>> It was initially a little bit like a, maybe like a blind date.

>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, coming up on Open Studio, two Indigenous artists come together for Each/Other.

Then the pre-wedding rituals of women as they unfold in the new operatic film Svadba.

>> It's a very intimate story of a family, of love, and connection, and togetherness.

>> BOWEN: Plus, there's still enough love in the air for Love Stories at the Worcester Art Museum.

>> "How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways."

You know, and I'm not even an English major.

I know that one.

>> BOWEN: And an artful conversation with the new hosts of GBH's Morning Edition.

It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ First up, artists Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger often call on others in the making of their artwork.

The result is a layered sense of community.

But now, at the Peabody Essex Museum, they've come together themselves.

There is a she-wolf at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Angular and alert, she is strength.

With large, round eyes, she is warmth.

And with a pelt of bandannas, embroidered with messages from people all over the world, she is all of us.

>> Each one of those bandannas, and handling them, it's almost like, like visiting with a person.

>> There's something really nice about being able to, like, hold and carry the weight of, of our togetherness.

>> BOWEN: Artists Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger are the two Indigenous artists who came together themselves to create the she-wolf.

Titled Each/Other, it was constructed in a Portland, Oregon, studio during the pandemic.

And as you began to collaborate, what was that process like?

>> You know, it was initially a little bit like a, maybe like a blind date.

I mean, I think that both Cannupa and I are artists in which we share kind of social engagement in our practices.

>> BOWEN: Much of what you see here is the work of many hands, the result of each artist's invitation for people to step forward and help, from expressing themselves on bandannas to sharing biography in blankets.

>> I did contribute a blanket that was gifted to me by one of my best friends from college when I had my son.

>> BOWEN: Karen Kramer is a contributor to Watt's Blanket Stories sculptures.

She's also the show's co-curator.

Everything we find here, she says, is part of a robust dialogue the artists have with their audience.

>> There is a current of activism that is running through each object in the exhibition.

And then there's also a sense of activeness, that the artists are engaging between the viewer and the artwork, so there's this sort of feedback loop that's happening.

>> BOWEN: In Watt's sculptures, that reach to the sky like totem poles, she layers individual stories in these blankets.

They're poignant, she says, for being the objects that wrap us both when we enter the world and when we leave it.

In other work, Watt convenes regular sewing circles, where words exchanged end up embroidered.

>> I like to say, "I set the table, "and then what's created in that space is created by everybody sitting down and sharing in conversation."

>> BOWEN: In her work titled Companion Species, Watt contemplates what the world would look like if we placed ourselves on the same plane as animals.

>> I was listening to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On."

>> ♪ Mother, Mother ♪ ♪ There's too many of you crying ♪ >> The very first call, of course, is, "Mother, Mother," but then I started thinking about how, like, if the call continued beyond Brother, Brother, Sister, Sister, asking this question about how we're related and knowing that there's always going to be difference in the world, but, like, figuring out those places where we can come together.

>> I'm here today to show everyone out there who's willing to watch how to build mirror shields for the people who are protecting the water at Standing Rock Reservation.

>> BOWEN: Standing Rock and the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline is where Cannupa Hanska Luger brought people together in 2016 as part of his Mirror Shield Project.

The shields both protected protesters from the water sprayed on them in frigid temperatures, and forced the police wielding water hoses to face themselves.

>> I was, like, I need it to be able for anybody to make, and so I made a video how to create, put it out using social media platforms, and the response from the public surprised me.

And I think by creating these sorts of prompts, it allows the population to move towards accomplice, versus just an ally, versus just sending thoughts and prayers.

>> BOWEN: He used social media again for this sculpture, asking people to send him clay beads for the creation of a portrait honoring missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, queer, and trans relatives.

There are more than 4,000 beads here.

>> Letters would come in with the beads, in these cases, stated, you know, "We've made you 15, 16 beads.

One of the beads represents my sister," you know?

"One of them represents my mom, my auntie," you know?

So there was, there was a, there was a cathartic experience in the process of creating a prompt for people to participate that is greater than being a number.

>> BOWEN: This is all why Luger considers the word "art" not a noun, but a verb.

>> It's not about the objects, it's about the process, and the process is, is held not in museums, but in the minds and in the muscles of the people who make the work.

>> BOWEN: And Marie Watt points out that in fact, in Indigenous languages, there is no word for "art" at all.

