In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, Artistic Directors of Bridgman | Packer Dance (Valley Cottage, NY). They are Guggenheim Fellows and 2017 NY Dance and Performance Award recipients (The Bessies). Their collaborative work focuses on integrating live performance and video technology to blur the line between image and reality, explore identity, and reveal multiple layers of consciousness. They are also recipients of four NPN Creation Fund Awards and numerous grants from the NEA, National Dance Project, NYSCA, and NYFA.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, Artistic Directors of Bridgman | Packer Dance (Valley Cottage, NY). They are Guggenheim Fellows and 2017 NY Dance and Performance Award recipients (The Bessies). Their collaborative work focuses on integrating live performance and video technology to blur the line between image and reality, explore identity, and reveal multiple layers of consciousness. They are also recipients of four NPN Creation Fund Awards and numerous grants from the NEA, National Dance Project, NYSCA, and NYFA.
EPISODE LINKS
ARTIST BIOS
Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer (Valley Cottage, NY), Co-Artistic Directors of Bridgman | Packer Dance, have collaborated in choreography and performance since 1978.
In 2001, they expanded their choreographic vision, stretching the boundaries of dance by merging it with video technology. In 2017, they received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Outstanding Production for their work Voyeur at The Sheen Center.
The 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Bridgman and Packer was the first in the history of the Guggenheim Foundation to be given to two individuals for their collaborative work. Bridgman and Packer are recipients of eleven grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (2007-2019) and grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, National Dance Project, USArtists International, Performing Americas Project, and La Red. They have received two Choreography Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, four National Performance Network Creation Fund Awards, and choreographic commissions from Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Portland Ovations, Danspace Project, and the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund.
Based in New York City, they have been presented by City Center Fall For Dance Festival, Lincoln Center, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop (now NYLA), Danspace Project, The Sheen Center, and Central Park's Summerstage.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: How did you know when you wanted to choreograph together, right? So I, so you have your own individual stories about becoming an artist, and, and embarking on this career, but that seems like a very specific choice.
MYRNA PACKER: Yes, and it happened very early in our careers. We were both dancing with several small companies in New York City and we met and pretty quickly collaborated and created our first work. And that’s really when I knew what my direction would be in this field, that this is what I wanted to do. And It had to do with our meeting of our minds and the kind of conversations that we have, it had to do with our physical chemistry, and really Art’s presence as a partner in all sense of that word. And the, the kind of physical support and exchange that I felt from him and with him both onstage and offstage. And also Art had and continues to have a certain raw spontaneous quality in his movement that I continue to get inspired by. And he challenged me to become stronger. Before we made our first work he said he would not work with me unless I could lift him. And so it was just during that time that I was getting those skills and was excited to meet that challenge.
ART BRIDGMAN: So I, I, I’ll just add to it that it wasn’t an ultimatum. But, but it was something that I wanted to work toward and be able to find that we were equal onstage in many different aspects. And I come from more of an athletic background in my childhood and got into dancing in college and it just seemed to ignite many different aspects of my, of my mind, my spirit, my body. It all, everything seemed to be kind of on fire in a way when I was dancing. And, and working with Myrna, and, and getting to know her in our earlier years in New York City was a great blessing, and it was a, it was pretty clear that we wanted to explore this together and find ways that she, Myrna coming more from an artistic and a dance background originally, and I was more of an athletic mover, we found our intersections and we also found our challenges. And, and artistically, we, we do, we don’t, we’re not on the same page all the time. And, and which I’m grateful for. It really is something which, there’s, there are challenges and yet there’s also resolution. We find a synthesis and, and we hope that the decisions between the two of us lead to something greater than our individual visions.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Very cool, and, so with the two of you that’s two of you to take on the, the labor, two of you to add to the number of ideas. I also love that I’m hearing this sort of yin and yang as far as you don’t always need to be on the same page. That that’s actually what might make it richer. But where do you start? What inspires you or is sort of the beginning of an idea when you start a creative process?
