- Hi, I'm Hermene Hartman and welcome to "N'DIGO STUDIO".

Today we're going to talk about culture.

It's going to come to life.

In today's episode, we're going to be joined by two wonderful women and dive right into the vibrant world of art, culture, theater, what it means and what it does.

Jackie Taylor, well she's the visionary founder of Black Ensemble Theater, and she's still taking us on journeys.

Now we're going to meet her newest project, the "Free to Be" village project.

What does that mean?

And Charlique Rolle, well, she's the dynamic new president of the Black Arts and Cultural Alliance, and we're going to explore her exciting development and ideas as she develops innovative programs.

So get ready for a show where we celebrate creativity, community, and the power of the arts.

Only here on "N'DIGO STUDIO".

(upbeat music) For more information on this show, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Funding for this program was provided by Illinois State Representative LaShawn Ford.

The Chicago Community Trust.

Sin City Studios.

Lamborghini.

Chicago.

Gold Coast and Downers Grove.

Commonwealth Edison City Colleges of Chicago.

Broadway in Chicago.

And Governors State University.

Jackie Taylor, welcome to "N'DIGO STUDIO".

Charlique Rolle, welcome to "N'DIGO STUDIO".

I'm gonna start with my good friend Jackie Taylor.

Jackie, you have been doing Black ensemble theater for a while now.

- 47 years.

- I want you to tell me how the idea came about (Jackie chuckles) and how you did it.

- Well, a lot of prayer, number one.

(Hermene chuckles) you know, after I made my first film, "Cooley High", I thought all the film industry was going to have that positive message of non-violence and violence is sick and showing our community in a normal, positive way.

I was wrong.

- Surprise.

- Okay?

It was called Black Exploitation.

So I encountered a lot of racism growing up as well as in the industry.

And I decided that I did not wanna perpetuate those images, - Wanted to change 'em.

- I wanted to change them.

So I started the Black Ensemble Theater with the mission to eradicate racism.

- And you've done it through musicals, you've done it uniquely.

You've done it through the arts, you've done it through theater.

But you have done musicals that are historical people, Billie Holiday, just name some of the acts that we've done.

- Wow, so many, Jackie Wilson.

- That you've written, that you produced.

- Yeah, yeah.

About a hundred.

- Cinderella, Black Cinderella, your classic.

- "The Other Cinderella."

- "The Other Cinderella."

- "The Other Cinderella."

47 years old, coming back.

- She's middle aged now.

- Well.

(group laughs) - Now, she's always a little girl, right?

- She don't age.

- She don't age.

- Nah.

(chuckles) - That's right.

- Well, that's just wonderful.

When you say eradicate racism through theater, explain that concept.

- Through the theater arts, you know.

If we're going to destroy it, we have to get to the root.

If we don't get to the root, the weed will continue to grow.

- Racism, that is.

- That is absolutely correct.

So we use the arts as a communicator, as an educator.

You know, sometimes when you take your medicine, you need a little sugar to help it go down.

And that's what the music is about.

As we educate and we demonstrate who we are as a great people.

- Name some of the productions you've done.

- Oh, well, let's see.

"The Jackie Wilson Story", "The Story of Teddy Pendergrass", "The Story of Marvin Gaye", "The Story of Etta James", the story, (chuckles) we could go on and on.

- How do you choose, how do you choose which play, which person to honor?

Because as you do these, you're really paying complete tribute to these people.

'Cause you tell their story, not their stardom, but their story to stardom.

- Well I mean, you know that we all have a story to tell.

If you take anyone's life, we all have our ups and downs.

We all have our peaks and valleys.

And any life that you take, you're going to make great discoveries.

- There's a story.

- And there's a story, there's always a story.

So that's what we do.

We take the story and we turn it into a human experience so that no matter what color, what creed, what race you are, you can relate and experience that life- - You can appreciate.

- And that's what joins us together.

- Now you have built a theater, a brand new theater, from the ground up, which is groundbreaking in itself.

And now you have embarked on yet more, with a generous grant that you received from MacKenzie Scott of Amazon Fame.

Tell me about the new village, the "Free to Be" village project.

- Well, I mean, the "Free to Be" village is a extension of the mission of the Black Ensemble Theater outside of the theater walls.

And it's a village, it's a village that contains a performing arts and education center, a film technology center, a restaurant, an outside pavilion for outside theater, - Concerts maybe?

- Absolutely, and affordable housing for artists.

