EP 8. Embodiment Artistry and the Healing Power of Storytelling with LENNY LANGLEY
Welcome to Episode 8 of Soul to Life!
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Scroll down for the text transcript.
In this episode I talk with my sibling Lenny Langley, a queer writer, dancer, model, and performer based in LA.
Our conversation explores Lenny's creative journey and how they're living the archetypes of Leo and Aquarius through their boundary-pushing embodiment artistry.
Lenny shares about their creative process, the healing power of storytelling, and how the pandemic unexpectedly catalyzed their artistic mission (along with a dramatic lifestyle change).
You can tune in to Lenny's debut show "Sugar and Sh*t" on Livestream worldwide or attend at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles!
SHOWTIMES: August 8, 21, and 29 at 1 pm PST / 4pm EST / 9pm UK / 10pm EU
Info and tickets are available at:
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TEXT TRANSCRIPT:
Stephanie Briggs 00:01
Welcome fellow traveler. I'm Stephanie Elizabeth Briggs and this is Soul to Life, a podcast for old souls on the multi dimensional journey of being human.
Stephanie Briggs 00:27
This is episode eight, featuring a very special guest: my real life, flesh and blood sibling, Lenny Langley. Lenny is a queer writer, dancer, model and performer currently living in Los Angeles, formerly based in New York, and often on the road. Currently, they are getting ready to debut their original show as part of the Hollywood Fringe Fest starting on August 8.
Lenny is a perfect guest for this unusual Leo season as someone who really embodies the Leo Aquarius axis through their creative work, which uses narrative storytelling to explore topics like trauma, addiction, mental illness, sex, and gender.
Our conversation touches on many topics relating to the creative process, imagination, community, feminism, and everything that comes with being human. Lenny also shares about working with inner blocks and self censorship as a writer, the healing power of storytelling and how their pandemic experience unexpectedly catalyzed their artistic mission.
Even though we get to talk all the time, it was such a special delight for me to have this conversation with Lenny. And I'm just so thrilled to share it with you here on Soul to Life.
Before I share our conversation with you, just a quick content warning that this episode is not appropriate for kids. Our conversation includes profanity, and also frank discussions of trauma, sexuality and the adult entertainment industry. So I hope you will listen with open mind and heart to my conversation with Lenny Langley.
Lenny Langley
Hello
Stephanie Briggs
I'm so excited that we're finally getting to have this conversation on the podcast. I know it's something we've talked about since before I even had the podcast.
Lenny Langley 02:39
I'm so excited too. It's really lovely to be here.
Stephanie Briggs 02:45
Yay!
We are recording this just after the first full moon in Aquarius in 2021. And both of us in this Aquarius Leo portal that's happening right now, I wanted to start by just kind of going back to you as a kid and how creativity and self expression was like part of your life.
Lenny Langley 03:13
Well, I definitely feel like my imagination has been one of my life's compasses, and sort of a life raft, especially amidst challenging times in my life. And as a kid, my imagination was definitely the safe haven place for me amidst all of the troubling environments that we were around.
And despite all of the trauma, I was always retreating to my imagination to basically I mean, be in a fantasy world and to have another place to go so to speak, even though I couldn't remove my physical self from the actual experiences.
So I definitely spent a lot of time outside in the backyard playing with animals figurines, making up stories about their life, I would play spies and I'd be like, with the notebooks staring at the neighbor being like “10:32 man leaves house and gets in car” like, but these are kind of observational qualities about humanity that I was developing.
And then I would like chalk the entire driveway into a community center and then bike around and talk to imaginary friends.
So I was always focused on these community oriented ways of interpreting the world but also creating stories and making a lives for people, even if they were my imaginary animals or other people in the neighborhood that I didn't actually know that well, was a big past time, which is a huge influence for the rest of my life for sure.
Stephanie Briggs 05:18
Wow. Yeah, I remember the the chalk roads. And that was so fun.
I definitely remember you being so imaginative and very much like in your own world, and which I understand more now than I did at the time. Because even though we were both in our family, I think we had really different experiences and were kind of put in different roles and had to survive in that but like, definitely, just remember you always being just you.
It sounds like all these different ways of like accessing your imagination as like a sanctuary from, like, the chaos and the all the unpleasant reality of, of what was going on in our family.
So we have a highly traumatized family. I guess I'll put it that way.
