Next up in the Zero to Fierce lineup, we’ve got TL Forsberg! TL is an internationally recognized singer/performer, a Deaf and Disability advocate, trauma-informed creativity doula and a cultural ambassador on disability.

In today’s episode of “KSLG Talks To,” we discuss her journey through stardom and living between two worlds. TL unpacks performing, overcoming trauma, cancel culture, and her role as the co-producer of the 10th annual Zero to Fierce Festival. Click the link up top to listen in, or read the transcript of our conversation below.

KSLG Talks to TL Forsberg

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DJ Rhi Marie: TL, nice to meet you. We’re just gonna jump right into it. I love to just get to know you and about your show and for listeners meeting you for the first time, how do you introduce yourself and your artistic identity?

TL Forsberg: So basically, I define as a woman, and my pronouns are she/her and I put hard of hearing. You know, when people put them in, you’ll see it there. That’s something that the deaf community is doing now, which is, like people who own their diversity, you can add that in, so I’ll say she her hard of hearing. Deaf is a part of my cultural identity. At the core what I do is I’m an artist and an activist, and I I I do what I call artist ministry, which is like a lived advocacy of telling probably one of my most painful stories on the stage as a way for people to feel the lived experience and then have a talk back or engagement with the audience about some of The experiences that they’ve witnessed in the show, and it’s kind of deep and transformational, not kind it is.

Rhiannon Miramontes 02:07

Yeah, from what I read, it definitely seems like a heavy topic, but one of those topics that kind of like they need to be talked about, and somebody in the audience, probably multiple people, I’m sure, was like, wow, I resonate and I connect to your story. So it’s great

TL Forsberg 02:23

Thank you. Yeah, thanks.

Rhiannon Miramontes 02:26

You describe yourself as a trauma informed creativity doula. What does that role look like in practice for you?

TL Forsberg 02:37

You know, so I basically what that looks like is, is I kind of mentor. I walk artists through their own artist journey. So I hold collectives of people who will get on calls, and I’ll I’ll work with them about where they’re at. It’s like, if you know the book The artist way, yes. So I teach an erotic approach to the artist way, which is kind of more how to be in the body and how to find pleasure and joy and erotic level with our art, as opposed to just suffering. Yeah, a lot of the lot of artists have that sort of like torture artist identity. So I work a lot with people doing that, and do a lot is exactly as it says. I help people birth their solo shows, so I’ll do a lot of coaching. And mostly it looks like people come to my shows and they’re like, how did you just do that? Like, I don’t even know what that is, because I have 40 years of touring in the Deaf culture. So I have, like, sign language, music, video, movement, poetry. It’s like, it’s, it’s a real mash up of performance art, but also has an educational element to it, where my audiences are usually sobbing or cracked open in some ways, so they’re like, that wasn’t just play or solo show, like I went on an experience with you. So that’s how I end up working with people most often, is they just come up to me and go, I want to do what you just did. So that sounds fulfilling.

Rhiannon Miramontes 03:56

As someone who loves theater, and I’ve been going to theater as long as I can remember. I love when I see a show, and I haven’t been in a very long time. Well, I guess zero to fear is last year counted. But when you’re you know a show, when a show really stands out to you, you’re like, Man, how do I do that? How can I be a part of this world? So it’s really great that you’re bringing people in and sharing your skills and your knowledge with other people interested. Yeah, thanks. I guess what first drew you to this world towards music and storytelling as your language of expression, being in the deaf community

TL Forsberg 04:40

yeah, I think it was probably my, just my lived experience of being hard of hearing as a kid and not having exposure to other deaf or hard of hearing people, and being someone who’s labeled high function and putting quotes around that, because I’m not a huge fan of it, but it just gives some context. Is that I felt isolated a lot. So I kind of like lost myself in the world of magic and being other people and characters. It started in dance and mime, so I didn’t have to speak, right, just using my body. And then someone heard me singing, and said, We think that you could sing well, and then I started singing. And then I went to acting, going to directing school. I’ve done it all.

