing life sentences in installments. It can be like a revolving door.
The Scottish Prison Service is definitely about rehabilitation and how we can better prepare individuals for release. As our corporate vision states, we are transforming lives and unlocking potential. What we have to remember is that the punishment for anyone in our care is their loss of liberation when sentenced by the courts; they are not sent to prison to be punished.
What I have come to recognize through being part of the performing arts is that it is all about confidence, communication, and having respect for each other. There were certain individuals who could hardly look you in the eye when they started and were very quiet for a couple weeks. Maybe they were scared to get involved. But I watched their journey and how transformative it was for them.
Kevin: Does this theatre work inside have a rehabilitative effect on the system’s administrators? Does it extend out beyond the participants and change anything about the prison system? I don’t work inside anymore so I’m eager to hear your all thoughts about that.
Gloria “Mama Glo” Williams: By being in the system as long as I was, I can say that particularly performances we did brought a lot of understanding between staff and “offenders.” Because you came into the system, they read what’s on the record and hear all the gossip on the compound, but when we do our performances, you get to see the real me—my pain, what I been through, and probably what put me on the road to destruction. You get to see another side of me that you don’t know besides the number that I wear. As an individual standing before you, which might echo what you are or have gone through.
Kevin: Mama Glo, did you find that people treated you differently after hearing your story and seeing you perform?
Mama Glo: Yes, they did. When I lost my mother, I was still incarcerated. I did a tribute to her. A lot of people in the institution wanted a copy of what I had written in that tribute so they could do it at their churches.
Jess: It’s really tricky making good relations with prison staff and learning how to work together; it’s always, how ambitious can we be? How much can we question? Sometimes it backfires. You end up making the system look like it’s working. People go, “We’ve got all of these arts programs in the prison,” and they use it as an advertisement of all the things that are good about the system. But we know that it’s not working, absolutely not, not even close to working. “What’s working” isn’t even the conversation. It’s Victorian.
I’m thinking about my own country specifically. Aside from a few progressive institutions, we are basically still putting people in small cages for twenty-three hours a day. It’s ridiculous. There are so many ways it’s not working depending on how you want to look at it; another is, it costs so much money. I believe in individuals like George, but I don’t believe in the system. But I have to be able to work in the system to make space for the people and the work that I do believe in. I find that a tension.
Saul: Yes, I agree. The prison uses your work as a PR opportunity. Over here in England, the inspectors come around, and the prison will get points for having arts projects and people doing “innovative” activities. It’s a tension. It’s great they’re allowing that to happen, but like Jess says, why not have a theatre in all the prisons? As long as we follow the American model of building prisons for two thousand-plus people, things aren’t going to change. There doesn’t seem to be any indication from any of the political parties to do anything different.
I’ve seen governors or wardens embrace what we do and allow it to become part of the regime. It can really create something special within a prison. But it’s always so vulnerable because that person could leave. Whenever we found the good people in the system who would enable what we wanted to do and work with us to create more, when they left, we would just follow them like little dogs to the next prison because that would allow us to continue to do the work.
Jan: Kathy adds:
Kathy Randels: Mmmm, yes. This is very familiar. But staying in the corrupt system, even when your allies leave, is the only way we’ll ever fully change it. It is essential in system change to realize that people uphold these corrupt systems; we have to encourage the humanity of those folks to bring about positive change. And when you find a good one, keep them, learn from them, and put their philosophy into place on a larger, systemic level.
Jess: It’s fascinating to me how long-term change actually happens and how we as human beings support each other to grow. Because surely we are investing in our own society when we do that.
Rand Hazou: We understand liberation as a useful tool to critique various forms of oppression and exclusion, connected to the process of striving to achieve equal status and rights. Liberation can also articulate the notion of personal freedom of expression, thought, or behavior. Here we articulate liberation as a process of casting off the shackles of the mind, body, and spirit.