And what we wanna do is we wanna ensure that the Black Ensemble Theater will sustain itself over centuries, over as long as possible.

- So this is legacy.

- And it's sustainability.

So that we can continue to do the work.

'Cause we all know, we all know that racism is gonna take a long time to destroy, And I want Black Ensemble Theater to continue its work so that beyond many of our lifetimes, the story continues and the work goes on.

- "Free to Be" village.

- "Free to Be" Village, and it will help the Black Ensemble, will feed into the Black Ensemble the economic streams that it needs.

You know, theater has such frail revenue streams, such frail- - It's not just about ticket sales.

- Okay, it's ticket sales, it's as a not-for-profit.

- Production.

- You do a lot of asking.

And I want the theater to survive on more than that, because as we all experienced too, the pandemic, you know, that can go away very quickly.

And we need to be able to continue the work.

- So you're creating businesses.

- Absolutely, yes.

- Opportunities.

Business opportunities.

- Absolutely.

- [Hermene] Congratulations girlfriend.

- Well, thank you darling.

- I- - You do the same thing.

- Well, we trying, we trying.

(Jackie chuckles) Now Charlique, here you are.

Following the footsteps of Ms. Taylor.

Tell me about the new Black Arts and Culture Alliances of Chicago, what are you doing?

- Yeah well I'm really excited and honored to have stepped into this presidency following Jackie, the Black Arts and Culture, formerly the African American Arts Alliances.

- And that was an alliance that Jackie formed.

- One of the founders, yes.

- Okay, okay.

- So back in '97.

So '77, the original Black Theater Alliance was founded by Abena Joan Brown, Pemon Rami, Useni Eugene Perkins, and Okoro Johnson.

And so that was really created to build a space for black theaters to have community, to form resources.

In 97, Jackie, - Along with Chuck Smith.

- Along with Chuck Smith, along with Ron OJ Parson and Joan Gray.

- And Runako Jahi, yeah.

- And Runako Jahi came together to recollaborate the Alliance and extend its mission beyond just theater and for black artists and black arts organizations.

- So what Jackie did, and what you're doing with the Alliance is you organized the theater cultural community to say, "Let's come together."

- Not only theater.

- Not only theater, arts, visual arts.

- Visual arts, music, dance, literary arts, now technology, yeah.

- Now what are you going to do with it?

- Well, we wanna continue to strengthen that legacy that was built, but also think about what does it mean for black artists today, right?

There was a specific need when the Alliance was formed.

And we think about the, where we are in our society, how our artists are combining and cross pollinating the art disciplines, cross pollinating how we move, how we utilize our spaces, how we build community, how we organize, and how we intersect with culture, society, and what is happening in the world.

And so, thinking about what are the needs of artists today?

So right now, we just actually finished, last month, Black Arts Month.

So we celebrated across the city of Chicago in various locations, highlighting different artists across disciplines, bringing artists together, having listening sessions so that we can hear what the artists need.

'Cause that's often something that's dismissed, is like we make assumptions on what's needed versus hearing exactly what they need.

And so thinking about how we can take that and utilize that.

One thing we also did this past a few week, this last week, we held the inaugural Black Arts Hall of Fame.

So really honoring the legacy of the black artists.

- Nice.

- Who paved the way for today's young artists.

- Who were some of the people you honored?

- So we honored our founders.

- Chicago was a cinema town.

This is years ago, way before any of us were born.

But Chicago is coming back as a cinema town.

Are you working with some of the studios?

- Not at present, but we do hope to continue to do so again, because we represent all of the disciplines of art making.

We wanna make sure that we're capitalizing upon that, especially when we think about, as more traffic is coming into Chicago, that we're helping to facilitate and create more opportunities for Chicago artists to be engaged in those works.

- Okay, Now here's a question that is a futuristic question, but I think we would be remiss if we didn't speak to it.

How are you dealing, or are you dealing with artificial intelligence?

- That's a big question.

- That's a big question, (Charlique chuckles) isn't it?

- That is a big question.

And I think we are still in the exploratory phases of what the impacts of that are.

You know, we've just finished seeing the impacts of the strikes with SAG-AFTRA and the Writer's Guild.

So really thinking about what does that mean?

Because again, it varies across discipline, the impacts of it.

So we're working, again, because we support and acknowledge all of these disciplines, trying to figure out what are, what's the implications of this for your specific discipline?

How can we support that?

How can we help to, whether that is facilitate resources, facilitate different conversations.

Because we also recognize that as the Alliance, we can't do everything.

