A Conversation with Abigail Gampel - TORCHES: 30+ Years of Downtown Performance

Like I always think of it as organs of the body. >> We're we're one body. So we need each other in order to >> flourish. >> Yeah. >> We need each other. You know, there's no any one that's more important than the other. >> [music] >> Welcome friends. I'm Kristen Martin and this is Torches. Today we have my dear friend Abigail Gampel. Abigail is a multi-hyphenate writer, performer, visual artist, and board member who has worked in the downtown community over the last 30 plus years. I'm very excited to speak with her today. Welcome, Abby. >> So, >> hi, Kristen. Hi. So, how did you come to be in downtown performance? >> My goodness. [snorts] Well, I think I first I first worked at Westbath >> Mhm. >> with my mom when she was in Warren Robertson's class and um it was this crew of folks and I got to play a showgirl in a null coward one act. >> Oh, >> But, you know, I'm from this town, right? And um I so I never made a distinguish I never distinguished necessarily coming downtown. >> Mhm. >> Right. You know, I just it was all kind of a a place. It was all New York City. >> And both your parents were actors. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Different eras >> that met in the 50s. In the 60s they met in the 60s. But um you know really coming downtown in the way you're speaking to it I guess was >> answering your backstage call [laughter] >> in 1989. >> Yeah. It was Tiny Mythic's backstage call of um >> I [clears throat] don't even know where that was but I know we just arrived a whole mass of us and we did a lot of grid work and different things and >> [laughter] >> uh and I'd never done that. Um, yeah, I'd never done that. You know, I' I'd been at the University of Southern California. I grew up in Manhattan, right? And then somehow ended up at USC, which was my first uh sojourn into LA. >> Mhm. >> As a non-driver [laughter] >> and as a woman who had been extraordinarily beautiful from 14 to 16 and a half and then gained weight, went into hiding. So when I got to USC and into the sorority network, which I didn't join, >> um I was fully invisible because I was kind of um floating in um you know, in a hidden situation. >> Mhm. >> Um and then I went to Bennington, which was a much better fit for me, >> right? >> Yeah. Yeah. And then I came to New York City and then I ended up doing a number of things and meeting you in ' 89. >> Are there attempts to categorize you as an art maker because you're a writer, you're a performer, you're a visual artist? Um, do you feel like people try to fit you into one instead of letting you inhabit it all? What what are your thoughts about that? >> I think that's just inherent with with the way the world works, isn't it? We try and box each other right and left. Mhm. >> So I suppose as an art maker, yes, we do things to find ways to unbox ourselves, >> particularly as artists. >> Yeah. >> Because I think that simply means we're sensitive, >> right? You know, we roll in a way that's um trying to make sense of what it is to be a living entity. >> Yeah. >> For ourselves and for the entire entirety of human beings, I suppose, you know. So, um, yeah. Yeah. And I've always been a rebel of sorts. So, I've always pushed against that. And the moment I was put into a box, I would [clears throat] dismantle it. >> Yeah. >> As a child, too. I think I fear. >> You just spoke about your identity as a woman. >> Has has your identity informed your aesthetic or or shaped your aesthetic in any way? >> Oh, totally. every part of it. Every part of it. I mean, you know, even the body I'm in, right? You know, I mean, I happen to be um I happen to be a cis woman, right? Born into that. Uh I used to be extremely long and lean, right? You know, just like gangly. >> And then at 13 suddenly became a voluuptuous lean young being. And then you're meant to have the tools to handle that. >> Right. >> Right. You know, and I grew up in Manhattan Plaza, which is [snorts] 45 floors of 26 apartments of eyes. >> Yeah. >> Right. So then you're informed by >> you're who you are is completely witnessed all the time, >> right? >> And you're in response to that, >> you know. So I didn't have I didn't come to New York City to be anything. I was in New York City and in this uh very busy place figuring itself out in Times Square in the 70s, >> you know. So, it's >> uh everything is informed. every every every moment is informed >> I think >> and my work, you know, my um coming into creating work, right, was really very much through Tiny Mythic >> and through the American Living Room, >> through the deep fun of having this home space at the Ohio Theater, >> which was so beautiful. It was like an amphitheater and also with Edge because we there literally were pins in the floorboards, right? >> The Ohio because the Ohio used to be a pin factory before it was a theater. So we did still find pins in the floor. >> I'm going to talk to you too. Yeah, we did. [laughter] >> We would find, you know, so and yet we would run barefoot. >> Mhm. >> Right. So, um, when I was saying, you know, in coming into my own work, um, which came through the American living room, which was again like University of the Streets, >> right? It was like, make it happen, >> right? >> Make it happen, you know? >> Yeah. You did two or three pieces in the American