Rhiannon Miramontes 05:00

Wow,

TL Forsberg 05:05

yeah, I did, like, I got into dance school and theater school at the same time, and I decided to go to the dance program, and then I did that for two years, and then I got into the theater program. And then when I was a year into the theater program, I kept getting cast in the leads for the show at the school, and they’re like, you’re in the wrong program. So then I transitioned to acting. So I’ve always been called to art as a form of healing and self expression, and probably because I, you know, as many of us do, I felt like a misfit or an outsider, and I didn’t quite know how or where to put myself. And so I was like, I’m going to be with these crazy people. We’re standing on stage doing things.

Rhiannon Miramontes 06:00

Yes, no, I relate 100% I did theater when I was a high school and even Youth Theater, so I’m, like, put me in with the weirdos, and we’re gonna have fun over here in our corner. And now that’s really great.

TL Forsberg 06:15

That’s, yeah, there were, I’m from Canada, and so, like, there’s a high, like, I was there high. There’s a high drinking culture there. So the options were to get drunk in the woods and wear plaid and then potentially get pregnant or, like, drop out of school, like, at root doesn’t seem good to me. So where else can I go? Oh, I will take a modern dance class

Rhiannon Miramontes 06:32

Wow, a lot of work.

TL Forsberg 06:35

I will do anything other than go that direction.

Rhiannon Miramontes 06:39

I highly relate. And I know a lot of people do as well. That’s that’s really funny, like, Well, there’s two options. One seems a lot greater than the other one. Yeah, you were mentioning being hard of hearing, and you put air quotes around, you know, being able to do more. What does authentic inclusion look like for you in your work?

TL Forsberg 07:00

Yes, yeah. I think, well, that’s a big question, putting authentic and inclusion in the same space for that means just being authentic. So I’ll start with that one. Like, right now I’m in a format with you, so you don’t sign. So I made the decision not to sign. If I was, I would have done radio interviews where I will try and sign it, and then I’ll make it accessible by putting it online. So today I have the captions and my hearing aids support me. So for me, that means I make decisions sometimes where I get to be the artist in the space, connecting with the person, rather than becoming the accommodation of signing for everybody else. That’s a little controversial, because people say, Well, you’re a Deaf celebrity and a performer, you should make this accessible. And I do the best with the tools that I have. But the truth is, like signing sometimes slows me down, and I can get more ideas out when I speak, so sometimes I’ll go back and I’ll interpret the content myself and put it out later, so it can look like many things, but so for me as an artist, that’s what authentic looks like. Is honoring what works for me. But I always try to teach a message of inclusion, which is just being mindful about the diverse kinds of people that are out there. My show talks about that like different kinds of deaf people, because people so frequently think of deaf as just being one picture of Deaf, it’s like, oh, Marlee Matlin or someone who doesn’t speak, right? So it’s really important for me to unpack that there’s like a spectrum to the Deaf culture of experiences, and that ultimately, my show is about inviting people to be more inclusive to the diverse kinds of deaf people.

Rhiannon Miramontes 08:42

Yes, I really. I love that. You mentioned in living between two worlds. What worlds are you referring to when you mentioned living between?

TL Forsberg 08:59

Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think about it. So that’s a very common term in deaf world as basically, yeah, it’s a very it’s like, if you look, yeah, it’s basically, there’s a hearing world where people talk, and then there’s a deaf world where people sign, and for people like me, who can move fluidly, like I’m talking with you today, so then, oh, you talk, you’re hearing, and then oh, you sign your death. So there’s people who move between both worlds that are fluid, right? Okay? And those people are actually called in betweeners, who live between, in the space between these two binary worlds. And often we get treated like with suspicion, or told that we’re not one or the other. So then we can feel displaced by not feeling like we have a place of belonging. Yeah, I actually have a line in my show that everybody was offshoot, but I have a trans character who is fluid, who walks me through trying to work out my identity. And at some point they say to me, well. Yeah, I hate to say this too, but you’re like, the bisexual of the deaf community. And I’m like, What do you mean? And they’re like, everybody wants to have sex with you, but everybody’s really suspicious, and nobody trusts you, right?