Saul: I really like what Rand and Reggie wrote about unshackling the body through theatre workshops. John and I used to observe, particularly with prisoners who’d been in a long time, how they’d become physically like the prison—like the building. Guys who’d spend hours doing weights so their bodies would be huge but in terms of their abilities to move their bodies—like we’d say, “Lift your arms in the air,” and I remember a guy who couldn’t lift his shoulders because his neck was so huge. The longer you’re incarcerated, the more you’re stuck in prison because you’ve become part of the machinery. I’ve worked with choreographers in prison, and it’s amazing how asking people to move ways they’ve never moved before impacts what happens in their brains. It’s really critical.
John: For some guys, as we know, theatre works, because they can see. It was very interesting to me when I began doing drama therapy in prison. Often, when I started working with guys, they couldn’t see. I don’t mean they were literally blind, I mean they couldn’t see what was going on, that was part of the problem that got them inside. Take a simple exercise that all of us know—pass the imaginary object and change it into something else. We’d say, crumble it up, whatever, you know, do something with it. But they’d get stuck! Or they’d make a two-dimensional representation of it on the ground. You’d say it could be anything—but the word “anything” would completely floor them. I’m back on Saulie’s reference to unshackling—and one of the things I think we do is unshackle vision.
Reggie Daniels: In prison, where surveillance and control are mobilized to produce “obedient” bodies, the pōwhiri and creative workshops offered opportunities for participants to transcend these restrictions and free up the body temporarily. Incarceration lives in the body; the institutional power works to habituate bodily behaviors and expressions. Rand documented how physical performance can facilitate a sense of “re-embodiment” for men living within a system and space that routinely polices bodies.
The pōwhiri or welcoming ceremony, set the physical, affective, and intellectual registers for the creative workshops. The use of the hongi, in which guests and hosts press noses together symbolizing the “sharing of breath,” brought tears to my eyes, providing opportunities to break from the physical and relational distance that is often enforced in prison settings. In the US prison system, we are prohibited from touching. The incarcerated are warned against over-familiarity, correctional officers are cautioned to avoid it, and outside volunteers and contractors are advised not to commit it.
The pōwhiri helped set up a different kind of engagement between participants that emphasized relationality and physical proximity, challenging some of the dehumanizing restrictions that carcerality often places on the body and that can result in the loss of individuality and physical agency.
The chanting became a ritual evocation of hope. It humanized the space and gave participants an opportunity to show up in an authentic way, not restricted by their crimes or the mistakes of their past. To show up as human beings and be real and recognized without judgement.
Saul: What Ausettua wrote, starting with umbutu [ubuntu], really chimed with me in relation to social justice and the importance of hope. Hope in prison is something I’m seeing less and less of at the moment in the UK. It’s sort of a counter to this obsession we seem to have with punishing people and putting them in prison for longer and longer and longer. The fact is, if people have no hope, there is no reason why they would ever do anything different than the things they did in the past, and there isn’t any opportunity for anything different in the future.
Kathy: Well, I have to say there are people all over the US who are actively trying to change the system, reimagine it, or even tear it down. In New Orleans and Louisiana generally, that system change is being led by formerly incarcerated people, which is very exciting and as it should be.
In recent years, New Orleans elected Jason Williams as District Attorney and Susan Hutson as Sheriff. They both ran on platforms of reform, saying we need to treat people who get caught in the system as humans—what a concept. And they’ve begun to embrace restorative justice and other alternatives to incarceration. They are both having trouble in their offices because system change is a huge shift on every level, in every position, in every human involved in enforcement. Progressive New Orleanians elected them and are trying to hold them accountable—this is largely because we are ground zero for mass incarceration in the world, and we are finally saying enough is enough!
Jess: One of the benefits for me of living in a small country is that we only have fifteen prisons, and I work in six or seven of them regularly, so I see the same people and can track their progress. It’s my dream to have a cultural program in all of them. I don’t think it’s so far away; we are already talking about it.