Lenny Langley
Yeah, definitely.
Stephanie Briggs
And we're both, you know, very intuitively connected. Like, energetically sensitive, Lenny has a grand water Trine in their birth chart. So you know, just major empath energy, and it makes those kinds of environments like even more intense.
Lenny Langley 06:41
I’m definitely a physical sponge, I would call myself overall an embodiment artist, so my, my things come through my imagination into my body, and I'm very experiential, as a as a way of life, like I prefer to learn by experiencing something.
So that's affects my whole lifestyle of travel and moving around between a lot of different kinds of communities. Because when I'm trying to learn about something, I want to kind of throw myself to the wolves, so to speak, or I want to fully immerse into an experience in order to embody all of it, and then that's how I make sense of it.
Um, but as far as other people, in order to understand other people's emotions, it seems that one of my patterns is that I actually feel their emotions and digest them for them at times, which can be very problematic, but it's also a really high level of awareness. empathically if I'm, like physically feeling the same things that they are too.
Stephanie Briggs 07:55
How do you know that you're feeling what they're feeling?
Lenny Langley 07:58
it usually develops over time in the relationship. And as far as my astrology, I think that's part of my Cancerian karma in the world, of my Cancer midheaven and my Jupiter in Cancer. [And Chiron too.]
Part of my way of being of service to humanity is healing people in my relationships with them, like by being this close to them and their emotions.
Stephanie Briggs 08:24
As you mentioned, you have your sun in Capricorn, you have Mercury there, also. And you have those in the fourth house.
So that's like the roots of everything that you do in the world, but that's like, not what people see. Right, like, so they see the Cancer Midheaven
So that's like one of the things where I think, like, you surprise people.
Lenny Langley 08:49
Yeah. And it's funny, because actually, through this process, right now, the show that I'm working on, it's become clear that I've actually named my inner Capricorn, like, workaholic self.
And his name is Sarge, because he's like, basically a drill sergeant. And he is like, like army vibes through and through, like, it's very militant. And he's just, like, rigid, and everything has to be a certain way.
And he's the ultimate logic. Like, it's like, if it's, if it's not logical and linear, and it's not following this process. And if it's not 123, ABC, Sarge is freaking out.
But, so it's just like, he's my inner structure. But I mean, that can be unleashed on people too, which is also that's an unpleasant force when Sarge is like full blown, but finding these elements and like seeing when they're alive and active is helpful to be like, Okay. The whole of me is not Sarge.
But yes, I may be a free spirit who is also carrying around this militant drill sergeant and some days he's more running the show. And then the Aquarian Leo part of me that's just like, I'm self expressing and making a show and Sarge is like, but we have to get this done now.
So yeah, it's a balance of all the parts of us when we're creating things.
Stephanie Briggs 10:35
Yeah, it sounds like Sarge is like this energy that has like pressure for your creative process and very strategic, like logical approach.
And then there's the Aquarius part. So just drawing on your chart, that's where you have your North Node, right? You have Vesta on the North Node, that space holding. And your South node is in Leo.
Lenny Langley 11:02
Yeah. And it's also like even additionally nuanced with Aquarius is in my fifth house ruling my entire creativity and also, my Venus is in Aquarius, and my whole chart is ruled by Venus, given that I'm a Libra rising.
So it's like, people actually view me more well, I would say I get this impression multiple times, like, people think I'm a water sign sometimes. But I would say more often people do usually get the impression of the Aquarius energy. When people guess my sign I do get Leo and Aquarius guesses quite a bit.
Something I've been thinking about with the Leo Aquarius axis lately, has been like the idea of nothingness as a starting point for creation. It's like, all things are created from nothing. And Leo does not like being nothing; Leo always wants to be something. But Aquarius is kind of okay being nothing.
Like, I feel that people, I mean, the whole archetype of Aquarius as the exile and as if Aquarians are all comfortable being some kind of like, lone desert wanderer is like sort of factoring into this analysis, but it's like, that would make them quote unquote, “nothing” as far as like society.
They're more naturally inclined to be like sitting in the space of the nothing this void of like, I'm nothing, and I'm still present for the world. So that kind of changes the sort of tendency toward the spotlight that Leo has, more of an immediate pull towards that.
Aquarians I don't think always want the spotlight. But Leos have more of that karmic pull towards that. So with my nodes that's like shifting from wanting the spotlight just as a platform for myself to, which would be a Leo thing for them personally to be seen.