>> If we look back far enough into our communities, we'll see where this expressive compulsion is a part of what it means to be human.

>> BOWEN: Like how we can be inherently drawn to the belly of a she-wolf whose DNA we can all recognize.

♪ ♪ (women singing in Serbian) >> BOWEN: That's from Boston Lyric Opera's new film Svadba, an adaptation of the opera of the same name by Serbian composer Ana Sokolovic.

Filmed on Truro, it finds a group of women coming together on the eve of marriage.

We'll speak with director Shura Baryshnikov and actor Jackie Davis in a moment, but first, here's a bit more of the film.

(woman chanting in Serbian, clapping out rhythm) (chanting and clapping continue) >> BOWEN: Shura Baryshnikov, Jackie Davis, thank you so much for being with us.

>> Thank you for having us.

>> Thank you for having us.

>> BOWEN: So, Shura, you directed this piece.

You composed the choreography here.

Tell me what we're seeing.

>> So this is an incredible project that's a hybrid cinematic opera with this kind of large dance component, as well.

We're really working with this beautiful collision of mediums, taking this incredible piece of music and sculpting this, you know, visual life for it, this film that also contains this incredible dance vocabulary that I crafted in collaboration with the performers.

>> BOWEN: We'll come back to that in a moment.

Jackie, I just saw you touch your chest, as she was describing the piece.

So this is very personal to you, it seems.

>> It's really, really beautiful.

And the way that it was cast, and Shura cast it, as well, helped to weave the story together.

>> Jackie played the role of Lena, which we always kind of imagined was, like, an aunt, and she guides this group of young women, and this young bride-to-be, through the 24 hours before her wedding.

So it's a very intimate story of a family, of love, and connection, and togetherness.

>> BOWEN: Well, Jackie, watching this, I was wondering, is there something universal about women coming together in those 24 hours before this momentous occasion in their life, a wedding?

>> Absolutely, it's a tradition.

You know, we've all gone through the tradition, the ceremony, and its passing that knowledge and that calmness, and that, "It's going to be all right and it's going to be beautiful."

And in that circle of love and support that, that the bride would need, I think it's really gorgeous.

>> BOWEN: So Shura, where did you start with this?

Because you have so many elements, you have the women coming together, you have the composition, and, of course, a story that you want to tell.

So what was your process for the choreography?

>> Well, this is an extraordinary piece of music.

Ana Sokolovic, who wrote Svadba, wrote this opera in seven scenes or movements.

And so there's very distinct events that occur in these seven scenes, but yet there's this kind of poetry, this, this sense of the passage of time, that you're really just accompanying these people through these events.

So there are moments where the dance really feels essential to the storytelling, and then there are moments that are quite pedestrian, the rituals of dyeing the bride's hair, or picking rose hips for the rose hip jelly that Jackie's character, Lena, is preparing almost as part of the wedding breakfast.

So, you know, really trying to craft the events of each scene to really shape this entire journey, from the arrival of the wedding party to the cottage all the way through, just to the moment before the ceremony really commences.

>> (chanting in Serbian) >> There were places where it felt appropriate to have dance kind of erupt, emerge, and be featured.

And then there are places where we're really just showing human connection and community.

And these rituals that I wanted to feel, wanted the audience to experience, is very specific to this family, and these people.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> BOWEN: What's the significance of where it happens?

It's happening, as you just mentioned, in a cottage on the beach, waves rolling in.

It's a very, it's, well, I don't know if it's isolated.

I don't know if you're, you're going to the edge before you come back.

How do you see it?

>> Well, it felt important to be connected to the landscape here in Massachusetts.

Boston Lyric Opera is, you know, here in Boston.

And, you know, the connection to the natural world is what felt important.

And I immediately saw this as a story of the beach.

You have the water, the kind of cyclical nature of tides and waves.

What was your experience, Jackie?

>> And also coming home, right?

>> Right.

>> So it was a thing of the bride wanting to be in the place that was beautiful for her.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And for her, it's her aunt's home by the water.

>> BOWEN: Well, tell me about the composition and the Serbian language-- I haven't sung it.

(laughs): But I've been told it's very complicated.

>> It's complicated.

>> (singing in Serbian) >> This is an opera for six female voices sung a cappella, and the singers were also featured in this film.

They kind of serve as an ancestral chorus, in a sense, that are, you know, bringing the bride through these rituals of the day before the wedding.

And they're an extraordinary group of singers.

