[ Music ] >> Well, artist Danielle Luiz Redick and Giuseppe Quinn are calling into big blend radio today to talk about what it's like to be artists and residents at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in Northern New Mexico. And this is one of the many artist and residency programs offered by the National Parks Arts Foundation. I go to nationalparksartfoundation.org because they do have a residency program up there at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in October. And they have all kinds of residence programs from Gettysburg to Hawaii, you name it, the Dry Tortugas, so really some incredible opportunities there. And then to keep up with Danielle and Giuseppe, go to redquinn.com and that's red, the color red, and then Q-U-Y-N, redquinn.com. And to find out more about the park, go to nps.gov/chcu. Welcome, Danielle and Giuseppe, how are you? >> Hi, how are you, Lisa? >> Nice to be here. >> Oh, doing good, you know, we're both in the Southwest. We're currently in Yuma, Arizona, getting ready to go do some more travel up in California, but we haven't been up to the area of New Mexico where you are. We've covered -- he'll eclipse dwellings back in the Southwest area of New Mexico, but what's it like at Chaco Culture National Historical Park? It seems very ancient and spiritual in a way from what I've looked at. >> Well, what I've experienced here is not only all seasons and the short time that I've been here, there's been snow, there's been beautiful sun. I witnessed a beautiful full moon at Pueblo Benito last night, and just, you know, we're really high up at feels like, and it feels mostly timeless. It feels like time has really sort of frozen here, yet things, yet you see the evidence of time having passed, like in the ruins. So that's what comes out to me the most, is the timelessness, yet the cycles, you know, with the seasons and the moon, and because you see it all. >> I think that experience has been, and many of the other ancient places I've been, it almost -- the story that I get from them is about the progress since then and how we've moved along, and so many of those places are, you know, they've been covered over by civilization, and we discover them when we excavate to build a new road or something like that. This, it's so remote here that, you know, it just hasn't been touched by modern man, and, you know, and it was able to be preserved because of natural location. And so, to come here and see how time has passed in the ruinness of it, you know, the buildings are not intact, they're ruins, they're walls, and stuff like that. But there's so much of it that's left, and yet it's so old. It's just an amazing witness to how time and -- and us in time. >> Mm, you know, I've totally understand that experience, and when you -- you've got to go there, you know, to really feel that. But for both of you, because I know your art is very different. I know you like to work with puppets, I hear, and then you do a lot of performance art, and then also video, for you, Danielle, tell us a little bit about what it feels like, what are you creating as an artist in residence? >> Well, I did create a puppet, but I have sort of, you know, we want to leave something behind, so we focus more on a video. We're making a nice movie, and the way we present the movie will be within a performance. I didn't include the puppet in this particular piece. >> You got cut. >> You got cut. >> What's happened? >> What happened? >> Four puppets. >> The puppet hanging of the puppet in Choco. >> Yeah, but so, you know, it's very fluid. So what we'll leave here is a film where if we've created a nice film for Choco Culture National. >> And we think that that's what we've discovered. We, you know, we do -- we're storytellers. So we'll use any means possible to tell a story. >> The best way possible. >> And we came here thinking that that might be what we would use, but in the process of being in the space and feeling it, it just, you know, it had its own story that -- and it's about time, like I said. I think that we really discovered the time passing, you know, just, you know, the idea of them sitting for generations watching the sun, and where it -- where its shadow is cast or where its, you know, sliver of light is cast at a certain time and a certain day in a certain place if you're sitting right here, how many times you have to sit and watch that over and over and over again to see that something's going to happen sometime, you know, that's the story we discovered. And the fact that the walls are these ruins, you know, it's just, you know, it's a wonderful marker for this. But really, the story here is about the people that watched the sun. >> Wow. >> But they got from that, and how it motivated them to, you know, essentially have what we would consider now burning man. And, you know, right here in Chaco, you know, where, you know, 1247 BC or, you know, or AD, you know, we're going to have a big party here, and it's going to be on the day this sliver of light, you know, shoots right through the middle