Chasity: Hello and welcome to the podcast where we talk about creating experimental art in trauma-informed and sustainable ways that support. Our communities and our organization as a whole. I'm Chasity and I'll be your host for this episode of Any Other Anythings.
So hello all.
Chasity: So hello all welcome to the episode six of season three of Any Other Anythings. I'm Chasity and we will be your host for this episode. Um, I am a dancer and performer within GBC . And today I'm here with Lizbett. Welcome, Lizbett. Hey, . Hey girl. Hey. I love your outfit and your earrings. Very accessorized here today.
Stylewise. Yes. Yes. In a moment we'll get into more of the origin story, but wanted to start with a little check-in and resourcing activity first. So we go ahead and. you can go ahead and explain that real quick.
Lizbet: Yeah, let's, um, start with a check-in just to be like, present here before we drop into the resourcing.
So generally we do like name, how are you doing, what are you thinking about? And then if there are any like care to shares or need to knows in the space. And then I sometimes like to add a random get to know you question. So I guess,
If you had some kind of companion who, like you get to name, like what would you name a new pet, a new thing, like something you really like and love.
Chasity: Okay, so when I was a little girl and I've just been having like dreams about bunnies and I had like this shirt that had bunnies all over it when I was like 11.
So that was like a real pivotal point in my life. And I guess for me, the bunny's name would be chemical. I don't, yeah, it would be, it's like a black bunny. It's name is chemical, but I love it. And I haven't like, quite, like, I had a bunny for a couple days and it like passed on and I was like, all right, like, we're gonna have another bunny and it's gonna be chemical and it's gonna be black.
So.
Lizbet: I love it. I saw a white bunny and then I saw the little emoji that has like the neon green like tube thing, you know, like that's what I saw. When you said Chemical. I was like, oh, okay.
Chasity: I love that. Okay, so for you,
Lizbet: They're there. Okay. When I was in. I wanna say kindergarten. I went to school with the first graders. I wasn't necessarily in like a split class, but there were these, there was this set of twins and they kind of reminded me of like Ragged Anne and Andy, like they had long red hair and it was always in like two braids.
They were sisters and their names were Ariel and Lena. I don't remember their last names or anything else, but I just remember being like, oh my God, that's so beautiful. And it wasn't like Ariel, you know? I was like, Ariel, Ariel,
Chasity: Ariel, .
Lizbet: That name has stuck. And I'm still figuring out like where to put it.
But I think that would be, I don't have like a bunny or a thing. Ariel would be like, I don't know if I had like a Lowrider bicycle or some sh*t.
Chasity: Oh, I named my bike before. I used to have one of those like beach cruisers and its name was Gladys. Yes. So I understand entirely with this Lowrider bike. Like , you take it to the car shows and stuff, it's all blinged out with its wheel like.
Lizbet: Oh yes, yes. .
Chasity: Okay, well let me get into this the next part real quick. So one of the things we're doing slightly different this season is dividing out each episode into three segments. One to focus on GBC creatives personal stories, one section to talk about behind the scenes of our most recent projects, and then the last section is where we lean on Any Other Anythings title or we choose what we wanna like spark up a conversation about, you know. So, for a little bit of transparency, we've already talked about some of these structures and the content of today prior to the recording, so there's a lot of the content that will be spontaneous. The form. Yes. We like spontaneity.
The form we're working within has already been agreed upon between the both of us. And, up first we're holding space for GBC creatives origin stories on this platform and origin stories can take many shapes, but we can think of them as clues throughout our lives that suggest, we end up where we are today, whether that be physically, professionally, personally, any other way to think of these stories are part of our journeys that don't necessarily make it into our bios or like the websites, but are definitely threads into part of our lives.
So today I'll be holding space for Lizbett to share their story. Now as a formal exercise, this is often done with the challenge for the listener to hold space for the speaker without any interjection, with minimal non-verbal communication and non-vocal response until the storyteller feels complete in their story.
So I'll go quiet and Liz Bet when you're ready.
Lizbet: Cool.
Okay. Artist origin story. Hmm. That's an interesting one, I guess cause never thought about it in that way, but the way life has just played out right now, I guess. I'm making some fun connections, so for now, for now. Yeah. You know, for now I'm getting more into the sci-fi and horror realm, of things and just discovering like artistic communities that I wasn't necessarily aware of and how many overlaps they are.
So thinking about just all I'm learning about these networks and how everything is enmeshed, like to think about an origin story is like, huh, right? It, it makes sense that I ended up here, which is a thing to process in and of itself, right? Like to be an artist, quote unquote, or a creative or a maker.
And like to really, I think, invest and believe in that idea and to like carry it through, is pretty scary in the society that we live in. And so I think for me, what you wouldn't necessarily see or know, or that I would write about is just the fact that I don't necessarily do this knowingly, but I challenge a lot of stuff all the time.