Living Room. You want to talk about those? >> Uh, yeah. I mean, the first piece I did was um an evening with Abby and Friends. Mhm. >> which really allowed me to reach out to all of these beautiful people who were my friends that I met um >> yeah along the way you know Henry Tenny who I met in a dream play which was the first piece I did with Tiny Mythic Lauren Kid Elizabeth Rosa who I met because she knew James Ferguson Tiger Carolyn >> Baller >> Gilbert Mendoza who's you know my dearest friend from Bennington, you know, all these folks, right? So, they it was like this this chance to uh put on this crazy variety show. [laughter] >> It was really fun. >> Super fun. Super fun. Um and then from that I did my first solo, Underground Goddess, which really reckoned with my experience of coming into selfhood. >> Yeah. >> Right. and beauty >> and one's right to their own beauty, >> right? >> To their own being. >> I am a narcissist. [laughter] [applause] I only exist when you see me and love my image as I do. And then I did uh put your lips together and which was a uh uh exploration of the in um I grew up in Time Square so I was very interested in prostitution >> and acting which I found to be a bit of a hypocritical business uh very much about whoring oneself but with a lot of glaze right >> and politics which was all about whoring oneself. Everything's about whoring oneself without the sacredness of what that is. Right. >> Right. Without the ownership of it. >> So I cast my mother in that and she played pure >> And Tom Deling played the character who was like his name was actually Trump Gatsby, the [laughter] character's name, >> and he had to learn to crawl across the floor to her, which would be, I think, a level of humiliation that every politician should have to go through. >> Right. And was it about Trump Trump? Was he around at that time or Totally? Oh, he was. >> Oh my god. He owned Trump Plaza on Fifth Avenue. I just remember all my high school friends were working there, you know. >> Okay. >> And it was uh Yeah. His ego was front and center. >> Uhhuh. >> Yeah. >> A little like today. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Wow. um you've worked a lot in devising and in new plays and how is that process for you in terms of what you contribute towards the making of these new works? >> I guess the devising is really the collaboration in some ways. It really is let's come together and put on a show. >> You know, now I might be stepping into making one. I haven't really created something in quite a while. >> Um, >> but you've been creating a lot of paintings. >> Yeah. And drawings. >> Yes. And life. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. I I think it's um I think that is a deeply artful I think that's uh what we each possess, right? The art of our own lives. >> Um Oh my goodness. It's, you know, I mean, if you're lucky enough to be cast in something, uh, with a director and with a group of people that you really feel, um, held by. >> Mhm. >> In a new work, that's just super fun. And and you find yourself in other ways, right? you >> um and you find other people and you also um hopefully you know have uh there is a deep generosity in the space that brings everyone into a better >> place of growth within that project >> right >> and with devising it's similar but then it's also the you know it's both right both pieces grow hopefully >> both pieces really grow with >> but it's risky too because you don't have the reliable that you know this thing's been done before and you know how it works. So, how do you manage that risk? >> But both of those, right? If it's a new play, it's the playright's >> house you're entering, >> right? >> If it's a devised play, it is uh right, it's this house that's being made by every hand on deck. Yet that's true with the playwrights play, particularly if they're um willing to let surrender some of what they've created to see what these other folks can contribute to it. >> Yeah. >> Um yeah, I mean that's um and that's really hard and that's a big difference of downtown >> and uptown because the money plays a role in that. yet in all theater right now money is a plays a role in it right so it's um >> it's kind of I mean that kind of becomes a squeeze hold on on all processes it feels you know like it's the institution that really ensures that the artist >> has the breathing space >> to to really um step into what this is even if it's going to fail. That's kind of where the real possibility of the play can happen. >> Mhm. >> Do you know what I'm saying by that? >> Yes. >> What have you learned from failure? >> Oh, it hurts. >> Um it's different levels of tools >> to work with it, right? Like the piece put your lips together and probably was a beautiful failure. >> I don't remember it that way. I remember a lot of fun in it. >> Well, a lot of fun. Um, >> and a lot of bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bra bravery on both parts. >> Oh man, totally. I think I think my uh youth and how I uh was able to hold what happened with it. Um I didn't have the tools to really be able to um take it >> and be like, "Wow, man, that was a really brave piece," >> you know, and I get very moved these days, right? So I'm um close to the skin >> these days. Um so my wish for any artist, you know, is also to have the people around that then have this kind of ability. It's almost like you know the village more of a sham shamanistic village to be like whoa look at that. >> Yeah. >> How do we hold that? How do we take it and actually assist what's happened here become what it can become >> the most of what it become. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. What it >> what we mean? >> How do we make what meaning what we mean? That's my dear friend um Melanie Joseph always says is it what you meant? >> And that's the >> highest achievement in a way that she thinks >> if it actually becomes what you meant. >> Yeah. If it's what you meant. Uh well, it's also, you know, I mean, it's also the idea of a talking stick, right? Like, >> did I hear you? >> Yeah. >> Because often even in what we say to one another, we might not really hear. >> Yeah. >> And I think um as humans, like when we're really heard, that's like it's almost like it's hard to believe, >> right? It's like, wow, I was really heard. [laughter] Uh, what has been a moment of pure joy in your art making? >> Oh boy. I mean, there are just so many, you know, I I just um I think it's the uporious laughter of watching somebody else discover something, right? It's just like I mean, in Abby and Friends, I mean, I think I just was on the floor. I couldn't believe [laughter] the willingness of these people to play, >> right? just play so fully, right? And also it was about performance fantasy. So to inhabit >> that in themselves. So oh my god, just [snorts] just um yeah, crazy joy. >> And yet, you know, I draw now, right? And um [snorts] it's uh this quiet, you know, you're in a room of probably 20 people and you're all looking at a human being. >> Mhm. >> Doing poses that are 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes. And it's this thing of um you know, it's like in any art, right? It's um really plugging into your own life force. >> Mhm. >> So that your head can go. >> Mhm. >> And that you can actually really begin to plug into what you're seeing >> from your eyes and from your spirit. And when that happens, sometimes you start to draw and my whole body will start to tremble and it's just this exquisite joy of being alive. >> It feels like meditation too like a meditation and appreciation of presence. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's beautiful. And that so that you know in in this time of non-performance >> um I find those even in walking you know even in connecting with nature right just that >> that exquisite um connection that's possible. >> Um part of what you were talking about in terms of joy is that appreciation of your other collaborators in the space. What for you makes is like essential to like a healthy collaboration? >> Wow. I you know what I'm learning because I've stepped again into um I'm in a part of the new George's jam and I am a good 25 years older than everybody in the space which is pretty cool. And so I come with uh my you know it's another uh I I there a lot has shifted. >> Mhm. >> So it's tremendous humility and there's times I've failed. Um but I also am beginning to understand what I really need. Um and I think it probably is a ground rule of um understanding a mutual ground rule um of where we are willing to go. >> Mhm. >> Because I um tend to be really willing and I have to understand that there's different levels. Yeah. >> Right. um >> is that about having um expectations that everyone's willing to meet >> so there aren't uneven expectations. There's there's expectations that are agreed upon where everyone knows where they are. >> Yes. And that and that we have and that there's a mutual understanding that we are all there to support one another. >> Yes. So it's you know if somebody steps too far to say whoa man I might need a moment >> and then you know also to understand how each person works like maybe they are need a moment and they're not the per the kind that wants to uh explore why that is >> right >> for me I might want that right but it's like no that's not where this rolls here so then but to understand there's no wrong doing in that that is simply how this particular >> group works, right? >> And this group needs to find itself. >> And hey man, hey man, it could also not happen, right? And then that's cool too. But you know, for me in a collaboration >> that is really joyous. Um it really is. I mean I I have discovered in my almost 62 years of living >> that also a uh I have also discovered a a a a thrill in being alive in the way I am right >> unapologetically in the radical acceptance of my beauty as it is >> and that's kind of what I've come up with right >> so with that same comprehension of that offering um within a collaboration is um you know I will come in with my full self if you will come in with your full self. Will you meet me here? >> Yeah. >> And within that listening is it's an art form. It's a real art form >> and it's one that I really appreciate. I love to listen >> in my board work. I think that's a gift I bring. >> And as a friend, it's a gift you bring. >> As a friend, it's a gift I bring. And and it's also um as as a as a New Yorker, I mean, this is where I'm from. And I really hold it >> I hold listening on the train. I'm aware deeply of all all who are around me and um of, you know, of even of needs they might have. Mhm. >> So, uh, >> is New York City one of your collaborators? >> I