We wanna do what we can specifically do, which again is, that is supporting Black artists.

So, and then in addition to that, how we collaborate with other organizations that do other specific things that are needed.

So again, we're building an ecosystem of collaboration, and that is effective in the support of the humanity of our Black artists.

- Jackie, are you using artificial intelligence in the theater?

- Not right now, but we are trying to figure out, okay, it's something that we definitely have to understand.

It's going to, it is not the future, it is now.

And we are behind because we're, we haven't infiltrated it in a way that is gonna benefit the art itself.

So I've seen some amazing work in terms of artificial intelligence and utilizing that in the theater and on the stage.

It's very, very, it's just phenomenal, so yes.

- For scenery?

For things like scenery?

- It's everything.

- It's everything.

- Really, it's everything.

I mean, I saw recently on Broadway, the Michael Jackson Musical.

- Yes.

Yes.

- And there was Michael, right there on the stage in front of me.

- That's right.

- And I'm like, "Oh, oh, okay."

- "Where'd he come from?"

right?

- This is definitely a wave of the future, but we gotta be smart.

We, can't let it- there's a danger in that it can really, I wouldn't say replace humanity, but it can diminish humanity in a way that will not benefit us, if we don't understand how to use that technology to benefit mankind rather than to replace mankind.

- Are you using it in writing?

You know, you can say, "Do me a play on-" say a person, bloop, and it will give you a play, perhaps.

Are you using it like that, or do you see it being used like that at all?

- No, and the reason is, I wanna use my mind, you know.

I mean our mind, if, our mind is a muscle.

- That's right.

- And if we don't exercise it, we're going to lose it.

- So what it does is, I'm using it in writing, not a hundred percent completely, but it sharpens you, for maybe vocabulary, for maybe sequence, for maybe historical presence, years and events and stuff like that.

But then I go back and edit.

I write it, use it, go back and edit it.

But do you know books are being done?

Some people have written some books using artificial intelligence.

- Oh yeah.

- And the theater community and the film community, it's gonna become a thing.

Did you see "Barbie"?

- No.

- I saw "Barbie", and I accidentally saw "Barbie", but "Barbie's" got mountains and the sea and Rodeo Drive and it's all artificial intelligence.

So we're going to see this more and more and more in the theater, in the arts at large.

We talked about theater, and the arts.

for the community, the professional community.

But how does he go into the average community?

How does it, how do you relate to the average community?

I don't know I wanna be an actor, I don't know I wanna be a film director.

I don't know I wanna be a producer because I don't know what that is.

So how do you deal with these kids and get some people involved in the arts that might have talent and nobody knows that they have talent, but you will develop that talent.

How does that work?

- Yeah, I think a lot of it is community engagement.

And I think it's just a shift in perspective of what the arts is when we think about it as an isolated entity that is an end as opposed to something that is continuous as part of society's development.

You know, there are certainly studies that just even talk about the impact of the arts on intellect and on development, on childhood development, and understanding and worldview.

So when we think about the arts as an integral part of how society is built, then we don't think about it as an end goal as rather, this is a pathway.

And it also doesn't mean that you have to go into the arts as a career, but you can use it, like Jackie said, as a vehicle to get to certain places.

There are so many transferable skills that are developed by being engaged and being connected to the arts.

In the same way that you would say you're engaging in these skills via being an athlete.

There's same, similar ways that are, you're being taught through the arts.

There's discipline, there is collaboration, there's communication skills, there's partnership creativity that unlocks things.

And I think that when we think about how the arts intersects with every single part of policy, of development, of neighborhood, of organizing, of community orientation, then we can really think differently about how students can engage and find themselves.

Find whatever that freedom is that they need as a creative person.

Because we all truly are creative beings.

It just manifests differently.

- Let's talk about Hollywood, let's talk about message.

And this is where Jackie and I really, really over the years have connected.

It's the messaging, it's the narrative, it's the story.

How do we tell our stories?

Because there are things you can do in the arts that you can't do anywhere else.

We are in political, I don't know what to call it, a political mess, just say what it is.

A political mess.

- Right, (chuckles) yeah.

- Okay, but there are things that you can communicate in the arts that a writer of Politico, an analysis can't, you'll be more effective.

You could be more effective in the arts.

You know, we look at the skits on Saturday Night Live every week, and sometimes they're more effective than the commentators are.

How do you use the arts, and Jackie, you've done this brilliantly throughout the years.

How do you use it to change that narrative, to change that message to put that positive message across?

