Interview with

Lauren Lastrapes

We spend about an hour chatting with New Orleans Angoleira Lauren Lastrapes, while seeking refuge at the Chelsea Market in NYC, from some heavy end-of-summer rain.

August 14, 2011

L: Lauren Lastrapes / PKMNX: Pokemon

[Download Audio]1:01:19 Hrs, ~80MB

PKMNX: Okay. So I, this is PKMN. I am with Lauren. It is the 14th of August 2011.

L: It is indeed.

PKMNX: Ah, we are in New York City at, ah, the Chelsea Market. Which is located on 16th Street and 9th Avenue on the west side in Chelsea. It's a very rainy day.

L: Mm hmm.

PKMNX: And, ah, Chelsea Market is a, um, marketplace. So it's a little bit loud. Ah, Lauren is visiting a friend Lauren.

L: Yay.

PKMNX: And she's in New York City for the weekend. And, ah I've been doing interviews, um, again, after a, a brief hiatus but decided to, ah, kind of continue with that work. And she has agreed about, I don't know, four months ago, five months ago.

L: Yeah. We messaged back and forth.

PKMNX: Yep, yep, yep.

L: Facebook.

PKMNX: Okay. So, ah, we were just talking about, um, leaving Washington, DC. I left in about 2005 and kind of what we were up to since then.

L: Mm hmm.

PKMNX: You left and you went back to New Orleans.

L: I did. In 2006. Um, I went in May cause I got back from Brazil in 2005 in August right as Katrina was happening. And I hadn't known about Katrina. And, um, until I flew into the Miami airport and saw Katrina on television and it was like taking up the whole Gulf of Mexico. And I had had big plans to go back to New Orleans anyway. Fabio and I talked about going together before we went to Brazil. And it was something I was thinking about doing. Applying to graduate school and moving back there. Ah, and then Katrina happened and I was thinking I would go like in August '05.

PKMNX: Right.

L: You know like we would leave DC. Um, I'm not sure if we had really thought it out at that point, but maybe we were thinking about January '06, something like that. Um. And then Katrina delayed that a little bit because I couldn't go to school in January '06 because UNO was kind of in upheaval.

PKMNX: Right.

L: So he didn't go but I did.

PKMNX: Okay. Ah, you're from, ah, New Orleans.

L: I am. Yeah.

PKMNX: Okay. You grew up there?

L: Yeah. Born and raised. Um, I went to high school there. I left New Orleans when I was 17 to go to DC and go to college. That's how I ended up in Washington.

PKMNX: Where did you to school?

L: The George Washington University.

PKMNX: Okay. What, what did you study?

L: I was an anthropology major.

PKMNX: Okay. And you also danced. Your, your friend Lauren said that you guys danced together.

L: Mm hmm. We, we did. We grew up, um, in a ballet school, like a neighborhood ballet school. Um, from the time. I think I started when I was four. I don't know how old you are. So yeah, when we were little kids. Um, and then when I was in high school I also went to a performing arts high school and I studied dance there as well. So I did more than ballet from that point on. Um, but I did get injured towards the end of high school and didn't really pursue dance in college as a result. And at GW I had taken some classes but the injury in my hip made it hard to do like ballet type movements, so I stopped doing it.

PKMNX: Was the injury related to ballet?

L: Mm hmm. Yeah. I got injured at NOCCA. I'm not gonna talk about how since this is published in public. But, um, yeah, it wasn't my fault.

PKMNX: Okay.

L: And I got hurt. And, um, that's what I'm gonna leave it at. But, um, yeah, and after that dancing was really hard. Just I couldn't lift my leg higher than 90 degrees. I still really can't, you know in most situations. So it limits dancing. You know. Modern and ballet are hard with that limit.

PKMNX: Hmm. Um, what were some of the things that you liked about dancing? If that makes sense as a question.

L: It does. Um.

PKMNX: Why did you focus on that as opposed to say music or something else?

L: Right. Um. I guess I think when you're put in something when you're young, like four years old, and you don't have a necessarily a choice in the matter, if you don't hate it actively you'll probably keep doing it. And I think early in ballet and stuff like that I could have - it could have been piano lessons - it wouldn't have made a difference. But then I think after a little while. the school we went to was like a really nice neighborhood school. Like there was not a lot of pressure to be great. Everybody kind of like could be in the recitals. And I mean it wasn't like this like let's make you a star kind of dance. And I liked that a lot. I liked the teachers at the school. I liked people. Like we have, we have friends that are still like our friends from that time. You know we, a whole bunch of girls that, you know you don't know from your school you know from ballet. I think that's really what I liked about it the most. And when I went on to do it like in this like, you know creative arts high school environment, it was a lot more pressure and I didn't necessarily like it as much. I didn't like the competitive stuff about it. I didn't like being told to lose weight. I didn't like being, you know shaped by it as much. But I still loved dancing I think for what I learned about it when I was little. You know. And I, and it's nice to be able to like fly.

PKMNX: Right.

L: You know. I mean there's a lot of like in the movement of dance and like what you learn to do with your body that I think gives you a sensibility that's not. you know people who don't dance or people that don't do anything like it don't know what that's like. And that's. it's hard to lose that when you can't do it anymore. And that's what I think about, you know not being able to dance anymore, not being able to do it like I could a long time ago was always sort of dissatisfying. Like I'm sure I could have adapted, but I didn't. But that is where I ended up being Capoeira in the first place. Was looking for something that I could do that wouldn't hurt and that offered that sort of same sensibility of using your body to do something amazing.

PKMNX: Hmm. Ah, did you have any favorite, ah, roles in ballet or.

L: No I. no, not really. I mean in our, in our like ballet school the recitals were sort of standard and the like choreography was made up by the teachers there. We didn't do like a lot of like classical productions or things like that. I didn't even do The Nutcracker. Like I never performed in a single Nutcracker. Mostly cause I would like look at it every year and be like, it's so boring. I didn't want to.

PKMNX: Right.

L: But, um, by the time I was in high school we did a lot of, um, Alvin Ailey choreography because one of the teachers that I had there had been trained in the Ailey company. And so we learned a lot of sort of famous Ailey pieces and some Martha Graham and some other things. So I know pieces of like, you know the standard choreography from like the big people. But if I had gone on in college I might have more idea about roles and choreography and things like that. But I didn't really do that. You know I didn't reach that point.

PKMNX: You studied anthropology.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: At the university. What made you do that?

L: Um. I took an intro to anthropology class. It's probably fairly typical. And, um, the guy who taught it didn't just teach from a textbook. He assigned individual ethnographies. And we read seven or eight books that semester that were really, really good. And I liked the idea that anthropology was this i- , this way of looking at human life that seemed able to explain it from a lot of different ways and seemed interested in giving more power to the people that it was looking at than to the person writing the book.

PKMNX: Okay.