Right. And challenge in the sense that like, I just try and do things differently because that's generally what I need. Like, If you tell me like a task, right? I will come up with like the weirdest way to do it and not on purpose, right? But that's just the way I operate. Right? And be like, oh, okay. So I'm working out at a Dojo right now, and Sensei.
Dan was like, okay, I want you to get up onto this yoga ball, like from the floor, you know? And so I did like a shoulder stand and put my legs all over it and stuff. And he's like, yeah, you know, he's like, Lizbett, that I've, uh, I've never seen anyone get up on the yoga ball like that when I said it. And I was like, huh, okay.
Like, I wouldn't known that or I go to the fair . And I was, you know, cool, I wanna get a henna tattoo, lots of other tattoos, but I want a henna one, two. And so I go and I'm like, can you do a horseshoe on my knee? ? And the person was like, you know, in my eight years of Henning, no one has ever asked to have their knee done.
And I was like, cool. Like, I'm glad I could be your first. So in that sense, right, like one way of following a kind of origin story is just like the audacity to try and be myself, which is a human that does not quote unquote fit in. And I think that's the beauty of the work that Grey Box Collective does and kind of, you know, A reason why I have stayed with Grey Box. Let me try and give you something specific, origin story. Ooh. What I like to do, I love to learn. I think I've always loved to learn. I haven't been the most physical person, like I've had a lot of fear in my body for a long time. So learning to move has been something new. And like creating choreography for my fear and anxiety and just being able to like work through that.
What propelled me into all of this, I feel so oof about answering it cuz it feels incomplete, but it's gonna be incomplete . So here's a moment for me to like accept that, clues that I would end up here. I guess I'll take some reflection too on like where I've ended. I talked about sci-fi and horror.
I'm just a curious person who's had a, had a lot of experiences in my life that I think fit into the sci-fi and horror realms. That would be one way to understand them. And so coming at things that are more fictionalized, I'm like, oh yeah, cool. This is helping me process too, and just access things that.
I don't need to be love and light all the time, like I'm just not, and...
Chasity: Oh, yeah I'm a big, like my, my, for me, my aesthetic has always been dark, so I totally understand that. I've always been into horror. I've always been into like, things that are considered weird or like even occult like on some levels and like, I think, like, I understand exactly.
Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Lizbet: Yeah. You know, and it, so you know, there's the rhetoric around embracing your shadow side and all of that, and it's like, you know, true in my experience thus far as is like getting to know your anger, your fear, your pain, right? Terror. Like all of those things. And so I guess having to navigate really complicated emotional environments, really complicated like
Physical environments, right? Just where my needs is, like a little human. We're not being met. And I didn't understand that. And, and I'm still learning like what those needs are and were, but that certainly cultivated, whomp whomp. resilience, which is not necessarily what I wanna talk about, but you know, like it forces you to be creative in different ways to get your needs met or to self-reflect, you know, or to find something to eat even.
So I guess, and this is no real surprise to me, but yeah, a lot of the origins of who I believe myself to be as like a creator and maker are wrought from, Yeah, childhood and just having to make do and accepting learning to accept, difference in a broad way.
Chasity: Now let's get into the creative process and behind the scenes of the most recent projects you've been working on with GBC. Now with almost any creative pursuits the final project or performances sharing any little tiny parts with the. there's been so much time and energy well before audiences are aware of the projects, so we wanna take some space to share more about our creative process as individuals and within the company. So tell us about your part in the creative process.
You kind of started to segue a little, like we started to talk a little more about. Who you are and like why you create the way you create and like the create and the desire to feel. And I hear exactly what you're saying and where you're coming from. Cuz like you and I like know, like, and. I, I honestly think that like at some points, like you come across like a path to like understand someone in a way that like other people don't, like, it's understanding something within someone that like, you're like, okay, I see why someone creates like that, or that's why like, I create like that and I resonate with that, you know? So yeah, just kind of go on about your creative process and let me know, what do you want like the audience to take away? What do you find interesting, funny. . . I'm like, I know you like funny
Lizbet: I do. I didn't realize that about myself so much, but I'm like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm leaning to the realm of like, burlesque clown. Like, that's how I'm feeling. Funny. So how, how do I bring that into Grey Box Collective in, in what we're doing right. Well, the subject is understanding otherness and oof. That's huge, right?
Like the experience of being othered, of being the other, of othering, you know, of some other other thing.
like for me to arrive here in this process, generally I, I come from like, I have a lot of degrees. Damn it. And so, My impulse is generally like I'm gonna research the heck outta something, and that happens in a lot of
Chasity: Dr. Lizbett
Lizbet: I have to pull that in there. Like it was, it was hard. D*mn it. But yes, I am Dr. Lizbett and the doctor says, don't do research on this stuff. Like, I don't need to go to some database, you know, and synthesize all this material and be like the dramaturg in this project. So for me, it's been a new, a new thing to just kind of step inside an ensemble project and be like, cool, what are we doing?