>> (singing in Serbian) >> BOWEN: What did you find in the music?

How did you use the music before arriving on set?

>> Just to make it a part of my own underscoring, to have it in my body, to hear it going, and what was really lovely, too, was, we played the music as we filmed, so we did, we were able to hear what we were filming.

>> BOWEN: While this is lovely and beautiful, there is also some tension that comes into the scene here, and again, without giving too much away, what do we find happening?

>> Well, I think all major life events come with a great amount of human complexity.

So while a marriage, a union, a wedding is often a signifier of joy, there's also, there can be a melancholy.

You're moving towards something extraordinary, but you're also moving away from something that has defined you.

And so, you know, not only are we experiencing this, the journey of this young bride towards something that will ultimately be incredibly joyful in her life, we're also witnessing her contemplation about her life, and this kind of seismic change and her movement kind of away from the identity of a younger single, you know, unmarried woman, and leaning into the support of her, of her attendants and her aunt, but also, ultimately, alone in this journey, as we are when we take huge leaps.

>> BOWEN: Yes.

Finally, I want to ask both of you, you both have have had a lifetime and career in the live performing arts.

Obviously, we're in very different times.

This is a film of something that would ordinarily, in the before times, be on stage.

So Jackie, I'll start with you.

What is it like to make that transition from live into the cinematic realm, of what would have been live?

>> For me, I really looked at it as a film project.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And it was such a beautiful location, I wouldn't give up...

I wouldn't give that up for a stage, ever.

(all laughing) I'll take it-- if this is the transition, I'll do it, that's fine.

(laughing) >> BOWEN (laughing): I like the silver lining.

>> Sign me up.

>> BOWEN: That's great.

And what about you?

>> This is the first kind of major film project that I've worked on, and to step into the role of director was really a great honor.

I'm really thrilled about this collision of mediums, like, I think to bring opera, film, and dance together in this way, is...

I'm, I'm just really excited that, that B.L.O.

had this vision for this project and approached me to do this, because I... We're kind of forging new paths with mediums like this, and I hope that there will be more of it.

I anticipate that there will, because we're defining these kind of new collaborations.

>> BOWEN: And it breaks down the barriers that opera has, and people think it's supposed to be this elitist form... >> Right.

>> BOWEN: Or is an elitist form.

>> Right.

>> BOWEN: And, as we see, it's absolutely not.

>> Exactly.

>> BOWEN: Well, Jackie Davis, Shura Baryshnikov, welcome back to the show.

>> Thank you.

>> BOWEN: It's great to have you both.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you so much.

>> It's such a pleasure to be here, thank you.

>> Yes, absolutely.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: An homage to the nerd-- it's among the theater to see in Arts This Week.

Sunday, see ShowDown, an all-dance rework of Annie Get Your Gun, presented by DANCE NOW Boston at the Dance Complex Cambridge.

It's Engineers' Week at the Boston Children's Museum.

Construct, craft, and catapult your way through an assortment of activities Monday.

Wednesday, explore the crossroads of art and tech at MassArt Art Museum's Game Changers, an exhibition anticipating the future of video games.

Playwright Melinda Lopez brings interviews with today's brightest trailblazers to life in Young Nerds of Color.

Catch it Friday at Central Square Theatre.

The Talking Cure is a series of sculptures by artist Melissa Stern at the Fuller Craft Museum.

You can also hear the sculptures via their imagined monologues.

Visit Saturday.

Next, the Worcester Art Museum is where a treasure trove of artwork recently arrived from London's National Portrait Gallery.

Rarely seen outside England, they are a valentine to love in all its forms.

There's just one more month to see the exhibition Love Stories, so we're taking another look at a story we first brought you in December.

At the Worcester Art Museum, love abounds.

Romance is romanticized.

This is what love looks like, even what it sounds like.

>> "How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways."

You know, and I'm not even an English major.

I know that one.

>> BOWEN: The hand of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote that sonnet, is cast here in bronze, held by that of her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning.

>> We have not just the clasping hands.

With them, we have the paired portraits of Robert and Elizabeth, both in their separate spheres, both independent minds, but inclining gently towards each other, reflecting their continuous support.

>> BOWEN: These galleries could also be described as love on the run.

The art here represents centuries of some of the greatest holdings in London's National Portrait Gallery.

But with the museum temporarily closed as part of a $47 million renovation, they're out on an international tour.