L: And I learned that sort of like early on that that was possible. It's not always what anthropologists do. And as I learned more about like the history of the development of anthropology as a discipline, it's sort of frightening how tied to imperialism it really is and how many people don't question that and still work within it as though they have the right to do and say things about and to people that don't have the power to sort of have their own voice heard. But within that discipline there is still a strong reaction against that kind of imperial mentality that attracted me right away. And I knew that sociology was not this. And the harder sciences were not this either. And I wanted to look at how human life operated by asking other people and letting them speak for themselves in the best way possible. Ah, while mediating it, you know and being able to shape people's narratives in certain ways that I think do account for imperialism, do account for oppression and things like that that exist on global, on a global scale.

PKMNX: What, ah, time period, ah, was this that, ah, you were in Washington, DC?

L: I started college in 1997. And I finished in 2001. And I didn't leave DC until '06. So I was there almost ten years.

PKMNX: Wow. Okay.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: Um.

L: Too fucking long is how long that was.

PKMNX: Can you, can you give me an example of this, ah, um, imperialistic mind frame?

L: Within anthropology?

PKMNX: Anthropology. Yeah.

L: A lot of people won't own up to it anymore. I mean you would really have to go back to the like armchair anthropologists, like, you know Fraser, Edward Tylor. You know they're, they were, they were people in the nineteenth century that said, you know we can, we can look at the world that is different from us. We can look at all these people that are in remote places and far away and we can basically tell them about themselves. And they felt totally okay with doing that. And not all of them were like that even in that early stage. But I think sometimes later it's carried on. Anthropology is still really dominated by white men. Most of the famous people within it are white men or talk like white men in their writing. You know it's like there's women and then there's non white men who sound exactly like white men. Um.

PKMNX: What, what is, what do you mean by that?

L: Well, I don't know. That's like a really interestingly deconstructing question.

PKMNX: Okay. You're reading a book by bell hooks I saw.

L: Right. Who doesn't sound like a white man at all, but she's not an anthropologist either.

PKMNX: Okay. All right. So fair enough. So what does, what does, what does bell hooks sound like when she's talking to you when you're, when you.

L: bell hooks sounds like somebody who's conscious of the role that imperialism plays in American life. Whether it's like human interaction or whether it's how people coexist along racial lines or how people get along with one another across a rural and urban divide. I mean like this is something that peop- that someone like her, she's like an extreme anti example to the idea that of writing from an imperialist perspective. She understands it maybe too much sometimes. You know like it so shapes what she's writing that she can't see past the imperialism.

PKMNX: Right.

L: And I think some people are on the other side of that. I mean I look at some contemporary anthropologists and many are very good at sort of writing very clearly about what they see as wrong with the field, what's wrong with anthropology as a discipline, especially if they're looking at it historically. But then you read their work and it's, it kind of reflects those same problems. And I'm, I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well. I've been kind of not thinking about that this summer and like working a little bit more on some other things that were, that are just more important to me. But, um, as a whole discipline. I mean the other thing is I didn't do a Ph.D. in anthropology for that reason. I didn't wanna have to keep figuring out this field. Like I feel like it was a good thing to have learned for four years in an undergraduate situation, but if I was gonna spend more time developing work I liked, I didn't want it to have to be bound necessarily by a, a, an ongoing fight within the discipline about.

PKMNX: It's tiring.

L: It is. It's exhausting. And I. I mean in Urban Studies there's no shortage of arguments, but I just, I don't feel like I have to engage with them. The field is multidisciplinary. The arguments are happening all the time. And you just don't have to deal directly with them the way you do with like a sort of unified field like Anthropology.

PKMNX: So you're.

L: And really Cultural Anthropology. The science people are on like a different team. But.

PKMNX: You're studying Urban.

L: Urban Studies is what my Ph.D. will be in.

PKMNX: Okay. So you're at the University of.

L: New Orleans.

PKMNX: - New Orleans doing a Ph.D. in Urban Studies.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: And you have some subject that you're working on now.

L: Yeah. No, I'm doing my dissertation on Casa Samba.

PKMNX: Okay. Can you tell me just a little bit about what that.

L: About what they are?

PKMNX: Well.

L: And what that is?

PKMNX: About your work is with them.

L: What I'm working on is a life history of the family that runs Casa Samba. And you've interviewed Curtis, right?

PKMNX: Yeah.

L: Curtis Pierre. So he does Capoeira. And that's how I know him obviously.

PKMNX: Okay. So he is Casa Samba.

L: He is Casa Samba. He and his wife Carol and their son Bomani, who is 15 now, um, are the, are the, the family that runs that organization. And they've had it for 25 years. And, um, their main thing really is teaching Samba, drumming and dance and the Capoeira Angola that Curtis teaches is kind of on the side of that. He's been doing it I think 15 years by now. But like sort of less formally than the Samba happens. Like the Samba stuff is really their focus, um, because they, they teach people. it's a Samba school in the sense that you can learn to do these things. They have open classes, open rehearsals. But they're also a performance organization and they perform in lots of different venues in New Orleans. So there's also like a company. You know there's a like repertoire and like a group of people that know the whole thing and they, they do different styles of performing in town and they earn a living that way.

PKMNX: Right.

L: Um, and the Capoeira is not about earning a living so.

PKMNX: Right. Right. Right, right.

L: You know.

PKMNX: Did you first study Capoeira with Curtis?

L: No, I didn't know him when I lived there. I didn't know Capoeira until I, until I started it at GW when I was there in my, the beginning of my junior year in college I started Capoeira.

PKMNX: What year was that?

L: 2000.

PKMNX: 2000. And who was there.

L: Cobra.

PKMNX: Okay. So he came to class and.

L: Yeah, he used to teach there like every third semester or so. They did like a one credit class in the dance department. And I had this friend whose name was Juan, and I'm forgetting his last name, and he was like a o-, he was older than I was. He went to GW too. And he had taken it like a couple years before and he's like, "Ah, man, you can't dance anymore, but I bet you could do this. You should go." And I w-, I was like, "No, no, I wouldn't do it." And then like the, by the time it came back around I was like really frustrated and my life was kind of going in a weird direction and I was like, yeah, I think I'll go to that Capoeira thing. So that's how I started in that. I didn't do it in New Orleans.

PKMNX: Do you remember the, seeing it for the first time, or?

L: I think the first time I saw it was in that class at GW. A lot of people I've met now have seen like, you know, "Only The Strong" or they've seen other stuff or they've seen groups doing it. Now it's so much more like obvious. But I don't, I don't remember ever seeing people doing like a roda or anything before I went to class. And then there's this guy telling us like contort our bodies in these horrible ways. And I was just like, oh, what was Juan talking about? Fuck this. I can't do this. And I was like really frustrated from the beginning with how hard it was. But then I was like, well, this kind of a challenge.

PKMNX: Okay. How many people were you studying with?

L: The class was full. It as like 30 GW people. If you can imagine such a nightmare. (Chuckling)

PKMNX: Wow. Okay. And how long did you stick with it at GW?