Reggie: While the material reality of confinement and incarceration are important, far more important are the consequences of incarceration that lead not only to the dehumanization of incarcerated individuals but also to the internalization of this carceral logic.
The recitation of the Dream poem was a repudiation of the internalization of carcerality and self-doubt. The first part of the poem features a man lying on his back surrounded by able-bodied men and trapped in self-defeatist internal logic. The second half of the poem presents the narrator no longer lying on his back but instead giving himself permission to dream without excuses. The mental cycle of self-defeat is broken, providing hope for the poet and the audience to move freely towards liberation. These sentiments seem to be echoed in the song written by one of the workshop participants at Auckland Prison, who explains liberation as “a message of a warrior who won’t hold back.” For this poet, liberation is acknowledging the hope beneath the pain and suffering: “Embracing liberation is a way of knowing your truth.” Both poems express unshackling the mind, with self-doubt no longer the dominant or controlling voice.
Artistic engagement within carceral settings challenges the idea that prisons enforce that you deserve to be punished, you don’t deserve to be in society, and you have no real value. For me, artistic engagement can say that part of us is creative and always has value, even if we are incarcerated and have made mistakes. Mental freedom here is about the creative self.
Rand: A way to understand the impact of Reggie’s poem and the communal chanting is through bell hooks’s notion of love as a spiritual practice and as an act of liberation. For hooks, “the moment we choose to love we begin to move toward freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.” Hooks points to a problem arising from our “blind spots” when we confront oppression and domination, observing that many of us are ultimately motivated by “self-interest” when fighting domination. Rather than being motivated by a desire to end politics of domination or further collective transformation, often our confrontations with oppression express a desire “simply for an end to what we feel is hurting us.”
As Michael Monahan explains in his insightful reading of hooks, we tend to focus on one aspect of domination, the one that most directly impacts us, and either “ignore altogether, or offer only lip-service to the ways in which different kinds of domination are linked systematically to each other.” For hooks, the ability to acknowledge blind spots can emerge only if we alter our motivation away from the alleviation of our own suffering and instead expand our capacity to care about the oppression and exploitation of others. For hooks, a “love ethic makes this expansion possible.” Hooks cites M. Scott Peck’s working definition of love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”
Hooks’ conception of love is as a dynamic process, not a static state of being. It is a spiritual practice that one manifests and must be nurtured to thrive and grow. Monahan explains that we must take up the challenge of coming to know those we love “both as they are now, and as they have it in them to become.” For Monahan, this involves an affirmation of nurturing and the facilitation of growth toward the possibility of a future flourishing.
Reflecting back on the workshops, the cultural opening of the pōwhiri provided a space of nurturing and becoming that was further enhanced by the sharing of Reggie’s personal story, the recitation of the poem, and the communal chanting. One way we might understand the workshops at Auckland prison is through hooks’ conceptions of love as a spiritual practice and as an act of liberation. The workshops utilized creative expression within a carceral space to shift the attention of the participants from a narrow focus on their own interests, and the alleviation of their own suffering, to a concern for the care of others. This was a central inspiration informing the Performing Liberation project, which sought to provide opportunities for two communities to engage in creative dialogues together, to acknowledge and potentially address systemic issues of oppression that underscore global mass incarceration that disproportionately impacts Indigenous peoples and communities of color. Through artistic engagement and dialogue with each other, the project sought to facilitate an awareness of the systemic issues of oppression that these different communities face.
Kathy: In the early years, it felt like every time we spoke too much about freedom there would be a clamp down from the administration. The women created “Black Lives Matter” banners for a performance that the administration wouldn’t allow them to display. We were all angry; but/and we gave the banners to “Take ‘Em Down, NOLA,” the grassroots movement responsible for removing four Confederate statues from our city that sparked a national movement.