of the spiral. And, you know, think about the faith and the inspiration that that, you know, gave to thousands of people that would meet here on just like that one, you know, and we still don't get it. We still don't know how long, how often, how many, you know, all this kind of stuff about this, so there's all this mystery too that's just beautiful about the space. We've got these ruin walls, and we have an inkling about some of the cultural aspects of the people that lived here because of some descendants. But the reality is, the people here now live a whole different, you know, creation myths and stuff like that. So we're still guessing about 1200 years ago. >> Wow. >> Why did they do this over the next, you know, 600, 700 years? Why? And then why did they stop? You know, just beautiful mysteries, you know. >> You know, it's interesting when you go back into these ancient cultures, and there's a patience level to this too because it's not in easy life, especially when some of the places we've been to where there was the cliff dwellings, and we were in Tonto National Monument, and the people there moved around a little bit, and there were different dwellings, and through history they didn't get preserved except for Tonto. And all of a sudden, this entire tribe of people disappeared. And some may have connected with other tribes and formed new ones and mixed tribes, if you will, but it seemed like they disappeared. Was there any of that kind of evidence out there too at Chaco? >> It's hard to say because, you know, with my layman's eyes, and I've gone to a few of the tours and stuff like that, it's hard to get an idea of why they left. You know, the mystery is so, like, deep, and so what I've discovered is I've had to create, like, which story would I create for myself here? Like, what does it feel like here for me, and what really spoke to me here was the fact that this was a sea that we have a record of history of humanity and the stones that you can touch, and I think that's, for me, that's where the feeling is, is that this land is so rich in story, not just the Chacoans, the ancient Chacoans, but millions of years before that, like the rest of the earth, but we really see it here, and it feels so touched, and the land really invites me to pay attention and to look, and to look, and it's fractal. You know, you look out in the distance, or you look really close, and it's just so fractal, and because, and you really, if folks come here, they have to do the hikes. I really highly recommend that country hikes, because, like, the South Mesa, going out on the South Mesa and seeing the expanse, if people walked here, that walk was, yeah, that's sub, that's sub distance, man, that's some commitment, what belief, what prevailing thought brought people here, because you can still see the expanse of just land, and it still looks like a sea, you can see where the water lies. Yeah, it's obviousness of its, it being an ocean floor, you know, in the, in the, the tiering of the, of the layering of the rocks and stuff like that, and the, you know, the little critters that you see that are embedded in them, and it's like, wow. Oh, the fossils things, yeah, that's cool, huh? You know, and, and just that idea that they were sitting watching the, for the sun, and they were being these things too, you know, whoever was here, however long they've been coming here, you know. I think, I think a lot of the stones that, that, that were used to build the walls, um, had fossils in them, and, and I think of that, you know, those fossilized stones being used to build a wall, and it's almost as if those life forms that are now fossilized are still floating in space, in a sense, you know, even though they're, they're locked in this brick, they're still floating. It's like a tomb, yeah. Yes, you know, frozen in time there, but now in a wall, and, um, I mean, I don't know, sure that they're a fossil to the wall, but this is, you know, again, this is my layman, layman thighs, because I don't know anything about archaeology. I'm just imagining, and I think, for me, what I brought, what, what I want to bring to this piece that I'm creating here, um, that we're creating here, is the idea of, that, that you can, that your imagination can just go crazy, because it's a mystery to everybody. So I can just imagine anything and just be as pure with that as, as, as I can be. And, um, any story I come up with is my story, and it's like, nobody else for sure. This is my mystery. It is. It's my story that I'm sticking to it, you know? Yeah, you know, there is this, you know, there's a, a basic agreed-on story about Chaco, and then there's like this point at which every one of the people that you'll talk to goes off into their, you know, their version of the big gaping mystery parts. And, and it's interesting how you hear, you know, everybody you talk to has a different, a really a different idea about what Chaco is, and where it went, and, and, you know, how it, and then why, and what for, and all this kind of stuff. The fact that they, you know, just