L: Just that one semester. And then that summer I started going to the group in Takoma.

PKMNX: Okay. Um, did any of the people that you were studying with in GW make it to the school in Takoma.?

L: No, they had a general fear of the 'hood. And they thought the red line to Takoma was just too far from the.

PKMNX: Really?

L: I mean if you compare Foggy Bottom in DC to Takoma on the, on the non people's Republic of Takoma Park side, it was quite different. And a lot of people, a lot of people at GW did not venture far from GW. Like that's something I think that characterizes a lot of their students.

PKMNX: So you went by yourself.

L: Of course.

PKMNX: Um. What made you make that jump from the sort of safe environment of the University and to kind of be more, ah, interested in what was going on out in Takoma Park and so forth? Like what, what was it?

L: I really thought this was something I wanted to do. I really wanted to learn more about it was the thing. I mean the only person I know who knew anything about it at that point was Cobra. And that's one person. And I was like this guy is incredibly interesting. He answered a lot of questions. I mean it was this. And, you know he used to, cause it was a university class he would like give us things to read, you know, because he thought, he kind of thought he had to. I don't think he did, but. so I read like, you know whatever books were available in English at the time. He would give like a list of it and he would like assign the chapter. But I would like read the whole thing. And I was like, man, this is really interesting. The sort of politics of resistance that are em, embedded in Capoeira - the history of it. And the sort of controversial nature of whether it's Brazilian and how African is this. And like the rise of Capoeira Regionale now that sort of conflicts with Capoeira Angola, at certain points. And like how they're developed two separate tendencies within it. And it was really interesting to me. That whole story of the evolution of this art form made it more than this like hard thing to do, you know. Like it wasn't really just about learning to stand on my head after a certain point. I was like, well, I want to know what it means to people to do this. Like because I thought maybe this is something that could mean something to me. And I didn't know, but I wanted to find out. And I was like, well, I guess I have to go to the group. Like I have to go and meet other people that do this obviously. And so, and so I did.

PKMNX: Okay. And who, who was there at the time?

L: Oh. There were a lot of people around at that time. I remember Dale was teaching a lot because Cobrinha was like in and out of town. And Cobra would be teaching like during the week and then Dale would be teaching Sundays before the roda or something. And I loved those Sunday classes. Dale was a kick, man. And I mean Dale was from New Orleans. Dale's accent, I was like (Clapping), you know. Immediately. You know it was. and by that time I would, I had tried to strip myself of my accent, which I succeeded in doing in some ways, not in others. Um, but it was really nice to learn from him in the beginning. And I mean just people around. Caroline.

PKMNX: So Caroline was there.

L: Caroline was there. Definitely. Like, ah, I remember Carlos and Francisco were both around. You weren't there at the very beginning, huh?

PKMNX: I started in 2002.

L: Yeah, I remember when you came. It was a little later than me. But like Alison started. Amanda started right when I started. Randy. Felicia.

PKMNX: Right, right.

L: All started around the same time as I did. Um. But then people were there too. Like Santemu, Kojo, Skher, Ama, Amina. Charisse, was still around.

PKMNX: Mm hmm.

L: Um. Gege was there. That was frightening. Gege was so scary, man. To me like so tough. Um.

PKMNX: Why, why is that?

L: You've met Gege, right? (Laughter)

PKMNX: Yeah. Just for the, just for the.

L: No, she was just tough, you know she was like very, um. Yeah, she was just like a, she's a tough lady, you know, and it's like somebody you meet. And like maybe you're gonna get along. Maybe you weren't. She's perfectly nice. Like not, I'm not saying she was mean or anything. Nobody was mean. But, um, she was just like somebody that was obviously very good at this and it was kind of like a marvel to see at, at one one level. And then the other time it was at the. well, on the other hand it was just sort of like, you know I'll never be able to do that. Gege was a little bit like mystifying I guess. Um. But yeah, that, that's who was around. I think Fabio was around later. I think he was in Brazil when I started. He had gone back and forth or something. So I don't think he was there in, in the very beginning of my time at the group. And I'm sure there are other people who were around that I'm not thinking about. Like Ayende was there. Sylvia. Sheryll. And they were all still training. You know so in 2000, now these are people that are around sometimes but I never see them train or play, like and that, that had been some time since any of them. And, and that was nice. To meet all of them. I mean the first person I went to Brazil with was Sheryll and Malik. Me, Sheryll, Malik and Amanda traveled together to Brazil. And if you can imagine that trip it was great.

PKMNX: I've seen those pictures. Yeah.

L: Yeah. It was really a great trip. And Malik was little. He was like two.

PKMNX: Have you seen him recently?

L: No. He's a giant though I, I hear. I saw him stick his head in at some meeting or something. I was picking up Katie. I haven't really been by the space in a while in DC.

PKMNX: Katie. Katie. When did you, um, so you left in 2006.

L: In May, yeah.

PKMNX: Ah, what was going on in that, in that time period?

L: For whom?

PKMNX: For everybody. For.

L: Well, the group had moved to Sylvia's place by then. Were you there when they moved into the ECAC building on Euclid?

PKMNX: They were cleaning up the space and so forth around that same time period.

L: Yeah. So they, they're there and they've been there, um. And. I mean the group is fine it seems. I mean I think that there has been some difficulty since Cobra left and he kind of like - he left a lot of people in charge. And I think having a lot of people in charge is, is difficult for a group. And, but I don't think it's unusual. Um. When I left in 2006, ah, Sheryll was no longer around really running things in the office the way she and Sylvia both had for a long time. And Sylvia really had taken a lot of steps away from FICA because she had a lot more to do with her community center, which makes a lot of sense. But she's obviously now FICA's landlord so she still has something to say about it.

PKMNX: Right.

L: Um, but like, you know a new crop of sort of support staff was developing their skills at that time I think and that would, would have been like, you know Ana Maria, Katie, Deepa, Nandita, a few people that are still around. Kind of.

PKMNX: So they're really big in the community now.

L: Well, they're also maybe. I don't know. I mean I'm not there. I'm saying in '06 when I was leaving, you know there was a lot of administrative stuff that like the Treinels and older students were trying to coordinate all together. Um, and I think that that was kind of a difficult time in the group, but not in a bad way. I don't mean like fighting or whatever. I mean like.

PKMNX: A growing time.

L: I mean like yeah, they were. I think they were figuring. and I think any group would be going through this. But what's what I remember most from that time was figuring out who was gonna really be like, you know, who was gonna be doing what. And I was on my way out feeling like I am not gonna be doing any of this. Which was kind of a weird thing cause after a long time, you know, it's hard to get away from stuff that you like doing or even the stuff about it you don't like you still kind of miss. But, um, yeah.

PKMNX: Huh. Have you, um, contacted a, a group that perhaps, ah, maybe was as, is as - was as deep a part of your life since then?

L: I mean I, I, I trained with Curtis in New Orleans and I'm teaching.

PKMNX: afterwards. Yeah.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: Ah huh.