It was a glorious moment, in 2018, when we were finally able to bring in our twentieth anniversary Drama Club celebration that had been planned since 2016. That’s when we were closed out of LCIW for two years because of a flood that displaced the women. Warden Boutte shared that he had recently visited a prison in Sweden and learned that there is another way to handle harm that occurs between humans. He even said that we should stop using the word “inmate” and start saying “incarcerated people” to maintain and affirm their humanity, and he said this to a room full of incarcerated women and security. That was a huge win right there!
George: It was a bit of constant battle from the start for me. I was lucky in that I was part of the senior management team in the establishment, but I was constantly being challenged by staff: How is this getting to happen? Why are they getting this special treatment? When we had an evening performance and I allowed them out of their halls past seven o’clock at night, it was a first.
Jess: That was an amazing moment… That was their highlight….
George: It was a major thing for them, right, because nobody had ever been able to access the activity buildings at night. But I asked, “Why?” It needed to happen. It felt important to challenge the status quo and start getting people to buy into what we could achieve together.
It was about reminding people in prison that they’re human.
Saul: It’s a constant struggle to fight against the inhumanity of prison, the dehumanizing element, because that seems to be what prison does really well—strips people from their sense of being human beings. For me that’s become really important in the work I do now. It grew from the work I did with John all those years ago. Because it was about reminding people in prison that they’re human. Maybe that’s where love fits in. Something occurs, emotions get released, purging, not always catharsis, and also play is really important. It’s why what we do is so important—for the prisons, the staff that work with us, and also for continuing to chip away, fight back against the prison machine.
John: You know, Saul and I were incredibly lucky to work at a place where humanity actually occurred—County Jail #7 in San Bruno—San Francisco, essentially. The guy who ran the jail had been to prison for something pretty intense, and he was remarkable. One of the things he’d do to make sure his staff was being decent was that he would actually get in line with the new prisoners as they were coming in. So he’d see how his jailers were jailing. And if they weren’t getting it right, they’d be gone. He was for real about the training we were giving. And that place was amazing. They had a sculpture program with a three-quarter ton block of marble and guys with hammers and chisels, which is not common in a prison. So, it can work.
Kevin: I think the purpose of the US carceral system is to crush human spirits. I worked for a theatre organization that goes into prisons that has the word “rehabilitation” in its name. I always struggled with it because the suggestion was that we were rehabilitating the incarcerated participants of our workshops and performances. It was ignoring or lying by omission to not suggest that there were many bigger system things that needed rehabilitation. Just those words, “punishment” and “rehabilitation,” and what this work does inside—it’s a question I wrestle with.
Ausetta Amor Amenkum: When we started working in the prison over twenty years ago, the staff was not receptive. They made it difficult. We couldn’t bring the props in; they complained about us wanting rehearsal time; they would keep people from our drama club in lockdown. But when we did the performances, which were always original works that the women came up with, subject matter that resonated with them–when I tell you, the staff would be in there crying, saying, “I never knew this.” This is why I’m convinced we need to do something for staff. I know we already have beaucoup stuff on our plates, we can’t possibly work with the inmates and the staff, too. But just recently, Kathy and I were saying that we gotta start focusing on them and get them to the level we get these women. Because we know the laborers are few and the work is plenty. And if we keep only working with the inmates and not the guards, it’s going to be lopsided.
Kathy: I have learned a lot from formerly incarcerated activists like Fox Rich and Dolfinette Martin that we don’t have to accept the prison’s rules. It’s a really fine line of diplomacy every time we walk in there; but/and, until I started working with criminal legal system reform activists, I really didn’t try to challenge the system at all. I just tried to be sneaky and bring my love into the institution. Now I am working hard to find creative ways to challenge and question the system while still holding the right to be able to enter it and serve the women. Mama, could you sum up what you learned from the Drama Club?
Mama Glo: Can’t say it, gotta sing it:
[Singing] Life is what you make it.Life is happiness.
Life is where you’re going.
Life is where you’ve been.
[Speaking] Sing it, Kathy.Kathy: [Singing] Life is what you make it.