It's launched in Worcester, Massachusetts, under the banner Love Stories.

Lucy Peltz is the show's curator, speaking to us from London.

>> Touring shows of some of our absolute cherished highlights and masterpieces that otherwise would rarely go on loan.

And it's also been an intellectual project, because for the first time, the largest and most important collection of portraits in the world, i.e.

the National Portrait Gallery, has considered from the point of view of the role of love and desire.

>> BOWEN: It's love in the time of the Renaissance.

Love among the ruins.

And everlasting love.

Perhaps I'm asking you to play psychologist here, but can you tell me why I and so many others are just so mesmerized by a sleeping David Beckham?

>> I can tell you why I'm mesmerized by it.

(chuckles) He's very beautiful.

I might imagine myself lying in bed just contemplating him, as I might do my own partner.

And so the intimacy, and just enjoying that sense of his ease.

>> Love has many facets, and it expresses itself in different ways.

And the ways in which people form connection are unique.

>> BOWEN: Claire Whitner is the Worcester Art Museum's European art curator.

>> We see very intimate moments and our own interest, sort of as, like, pop culture for the love of celebrities, and how do we consume the love of others.

>> BOWEN: She says John Lennon and Yoko Ono cultivated their love for an eager public, while Audrey Hepburn positioned herself as a muse.

>> You see this kind of multiplication of her public image in one particular photograph, getting at that point of becoming a public muse-- you know, someone that is the projection of mass desire.

>> BOWEN: Here, love is manufactured and it's messy.

Mary Wollstonecraft ran away with the married poet Percy Shelley, finding both love and the inspiration for Frankenstein.

Then there's Wallis Simpson and Edward, Duke of Windsor, who renounced the British throne.

This is Cecil Beaton's wedding day photograph.

So why the long faces?

It was taken just as he likely learned she wouldn't receive a royal title.

And then there's the love saga of Lady Emma Hamilton.

Known for dancing nude at private house parties, she was the muse of 18th-century portrait painter George Romney.

She had numerous affairs with aristocracy, including Charles Greville.

>> But ultimately, Greville becomes tired of Emma, and he sends her to live with Lord Hamilton, his uncle.

He falls in love with her and they get married.

And all is going well until Horatio Nelson shows up and begins this torrid love affair.

She bears his child, and Lord Hamilton, rather than separating with Emma, decides that they're just gonna all three of them live together in this sort of ménage à trois.

>> BOWEN: And that's not even the love that dare not speak its name.

That was Lord Alfred Douglas writing about his affection for Oscar Wilde-- a love that landed Wilde in prison, recalls Lucy Peltz.

>> There's a lovely quotation by Wilde, from a letter to a friend after he comes out of prison, saying, "The very fact that he's ruined my life makes me love him more."

>> BOWEN: This being a British show, the fitting finale is the façade of the fairy tale, the ongoing one that has played out within the royal family.

But, says Peltz, it's one that implicates us all.

>> The final section, "Love and the Lens," which ends with Harry and Meghan looking absolutely besotted with each other.

And what we know evolved, and whatever we may think of their decision, we think back to Diana and the terrible events that befell her as a result of our desire as consumers of images of celebrity life, and especially celebrity romance and celebrity heartache.

>> BOWEN: Just one of the many love stories you'll find here, for better or for worse.

♪ ♪ This week, GBH Radio debuted the new co-hosts of Morning Edition: Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel.

I'll join them every Thursday to chat all things arts, but as they wrap up their premiere week, we're flipping the script, and Paris and Jeremy join me here on Open Studio.

Paris Alston, Jeremy Siegel, thank you so much for joining us.

Congratulations, you've reached the end of your first week.

>> Yes, yes, it's very exciting, and thank you for having us, Jared.

We're very excited about everything that's going on with GBH Morning Edition.

>> And thank you, it's, it's just fun to, to be answering some questions rather than asking them right now.

>> BOWEN: Although I'm going to flip the script, as I said, and I'm just going to sit back.

We'll have a conversation about arts.

Because actually, I think it's kind of ironic, you both, in talking to you off-camera, I realize that you have more of an arts background than I think I had when, I know that I had when I started this job.

And Paris, it came from your family.

>> Yes, that's right.

So my uncle is an artist and the curator at the African-American Museum of Art at North Carolina Central University.

So I grew up going to his art openings, and I always loved the hors d'oeuvres.