L: And I'm teaching all of his classes right now cause he ruptured his Achilles tendon.

PKMNX: Okay.

L: And it's still healing and it's kind of a bad process. It's just taking a long time. But, um, you know they, we have kids' classes and adult classes. We have a Tulane University class. I mean there's Capoeira six days a week. And, I mean, I won't live anywhere where it can't be a part of my life. And if I had to do it on my own and set it up from scratch, I mean god help me, I don't want to ever. But if I had to I would. And in New Orleans I'm grateful I didn't have to. Curtis had it and so I just do it there. I.

PKMNX: How is Curtis? Who's, who's around there now?

L: Ah, there's a couple of people. I mean a lot of his older students I think are not around. Like I meet people every now and then like in the city who are like, "Yeah, man, I trained with Curtis 15 years ago." You know. And I'm like, "Great, you know." Um, and that's nice. And there are a lot of people who have trained with Curtis. I mean they're just around. It's amazing. But, um, I think like, you know I'm there. The, um, I don't know if you know Emily Schweninger. She, she started in Brazil and then moved to New Orleans to go to Tulane. And she, she had been training with them for a little while. There's a couple of older students. There's like four guys named David, I swear to god that are in and out. It's very confusing. But a lot of the students in Curtis' group, I mean it's like, um, a high turnover kind of thing. A lot of people come from Tulane or come to New Orleans for jobs or, you know whatever and they don't stick around forever and ever. So we have mostly people with a few years at a time. Like people have two or three years in Capoeira. And they do really well. You know they learn quickly. The group is small so there's a lot of individual sort of attention people get. But it's not, it's not on the scale of DC where you have big classes and lots of people coming all the time and then like a core group who sticks around. In New Orleans it's kind of like the core group is the group. You know it's just a smaller number of people. And it is different for that reason.

PKMNX: Is New Orleans connected with FICA? Are they a part of FICA?

L: I don't think so anymore. I think at some point they were a FICA outpost. But I don't think that's true anymore. And I don't, I don't really get into asking about that. But I do believe in the past that Curtis' group was affiliated with FICA and I don't know the story of why they're not if they're not.

PKMNX: Does Cobrinha come down to.

L: He did come once since I've been there. He came in March '07 or '08. And now I'm forgetting which. Um, for d-, for a conference that was happening at Tulane and we had a big roda over there. Um, Paulinha was there as well. And if, a bun- it was like this Brazilian studies conference. Tulane has a big Brazilian studies program. And, um, he had come for that. I think he was on a panel or something about Capoeira probably. And because he was gonna be there we had a big like Capoeira Angola roda and people came from like all over the Gulf Coast. It was big. But it was really. it was lot of fun. But that's the only time he's been there since I've been.

PKMNX: Do you guys generally go down to Brazil? or, or.

L: Curtis does. Curtis and his family go. And they're going I think this December. I might try to go with them as, mainly as part of my research. Um. Because I'm trying to. I've finished most of the interviews for my dissertation now that are with him and his family and I'm trying to do more with, you know, with people in the organization and looking at, you know the, the sort of nature of Casa Samba now in terms of how people adopt cultures that don't belong to them and like what that means in terms of how they shape their lives and what this means on like a larger scale about adopting foreign traditions. Um. But I would necessarily go with Curtis to - because I think when they go to Brazil they experience it in a certain way. They go every year if they can. They've been doing it for 20 years. Like they, they have this way of traveling there that I think reveals a lot about how they relate to the Brazilian culture that they sort of maintain and teach to other people in New Orleans in spite of the fact that they are American people. You know what I mean?

PKMNX: Okay. What do you mean by cultures that do not belong to you?

L: Well, I mean neither me nor you nor anybody that came to Capoeira Angola was Brazilian, right? Or didn't. we didn't grow up doing it from when we were children. You know that's normally how people get involved in the culture. I mean it's not like every Brazilian has more of a right by nativity have Capoeira Angola in their lives. But it makes more sense if you're raised in something, right. That's how we normally think of how we get the culture that we, you know hold close to us. Like we think, oh, well, you know you have to either start when you're very young or your family does it or somebody passes it down. It's like a tradition that you inherit. And often now that's not the case. Often people are adults and they make decisions about what religion they belong to and what kind of dance traditions they like and make meaning for them. I mean we do this way more now. And it's something people do with all kinds of cultures. It's not just Capoeira or Samba or whatever. But the way that I think Curtis and his family have done this in a city like New Orleans that has a lot of indigous-, indigenous culture that is transmitted intergenerationally is very interesting. Like they didn't do this. They didn't pick like Mardi Gras as their thing. They picked Carnaval. You know what I mean? Like it struck me as an unusual thing to do. And so I started doing these interviews with them to try to talk about like well, you know well, why not just like do Mardi Gras? Like why do Brazilian versions of Carnival in Mardi Gras? Like what's that about? And it turns out it's about a lot of things in people's lives that lead them in these directions. And it's not just they picked it out of a hat, you know. There's a lot of things that we do that lead to our decisions about cultures we want to be ours. And we can do this now. You know. A hundred years ago you couldn't necessarily adopt something that you didn't know about. How would you know?

PKMNX: How do you define the culture of Capoeira?

L: It's, it's part of a larger complex of Afro-Brazilian traditions. You know. I think that Capoeira is related to Samba is related to Candomble is related to all kinds of African cultures that are in Brazil and h-, were brought there by people who were brought there enslaved.

PKMNX: Can you give me a specific, um, event or a specific example that, that you think ties Capoeira to that.

L: To what? The whole complex?

PKMNX: Yeah. The complex of.

L: Oh, I mean there's songs in Capoeira that refer to Orixas and Candomble. There's a history of Capoeira that is tied to the same history of slavery that produced Samba, that produced Candomble. I mean it's, it's economics. It's all from the same political economic structure that was an imperial structure that produced a particular form of cultures that had different uses for different people. And, you know subsequently develop in different ways. I mean Candomble is a religious practice. Capoeira is secular. But there's a lot of overlap between the two practices that have a lot to do with their shared sort of African identity and the same rootedness in resisting an oppressive white culture. And that's what I think their relationship is at its root. But I think, you know, some people who are in Candomble probably don't like Capoeira and vice versa. I mean it's not like you have to accept it all wholesale. But I think that they're related. You know.

PKMNX: Is there one, you know not, not to be too generalized, but is there any one word or, or one generalized idea that you can use to, ah, typify the Capoeira experience?

L: Typify it?

PKMNX: For yourself.

L: Oh, for me.

PKMNX: Yeah.

L: It changed my life. I mean that's not one word but, okay, life-changing. But, and not in like this weird revolutionary way, but over time I think that getting to know people through Capoeira meant getting to know people I wouldn't have met otherwise. I mean I just wouldn't have. You know the kinds of things that I was doing in DC. Up to that time I went to an elite private school. I am not an elite private person, but that's where I was. And then I was involved in all kinds of like radical activist stuff. Like anti-death penalty work and the anti World Bank protests in 2000. And I met a lot of interesting people through that. But they were people I probably could have and would have continued to meet in the kinds of circles I would have been in. But I feel like with Capoeira it was an opportunity to get to know people that I really don't think I would have encountered otherwise. And that's, that's something that can change your life.