MYRNA PACKER: It does usually start with an idea, with a concept. Some subject is calling to us and we do a lot of research in the process of creating work. So for example, a few years ago we made a piece about the process of remembering. It’s called ‘Remembering What Never Happened.’ and during that time, I was reading a book of essays by a wonderful author, Siri Hustvedt. And she talks about how every time you remember you re-group from different parts of your brain to recreate that experience in your mind. And each time we do that, it’s a different process. And that’s why memories change over time, it’s why two people who had the same experience often remember it differently. And, you know, sometimes yes it’s a fact that you might get wrong, but often it’s just how that person perceived the moment and then how that person has continued to recreate the experience. So, after reading her essays, we read a lot of articles of the, of the neuroscience of memory, we’re not neuroscientists, we were just scratching the surface, but it inspired this work. And actually ‘Remembering What Never Happened,’ the title of the work, is a phrase from one of her essays. And the same time we were working with this video program, by the way for those who don’t know our work, we integrate our live performance with video technology and film projections onstage. And during that time, we were experimenting with this live computer processing program called Isadora. And that could take our video images that were captured live onstage and transform them so that they could become less photo-realistic. Turn into outlines or wave forms where the human body was still seen but transformed and that became this metaphor for the transformation of memory.
ART BRIDGMAN: And, and so the ideas come from anything. We, you know, we really believe that all movement is dance. And idea, and basically if you’re, if you have an artistic approach to things, everything, everything you, you see and do is grist for the mill. So it’s, there is, there’s a, the Hopper House Museum and Study Center which is in Nyack, New York, which is close to where we live, it’s a, it’s a, let’s see, the childhood home of Edward Hopper, famous American painter. And we actually were in touch with several people on board, associated with the Hopper House and also with the Portland Ovations which was a place where Hopper often painted up in Portland, Maine. And we created a work called ‘Voyeur,’ which was not a replication, or we weren’t trying to duplicate what, what Hopper represented on canvas, but we took his, his work as a, a jumping off point. And used, did a lot of filming up in Portland, Maine as well as other places and decided, we, we felt that the, the paintings that Hopper repre, that Hopper, that we saw from Hop, that he created, had a foreground, a middleground, and a background. And it all, they’re all from places, where we saw people through obstructed, obstructed views, or with some kind of architectural barrier, hiding or occluding some of the movement or the parts of their bodies. And we, that led us to the, the general piece that we created where we create two video projections, one on a set that has doors and windows on the front, and one on the scrim in the back. And we, that was the beginning of our developing with our, our filmmaker collaborator Peter Barbaro. Our piece called ‘Voyeur,’ where we felt that a lot of his paintings had a voyeur, voyeuristic component to it and that was just the jumping off point for that, that particular piece.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Oh my goodness, I mean, you’re giving us so much information to see out and I want to acknowledge.
MYRNA PACKER: That was such a long answer to your question.
ART BRIDGMAN: We’ll try to give you shorter answers.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We’ve dropped your website in the chat, so you want to be able to check out these pieces, look backwards, see some more, but I also appreciate the very clear definition or, or explanation. A, a preface that you do so much work with video partnering, with multimedia explorations, I, I’m just reflecting so much of how you not only choreograph the movement, but the stage when you were talking about background, middle ground, and foreground, I, I can totally recall seeing that in the works that I’ve seen you perform. I also want to just uplift, you’ve been doing this long before COVID. There was an onslaught of digital dance making in the last year, this was not new, you had been doing this for twenty plus years, and as it is now the year 2021, I would love to hear you define, or explain, you accepted this invitation but, how would you describe what 21st century dance practices are?
MYRNA PACKER: I mean, do you want or…
ART BRIDGMAN: Sure, you start and then we’ll, we’ll…
MYRNA PACKER: I think a lot, and I don’t think there’s a one, one definition of what artists, dance, dance artists and what other artists are doing today, but if I were to look at the big picture, I would say that there is an enormous exchange of ideas and genres and approaches and that there is a lot of influence of different artists on each other. I think all of this, should I…
ART BRIDGMAN: Go ahead, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll…
MYRNA PACKER: I, I, I think all of this, the groundwork was laid in the 20th century. Certainly Twyla Tharp was combining, I think she might have been the first combining ballet and contemporary and then there was the whole Judson group who were opening up the definition of dance and performance. And so in terms of our work, we don’t work in a vacuum. We’re influenced by dance artists and artists of all genre, all different genres that came before us and our contemporaries that are working now. And our students, we get inspired by our students so we get a lot of exposure to different ideas and to different people working and but then I often find when I’m making work, I’d rather not see too much because we really need to focus on what we’re doing.