Rhiannon Miramontes 10:10

Oh, my goodness, that’s so great.

TL Forsberg 10:13

So sometimes it’s good to have those references, and then people come up to me at my show crying. Are usually people who are bicultured. This beautiful man named Kevin neighbors who’s like a poet and an artist, an actor came to my show and he was sobbing, and he’s not deaf, but he was a light skinned person of color, like he was white, passing his beautiful Froy hair, and he does rap, but he knew exactly what it was like to be in that middle location, because people are constantly telling him he’s too white passing to embrace his black bipoc identity, so he immediately bonded. So there’s a lot of people who have duality, and the world is becoming increasingly more binary and almost intolerant of any kind of gray. So my show is really about inviting that conversation to the table, about how important it is to develop a space where we can be in the middle and have a conversation about it.

Rhiannon Miramontes 11:08

You know exactly, I think it’s really important that conversation, like you said, of there’s so many of us now in this like binary world, as you’re saying, that feel not part of one world came from another. Now we’re just finding our place. I can really relate to that so much as being, you know, from an immigrant family, being a mixed child. You know, that’s so interesting that you say that he connected in that way, even though he, like he said, he was not deaf, right? It’s really interesting that people take a show, and they kind of just analyze themselves when they’re watching.

TL Forsberg 11:47

They really do. Because the number one thing that my talk box, people raise their hand and say, I really relate to it. My Mom is this, my dad is this. And I don’t feel like I belong in either world. And, you know, it’s it’s just an interesting thing. And it’s interesting thing, the way marginal marginalized communities, almost in an attempt to maintain their power, can kind of like create the division further or oppress each other, which is another topic that’s in the show, is basically like, how marginalized communities don’t heal their oppression and their trauma, and then we start turning against each other in sort of a form of purity, policing or gatekeeping, which is essentially what happened to me, is like I my show, unpacked, I was a singer, and then I was put in a documentary, and then I became famous, and I was known as the Deaf Lady Gaga, and I toured for 11 years doing my music, And there was like lineups, like two hours of lineups of people just wanting pictures with me and photographs like I was I couldn’t go to a party without like people coming at me and like, Oh my god. TL is here. It was a big thing for a big chunk of my life. Then I was written into a TV show cast to play myself, essentially a woman who would speak with hearing and sign with deaf. And then deaf people started getting bullying and being very upset about it, because they felt that I failed to represent a real deaf person, which is an interesting statement, right? Wow. And yeah. And then, so then I went through,

Rhiannon Miramontes 13:19

How did that make you feel during the time?

TL Forsberg 13:21

I mean, it was confronting to me, because I understand it took me a while a couple of things, you know, when I was new in my path in the deaf community, of course, I didn’t understand how the rules of the culture work. It is important to name that I was not born into this culture. I was born into a hearing culture. So I have privilege, you know, and I think back then I couldn’t unpack my privilege. And it wasn’t until I started performing as a disability advocate and dancing in a disability dance company that I woke up to privilege in a certain way, because I’m very able bodied, and I could see individuals using wheelchairs having to dance. And, you know, I really was like, Wow. I really do have privilege. And I was like, wow, you know, how come people have been telling me for years that I have hearing privilege and I haven’t taken it in. And part of the reason has been there hasn’t been a safe space to have the conversation about privilege. It’s always used as a weapon against me to say, see that this is why we can’t trust you. This is why you’re not allowed to use the word. This is why you’re not allowed, in mind your place don’t take from people who are more Deaf than you. So these conversations are kind of covert and overt at the same time, and it’s all unpacked in the show, really. Oh, and as I was saying in my early years, I did take some roles because I was just excited about it. Didn’t know the difference, and I had to learn. And my immense was, okay, maybe this role needs to go to someone who is native eyes and grew up with a language to respect authentic representation. So I made that turn and decided, okay, I’ll learn from that experience. That was years ago, like 20 years ago, but was switched to birth. It was literally written for me, like it was based, based on me.

Rhiannon Miramontes 15:07

A transformative show, in my opinion.