PKMNX: Do you think that the activist work was part and parcel to, to the route that led you to Capoeira?

L: Sure. I think so. I mean it preceded it for sure. I mean it was easier to become involved in radical politics than it was to know about Capoeira. So it just that that's what came first. And I mean I was at GW at a time that it was the end of Clinton White House. There was a lot of disillusionment among Left Wing people with like Democratic politics in general. And then Bush wins the fucking election by stealing it. I mean it was a galvanizing moment. And, you know I joined the International Socialist Organization my freshman year in college out of a lack of opportunity to do anything else. GW didn't have any radical groups that weren't Socialists. And the ISO is. I'm not gonna talk shit, but it wasn't for me. And it.

PKMNX: - the spectrum of a socialist organizations, generally, or ...

L: Did I what?

PKMNX: You mean out of the.

L: - well, no, I mean like the. I'm not sure that what I was believing and was their like sort of dogmatic socialism. You know. Like I didn't need that. I needed something that rejected American politics on a larger level and didn't try to replace it with what was an equally sort of oppressive idea of what socialism would provide. Um. And I mean we, we formed that instead. I mean a few people that was in school with at the time and like the next class coming up started something called the George Washington Action Coalition that really emerged, I think, out of the World Bank demonstrations. And that - that group, I mean I'm not sure if it still exists today, but it was, there wasn't anything like that when we started school. The people that were in my year. There had been a Progressive Student Union before that and we also revised the Progressive Student Union. Not me but really some other people. And that was all great and that was all happening. But it was still a pretty white movement. And it was a pretty white university. And, um, I think the things we were doing were well intentioned and we were very well informed and well read about what, what we opposed about global politics and what we would suggest instead. Like we knew what, what we wanted. But in terms of a day to day reality, in terms of like living a life that is different, um, that maybe does find ways in ... I feel like what Capoeira offered that this kind of stuff didn't, let me rephrase, was a way to develop a practice that I could feel had a longer history of resisting these same things that political activism gives you another outlet too. And I needed to do both. This, you know organizing protests was not enough. Organizing protests with other white kids really wasn't enough at that time. It just it started to become clear to me that like this is a difference. We are making some thing. But if I just continue to be in this world for the rest of my life I don't know. I don't know what I'm missing.

PKMNX: Did you find that the community around the Capoeira society that which Cobrinha had created and FICA and so forth, did it, did it measure up to what you desired or? Or was it a lot of work?

L: Yeah. It was a lot of work and it, and it did. I mean people, I mean depending on what phase people really started Capoeira in Washington, I mean it was sort of different degrees of openness to the idea that white people should be doing Capoeira at all perhaps. Um. And I think people didn't re-, reject white people's involvement, but I think there was some skepticism and maybe there remains some, and rightfully, of the idea that white people when they come into something that's Afrocentric will try to take it over. And maybe they're not trying to take it over on purpose, but because they're white people and they're used to being able to take shit over, they'll just do it out of habit. And I feel like that was an idea that people held when I started with the group. And they were right to hold it. Like I don't think.

PKMNX: Who, who, who held this?

L: I mean I don't think specifically any one person. And I, but I, it feels like looking back on it that that was an idea. But, and I don't. I want to be clear about this. I think people are right to have that idea. I think that black people's movements get steamrolled by white people all the time. And if it's a movement like Capoeira that's beautiful, that can attract people of all different races and does in Brazil historically include white people from the jump there was white people in Capoeira. This is not a black art form that only was available to black folks. But in the United States it's a different racial history and it's a different political history in which white people steal shit from black people, and that includes white leftists or white political radicals or white liberals or white Democrats. And they do it all the time. And they don't realize they're doing it.

PKMNX: How do you define white people?

L: Oh, come on Pokemon!

PKMNX: I'm, I'm ... we're doing a, we're doing a interview.

L: I know, no.

PKMNX: So I'm gonna play the advocate of, of trying to get you to.

L: - I think that white people are. I think white people are people who are white. And I, I know that sounds really stupid. But what.

PKMNX: okay, let, let me just give you an example.

Friend Lauren: Is it class?

L: Do I what?

Friend Lauren: Is it class?

L: Well, it's not about class because.

PKMNX: Let, let me give you an example. So, so I, I presume you are aware of some of the, ah, very recent events and what's been going on in say England.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: With a number of the, and there is a politician who, ah, very recently made a talk on BBC. I don't know if you're aware of this. But it's very popular.

L: I haven't heard it but. I mean I know what BBC is, but I don't know the politician.

PKMNX: Right. So, well, he, ah, said something to the affect that, ah, white culture has, is becoming black. And that the individuals who have been doing a lot of these protests are physically white.

L: But aligned politically with black.

PKMNX: - have taken on a quote-unquote black culture, a black ...

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: - men, black mentality.

L: A perspective maybe.

PKMNX: And what I want to do is pick at what that means for people.

L: Okay.

PKMNX: Um. What I argue, um, I think what I'm trying to argue with a, with a number of these discussions and, and these are all intellectual things that I believe I'm trying to pick at.

L: Yeah, sure.

PKMNX: Is that race probably doesn't really exist. Um.

L: But scientifically it doesn't.

PKMNX: But, but people think it does.

L: Of course, cause socially it's meaningful. And I, what I think a. how I would define a white person is sort of bring it back, and I think this maybe is something that works, um, white people are white skinned people perhaps who have not examined the privilege that they accrue by virtue of being white. And I think what this guy is commenting on in England in looking at these white kids acting in a manner he would characterize as, as the adoption of a black perspective is it's white people that have said, "You know what? I'm white. I accrue these benefits from being it and I reject this about it." And I think that it's possible for white people to reject their privilege. But what white people need to do when they reject privilege is understand that they're still gonna benefit from white privilege even if they actively reject it because a lot of being white comes from how people view you from the outside. If I walk through this mall and people look at me, I'm white. They're looking at a white person. Now I'm a white person who's very conscious of my privilege as a white person. I'm a white person who knows that when I drive my car late at night I'm not getting pulled over. I know if I take one hand off the steering wheel I'm probably not getting a gun pulled on me. I know that if I walk through certain neighborhoods I'm not gonna get followed down the street by whatever private patrol. I know these things about whiteness. I know these things about being white in certain spaces that I benefit from. And that I think is important. Of being aware of the privileges that white people sort of inherit from generations of racist politics in the United States and in, in the rest of the first world. It's a racialized framework. And I, in this way I think it goes back to your idea that race is not scientifically valid. There is very little genetic difference between you and me on a human level. (To friend Lauren) There's probably more genetic difference between you and me. But that doesn't mean anything because socially race means more. Race is visible. And it's been constructed as such and given such power throughout history that we have to be aware of its social power even as we reject what it means for us. You know.