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah I think…
MYRNA PACKER: Want to add anything?
ART BRIDGMAN: Living, living near, in and near New York it’s such a treasure of, of, of performing arts and arts of all, of all disciplines.
MYRNA PACKER: Usually. Before this year.
ART BRIDGMAN: Well, yes. It’s, and, and as Myrna said, it’s, there’s tremendous cross-fertilization as it, and, and you mentioned at the beginning. There’s a huge spectrum now, not only of, of dance aesthetics and styles, but just way in which we see it. And, you know, we, we, I, who, you know, once we’re back to performing, and by the way we, we probably will be doing some performing this spring and summer, live. So we’re, we’re on our, you know, the light is at, we see the light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully we’ll be getting back onstage soon, either indoor or outdoor. And, but we, we find that there’s, that the tremendous wealth of, of, of expression of movement on, on the internet is overwhelming. And where will it go once theaters open up again? I don’t think it’s gonna go away, I think that everybody in a way has something to say in movement. Even if it’s just copying somebody else’s movement, or something they see on the internet. I love the fact that it is a, an art form that is, is continually being redefined and rejiggered and repurposed in so many different ways even now.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yes, well and, and that invitation to redefine. I think that speaks so much to a lot of our, our dance students. Today, right, who are, who are, maybe they have been competition students. They have been choreographing, then they go to college. Some of that is about challenging those habits, finding other ways in, but what a lot of them have offered to us is one of the biggest challenges is how do you name a dance? You’ve been working on something that, that’s meant to be in a time-based medium that language is often second, and yet, you know, you’re marketing, you know, team or just in a grant proposal, you have to actually title it. And you haven’t eben made the thing, or finished the thing yet. Do you have any practices, tricks, things that, that you sort of rely on when you know you have to come up with a title and you’re still figuring out what it is?
MYRNA PACKER: Most of the time, it just comes to one or the other of us. And often very early in the process. We were making a piece now that’s inspired by the former desert, and currently deserted factories in Johnson City, New York which is upstate near Binghamton and the title ‘Ghost Factory’ just immediately came as we were conceiving of this work that is inspired by these former factories and by the residents of Johnson City. We have a piece that we perform inside of a box truck and the title ‘Truck’ came to us and that was it. Occasionally, we have to work at it. And, I was talking about our piece ‘Remembering What Never Happened,’ we usually like short titles and that one seemed like maybe it was too long, so we kept struggling with finding other ones and then we said, ‘no! That’s the right title.’ So, anything to add?
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah, I. It’s, it’s, it’s sort of a mystery. There’s no, there’s no regular method of determining titles. I think that it’s a, you know, we look for metaphor. We look for clues and we look for trying to find the, the flipside of the, of the dance in terms of what is not just what are, what are you seeing, but what are you not seeing. And maybe the title has to do with what you’re not seeing, but, but you know, you know it’s there.
MYRNA PACKER: With ‘Truck,’ it’s what you’re seeing.
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah, that’s true.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: What you’re seeing, but what I’m hearing is that when you’re, you’re open to a title coming to you, so you sort of have to absorb everything that’s a part of the process whether it is a physical thing like ‘Truck,’ or just part of your, your research and conversations. And kind of give it this stage to surface, so when you know, you know.
MYRNA PACKER: Yeah, yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I am curious because a lot of our, our dance students also are working against or perhaps with their relationship to music. It’s natural for all of us, even non-dancers, you hear something catchy and you just can’t help but get grooving. How do you relate or incorporate music in your work and at what point in the process?
MYRNA PACKER: Should I start?