Kathy, Mama Glo, and Ausetta: [Singing] Life is happiness.
Life is where you’re going.
Life is where you’ve been.
Mama Glo: Kathy, you remember the story I told you about when I was on life support from COVID, that that song we made in Drama kept playing over and over again; that song saved my life, and I still believe it, that song lets you know we have choices. Sing it again, Kathy…
Kathy: [Singing] Life is, life is what you make it.
Kathy, Mama Glo, and Ausetta: Life is happiness.
Life is where you’re going.
Life is where you’ve been.
Kathy: Life is what you make it.
Life is happiness.
Life is where you’re going.
Life is where you’ve been.
Mama Glo: [Over Kathy’s singing] Whoever believe and trust, I ask God to rewrite your story and he did. I am free because of the people he put in my life and in my path. I didn’t come out in a body bag, ‘cause God rewrote my story!
Kathy, Mama Glo, and Ausetta: [Singing] Life is happiness.
Life is where you’re going.
Life is where you’ve been.
Kathy: Yeah.
Younger Jan [Played by Kathryn Erbe]: The relationship with Finn and the other participants was the most profound piece of my own education. What it was to understand that Finn became a child prostitute to survive his childhood, ironically ending it at the same time. And that drugs are not a root problem but a solution to the searing pain from which the addict seeks release. I had entered the prison unconsciously expecting to meet people who were inherently bad in some way, not yet understanding that they were shaped by the complicated and violent circumstances of their lives. As Brecht wrote in St. Joan of the Stockyards, “These people aren’t bad; they’re poor.” What existential realities force us into the choices we make and the people we become? My workshop experience was the crucible that saved me from believing abstractions about all I did not know.
Jan: That was one of the most surprising things is that one of the best collective experiences I had in my whole life was in Trenton State Prison. In that workshop.
Finn: Right, mine too! Well…
Jan: For the period, there was a time. Things started to deteriorate. But for a certain time–
Finn: But that’s what I’m saying: It never deteriorated for me. That’s what I’m saying. That’s one of the things I wanted you to know. How do I get her to understand that? Because I know there’s all this other stuff….
Jan: This podcast was produced by Voiceworks Audio. The director was Andy Paris. Jan adapted the podcast from her book, See Me: Prison Theatre Workshops and Love, written and performed with Ausettua Amor Amenkum, Alexander Anderson, John Bergman, Kevin Bott, Reginold Daniels, George Ferguson, Rand Hazou, Saul Hewish, Finn K., Kathy Randels, Jess Thorpe, and Gloria “Mama Glo” Williams. It was published by New Village Press; special thanks to editor Lynne Elizabeth. Kathryn Erbe plays the younger Jan, Boris Franklin plays Alexander Anderson, Terry Kinney plays the younger Finn, and Kevin McCray plays Reginold Daniels.
Original theme music was composed by Sasha Paris-Carter. The musicians are Daniel Knapp on cello, Dionisio Cruz on percussion, Joanna Lu on viola, Mary Knapp on accordion, and Rene Ferrer on bass. Paris-Carter also composed the song “Intercession”, performed by Haja Worley on vocals, Kenny Butler on piano, and Dionisio Cruz on percussion. “Wade in the Water” features Haja on vocals and Kenny on piano, and “Hush” is performed by Haja, Kenny, and Dionisio. Haja was with Finn and me in that workshop, also from the inside. The percussion ensemble is Kumbuka African Drum and Dance Collective.
Thanks to Danny at Wire Road Studios in Houston, Billy at Southern Sound Studios in New Orleans, Ryan at Crescendo in New Zealand, Adam in Providence, Randy at Pearl Diver Sound in Brooklyn, Paul at Bad Animal in Seattle, and Amit in the studio at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Many thanks to all who contributed to GoFundMe to make this podcast possible, to Nicole Kontelefa for project assistance, and to HowlRound for hosting it.
And thank you for listening.