PKMNX: To what degree do you think Capoeira, ah, amplified or echoed those issues? The struggles.

L: I think for me it gave ...

PKMNX: Specifically in Washington, DC.

L: Well, I, wouldn't want to speak for like the Capoeira as a or-, as an organization over time because I don't know. I was only there for six years in my life. But in those six years I met more black people with definitive ideas about race and how race impacted their lives and who were willing to talk about it than I did in any other context in my life. And so I think that Capoeira has sort of brought people together on this sort of intellectual way where they can, by virtue of sharing something that's an art form, by virtue of sharing a language, a physical and a verbal language and a history and a philosophy maybe, that ties them to this one thing. That they can talk about other issues I think that, you know in a-, in another circumstance we might not be able to get to talk about, you know. Because we won't know each other over time. We won't go to class together. We don't do rodas together. We won't eat together. You know all of these things that keep people separated, you know Capoeira does sort of break down. And yet at the same time maybe it reinforces other separations. You know. I'm not sure about that. I don't know. I mean I think it's a more complicated thing than I can analyze right now but. Um. But I have thought about it on a personal level for how it opened up an opportunity for me to think, to really think differently about how I knew people. And how I knew and how I could get to know people who were different from me. Especially in terms of racial categorization. I mean.

PKMNX: Do you have black friends?

L: I do.

PKMNX: Do you think that they're different than your white friends?

L: I think our relationship is different. My relationship with my black friends is different from my relationship with my white friends.

PKMNX: Give me an example. I mean what, how do you feel that makes it different?

L: Let's see. I'm thinking in the specific sense, she's gonna be so mad at me, my friend.

PKMNX: You don't have to name names.

L: - New Orleans.

PKMNX: You don't have to name any names.

L: She won't care. I don't think that we have a lot of differences because I'm white and she's black. But we do have different experiences of middle classness. She is a middle class black person and I come from a middle class white family. And I think it's funny that our ways of looking at being middle class are very different. And I think that comes from different races. I think the meaning is different. You know like for a white person to be middle class is kind of like not a story. But for a black person to be middle class in a city like New Orleans where 90 percent of the black people are poor it's different. You know so her relationship to her class is different I think than mine.

PKMNX: Blacks in New Orleans have a very, you know sort of rich tradition.

L: Yeah, but it's a, it's a tradition of being poor at the same time. Because people don't make money off all that shit.

PKMNX: - more free blacks and all that kind of stuff.

L: And there was more oppression against them after the reconstruction congress was over. I mean, yes, during a certain period free black people were not a predominate number in the South but, but between the free black people and the slaves that were lived in New Orleans it was a majority black city for most of the nineteenth century. And it was a black power place. And, I mean but this is historically. This is not now. And this is not since the 1920s. Jim Crow shut that shit down real fast.

PKMNX: Right.

L: And there are strains of radical Creole people and radical free people of color that come from those traditions and they know about it. But it doesn't mean they're wealthy and it doesn't mean they're powerful. And that's what I'm talking about. There, there are wealthy, powerful descendents of free people of color, yes. But they're smaller in number than the white political structure which is the dominant one.

PKMNX: Naturally. Are, are there other places in the United States that share.

L: No.

PKMNX: - a similar tradition as New Orleans?

L: Charleston, South Carolina had a large free population, but they did not have Creole people like we did. And they did not have a tripartite racial system that conflicted very firmly with the American one when the Americans bought Louisiana in 1803. You know they were looking at these three races of people and they were like, "No, I'm sorry, it's black and white." And people there were like, "I'm sorry. I'm neither." And they were, and they were serious about it. And, and their argument was I'm neither, I'm human. And they were very strong about this. I mean if you read like Desdunes or you read like I guess it's. what's his name? Aristede St. Mary. A few other people. These people were radical. These people were talking about human rights. Not about the rights to be equal to a white man. They were talking about the rights to be human on their own terms in the nineteenth century when America was trying to take shit over. And take that whole area that was known as Louisiana. It's a, it's an interesting history. And we do have that legacy. I mean I think that the.

PKMNX: What do you mean we? Who, who.

L: We New Orleanians. But I mean more specifically I would mean some of the later, later Creole politicians remember this and they know about this legacy. But increasingly their sons and daughters do not. You know. And that's, it's being filtered out. That radicalism is being filtered out of black politics in New Orleans.

PKMNX: is that a - why do you think that's happening?

L: Because people are becoming more American. Slowly but surely.

PKMNX: Is, is that a good thing?

L: No. Not to me.

PKMNX: Okay. What, what, what would be good?

L: What would be good is some god damn memory of being a, a different kind of culture and maintaining a different and stronger culture that didn't validate a, a dualized racial system that's meaningless. I mean like if you want to talk about racial categorization, let's get a new term for every single one. Let's blow it up and making it, make it as meaningless as it really is. And that's part of what it's like when you have a third category or a fourth one or a fifth one. I mean you can just start messing with like who's what, you know all the time. And it makes it less serious. And it makes it less easy to restrict people's rights based upon it.

Friend Lauren: You can't define them and then hold onto things.

L: Yeah. Because shit, you can just change your mind.

Friend Lauren: - terrifies people about bisexuality.

L: Right. It's true. Any time you mess with the binary.

Friend Lauren: - start to say that people aren't what they assume to be and.

L: Right.

Friend Lauren: - they don't belong to a certain community you can never have assumptions about them.

L: Right. Then you don't have a judgment. It's so hard.

Friend Lauren: - so you can never fall back on the stereotypes.

L: Yeah.

Friend Lauren: And say this is person is this way.

L: Well, then.

Friend Lauren: When they can turn around and.

L: Yeah.

Friend Lauren: - a different direction.

L: Yeah. No, it's really great. And I mean I think in New Orleans we had that history and we're, we're letting it go.

PKMNX: Hmm.

L: We did, well, we did already. I mean I'm saying we're letting it go like it's happening now. I mean go back 50 years, we really already let it go.

PKMNX: Right. Right. Do you have ancestors who may be Creole or black or.

L: Yeah. I think everybody in Louisiana. What was the Earl Long quote? It was like if you want to find a white person in Louisiana. it was something ridiculous. I mean just to indicate that there are no white people who don't have black ancestors. Um. But I don't know my, my genealogy that much. I mean.

Friend Lauren: Again, it is as relevant as you need it to be or is it all irrelevant. That's the thing.

PKMNX: Right. Is it important.

L: Well, I mean I could go find out.

PKMNX: Is it important?

L: No, not really. I mean my life is my life. Regardless. And I'm white by phenotype so I deal with being white. Even if. what if I found black ancestors? Does that make me black all of a sudden? Not really.

PKMNX: I th-, you know I think about that, right? I think about it. And I.

L: I don't think it would matter.

PKMNX: - have come to the conclusion that more white people could claim blackness if they.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: - if they chose it.