TL Forsberg 15:11

Oh, thank you. I mean, she did a good job of capturing and bringing the world. I mean, I think she really did a beautiful job with it. I mean, there’s always room for improvement, but I was very impressed with what she did with that. So to be cast as myself, and then to TL be told that I failed to represent myself, and then to be bullied and basically told you stole the role from a Deaf person, which is kind of what went on for five, five plus years. It was hard, it was heartbreaking, because I was like, Okay, I’m not taking these roles because I want to respect representation, but when I try to even be myself or express myself, now I’m being told that I’m a bad human being. And then what essentially happened, after years and years of that, is I started getting sick, and I developed an autoimmune condition where I lost the walk, yeah, yeah. And I basically was, I was in a wheelchair.

Rhiannon Miramontes 16:05

How long were you in a wheelchair for?

TL Forsberg 16:07

I mean, not, not so long, but enough that, like, I think there was nine weeks that I was in bed rest, and then I had a wheelchair neuropathy in both of my legs, and I had to do, like, a year and a half of rehab in the pool to, like, it was not a joke.

Rhiannon Miramontes 16:21

Wow. I was just, you know, gonna talk about asking you about how trauma lives in the body.

Oh, that’s

TL Forsberg 16:26

Oh, that’s exactly it. Like, the Body Keeps the Score. And it wasn’t until I worked with a body worker that she was, like, literally working on she’s like, what is in there? And I screamed. I was like, ah, you know. And it was like, all of the rage of being told that I couldn’t take up space in my own culture, or I was bad for wanting to participate, my body just clamped down and tightened and went, You’re a bad person. And it was the autoimmune that is the body attacking itself. Use that metaphor in the show to say, when we attack other people, it’s like that spiritual autoimmune we’re taking each other out from the side, which is horizontal hate, right?

Rhiannon Miramontes 17:05

Yeah, so I mean did this ultimately lead you to create chronicles of the not deaf enough girl?

TL Forsberg 17:06

Yes, yes.

Rhiannon Miramontes 17:07

I guess, what was the hardest part of the story to put on stage without giving too much away?

TL Forsberg 17:34

Yeah, yeah, the hardest part was to actually talk about cancel culture and being canceled and attacked by other celebrities in a very public way. That was hard, because I was like, I don’t want to cause a war with people, right? I ended up putting videos on there, but I covered their faces, because at the end of the day, it’s not about any one person. They represent an ideology that it’s okay to tear down another person. So I’m sort of using them to explore what happens when we get so protective that we start to take each other out from the side in a sort of like unconscious bullying or lateral violence, is, I guess, what you would call it, and how lot of people would just say, well, it’s that’s deaf culture pride, right? I talk openly about that on the show as well, but this concept of not deaf enough has been around for years. Like, if you go onto any social media platform, people will be like people who are profoundly deaf can hear nothing, but if they move their mouth when they talk, people will be like you’re hard of hearing. Yeah. That’s another thing that happens, is that they start to give you your label based on how you function, not your spiritual identity, which I find very, very interesting. Which is why I have a trans character who leads us through the show, because historically, trans people were also othered in their own community,

Rhiannon Miramontes 19:20

Right,right

TL Forsberg 19:21

They weren’t, they weren’t in the LGBT. It’s at the end, you know? Well, they added more letters, but it took a while for them to get access to being on the rainbow, so to speak, because people just didn’t know what to do with trans people back then. And I think it’s kind of a similar metaphor for those of us who have duality, and people don’t know what box to put us in exactly. There’s an othering that’s happening there.You know,

Rhiannon Miramontes 19:22

Yes, it’s like, when individuals don’t know enough about a group of people, they may think that they know, you know, You know, I think it’s very hard for people who are not in the community outside of it, looking in just being like, this is this, this is that. And I can’t think of being both. Uhm so it’s really interesting. And like individuals like yourself are bringing up the story, hey, excuse me. Actually, this is not all black and white. You know,

TL Forsberg 20:00

There’s a lot of gray. And I think with what is happening in the world right now, with things being so about binary, that you need to have a little bit more like, we need a lot more space for the gray. I think we need to be able to meet each other in that middle space and have conversations. Well, this is what I see, because right now, it’s divided.