Like, I'm here, I'm just gonna come with the ideas that I have and where I'm at, and that's, that's gonna be good enough.
Chasity: It's always good enough. Yes. I'm like, no, I hear that.
Lizbet: Oof. But the way, the way we started to work now, and I haven't been a part of an in-person like ensemble movement piece with Grey Box Collective, I think since I did, It's not that Simple, 2018. Um, so it's been a while, right? That things have just like evolved both as a company and collective and myself as a part of that.
So, I'm working with people I haven't worked with before, and that's always like, ooh. And in a movement setting. So part of the creative process there is just like we're doing here, being human and getting to know one another. And I didn't realize, right? I'll say this like. how important that is for me and my own growth to feel as though I can like reach my edges, like in a physical sense of cool If I'm feeling anxious around these people, like I am not actually gonna fully extend my arms, or I'm not gonna reach out to the tips of my toes, cuz those places just aren't available to me with the way that my anxiety lives in my body. So it's been a good exercise of trying to strip that away and really get comfortable, and comfortable and uncomfortable kind of material like understanding otherness. We've been playing with weight sharing, so we've had one in-person rehearsal thus far, and that's another way we're making just.
Quick. Cool. Not spending more than 16 hours in total doing this thing bow. That's something I take with me as a creative too. Just like I can put a time limit on things. I can put any kind of boundary on things and just let it be, and
I feel like if I were to tell you like one thing, right to leave you with here in this section about creating this new work, it would be about out
memory, honestly, which I didn't expect that I would say. But one of the things for me that is a hangup, and I think it's a big mental one, is like learning choreography and having things set, and it's just a different muscle to exercise and so. One way Molly has approached this with us is like, okay, if you can understand the sections of what we're doing, and there's some meaning making attached there, maybe you find your own experience of othering, right?
And you're attaching some kind of gesture towards that. Like right now I'm like pushing something away with my hand, then cool, I can hang on to that. And there's my chore. . So for me, just being like, okay, what can I remember in this and how do I learn to do so has been, been a nice like seed for, for growth here.
Chasity: Growth. Key word. We're gonna, we're gonna let that you know, grow in our mind like a seed. Right. So we've reached the final segment of our episode. I'm over here, like open back and stuff. I'm like, I don't want it to be the final segment, but it's the final segment and, uh, we're gonna lean into the title of Any Other Anythings, Any Other Anythings was a phrase that was used in our rehearsal that was essentially the last call for topics to be brought before we close out rehearsal.
Reframing that slightly here to ask what you would like to spark a conversation about. And yeah, what would you like to spark it up with?
Lizbet: You know, I have to ask dot dot. For the sake of this podcast, let's talk more about foreign sci-fi because again, I'm learning, but like, You know, and hopefully people get to hear this about you in, in your episode as well, is just kind.
The paths we're on now and how our artistry is changing and maybe we talk about burlesque too or not, or just different forms of like performance art and expression, but I would like to talk about that with you. I don't have a set question, but you know, take it away. Gimme a response. .
Chasity: Okay. Well I can tell you, well, last night I went into a burlesque show and there was actually a comedy burlesque performer there, and it was interesting to hear her. Like her jokes and the way that she like performed and it was about like feminism in a lot of ways. That was like the rooted tones of, like the show was called Bimbology and it's by the House of Burlesque, and so I went out to support and I had, um, seen some people within the show that were creating, just different pieces and different numbers and like it was, this girl, was the host, so she was doing different like standups throughout the night.
Like it was just like everything, just kind of back to back. Like there was some people who couldn't even handle it that kind of left. And like that to me is like, yes, like I'm here and I'm interested, you know, you know, like,
you know what I mean? Yeah. And so like that, like when you mentioned that earlier, I was like, yeah, if that comes up, like I'll tell you about that.
Cuz honestly, it's, it's refreshing to see that and to see the different categories of this. Beautiful like art of teas that could be so many different things. It's a conceal and reveal of many different things and I think that laughter and like being funny is a conceal and reveal all within itself. So to have that tied within the burlesque, you know, like I wanna hear like what you're doing with that cuz I've seen like some of your like endeavors and stuff and I just kind of like, I want you to talk about.
Liz Berry. Liz Berry.
Lizbet: Yeah!.
Chasity: I'm figuring it out. Yes, I know like it might be more, it might be, you know, other, you're like experimenting here, but like, yeah. Let's talk about like these personas and like what you're doing.
Lizbet: Yeah, that's a whole thing too, right? Like people ask me more about like character development.