L: Yeah. No, and I mean.

PKMNX: It's, ah, probably not as likely for blacks to be as accepted as whites.

L: Nm mm.

PKMNX: Um. But if more white people decided to perhaps be black I think they could do it. I, I think that, ah, most.

L: I mean.

PKMNX: - black people are not going to not accept them. I mean they may not.

L: Maybe and maybe not.

PKMNX: - pass the smell test so to speak. But only, only for a little while, you know. I mean whatever that means.

L: I know. But I, I mean I think it's an interesting thing to like frame it like, you know if you have black ancestors can you claim back ancestry in it?

PKMNX: Why not? Why not?

L: And I say why not, it doesn't matter. But I also say that I'm okay with being a white person who is aware of the legacy of what white people have done and who lives with the burden of being a white person who comes from that legacy. Cause I, I don't feel guilt. Guilt is useless. James Baldwin was right. Like y-, you know your guilt doesn't matter to me because it's irrelevant. Like we're here now. We are people now. We have to live like people now. And I, I mean what Baldwin was talking about was like white people shut the fuck up, I don't care if you say you didn't have anything to do with slavery because it still happened, you know and we still have to deal with the outcomes of what has happened. You know. And that's why he was saying guilt isn't the thing we need to be feeling, you know need to be feeling some real sort of ideas about how we're gonna recover from these things that we have done to each other as human beings. And that is incumbent upon white people to start giving up the kind of privilege that we accrue from whiteness. You know.

PKMNX: Do you bring these thoughts to the roda and the Capoeira world?

L: I'm sure it's latent. I don't think consciously I bring much to the roda except an idea of trying to play a nice game or try to have a good roda. Like in. but, you know there's a, there's a lot of energy in those spaces that I think sort of when the energy is right in, in, in a roda situation, you know yeah, I think you can sort of feel the rightness of an idea that, you know. I think that, you know I've thought about it in the past. The idea of white people and black people, men and women, children and adults, doing something and people from all different national backgrounds as well, doing something together that is something that enslaved black people kept and originated is important. You know where it's open to people of all different kinds but where we recognize it's sort of prim. the sort of primacy of it being forged in an oppressive environment and keeping alive that idea and that resistance to oppression I think is important.

PKMNX: People argue that Capoeira Regionale as a stylistic is far more say white oriented. Do you? have you heard that?

L: I think philosophically. Yeah, I've heard it. I've heard it. And I know some people that do Capoeira Regionale in DC. I know some in New Orleans. And, um, I know black people and white people who do it. I don't think that. I don't think it's necessarily less focused on like the African roots of Capoeira. Cause I think they're very respectful of Capoeira Angola. But I think they do kind of leave it there. And I, I mean I don't know. I've never practiced Regionale. I've never really been to their schools. I don't, I don't know.

PKMNX: But you've seen it, I mean.

L: I've seen it. I've viewed it. And I think what I understand of its philosophy is that Capoeira Regionale is more nationalist. They're interested in being Brazilian. You know like for them it's like a Brazilian sport. It's an athletic endeavor. I mean I went to a batizado recently in New Orleans where they hung up an American flag and they hung a Brazilian flag and they sang the American national anthem and then they sang the Brazilian national anthem and then everybody cheered and jumped up and down and clapped a lot. I mean it's nationalist. It's not about Africa in that way. I thought about what we would be doing to open our roda and it would be libations. So there's a difference. You know there is a difference there.

PKMNX: Did you think that was a little crazy to see the.

L: The nationalism?

PKMNX: Yeah.

L: It made me a little. I, look, people might like it, but I don't like. I don't like nationalist politics. I have a thing. I mean like let's just say it can go horribly wrong. Um, and I was compelled to kind of like leave the room after that happened. It made me really uncomfortable. Like that sort of nationalism. But, and I don't think that they're doing it for any like nefarious purpose. I don't think that they're like going the route of, you know nationalism.

PKMNX: Why, why are they doing it? Why do you think they're doing it?

L: I don't, I don't fully know. I mean I d-, it was the first time I'd seen anything like that. And I'd been to other batizados in the past. Like Regionale stuff. I'd never seen that. Maybe it's happened and I just missed it. But, I mean it was pretty, pretty. it was, it was like a, it was a very high energy nationalist moment in that I couldn't figure out where it came from.

PKMNX: Something very martial perhaps.

L: .... It's very like machismo oriented kind of tradition too. I mean I think that even in Capoeira Angola you can see where there's moments and flashes or like sort of, you know aggression and sort of use of physical force in ways that I associate with men more than women. But in regional I think it's more. it's more present. And a lot of the women I've seen who play, who play regional and work within those communities, I mean they. I, I was watching this one girl and I was like she plays like a man. And it wasn't like in a b-, I mean I wasn't trying to think of it in a bad way or like what would it be to play like a women. Like I mean that's such a weird category. And then like I, you know I had recently read Iris Marion Young's "Throwing Like a Girl" that like talks about embodiment and like how women and men internalize, you know sort of physical difference and stuff like that. And I, you know I'd been thinking about these things a lot. And like what does it mean to Capoeira as a girl. Or. and I don't know. Like I, I'm still working that out. Like but I was watching this girl play and I mean she was tough, man. And not that like, you know angoleiros aren't tough. I mean play with Gege and you get killed cause she's so, she's so tough. But the way she plays I think is like a woman.

PKMNX: Mm hmm.

L: Not weaker. But she has a style I think that, that you can, you look at Gege play and you see the fact that she's a woman in that. And it's not that she can't kick your ass, cause she can. You know it's not about strength or fortitude or, you know technical capacity or ability to play. It's not to, to say anything about that. And lots of women I think in Capoeira Angola that I've watched, good people play, still play with some sort of semblance of their bodies being women's bodies. But in the Regionale thing that I was watching, and maybe it's the speed of it or maybe it's the intensity of it being slightly different, I don't know, but I was watching this girl play and I was just like, that's different. Like there was something about it that was different.

PKMNX: Did you like it?

L: Not really, but it's, that's more of an aesthetic thing I thing. But no.

PKMNX: Who plays the most beautiful Capoeira that you can remember in your mind if I give you idea if I say what's a, you know the most beautiful game that you can see or you can remember or?

L: Cobra.

PKMNX: Ah huh.

L: Cobra does.

PKMNX: What, what movements? What, what image do you.

L: It's not, it's not tied to one specific thing, one movement or image. But I think he h-, I mean people that play. I, I like the games that people play with a lot of grace more than I like the games where people play with a lot anything else maybe. I mean I feel like people have different styles. And I've seen a lot of really beautiful capoeira. I mean. And I've seen beautiful Capoeira Regionale too. I don't mean to make it sound like they can't do it. I just don't feel like they do do it as much.

PKMNX: Are there any moves that, um, make you feel more feminine than.

L: No.

PKMNX: - another?