Rhiannon Miramontes 20:18

Yeah, I think also when cancel culture was such a big thing, I think stories like your own, where it’s like, now more people are coming out like, hey, this crazy thing did happen to me, that the whole world thought they knew the story. But actually, this is really happening. I think there’s a lot more stories coming out now that we’re able to listen and like Hear, hear people out, and listen to the whole story, and not just get what was, what we might, might have seen on TV or media. So it’s really great that you’re sharing this story, and maybe people who had followed along, or maybe like me, who didn’t really know what happened in your early career. It’s really cool to have both those people in the audiences.

TL Forsberg 20:24

Thank You

Rhiannon Miramontes 20:25

Yeah, I want to get more into the show between two worlds, chronicles of the not deaf enough girl. Did creating the show change your relationship with your own story?

TL Forsberg 21:28

Yes, and that’s one of the things I teach as a creativity doula, which is I create art that changes me through the telling of it and change, you know? And I would say literal so my first show that I did two years ago, zero to affairs, which was the book that won’t close that one was about addiction. Underneath the shame of addiction was being different in the deaf community. So it kind of had two storylines. This one is more just focusing on my deaf journey as a singer and being canceled and my rise to fully accept myself again. But those you know, those two paths ultimately took me to have a deeper relationship with my own journey or my own identity. I think the first show I was gripping. I was like, I’m deaf, I’m deaf. You don’t tell me I’m deaf. And then I did enough healing, and I’m so grateful, actually, to the hearing culture who witnessed my show for five years, because I got such a beautiful reflection of like, wow, wow, wow. I really needed it and deaf people weren’t coming. So, like the festivals, 4000 people would come. Then I talked at my show, hired a hearing director and two people came like it was overnight, and I knew that if I talk the show, that there was going to be some resistance, but I had no idea. Well, I think I did on the deeper level. I think I knew that it was probably going to go that way. But I was like, hey, art is about pushing boundaries. So I literally wrote on the program. I am doing this consciously speaking on stage in my voice, my physical voice, not signing as part of the message to the end with Deaf people to come to get it. And then I was very disappointed with that, but it took me to a deeper level of surrender, of like, okay, how am I going to learn to love this thing that I think that is unlovable about being othered or different, because if I keep looking for the likes or approval from any one community, then I’m just in a rat race looking to prove myself worth so how do I how do I dial that in for myself? So I think what happened is this round that healing had happened for me, and this, this round, felt softer. It felt softer in my relationship to other people. I had more compassion towards my family, compassion towards myself, even the community, for the choices that they made. There was a little bit more balance in it. The other one was like all wounding, and which is, it’s okay, that’s that’s the way it went. But I think that we tell our stories, you know, to get free of our story in a way. I say, by, of and through, you know. And so I think I left the last show going well. I was hurt, even though I had a lot of freedom and tons of awards and whatever it did really well, I was like, I don’t want to be deaf anymore. I’m dumped on the story. And then, you know, I unpacked this one and came back and went, Okay, I am this kind of deaf. This is the experience I’ve had in my culture. Maybe it’s happening to other people. Yes, I do have privilege. I see you and why you’re doing it. I see why it matters to me. Nobody’s wrong. Here’s the conversation. And once I started the conversation, the thing just went,

Rhiannon Miramontes 24:47

Wow, ya know hindsight is always 2020 it’s really helpful that you as an artist and a performer have something like that first show to kind of look back on now and maybe, like you said, you didn’t see. It all fully, but now that you can, kind of like, look back and you did that healing, and you worked through being part of these two worlds. It’s, it’s uhm, I’m interested in seeing the show.

TL Forsberg 25:13

I want you to come, Rhiannon, I want you to come.

Rhiannon Miramontes 25:16

Yes, I’m very excited, and just to see what emotions come out of it? I guess, what emotional journey do you hope audiences experience through this?