as far as the Chacoian culture, you know, they, they just, one of the real mysteries for me is that there just aren't many, uh, examples, or they haven't found many cases of people dying here. Yeah, they, they haven't found a burial site. And, you know, that, you know, for the, for the years that this was, it took to develop this, the culture that lived here for, you know, the, you know, the stuff that we do know about it, that's another mystery. Like it worked on for like 300, 400 years, like one, like, but, and, and yet there are, you know, they found only like a handful of, of, of human remains. Um, and so, which is, but they also say that a lot of this area has not been excavated. So, you know, we're only like 10% of what, what's the potential of, of, of, is, is here is buried. And that's interesting. Yeah, when you go ahead. Well, the name change, you know, it used to be Chaco Canyon National Park. Now it's Chaco Culture National Park. And that's a significant difference, you know, because this is now recognized as the center of a 68,000 mile, a square mile culture that included four different distinct languages that we know of. Wow. Very different cultures in themselves, you know, that seem to have, you know, gone on to be the, the native people that we know of now. But in many ways not, because there's so many different versions of it that kind of, you know, and, and why, you know, why did this shatter so much? That's what I, you know, my kind of the interest in this is like this story that went to a certain point and then just just couldn't go anymore. What was that breaking point, you know, for that? I find it interesting that you talk about the ceremonial sites there, but then you talk about like, okay, there's not really that many burial sites or remains. One of the, it was out in Silver City, New Mexico. I went to, we went to a museum and they actually had one of the, uh, keep it, where they were sleeping. And if someone had died, they actually, you know, buried them inside the house, inside the hut, and set them on fire afterwards. And so I wonder if they burned the bodies to some sort of, but, that, when that question comes up, the answer is they haven't found a place where they would, you know, usually in a case like this over, uh, over many years, they would, they would do that kind of thing in a, in a one place after a while. And there's just no evidence of them having found that, you know, yet, um, where they would take them to, you know, that's what they haven't found yet. Is anything like that? Any cases of burning or, or, or like a centralized, this is where we take the, you know, the dead people too. So, and any idea that some people came here from, you know, central Mexico and stuff like that, you know, 500, 600 miles, and then would carry their, you know, granted loved one back, that's a lot of, another commitment that, so, you know, they would bring logs from to build, you know. That's true. That's true. They built a lot of stuff. And, and so they were bringing stuff, you know, like, what's carrying your loved one back? Yeah, we just carried three logs 75 miles, you know. Yeah, that's true too. But at the same time, they don't, they, that's one of those mysteries that they really don't have a good answer for you. Well, you know, and, and, and all in all, and to speak to the spiritual aspect of this place for me, um, um, really, it's something I've, I've, I've, and I tried to look it up, but, you know, internet here is non-existent. You're out in the boonies of New Mexico. I can't even look up a word. I'm pathetic as bad. I just think, but, uh, I was trying to find the opposite of, of claustrophobia, um, because, you know, which is, you know, being fear of being in the close space, but, you know, what about the joy of being in a huge space, that expansiveness? You know, is there a word for that? You know, the feeling that I got standing on top of South Mesa and just seeing like miles, uh, you know, it's, I'm a city ground, you know, born in New York City. Okay. I lived in the project. I was 13 floors up, but I'm not afraid of heights, but this was like, I'm looking out the miles and I can see for miles, but, and, and so what's, what's the word for that feeling where it's like, I felt expansive. I felt like, wow, there's just me and all this space, um, so what's the word for that? And that was, no, no. So that's what it's made me think about, and that's where the spirituality comes from me. I got to experience my, the expansion of my spirit myself. Um, uh, and that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's very humbling too, I think when you're in three weeks, you think about it, it is pretty humbling when you're in places like that. And it really does when you go and you see these, what these people have done and built and the labor. And then you think about, here we are in this very high paced society where, yes, we are connected to the internet and we're all connected with all these things. And now you're out in the middle of this area without all of that. And