think it is. >> Mhm. >> I mean, I now live near Central Park, which is huge sanity for me >> having grown up in Times Square. I think I've earned it and I I wear it with a [laughter] I dig it and it's empty a lot of the time and I'm telling you that, but don't tell anybody else. [laughter] >> Um, I want to hop back. You talked before about creating life. You did create a life as a parent. >> How did becoming a parent um affect your arc making or did it >> hugely >> because you know I think what I make is so much about this. I think I ride life with just awe. I'm like holy canoli look at that man. You know it's like my foot hurts. It's really, you know, all of it is um, you know, I mean, that's the thing, Kristen, that was so cool that um I find really cool anyway. I mean, just the level of sensitivity. And I think that that's just the reality of us when we're plugged in. >> Yeah. >> Is that you give birth and it's like this. It's like you hear >> what's you hear >> into the earth in a way, right? You like the potential to hear what's happening in other places and the tending that is needed in other places opens up and um >> so I went very internal as a as a new mother eventually wrote a piece called through the window about identity about birth and the death of my father >> and just wow man this is the human ride I'm on right and I showed it but again I was too vulnerable and it was an interesting piece piece because I was really dealing with deep stillness like like it was literally a woman in a kitchen and the fantasies as the child napped but like everything would like the sound of a horn outside would bring me to my lover of the at the age of 18 you know it was like this this these awakenings of um who I was who I am and that I am will die >> right >> you know so Um, but I just I couldn't uh continue to show it because I just didn't have that tenacity. >> I want to shift a little to institutions. >> Did becoming an artist board member give you a different view into the way institutions functioned? >> I've served on the here board for 15 years. >> Had no intention of any of that, you know, but I kind of think of it again as university of the streets, university of leadership. >> Yeah. you know, and and at first I thought artists really need to understand this. They need to show up. You know, I had this kind of feeling that artists need to show up and be in these rooms. And I do think so because um I think we deeply help uh those places deise a little bit. >> Yeah. >> Understand? Yes. It's a board. Yes. It's a this. But it's a human. It's a living entity. So how do we open it so that we hear so that we let aspects of uh what a theater is into our ways and I think that should be on all boards frankly it should be in politics we need to >> become like I always think of it as organs of the body >> we're we're one body so we need each other in order to flourish >> we need each other you know there's no any one that's more important than the other part. Even with artistic leadership, you know, it's and and and a board I'm always amazed. Yeah. The board can fire. I don't think that's ever the per the purpose of a board. I think a board is to >> play their role as part of the b the body of the organization. >> So, um and I'm sure there's folks I've known for years on boards who are like, "How could she say that?" But I've said it. Um, [laughter] and I do think artists can be parts of it, but I think it's stolen a lot from me as an artist, too. >> In what way? >> I think I needed a place to uh show up to be of value, to feel um that I had a role. >> I think I'd felt hurt by this business. It's it is a hurtful business, you know. >> Um, and I think it gave me a good hiding place. >> Huh. And I think I just dug right in there on some levels and I didn't listen keenly enough to parts of me that were like, you know what, this is this is um this is not feeding your superpower. >> What's your superpower? >> I'm a pretty crazy performer. I mean, you know, I I roll in these places and I'm like and I push my voice down and [laughter] I'm like, you know, I'm I'm I'm pretty high velocity and pretty high caliber. And it's interesting to me that I have pushed that down. And it's like I'm so unknown, you know? It's like it it's it's um and I kind of go, "Okay, girl. What are you going to do with that? Are you going to just die with that or are you going to let yourself be known? Like what's what's going to happen here?" And I can't fully tell you. >> I can't fully tell you. >> I see you. I want to see more if you want to. >> Yeah, I think I do. I think I do. I mean, that's why I've appreciated, you know, even doing um the 25th birthday of here, you know, and it's it's just fun because you come out and you're like this thing, it's like this part of you um that has been quiet and yet it comes out and it just sort of gets on the stage and it's just like and you can just stand there and people are kind of like, "What is happening?" [laughter] You're like, "Yeah, I'm just standing here. I'm just standing here." And it's uh it's interesting because I think it probably is part of my it's part lineage. >> Mhm. >> You know, it's part that um I don't know. But I I think in truth I did need to understand before really using it what it was about for me. >> Yeah. Because the hunger um needs to be answered from oneself. >> As an artist. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> You talked about it just a little bit by implication. Um but in thinking about institutions, how have institutions supported or not supported your work? Well, you know, I don't even want to name them necessarily, [clears throat] >> but you know, when you're not seen or when you're um and I I do think, you know, I I I hope that we are changing. Um I think uh powerful women are very scary to many institutions. I I think I came from uh an exploration of sexuality. I've always believed that sexuality is a deep power source. It is the life force. And I'm not saying sexuality like a tick tock. Let me do that for you. That's not what I'm speaking to. I'm really speaking to >> um you know just one's animal right to live. >> Yeah. >> Um it it's an intelligence, it's a survival skill. It is um I think it is, you know, it's like the root system beneath the earth. It is um where we plug in to understanding um what it is. And it didn't, you know, it didn't fit the plays that were being written, >> right? >> You know what I'm saying? It didn't it just um you know I wasn't necessarily castable and it was so confusing >> and um it it I you know I think it is I I think you know with every human being I think with every human being um that is our that is the ride right to kind of inhabit ourselves. >> Absolutely. >> So I don't know if I answered your question. I mean when I have fit in you know and it's it's you know even with the electro >> should you have to fit in >> with the electrifuges I don't you know I think I didn't I didn't understand how to enter that character which I really would now excuse me um here's this young woman who's um you betrayed full you know fully fully fully betrayed and filled with um rage, but rage is the the hurt. >> It's the depth of that hurt of every part of your of not being heard, right? Your father's. But I just know like in going towards the anger, it was like angrier, angrier, angrier. There was just nowhere to go with that as opposed to, you know, just that just the betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, >> the grief, the hurt, the vulnerability. >> God. Yeah. Just the absolute loss. The complete loss. >> So, you know, if only to be able to do that again, right? >> If only to be able to do that again. >> Um, and really serve that loss and that that grief >> and Justin Vivian Bond was Clyamestra in that production opposite your Electra. >> Yeah, that's when we met was so great. Um I I think Tim had met her in San Francisco or and that was her first gig >> in New York besides doing Kiki and Herb at Cowgirl Hall of Fame, right? [laughter] And all the other places. What a beloved creature. >> Yeah. How do you define success as an artist? And has that definition changed over time? >> So much you know it's I think success is really being in relationship >> and it's relationship with self so as to offer yourself in relationship to others fully. >> Yeah. You know, there's been such a quiet time for me in many ways. So, I've really had to come into relationship with myself [clears throat] >> and come out the other end um with good feeling, >> right, >> about myself as an artist, you know, with good feeling about the hunger to explore things and to come to humility >> to reoffer oneself into a world. if you want to be a part of it. >> So I think success is Yeah, I think it really is to um >> yeah to be in the humility of offering yourself. >> Are you thinking about sustainable ways to thrive as an artist and as people as humans? >> I think it really comes to that Kristen. We are in such uncertain places and they are so um we're dealing in a real moment of unkindness >> and breaking apart of things um that are hardworked towards even for the people who are breaking them >> you know. Um I I think one must keep making one's own work and coming together with other people to make them and and [laughter] have the audacity to do that and be in joy doing it and showing it and um finding those that support it and just the continuation of >> making it. And there is support you know like I saw dream feed ad here last week. >> This is a as you well know you know it's process right that piece has been in process. >> It's a beautiful work. >> It's a beautiful work and it's uh it doesn't uh it brings all all the the cells in. It welcomes all the cells. >> I think that's what we must do. We must welcome all the cells and um and fight for them. >> Yeah. >> I mean, I get a little blurry in that because it's um I get a little blurry in that. Forgive me. >> Is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to share? >> I love you, Kristen. [laughter] >> I love you, Ebie. Thank you so much for doing this. >> Yeah, I just you know what I want to say to you? Um, thank you for asking me to do this >> because I am an unknown commodity as an artist and yet it is what I have really put my life towards. >> Grateful for you and what you've brought into the world. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And thank you for um letting me serve on your board when you were artistic director. you um helmed a deeply kind place. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. >> And thanks to you for joining us and to Hal Round for hosting. We hope you'll come back to more of torches. Mh. [music] Ooh. [applause] >> [music]