ART BRIDGMAN: Sure.
MYRNA PACKER: It is usually part of the entire process, as is all, as are all of the elements of our work. We’re creating the video projections, we’re creating the live movement, we’re creating the set, we have to have costumes early on because we often film ourselves in the costumes that then we will also wear onstage, and the music or the soundscore, it all, all of these elements are what create the totality of the experience of the work. We love to work with composers. And commission either music composition or sound score or something that is a mix of both. So we’re currently working with this brilliant young composer, Ansel Bobrow, on ‘Ghost Factory.’ For some of our past works we’ve collaborated with Robert Een, who is a cellist and vocalist, and Glen Velez who’s a master frame drum percussionist, and Ken Field who’s a saxophonist and composer in the Boston area. So they’re, when we’re collaborating, they’re part of the ongoing process. They’re creating little sketches of sound, we’re creating sketches of ideas, we’re trying them with each other, if it’s the right thing we say, ‘yes, go ahead, develop that more.’ Sometimes something that’s written for one section ends up working better for another section, it’s really a process. Really getting deep into the process.
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah, one other, you know, composer we worked with is Martha Mooke who is a violist and she worked with looping her sounds, and she really takes, she takes a classical violin, vi, viola and, and does incredible sound range spectrum with it. So, we really, we, we, we look for people who have their own musical pathway going and be, and begin to work back and forth. And we put all those, these balls in the air at the same time. The technology, the music, the choreography, the set, and we try to kind of keep everything in the air. Although some things get a, jump ahead of the other but at the same time, we, and we try to go with it. And sometimes people create a piece of music that, for one section but it doesn’t work and we, and it ends up in another section of the choreography.
MYRNA PACKER: I said that.
ART BRIDGMAN: So, you know, so, you know, and we, we mix and match and, and, and work, work hand in hand.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I hear so much that it’s not a linear process, once you really create space to, to work with that. Thinking far enough in advance, I hadn’t even thought of costumes, right? If you’re going to, you know, do the filming earlier on and, and then that means that you might not be able to change that idea later on.
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah.
MYRNA PACKER: Right, sometimes it means having to remake a costume because I get very attached to vintage, some vintage dress that I’m wearing and it’s falling apart and somebody has to then remake it so I can wear it onstage and look like the person on the screen. Or the projection, rather. Right?
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I want to acknowledge, I have a couple more questions, but I also want to invite our friends in the chat function if you would like to share some questions, I’m happy to work those into our discussion. I know we have friends from Boston, New York, San Francisco and Akron all in the house today. Thank you for being here.
ART BRIDGMAN: Welcome.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And please speak out if you would like us to ask Art and Myrna something directly. I am curious cause it sounds like it’s a very, you know, porous, nebulous process, what do you look for in a collaborator? You named a lot of, of collaborators that you’ve worked with and you have such a strong working relationship and where you’re not finishing each other’s sentences, but have created space to be individuals. What makes you add someone else into that mix? How, how do you know they’re going to work?
MYRNA PACKER: Right, well occasionally we will make an entire piece. We’ll, we’ll create the sound score, we’ll do the editing, we’ll do the choreography, we’ll do the, the performing, but often we really value bringing other collaborators into our process. And we have a long term collaboration with our lighting designer, Frank DenDanto III, and a long term collaboration with filmmaker Peter Bobrow. And they’re both brilliant at what they do. Frank has been able to create the lighting on stage so it balances the light coming from, or, the projections, so again we’re looking for something that is a melding of a one entity. And Peter has a brilliant exquisite eye behind the camera, what he’s able to capture of the geometry of the space, the lighting, and also his editing, not just his editing skills, but his editing concepts of what he brings to what we do onstage. And when we’re in the studio with him, there is a real discussion of ideas and he comes from the film world, but he really understands, for some reason, the choreographic process. And so much of what we’re dealing with of how can we make this an integration between the live performance and the video technology? Where one or the other isn’t really taking precedence. It wouldn't be the same work if we didn’t have the, the film projections or if we didn’t have the live performance. It’s not that one is accompanying another. And he gets that, and we’re continually digging with him to find new ways to do that. Cause we’ve worked with him now on what about 8?