(laughing) That was my favorite part of every art show, but it was really cool to be introduced to art in that way.

>> BOWEN: Cheese cubes are, are always great.

>> Yeah, they are.

(laughing) >> BOWEN: And Jeremy, I mean, I know there's kind of a fine arts background, but just two words for you: Elvis Presley.

>> Elvis Presley, yeah, say that and I'll just jump into Elvis mode.

(Bowen chuckles) No, yeah, when I was a kid, I spent a year of my life when I was a toddler pretending to be Elvis Presley.

And I mean, I was committed.

(Bowen laughs) Like, I would wear either a suit or, like, a shiny outfit to preschool every day.

I would walk around with a plunger that was my microphone.

(Bowen laughs) I forced my family to go on a family trip to Graceland to see what I believed was my home, and... (laughing) The weirdest part of that trip was that we ended up seeing Elvis's gravesite, which was very confusing for me, because I think I sort of believed... >> BOWEN: Oh.

>> Oh, no!

>> ...that I was him, so I-- a bit of an identity crisis, which I don't think happens to kids at that age that much, but yeah.

>> Is that when the dream ended?

>> That, that is kind of when the dream ended.

That's when I realized, "I guess I'm going to go into public radio," no.

(laughing) >> BOWEN: But, but you said you were three years old?

I mean, I don't think I can remember.

I don't think I have memories from three years old, but, but that was fundamental.

>> I-- yeah.

I don't remember it that well, although I see videos of it.

I see my videos of myself dancing, singing, pretending to be Elvis.

But yeah, I mean, it, it influenced the rest of my life-- I've been a musician and a music lover ever since then.

>> BOWEN: See, I have no artistic talent whatsoever.

I-- which is true.

This is why I spend my life chronicling other people's talents.

(laughing) Largely in admiration.

Paris, can you sing?

>> (laughing): You know...

If you ask me, in the shower, in the car, sure.

(Bowen chuckles) Like, I don't know if you want me to give you a little sample.

(Bowen laughs) I can.

I don't know, give me a song.

>> Um... >> We were just singing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> ♪ I love you, baby ♪ (both singing): ♪ And if it's quite all right ♪ ♪ I need you, baby ♪ >> So... >> (laughs) >> Not quite my talent, as you can see, but I do enjoy singing.

(laughing) >> BOWEN: So what about-- and this is something I look for on stage all the time-- chemistry?

So how did you two find this chemistry?

Because you clearly have it.

>> Honestly, I think it was there from the start.

>> (chuckling): Oh, yeah.

>> You know how sometimes, when you talk to people, it just is sort of, like, "Oh, whoa, this is really easy."

And I think it's because, I think... We have a lot in common, sort of in the way that we interact in some ways.

Like, I-- I just feel similar vibes from us.

But then I think we also have really different interests and perspectives.

So it's sort of, like, you know, I always want to know what Paris is thinking about something, but I also always feel very comfortable asking what she's thinking.

So it's just sort of been easy from the start.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, and I hadn't thought about this until now, but I grew up with two older brothers, and I think I can sort of put Jeremy in that role, almost, of just, like, "Oh," like, you know, "he's one of my brother"-- I mean, you know...

He's my Morning Edition brother, right?

And we're, we're sort of familial in that sense, where we're getting this rhythm, like, in the same way that you know your, your brother, your siblings, as patterns, right?

He doesn't get on my nerves like my brothers.

Even though I love them very dearly.

(laughing) >> BOWEN: Well, you both make me sad to be in this chair by myself.

Now I want a buddy, I want an on-air buddy.

>> Well, you come on with us, and we'll hang out on Morning Edition.

>> Yeah, you're going to be on our show, and honestly, we gotta come back on here.

I mean, this is, this is so much fun.

>> Absolutely.

>> BOWEN: You have a very good rhythm.

Jeremy Siegel, Paris Alston, congratulations.

We are so excited at GBH that you are leading our days with Morning Edition.

>> Thanks, Jared.

>> Thanks so much for having us, Jared.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: They are fantastic.

And that is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Next week, at the Gardner Museum, Portraits as Resistance from a South African visual activist.

And artist Jeffrey Gibson makes way for a multicolored monolith.

Until then, I'm Jared Bowen-- thanks for joining us.

As always, you can visit us online at gbh.org/OpenStudio.

And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @OpenStudioGBH.

I'm @TheJaredBowen.

♪ ♪