TL Forsberg 25:33

Yeah, yeah, no, that’s, that’s really great question. I mean, one of the things that my show does, which is, is gonna say good and bad, but it’s not good or bad, it just is what it is. My shows are really raw. They’re Ah, so there’s a way that I am asked to put this is how I relate to my art. I just I think of it maybe because I’m on the path of ministry. I think of it as my ultimate sacrifice is to just lay myself out on the altar so wide open about all the locations, my fear, my doubt, my vulnerability, my insecurity, people, what people say about me, what I think about myself. I just put so much of it out there in such a raw way, and just keep going deeper and deeper into it that people are like, whoa. So I my my commitment is to crack myself open and telling the story in a certain way, and then if the audience is there with me, and I’m doing it in a skillful, conscious way, it tends to crack them open, like they’ll come to hug me, and they’ll be hugging me, and then they’re crying and they’re trying to talk, and I have to go, I can’t hear you sit here and talk to me, but they’re usually sobbing and they can’t talk. I am the last show sold out, like, a week and a half early. We had to actually give seats back to people. I have a waiting list of 30 some people who wanted to go see the show, who are waiting for the next show. Like, it’s had this momentum that’s been quite beautiful, and then my phone went off for like, two weeks. People just like, I’m still thinking about your show. I just want you to know I couldn’t stay at the show because I was so emotional. So that’s definitely happening. And I knew that was happening because my whole ride up until the show, I was just like, I could feel this electricity. And, you know, yeah, I always, because I’m a consciousness teacher and transformation, I always tell the artists that I work with that you’re not going crazy, you’re an artist, and you’re about to be vulnerable, and that’s part of the process. The more, the more you feel sort of like, you know, this is hard, or you’re you go out of control, the more amount of power is going to come through on the stage. So just contain it in your body, trust it, go up there and release it and let people witness it. Let yourself witness it, and then see what happens.

Rhiannon Miramontes 27:46

I love that. I love that. I think in an age of disconnection, it’s so great to hear that people are responding this way to your show. I think we’re in like such a desperate need for connection, or just to see more raw, real emotions, not fake, not AI, not, you know, just for clicks and likes or whatever it’s like real person, because everyone’s dealing with something, everyone’s dealing with something that’s feels like their world’s about to fall in on them.

TL Forsberg 28:19

Right, exactly? Well, another thing I should add is that I have so I have two hero characters in the show. I have a trans character who’s fluid. I have a disabled character who has CP. She has specific kind of body posture. So that’s very interesting and challenging to play that character, but people really fell in love with her. She’s like my inner advocate, and there’s a lot of power that comes through that she ends up teaching in the show I unpack when I’m in the middle what it’s like from both worlds. So here’s what hearing people will say to be about my experience of being deaf, and here’s what deaf people and it’s basically getting oppression from both sides. So it’s been kind of like interesting to unpack that in so but ultimately, sort of teaching people like, how do we just slow down with things that are different and that we’re afraid of, like the ways that we stop breathing or we disconnect, or we take on social rules. Like, one example is like, I have friends whose kids are transitioning, and my mind will some be, sometimes be like, don’t fuck up the pronoun. Like I’m trying not to get their pronoun wrong. And that right there is like, Oh, that’s a kind of level of consciousness where I’m not really connecting with the person. I’m just trying to not do something wrong. And I think that happens a lot in the disability arena, where people are afraid to do it wrong, and that they tighten and they disconnect from themselves because they’re afraid I’m going to mess this up. And then they disconnect from the other and then they do unconscious things like, Oh, you’re deaf. Let me get you a blind menu, a brown menu, like they do that kind of stuff because they’re just uncomfortable.

Rhiannon Miramontes 29:58

I think that leads so great. Into my question of what something audiences think they understand about disability, but usually get wrong,

TL Forsberg 30:00

Yeah,

Rhiannon Miramontes 30:02

Probably just those preconceptions, you know.