So I thought, you know, like, okay, I kind of look like Drew Barrymore, you know, so Lizberry Moore. Haha. That's cute. Also, you want some more like it's just Yeah, yeah. More take up space. Like I like it, but. So when people ask me about character development, I'm like, well, God, I dunno. Like am I developing a character per se in the way that like, you know, we have some like Sasha Fierce out in the world, right?
Or Ziggy Stardust. Like, there are different ways that artists can take up these. Personas or roles to explore different parts of themselves. And I'm like, okay, is that what I'm doing? I dunno. And, and with that, I know that regardless I would probably try and undertake these things in some way. But like one thing I, I literally was putting together before we started this particular, I.
Well, I'm putting together what I'm calling Liz Berry Jams and, Cause Chasity's twin has a band. I wanna start a band.
Chasity: Yes. She, she does. Speaking of twins, you, you mentioned twins earlier and I was like, I have a twin. And then I'm like, wait, let's, let's rewind. Like, but it's, it's those little things.
It's like understanding. I've had friends that are friends with like me and my twin. And it's interesting when like you meet people who are friends of twins and how they see those people like together, you know, like they see them, like they don't see them like independent of each other. And I love that me and my sister are so alike, but so different that like people are like, yeah, like they treat her like she's my sister.
You know? Like .
Lizbet: Huh. That's interesting. Like we, you and I have had these conversations and you are a very musical person too, and I, I love your voice and so ,yeah. But I know for me, again, I'm freaking scared and there's just a lot of traditional, I don't know them like mainstream know-how that I don't feel I have, and one of them is like, I wanna put together a band.
do I necessarily know how to do that? Like I'm not Diddy, you know, like what? What are we doing? So I was like, okay, you know what I do like doing?Lowering the lights, getting dressed and just like jamming out to music and like singing and dancing around and like not having to look at people or interact or be like, oh, you wanna hear my voice by itself.
So I was like, I'm just gonna rent a studio and I'm gonna put on a Liz Berry Jam, like maybe once a month for an hour. All ages. Anyone who wants to come, just come and like, Sing along and like move to stuff, you know, like I'll curate a playlist or whatever. I'll bring little instruments and stuff into the room, or things that can make noise and let's like organically create a band and maybe the band is different every single time because this is literally the act of what we're doing is just like jamming.
But yeah, basically I wanna have jam sessions with people and, you know be the rockstar that I know I am, but I'm like also wildly afraid of, .
Chasity: I hear you. Yes. No, like you are a rockstar though. That's super awesome. Like I feel like embracing your voice is one thing and that's, that's truly something that like, just to do that for yourself and not to do that for an audience is.
What we were talking about earlier. It's, it's part of growth, it's part of healing, and it's part of all of those things. Okay, so we've reached the end of our episode, and we'll wrap this up with a checkout. Lizbett, how are you doing? What are you thinking about? Um,
Lizbett: mm-hmm. . Yeah. How am I? I'm good. I. Feel like I talked for a long time because I don't ever talk this long.
I wouldn't say ever, but I mostly do a lot of things kind of solitary and if I'm interacting with people, it's like, oh, I'm ordering something from somewhere, asking questions. So just trying to be comfortable with that. Aah, hearing my own voice too and putting it out there, making my desires. kind of vulnerable.
Ooh, What am I thinking about?
Chasity: Well, at least it's with me. I'm like, at least you know, and trust me. So that makes me feel comfortable, .
Lizbett: Oh, absolutely. I agree. And I'm very glad that this is with you. What am I thinking about?
I have a very glittery phone case. It's like liquid glitter and it's silver hearts and the case itself is like a pink to blue ombre. So I was looking at it cuz it's real. It's pretty and cute and sparkly and that makes me happy. And then I, it's got little gems on the side. I hope that makes the
Chasity: I hope that makes the listeners happy too with all that imagery.
Like , they're like pr a picture, the phone case, if they can't see
Lizbet: it, like picture a dirty iPhone 10 case. Alright, I didn't mention that, but make it beautiful. About you? I have,
Chasity: I have, for me, I'm just thinking about how, like, it's interesting, I've been thinking about divine timing. Divine timing is like on my mind and like I, I think that oftentimes, like I'm someone who's like led by signs and whatnot, and I've to been told like, oh, that can like be like, that's like crazy thinking, like don't follow signs, like don't follow things that. Just seem like they're fleeting, so to speak. And I think that like for me, like signs and divine timing are just often like right there. Like, I'm like, all right, there's a lot in fruit, there's a lot happening. So I'm excited and I'm excited to talk to you and, see you face to face.
This is good.
Lizbet: Hey, listener. Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to listen to this episode of Any Other Anythings. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to find out more about this podcast. The speakers. And Grey Box Collective. You can also go to GreyBoxCollective.com/podcast for a full transcript of this episode.
Thanks again for listening and Berry blast off!
Chasity: Woo. All right, we out.