you're looking at genius work, you know, from these amazing people, you know, it's a very, it's a, it's a, you're in two different worlds. So one actually got you both to say, we want to go and do the artist in residency program at Chaco. Um, well, I, I have been sort of gently following, um, the air program, the, um, artist in residence program at, at the national parks and, um, and I applied for this residency when I saw the call for it because I felt like, oh, I, I felt a story there. I felt something there. So, and really the deadline was in two days when I, when I saw all for it and I'm like, oh my god. Okay. And something popped into my, I have an idea and I just slammed this proposal out and two days and got it in. And, uh, so I was probably gonna, I didn't have too long to think about it. I couldn't be like, yeah. Well, I, I, and Danny, uh, she's been kind of what you are doing actually. She has had this idea for a long time about visiting all the national parks. And as fact, uh, when we first met, we met on a tour of a show called Stonk. And while we were touring, she, um, was looking for the air stream trailer that she was going to get to do that. And we ended up getting a nice 31 foot air stream and we renovated and stuff like that. And, you know, other things came along when life happened while we were busy making other plans. And, um, that, you know, kind of disappeared, but then these, and then she started seeing and realizing that she could do this artist in residency type idea and had a whole east coast, uh, I guess you apply. Well, I haven't, I, well, I haven't applied, but I want to apply for a Gettysburg as well because I have a, a really strong hit for that. Um, yeah. Uh, and we want to go there too. So we're, we're gonna have to race. So, um, yeah, I, I've always wanted to do all the national parks. That's been a long time dream of mine. And, uh, does that be, and I have found ourselves creating performance pieces for specific things. For example, we, I was, I got a phone call from Wifold, New Mexico, um, to, uh, inviting me to direct their circus luminous. They have a circus every year at the Lenzig Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe. And they get a different director every year, every other year. Um, so I was invited to direct and I pulled Giuseppe in, uh, to, uh, help with video and stuff like that. And we, I'd never worked with circus performers before in my life. Kind of. I mean, Giuseppe is from a circus family, but we've never done circus together. So here I am. I've, in, in a month, I had to write and direct this show with, uh, 25 circus performers. Um, and, uh, being in a month, we had a, a circus show. So it's kind of what we do is like, uh, one, uh, specific events where we create a story and about, you know, usually it's about that. We're using what we have. I got 25 circus. Just let me see what you guys do. Okay. Let's make a story with that and go. But because, you know, I mean, part of our thing is that we, you know, story is what I, my personal pleasure is that story is what makes human. Uh, you know, it's what drives us, uh, to, to be different than the rest of the beasts, you know? And so the, the, the, we know, we'll, we'll go to war and we'll fall in love, we'll buy products, we'll, we'll hate things, we'll love things, you know, over stories that, you know, for many different reasons could be taken or leave them, leave it left. And so, you know, the idea that we can, you know, it's almost a challenge for us to go into a space and say, we can create a story here that will entertain the audience and, you know, not all about the messages or anything like that. But the idea that what's, what's this place have, what's the story this place have to tell, you know? And, you know, science, we bring in what levels of stuff that we, you know, dabble in in all different fields, but ultimately because of both of us coming from performance, audience oriented background, it's always, we got to satisfy the audience, you know, it's just about us getting to do this. It's about making the audience happy, sad, making a good show, you know, make them happy that they spent their time with us, you know. I think it's very important what you're doing in regards to storytelling and, you know, being able to use body movements and puppets too, even if you've killed the puppet. But, I think it's important because, you know, when it comes down to the ancient cultures, everything was through story, that stories were told and handed down through generations. And now because of, you know, the different dialects, the different languages, and because of what happened also to the Native Americans, these stories are almost going, they're almost gone. Like, that's why we don't know everything about them. You know, they didn't write it down like, here's your book, you know. So being able to do these storytelling episodes for people to be able to kind of get their mind in it and give them that extra step of understanding something different than what we normally do, you know, sending