ART BRIDGMAN: Several, yeah.
MYRNA PACKER: 8 major works, so.
ART BRIDGMAN: It’s brilliance and flexibility.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Of just finding the smartest, nicest, most talented, and brilliance and flexibility don’t come everywhere in the same. Describe it, it, it also comes alive for me that the film is almost the third dancer.
MYRNA PACKER: Yes, it’s a partner, that’s why we call it video partnering.
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah.
MYRNA PACKER: Sorry.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Absolutely.
ART BRIDGMAN: Right.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We do have a, our, question from our audience. I think we’ve all grappled with how we a keep pace with technology, you know, there’s always a new phone, a new laptop, a new browser, you know. How has your process changed as technology continues to advance?
MYRNA PACKER: Why don’t you take that?
ART BRIDGMAN: Well, it’s, it’s, we don’t consider ourselves necessarily on the cutting edge of technology. I think that, I think that that’s hard to be at the cutting edge of something and also really have content or something to say. Because some, sometimes one thing will just take over the other. In this case, we, we, we have evolved technologically over the past 20 years in terms of the, the software we use, the hardware we use, the things, the way we want to say it. The kind of sets that we like to project on, or projecting on our bodies, or the ways in which we are, are using technology, but I, I, I feel as if we’re, we advance according to what our projects want to, where our projects are taking us. I guess that’s one way of saying it. I, we certainly keep our ear to the, to the rail of what’s going on. We know what’s happening, we, else, elsewhere, we kind of picked up on, on things that inspire us. And, and kind of like any other kind of possibly choreographic idea we, we will gravitate to things that excite us creatively. We think of create, create, creativity, first of all, it’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also playing. It’s a form of playing, it’s a, there’s a form of being able to explore something without feeling as though you, there’s a rush or pressure to have to produce right away. So our process, both in choreography and both in tech, and technology is to play with things for a while and then. For instance, we usually invent our own sets. We oft, we rarely buy something to use, but rather our sets are things that we, we developed over time working with the technology and the theme that we want to explore in that dance. So, sometimes we, and, so to, to wrap up what you, your question and then I’ll hand it over to Myrna, is, is that we, you know, we really, we, we go with it, but we don’t force ourselves, we don’t push ourselves beyond where we are at the moment. We really use, use, the, use our choreographic vision to help to, to, to find where we want to go technologically.
MYRNA PACKER: I think it comes back to what we want to say onstage, and we keep asking ourselves that. And is the technology serving that, or is it just this sort of seductive distraction. And sometimes the simplest solution says the most profound thing onstage. So we keep reminding ourselves of that. I also have to say that I am not a technologically facile person. It does not come easily to me. And so I’m very happy to have collaborators who can take that on so that I can focus on what can it help us say. And to really keep that artistry front and center. I wish I were more tech, I wish I were more technologically facile but...
ART BRIDGMAN: So the, so, so there is, there’s an inte, there’s in integration as opposed to one domination, you know, technology.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: There are so many nuggets in there because I do think it can be seductive sometimes to just follow on the latest thing. But to get back to what are we trying to say and they, you don’t have to specialize in everything. It's amazing you’ve been able to do your own sound scores and you’re building sets, but that’s one of the opportunities to bring in a collaborator.
MYRNA PACKER: Exactly.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Someone who really brings that knowledge. And I’m going, in the interest of time, I’m going to collapse two questions that came up which is about translating that knowledge. But when you’re making a piece or a work but you are teaching, working with other dancers, how do you teach this multimedia, three-dimensional way of thinking?
ART BRIDGMAN: Go ahead, you start.