TL Forsberg 30:05

Yeah, Im mean ugh the dei arena, is well it’s certainly under attack in this political context. So its important I will say that but there does seem to be a bit of an ecochamber of like well we shouldn’t use this word. Disable means less abled and disempowered. Other people are like I want to claim disability because it’s attached to the ADA law and it empowers us so there’s always this language war and I get it because even with pronouns and labels in the queer culture which I participate in as well. So I think we get a little stuck there, around, it knocks us out. People are like its always changing and im always going to get it wrong and so they get mad at it, because it’s a lot it asks us to be caught up and pay attention. And in the show i say what would it be like if we stop doing that and we start looking the other person in the eye and say i dont know, what would feel good for you here

Rhiannon Miramontes 30:58

Many people just dont like to show that they dont know how to asking those questions and I think it’s important

TL Forsberg 31:06

Yeah in a way it sort of requires a deeper level of intimacy and vulnerability to say. That literally happened with my girlfriend’s child, who the pronoun kept moving around the expression was feminine and masculine and I was babysitting. I decided to go to their daughter at the time who was transitioning into masculine and them was they pronoun and I said to them I’m going to probably get your pronoun wrong this weekend. I just said why don’t I just lay it on the altar ,and then just hold space for it ya know and see what came up and you know teenager, eye rolling. And then I said I love you and I care about you but I’m in a process with you and how about i just get one, jail card, ya know monopoly game, give me one. Ill do it once, ill give you my card, if I do it a second time I’m still going to keep contact with you but I want to this right and please know that I care about you. And I thought that was, at least closer to intimacy then like trying not to get it right trying not to get it right,

Rhiannon Miramontes 32:08

Be scared to get it wrong.

TL Forsberg 32:10

Yeah its the fear thats in the space that prevents us from connecting to each other

Rhiannon Miramontes 32:15

Yes I think we all need to take that in a little more. I feel like we can talk forever. We are wrapping up, ya know I want to ask, this question is really interesting to me. What small change do you think venues could make tomorrow that could radically increase accessibility in these spaces?

TL Forsberg 32:41

Yeah, I come up with this a lot in LA. I was just at a festival and uhm sometimes I will join the festival and sometimes I don’t get a choice of the venue because it’s already set up but I’ll reach out to them. Because I’m in a disability dance company I’m very much an advocate. I have friends who use a wheel chair and still want to come to the venue. So I’ll reach out and be like, and they are like oh yeah we can move some seats for them, and I’ll be like is it accessible for them and they will be like ‘yeah’ and then I’ll follow up, they will be like yeah they just have to park their wheelchair outside the bathroom and kinda hobble in, and I’ll be like that’s not full accessibility and at least they know that, they at least know. And quite frankly the challenge is, that buildings are not up to code, so people would literally have to restructure their entire buildings. So we bump up against this in LA, like there’s probably only one or two venues certainly on the access board of the Hollywood Fringe, so we come up against this all the time. So I think it’s good to, people don’t often think that partial inclusivity is offensive to people. It would be like inviting someone in a wheelchair to my house and being like oh we cant get you into the house but we can go to the backyard and get you in the shed and send people out to you like that’s not giving them full access to the party so I think that thats something to think about and at the bottom at the end of the day you got to pick one thing. Like the festival now,is bringing in an interpreter for my show and we have the deaf community coming in. That’s one way to begin you know and start to open yourself up to how to be more conclusive to diverse populations

Rhiannon Miramontes 34:16

Yeah, It’s important to mention that, anyone out there listening, who is uh creating buildings

TL Forsberg 34:25

Make the bathrooms so they can actually go in the bathroom.

Rhiannon Miramontes 34:32

There you go,there you go. What are you looking forward to aside from your show, Zero To Fierce, how long will you be here? Are you looking forward to any shows at this festival?

TL Forsberg 34:41

Yes, I absolutely am because I am one of the co-producers of zero to fierce along with the beautiful Raven, yeah. Actually this year uhm was the person who picked the zero to fierce artist award, we have five artists coming from the Hollywood fringe so I was able to see 45 shows at the hollywood fringe and I was the one who selected all of the fabulous women who are coming, I mean we did as a committee but I was here in LA so I helped facilitate that. So I’m very excited about the women’s voices, the community, the quality of work and that we have Hollywood coming to Humboldt this year. It’s going to be cool and just the community, the community is so supportive. I’m excited about people getting nourished in a time that we need it.