emails or text messages, you know. So it's a better way of communication. And you know, and all these things are just the evolution of exactly what they were doing. You know, they discovered that they could mark on a cave wall. And when they marked on that cave wall, they were looking at that mark with the story that prevailed in all of their heads at the time. So when they looked at that, they saw the Game of Thrones or whatever. They saw the level of story that they were able to translate at that time. We are so, you know, it's, you know, it's a weird use for the word, but we're so sophisticated nowadays. Hakes a Game of Thrones or a Marvel, you know, movie blockbuster to dazzle us. But you know what, a hand print on a wall back when that was like never seen before, that was pretty darn cool. And it filled their heads. But it activated the imagination too, because when I need some of the glyphs on the rock art or the petroglyphs or the, I'm like, wow, like what could that, what's the story? I make up my own story. You know, it's like my mind is activated. And I get to advise that. And according to Joseph Chilton Pierce, if you read one of his latest books, he expressed concern about us as a society, not exercising our imagination. You know, children don't like read books and create the pictures for themselves anymore, like they used to. And let's now all the images are just given to us. And we don't, and we don't, and that muffled can atrophy. The imagination muffled can atrophy. That's scary. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, the arts are being taken out of schools halfway. You know, it's like the art is so important. And I think what's so important in regard to the arts being in parks, it's another way to draw people into a park as well. We've lost our connection with that creative gene. And quite frankly, when we live in corporate worlds that we have built, businesses need that creativity. So that, if we get rid of our imagination, we're all screwed, quite frankly, you can't have that. Different reasons for like, you know, let's, you know, the global warming, you know, let's, you know, we're going to need an imaginative way out of that. And it's not going to be a just the same thought process that got us in, as Einstein said. You know, the idea that we need to be creative and imaginative and, and yet do it. That's, I think, the other side of it. You know, there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of, you know, imagination, but people tend to think that that's for somebody else to do. That, you know, I watch a movie, I go, I watch TV, I, you know, even of reading a book. But the idea that you would write a book, that you would make a movie, you know, that's, I think that we need to get back to that, where everyone thinks that they could tell a story, even if it's, you know, it's kind of happening, I think, as, you know, the whole eep. And, you know, people get to write their own book and publish, it will publish their own book these days. It's a lot easier. So hopefully that's starting to turn around. You know, we can all have a lot. There's a lot, yeah, there's a lot of fame and in music. There's a lot of, you know, independent music, you know, out there, which is great. But, and also, you know, I think there is a changeover. Even look at people now, adults are coloring in. That's one of the top best-selling books on Amazon are coloring in books for adults. So that tells you the need. And be able to use both sides of our brain. That's a need, too. We need that balance. You know, we need that creative side. And we need to go between left and right, you know. So that's, I think this is so cool about having art and then the cultural side and nature. You're seeing the nature side of New Mexico, too. It's a nice blend of things. I've got to use that word blend. So, yeah. I wanted to say, too, that one of the interesting things about the location that Chaco is in is that it, even though I, as I say this, the campsite is full right now. But the idea of, you know, people that come here, they had to make a little effort, you know, nowadays, even. Even the drive is out of the way. It's, you've got, you know, either way in is a 16-mile dirt road or more than that. When I came, at one point, it was in the middle of a rainstorm and I came from the west side. And it was impassable, where I almost ended up in the ditch with the muddy road. And, you know, so it takes some effort to come to Chaco. Then if you really want to really, really cool stuff, you got to, like, get out of the car and walk up the side of a mesa and, you know, do a little hike and fit through a crevice, blah, blah, so, you know, it kind of, there are a lot of places you go to and it's about the people there, the tourists, you know, you're seeing a lot of people. Here it, it feels very remote. It feels, you know, you see people every once in a while, but yet it's like, it just, again, the time and the space that this place represents is, I think why they stopped here. Why it was the central location for a 68,000 