And is Hollywood doing it better?

Are we better?

- I think Hollywood is a myth.

- It's a myth?

- It's a myth.

- Why Is it a myth, Jackie?

- I think, because when we think of Hollywood, we still, depending on, of course, age and generation, but we still have a picture of, when you say Hollywood, that kind of fits the '50s.

If you really look at it, it's still dominantly white.

Even though we have made great strides in terms of bringing our people to life in a real way.

But those strides are not enough.

When you look at the average person, the average person is an artist.

We're all artists, but we're artists in different ways.

In terms of storytelling, we still have not told our stories the way that we need for our stories to be reflected.

We still, as a people, on a national level, have not embraced the greatness of who we are.

And we still allow for others to tell us what, in terms of us, is our best that we can give.

For instance.

- So that was the brilliance of 1619, is it told our story - Yes, that's- - From our point- See, it's also our point of view.

It's not just the story.

- Right.

- 'Cause the story is facts, events and, blah blah year, and all that, but it's not the point of view.

- Well it's either slanted.

It's slanted in a way that's true and real.

And this country has not had the ability or the experience of telling our real and true story.

They have lied about us for over 450 years, kept us in bondage for 450 years through lies, through manipulation.

An example of our storytelling is Denzel Washington, he won the Academy Award - For.

- For- - Training.

- Right.

- Rather than "Malcolm X".

- Rather than the "Malcolm X", which was a far greater picture and demonstrated so much positive about who we are.

But rather than give this Black man the honor that he deserved for what he's told, it's racism and politics that enter into every aspect of our civilization.

And that's why I say Hollywood is still the myth.

Because still today, look at Halle Berry who won the Academy Award.

All that good stuff that she did, she won it for some mess.

The message was negative.

The story was so anti-Black, I mean it was ridiculous.

But that she was honored for that.

And it's still a slap in the face that we cannot let continue That we have to honor ourselves, and take control of our stories, and tell our stories as you're doing Hermene Our images We have to understand what image is being created and then is it a, is it real, is it true?

- The power of it.

- Oh, right.

Understand when, what message is being created for you.

We, as human beings, some think that they can- A good example is the commercials of the pharmaceutical commercials on TV, where every single one tells you that, "Okay, you wanna solve that headache?

All right, take this, but when you take it, be aware that it might kill you, it might give you heart attack, it, you might die, but hey, take it."

- They're romantic.

- Yes.

- The commercials are so romantic.

You just take the pill and then run through the park and all your problems are gone.

You might be dying, it might kill you.

It might have some very serious side effects, but you're going, it's okay to do it.

"Ask your doctor about it."

- Well, first of all, those commercials aren't for us.

Those commercials are creating ongoing messages for youth so that they become, not hearing the subliminal, not hearing, because after a while they'll create an environment where they'll think that that's natural to have that and not even hear the other part.

So it's not for us, it's creating more economics for the future of that industry.

- Pharmaceutical company.

- Yes, that's what- we gotta realize our, the messages that are being created, - How confused did we get over the COVID shot?

- Oh my good.

- Do you take this one?

Or do you take that one?

And what does the message say on TV?

"Take the COVID shot, take this one, (chuckles) or take that one."

- So I would question that, that in itself, there are other ways of healing, beside taking a pharmaceutical drug.

- But that's what we're being told.

- But we're being trained and developed to look at the pharmaceutical drug, because it's not benefiting us, it's benefiting the industry.

This country is, it's making its gazillions of dollars off of keeping it's citizens sick.

- [Hermene] That's right, that's right.

- And we gotta recognize that.

'Cause it's other choices beside taking a pharmaceutical drug into your system that doesn't work.

- You ladies have an awesome task.

I congratulate you on where you are now, but where you're going in the future.

'Cause Jackie, you are building a cultural community beyond theater, but with theater, with a lot of sidebars.

And you are bringing it all together so that we can appreciate and respect.

You're changing the lens, you're changing.

Congratulations to you and thank you so much- - Thank you.

for being with us today to discuss it.

Thank you.

I'm Hermene Hartman with "N'DIGO STUDIO".

We've had an exciting conversation on culture theater, the arts.

For more information on this show, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Funding for this program was provided by Illinois State Representative LaShawn Ford the Chicago Community Trust Cine City Studios, Lamborghini, Chicago, Gold Coast and Downers Grove.

Commonwealth Edison City Colleges of Chicago.

City Colleges of Chicago.

Broadway In Chicago And Governors State University.

N'digo Studio.