ASU Gammage artist in residence mines his own life for 'How To Get Free'

Christopher Rivas, artist in residence at ASU Gammage, was a guest on The Show in May. Not only is he a theater artist, Rivas is also an author and a podcaster.

In that first conversation, Rivas previewed a theater piece he’s been developing called “How To Get Free.” He was in the early stages of the project then, and talked about how it was inspired by his experience in relationships; his life as a person of color in America; and the Greek myths of Sisyphus, Tantalus and Narcissus.

Now, the project is ready to debut — Rivas will bring “How To Get Free” to the stage at ASU Gammage on Saturday, Nov. 15.

Rivas joined The Show again for a follow-up conversation on how the piece has evolved over the last few months, starting with how he’s woven those Greek myths into the story.

Full conversation

CHRISTOPHER RIVAS: We use these lessons to not punish ourselves anymore, you know, to set ourselves free. I think these are lessons that are still very present and I think we all embody them in different ways. And I make the case in the show that you are embodying them right now. You are pushing a boulder up a hill you don't need to push up a hill anymore.

You are tantalized by something so much so that it changes you and it maybe steals some of your peace and your presence and your joy. You are narcissistic in a way that it can cause suffering — and so am I.

SAM DINGMAN: You know, I'm really glad you mentioned this idea that part of that revelation that you're going for is the "and so am I" part of it. Because I had the opportunity to see a workshop production of the show this summer, and we had talked in our last conversation about your interest and willingness to use your own experience as part of the storytelling.

But even in spite of the fact that you had shared that in our last conversation, I was really struck by just how personal the writing in this was. The language that you're using in a lot of the early part of the show felt like it was almost a transcript of a real therapy session that you might have had.

You were speaking about very specific details of a relationship that I imagined must have had something in common with real experiences that you had. And there's also, I should say, photos of you as a little kid in the show.

RIVAS: As a big kid.

DINGMAN: As a big kid, yeah. You're really mining yourself here.

RIVAS: You know, the way I make work is: that's my cross to bear. Like, I don't know how to make work another way without my own experience. We could look at our own life and we could see the world. And so that's how I know to make art. It's how I've always made art.

So I don't feel vulnerable. I don't feel not vulnerable. It's just something I've become, really. It's my practice. It is my practice to get closer to myself, to unveil myself, to share myself with others.

You know, I have a therapist who says, "I'm not trying to, like, be like, 'Oh, I'm so good at this. Look at me, how vulnerable I am.' That is performative vulnerability. You wrote it, and so you're prepared to share it. Real vulnerability is when you're not prepared, when there's no script."

And so I'm still doing that work as well.

DINGMAN: You're saying, like, being vulnerable in your therapeutic treatment.

RIVAS: In your life.

DINGMAN: Yeah.

RIVAS: Real vulnerability is ... there's no script, there's no play I wrote that I've been developing for over two years — there's just the moment. And then you have to decide, are you going to close off? Are you going to open up?

And so, you know, when I perform these pieces, you know, it's like, I was willing to share that, I did the work to share that.

DINGMAN: Yes, I see what you're saying. But that is very interesting in the context of this show, because the level at which you are kind of mining these personal experiences, I hear you saying that it is cultivated. It is within the language of performance. The audience can rest assured that you are safe in doing this.

You're not putting yourself in psychological danger before their very eyes.

RIVAS: Yes, I'm not. I do like to say ... as an artist, this is what I encourage. We share scars, not wounds. And so I have done the work to look at the wounds, and they are now scars; and I think scars are beautiful, and that is across all my work and it is a tenet, I really believe, for all artists.

We share scars, not wounds.

DINGMAN: But then it is interesting to me that — all of those things acknowledged — you are doing a lot of things in the actual presentation of the show, it seems to me, to invite the audience to consider where those boundaries really are.

For example, one of the things that you did, again, at least in the workshop version that I saw, is you literally turned a camera on yourself. Not just in terms of the way the writing worked, but you actually were holding a camera that you were pointing at yourself, and then we see that projected on the walls.

Another fascinating element of the production, in my opinion, was that for the first portion of the show at least, you were literally contained within a box. It was almost like you were trapped within yourself, and then at a certain point, you get free, as it were, of the box.

RIVAS: Yeah, I like what you talk about with the edge, that is something I do love. You know, I'll keep in this "scar-wound" metaphor; the exciting part, to me, of healing and growth is the rim of the wound as you watch the wound heal. It's not so far detached that it's like, "I don't even think about it." It's not ... so fresh that it hurts to poke, and it feels like actively happening.

That's why theater, that's why art. Otherwise, it's boring. It has to feel active, like I'm experiencing this in the moment.

And then there's the, you know, the Buddhist element in me, which really just believes all we're ever doing is interacting with ourselves. It's just different versions of you and you really just want to understand and know you, and if we all kind of understood and accepted that truth, our eyes might open a little. We wouldn't be trapped in that box of "me, me, me."

DINGMAN: Well, that is an implicit argument, I feel like, that you and other artists are making by putting yourself into the work ... in a way, you are saying, "Aren't I just you in a different body with a different set of specific embodied experiences? But if I can put my true experience out there and you can relate to it, on some level, you and I must be each other."

RIVAS: Yes. You know, if the piece is called "How To Get Free," one of the best ways we can get free is to think of this "me," this literal "me-ness" in us, less in our lives. Like, if I can think of me less, I have more room to think of others and to actually see others, and see what's here and what's happening.

I do make the argument that, for a couple of times a day, if we can plant ourselves off-center, there is a tremendous peace and freedom that can take place.

DINGMAN: Well, that is, again, something that you actively do in this production, because for all that I have been talking so far about the very personal camera at the self, literally and figuratively elements, of this show, there are also a number of moments where you actually invite the audience onto the stage and you address them directly, and you invite the audience to interact with each other.

You invite the audience to literally change the stage.

RIVAS: We call the piece — you know, it goes from analog to digital, or it goes from small to large — there is really an evolution of how you experience the piece even, right? And that, to me, is — I want to embody also the evolution. I want to embody, like we just said, the wound to the scar.

I want to embody the realization to the living out the realization.

DINGMAN: Well, Christopher Rivas is a theater artist; currently the artist in residence at ASU Gammage, and his show, "How To Get Free," is 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, at ASU Gammage.