square mile culture? Because they, somebody came along here and went, "Oh, wow, check this out." And then what we do now is that they said, "Hey, this would be a cool place to have a festival. Let's do it." You know, okay, what does it take to get 2,000 people here for solstice? I don't know, put some flyers on it. But it's age, you know, you know, whatever, but, you know, and now do it 1,200 years ago, you know. Yeah, that's amazing. And it's amazing that you got to see it, because I know it's one of the very few national parks that actually is part of the dark sky program. And it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site designated in 1987, everyone. I mean, this is just really one of those amazing places to go. But you got to see the full moon out there. So that's, you know, amazing. Yeah. And even just special thing for me, I rode my bike. This is great nine mile loop to see all the sights. And I rode my bike to the moonwalk last night, and I rode it back. Most people drove back, but I rode my bike back at night under the full moon. And I left two were tours over so I could beat the cars, and it was beautiful. And the park closes. You know, the loop closes at sunset. So I felt very privileged to be out. To be out. I'm in a full moon. I'm in a full moon on my bike. Oh, the last question, I want to know what's it like actually staying in a park for a month. I mean, what's it like for you guys? So you've got your, you've got your Airstream, right? And you're living in your Airstream in the park. Oh, no, we don't have our Airstream. They put us up in one of their apartments. It's pretty good. It's a little too quick. We're not roughing it. No, it's very nice. It's one of the, they put us into, I'm right next door to the volunteers and the Rangers. So where they stay, the folks who stay here full time, they have housing. Nice, nice. Well, that's cool. We're like roughing it. Yeah, no. I mean, you know, the thing is it's a, it's a, what, four hour drive to the closest food type thing. You know, it's that kind of. Well, one and a half in the farm, only an hour and a half. But that's, okay. So three hours round. Oh, yeah. So, you know, but it's, you know, that to get to the closest decent food and, and stuff like that. So, you know, the feeling that there's a lot of fracking going on around here. So the water is pretty lame. But really? Oh, yeah. Well, I think the, I think the fracking thing was, was, it isn't happening. That was the latest news I heard there was talk about it. But, you know, the, yeah, it has happened. Yeah, and it, it's, that's the war going on everywhere. You know, for all of our natural areas, there's a big fight to keep it off. And it's one we all have to be aware of and stand up against, because it's, I mean, it's fracking, tapping at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, right outside that would, I mean, it's like Theodore Roosevelt really, you do that to his park. And then, you know, it's not like, you know, the underground doesn't have like a boundary that's like, you know, okay, when you frack and crack all this, you know, rock underneath here, it's going to stop at that border. They're drilling in sideways. They're doing all this stuff to get under that anyway. So it's, I think it's, yeah, it's one of those things that we really need to consider. Although I have to say the price of oil dropping through the, you know, the floor is, seems to be the best solution to it. You know, that always stops in their track, you know. So as soon as we find the way to use our daily choices to make the, the better alternative, you know, when, when and where possible, you know, that's going to make that happen quicker than just biting it, you know, standing. Well, let's put it this way, the people that you're studying, they're Chaco, the Chaco culture, they knew about the sunlight, you know, they understood the importance of sun. And so, you know, there's such a thing as the sun and harvesting the sun with, and when you're harvesting the sun, you're not hurting the sun, you're not hurting anything. And so hopefully we'll, we'll continue doing what we're supposed to do in that direction. But I want to give everyone your website at redquinn.com that's red and then q-u-y-n redquinn.com. And then to find out more about the park, go to nps.gov/chcu and get on board with the National Parks Arts Foundation, an amazing group. They partner with the parks and all kinds of partners and art groups to create these programs. We too can go stay in a park all over the place. I mean, they're doing this all across the country. So go to nationalparksarctfoundation.org. Thank you both for joining us. It's, you know, really a pleasure having you both on our show. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Yes, it's been great. Nice meeting you. I can't wait to see all the work that comes out of this, the video. So hopefully we'll all be able to get a chance to see what you've created and the stories you tell from that. So thanks again and you take care. All right. Thanks. [Music]