MYRNA PACKER: First of all, our work, the part of our work that we haven’t talked about yet today is our stand alone film making. So we have what we call video partnering, which is our stage work where there’s this integration of the live and the virtual. And then we’ve taken those skills and those ideas that we’ve developed onstage and also created a few stand alone dance films. So, during the pandemic, that has actually been something that people have looked to us to teach. And so we’ve taught several virtual workshops on creating films with cell phones and just really looking at the camera angle and the framing and the lighting. And that’s what we were working with the students at University of Akron this week on when we are able to be in the studio with dancers and they’re interested in our concept of what we call video partnering, we set up what we call a playground. Which is there are projection surfaces, there are areas that are what we call the active space where you move, and the video can capture your image and project it on other surfaces and we, it’s, we just create lots of different set ups where people can explore and play with what is it like to relate to your video image or somebody else’s video image. And what kind of metaphors does that set up when I do a movement phrase next to my own video image doing either that same movement phrase or that movement conversation with me, what metaphor does that set up in terms of my relationship to myself in terms of whether that could be a memory or a reverie. When I dance with him as opposed to dancing with his video image, what does that then say artistically?
ART BRIDGMAN: So we have, we have done these technology and dance workshops at festivals and a number of different places where, where we really spend time showing basically our different, different approaches to using technology. And we always try to give time to each individual to then explore and come up with a study based on that. So we, we want to share this and, and, and I guess you call it teaching, but oftentimes we just present, present the various approaches and then in a way we get out of the way. Because it creates so many ideas of the, of the, from the students they, they and then they run with it. It’s really exciting to see what people, how people take, take some basic principles of, of technology and live, live camera and, and video processing and then create something that we wouldn’t even think about. And I think that has, there’s a tremendous wealth there.
MYRNA PACKER: Advice that we’ve received?
MYRNA PACKER: Ok.
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah, right.
MYRNA PACKER: Yeah, I had two major mentors. One was Charlotte Walsh when I was 13. She had been in the Weidman company and I was at a summer camp where, it was an arts camp, and she had us all choreographing. And she always looked in rehearsal for what she called the happy accident, and I, I thought she had come up with that term, but maybe she didn’t, maybe cause I, I’ve heard it other places. But that something might happen in rehearsal that’s unexpected or you think might be a mistake, but wow it works. And so I continue in rehearsals to look for those happy accidents and to look at rehearsal as a process where something spontaneous could happen that will trigger an inspiration. My other main mentor was Ze’eva Cohen who I met when I was 15, and she kind of ushered me then into my professional career. And she has such an eye for the specificity of movement. What exactly is the hand doing? What, where is the focus? What is the phrasing? What is the concept behind? So that any movement can then transform into various meanings depending on the intent that’s put into it. So I think those two extraordinary women influenced me early and I continue to hear those, the repercussions of their thoughts.
ART BRIDGMAN: I have three extraordinary women who have…
ART BRIDGMAN: Yeah, my, you know, you always, many people have very fond, fond memories and, and are grateful to their early dance teachers and I had two teachers when I was a young dancer. Griselda White who was at Tufts University when I was about to be a lawyer but somehow taking her, her class redirected my, my passions and my interests.
MYRNA PACKER: Thank god.
ART BRIDGMAN: And I got into dance. And she taught, her classes were a combination of technique, improvisation, folk dancing, dance therapy, everything, everything that had to do with the, the, the, the essence of life seemed to be in her classes. And I, and, and, and there was a lot of play. There was a lot of exploring. And, and then, and, and finding things about yourself. Discovering who you are in, in her classes and I really am grateful for that, that lead into the art form from her. Then another, the, extraordinary influence number two was Clara Mallardi who taught at Radcliffe when I lived in Boston. She recently passed away and, she, she said, ‘always look for the flip side, you know, there’s, there’s everything you see has three dimensions. Don’t just show the part that’s shiny, show the part that’s on the other side.’ And the third influence is my mom who, who is a poet and she said, ‘all,’ I’m sorry, ‘the purpose of art is to crack one’s shell.’ You can entertain, you can do anything else with art, but you, but the purpose is to crack one’s shell and have them, have your audience or your viewer experience something new. So, that’s it.
MYRNA PACKER: That’s beautiful.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So much love in the chat. And appreciation for sharing those, those really deeply personal and, and influential shapers of our lives and I think we just cracked the shell of, of the surface together.