L: No. And that's not really. I mean, yeah, no. That's not what I mean by it. I think that all of them have like sort of potential to go either way.

PKMNX: Do you believe in the idea of taking on a spirit.

L: What do you mean?

PKMNX: Well, like as if a spirit, there's a spirit of a movement for instance.

L: Oh. I believe it's possible for other people. I don't think I'm open to that. I, I mean. no, not for me. I mean I can see how that would be something, you know people would do. And I mean, I know other people, people practice religions where that's a thing, you know. Possession or being ridden by Orixas or by, you know deities and stuff like that. Um. But no, in terms of like spirit or transformative spiritual things like that, I don't, I don't have any experience with that.

PKMNX: Do you think you have a spirit?

L: What do you mean?

PKMNX: Do you have a spirit? Does Lauren.

L: No.

PKMNX: No.

L: No, I'm a, I'm a person.

PKMNX: No spirit. Nothing. Nothing like that.

L: I, I don't think so. I don't think in the, in the terms that you're asking, no.

PKMNX: Are you female?

L: Sure. Oh, yeah.

PKMNX: So you, you consider yourself female.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: What, what do you think it means to be female as opposed to male?

L: I don't know. That's rough. I don't know.

PKMNX: You ever thought to get married and have babies and?

L: Well, I was married.

PKMNX: I'm sorry. To have babies and.

L: But no, I don't think I'm gonna have children. Um, but that's not because I, I reject it as like a, being anti woman about it. I just don't think I should raise children. But, um. I don't know what it means to be female as opposed to male. That's a really good question. Because I don't know. Because I, I know so many different types of women. So many different types of men. That gender starts to seem less relevant in how they are characters, you know. And maybe it is physical expression. Maybe that is why I was so struck by this woman in this Regionale group playing what I thought was like a man's game.

PKMNX: That she had taken on a spirit of a.

L: Yeah, maybe there's something. I don't know if it's a spirit. Maybe it's just physical. Like what if it's just like a physical difference. You know like. but I mean seriously, like men and women are shaped differently. You have big women, small women, big men, little men. But I mean still the shape is going to be different a lot of the times. There is something that's more male and something that's more female. And then there's obviously crossover between. And then there are people that are transgendered or people that are intentionally reshaping their physical bodies. And that's, you know pushing gender in a different direction and that's fine. But there are like physical qualities that are different between men and women that concern like centers of gravity and shoulder width and, I mean you know there's all kinds of physical shit. And maybe that is the fundamental thing. Maybe it's not spiritual at all. Maybe it's physical.

PKMNX: Hmm.

L: I mean that could be true.

PKMNX: Huh. Okay. Um.

L: (Chuckling). Now that we went down that rabbit hole.

PKMNX: All right. So we talked. okay, we talked about some racial stuff, some DC stuff.

L: You're trying to hit all the, all the stops.

PKMNX: sexual stuff. Some other stuff. Um. Huh. Okay. Um. That may be all I have.

L: That's totally fine Pokemon. I like. I love talking to you and I miss you.

PKMNX: Ah huh. Oh, thank you.

L: I haven't seen you in so long.

PKMNX: Thank you. I'm, I'm still doing roughly the same things just a little.

L: You're not playing Capoeira anymore though?

PKMNX: No, no. I, I, I think I am far more, um, a little protective of the community aspects to perhaps what I want to do and have been a bit more interested in developing and perhaps spending solitary time doing specific things that just relate specifically to me.

L: That's, that's a really good choice. And it's good that you can know that about yourself.

PKMNX: Yeah.

L: I mean and you feel better about that decision.

PKMNX: Yeah.

L: Right.

PKMNX: I think that that was, um, I love the, the community aspect of, of doing Capoeira and the different people that, as you say, you meet and the influence that you have.

L: Yeah.

PKMNX: And sometimes I miss that.

L: Yeah, yeah.

PKMNX: But there's something about New York and there's something about being able to spend a little bit more time developing things specific to what I'm doing.

L: Well, it's the city for it. Like you said before, I mean this anonymity or sort of atomization that's here that's like full in effect all the time.

PKMNX: Yeah.

L: And it's nice in some ways. I mean in many ways. That's why I like to visit New York, but it's also why I like to leave.

PKMNX: Right.

L: Cause New Orleans is very different and I like.

PKMNX: It's a community.

L: - I like that difference, you know. But I, it's really nice to be able to come here and see the way that urban life functions on so many levels. I mean being in an Urban Studies program in a city like New Orleans is kind of a mind fuck because it's so atypical of so many things. You know. And then you read these things sometimes and if you've spent time in, in bigger cities or, you know different cities, you remember what it's like to have been in those places. And that can be a little jarring when you walk, walk out of your house and it's, it's New Orleans. It's just a weird place.

PKMNX: Were there things that really worked well, ah, with what was going on in Washington DC at that time period that you.

L: During the time I was in the Capoeira group?

PKMNX: Yeah. Yeah, things that were particularly nice.

L: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think the group, ah, you know as much shit as they, as, as we, as they, as whoever, I mean people give each other shit, you know. But I think people in that group are operating for better or worse as a family. And I think that, you know it is the better and worse that gets brought up. But they really are. I mean it's like when it really comes down to it, these are people that came together from very different perspectives and very different lives and they're working on something and they keep doing it. And, and that's what existed during the time period I was there and it's what continues to exist there today. And it's, it's heartening because there isn't a lot of that, you know. There's just not a lot that continues over time.

PKMNX: Is that the revolution?

L: I don't know. You know I used to be way more sure about what I thought the revolution would be. But, you know the older I get the less certain I am about a lot of things. And I think it's a good start. I think having a forum in which people get to know each other through a particular thing, like Capoeira, through something that has the potential to mean things to a wide range of people really can be revolutionary.

PKMNX: Okay. Um. Is there anything else you want to chat about, talk about.

L: No, thank you for talking to me and thanks for coming all the way up here. I don't even think we intended to be here this long. We got trapped by the rain.

PKMNX: No, it's, it's my pleasure. It's a lovely rainy day to sit around and, and sort of chat.

L: Yeah, no.

PKMNX: - get your ideas. We, we just did about an hour.

L: Wow.

PKMNX: Um. So, so if there's nothing else then.

L: No, no, I'm so glad you're doing these interviews though. I've enjoyed the ones I read. I read. Cassandra was the most recent.

PKMNX: Yeah.

L: Yeah, I read that one.

PKMNX: Yeah, I got, I got another one that I've been a little, um, not, not moving on as fast. And, ah, and then I've got some other ones planned and so forth. But there's no.

L: Wonderful.

PKMNX: - there's no rush in.

L: No, but it's really great. And I'm, I'm honored that you interviewed me Pokemon.

PKMNX: Well, of course.

L: I admire the project. I think it's a great idea.

PKMNX: - it's. keep, keep moving.

L: Yeah. Keep on moving.

PKMNX: All right. So that's Lauren Lastrapes. Um. Goodbye.

L: Bye-bye.