And Leo's are like so awesome at community too and I think so many Leo's that I know are all about pumping up other people and empowering others, it's not really as much about like that they're just self centered, like spotlight people.
But when I think about my creating from an Aquarian place, it's like about using a platform to elevate a conversation about humanity.
I think one of my writing voice, kind of strongest strengths is that I'm sort of roasting humanity, which feels like a very Aquarian tone of voice. To be like, I'm so far out in the ethers that I'm looking at these people, these humans from way over here, and I see all these patterns in them. And I see all these dynamics.
And I personally am drawn to creating art about that versus using my life to do that. I'm mostly like a narrative-oriented storyteller that's using autobiographical stories to make these points. But I'm not necessarily like striving to be intentional, traditional sort of spotlight with the art.
I would like recognition and awareness, but that's because I would like people to re-think their ideas about the concepts that I'm presenting. Not because I personally feel like oh my god, I need to be famous as me. Like, if that's a byproduct, that's cool.
But it's that I ultimately want people to rethink their own mind about various ways that we operate in the world. That's the kind of artistic platform that I'm trying to speak about with my art, like, whatever I'm creating, that it that it does that.
So yeah, I think I probably was famous in some traditional way in my past, with this entertainment Leo, South Node. So there's a part of me that's like, okay, like, what's the step beyond that? And, and how is it like, elevating community, which would be the Aquarian sort of node?
Stephanie Briggs 16:02
Yeah, I'm so glad that we have the shared language of astrology to be able to, like, constantly be debriefing our experiences.
So I would love to start talking a little bit more about where you've been lately with your creative process. You mentioned that it's really important for it to be experiential, and that you kind of have to live into and live through things.
It seems like as part of that process of experiencing and analyzing, it's kind of like getting all the data.
Lenny Langley 16:39
Yeah, and one other thing I'll note about the Leo/Aquarius analysis is that just being yourself on the fringes of society is the more Aquarian. Leo is also sort of more conformists, they want to be liked, and they want to be part of the world, whereas Aquarians are like, I kind of want to be on the outskirts.
And so being yourself on the outskirts with that comfort, you may push other people's boundaries, just by your existence of your own life.
Being that way, in a different way than the rest of humanity is sanctioning, so to speak. So I feel I've really leaned into that and my entire way of life has changed.
Stephanie Briggs 17:28
Hmm. I'm curious about what happened for you with the pandemic? It seems like sort of a portal for you with incubating your creativity and moving you more towards your North Node expression.
Where were you at as the pandemic began, and what emerged?
Lenny Langley 17:50
So if we back up to like, Summer 2019, I had a friend asking casually a few group of people at a party like, oh, what do you all think you're gonna be doing in two years? which would have been summer 2021 right now that I was imagining then. And I was like, Oh, well, probably some version of creating my own solo material. And maybe like coaching people or something like coaching other artists.
And so by the beginning of 2020, just before the pandemic, I was doing a variety of things that were moving my career forward. I was freelance modeling. I was based in New York City, but I had been traveling. I had gone to Art Basel the month before, in December 2019 to perform with a friend's performance piece, it was dance based. I was working at a strip club and exploring different things on the fringes in that sense. Because I was really interested in these kinds of variations of intimacy as a concept that I'm interested in, art wise, and I am a performer.
And then I thought in 2020, that I would be basically generating my own work. I threw a really awesome 30th birthday party for myself, which was basically a performance art experience in and of itself, in January 2020. And it was like an immersive, bathing ritual. It was a completely immersive experience.
So I thought that I was gonna start putting on experiences like that. I was supporting myself through the modeling and the stripping, but I thought that I was about to transition to creating my own work of performance. Maybe I would have had something at Art Basel or one of the, the satellite art fairs, going to be at South by Southwest and I was going to submit something there.
I envisioned that I'd be creating my own work in this more immersive, experiential way beyond just posing for other people's photo concepts or, you know, being in other people's performance pieces.
So when COVID took away all opportunities to be in person with other people, it was all of a sudden impossible for me to distract myself from creating my own work by only pursuing other people's work. So that was the first turning point was it's like, Okay, well, I can't just be in my friends pieces all the time when someone calls me up, and is like, Hey, why don't you come to Art Basel and be in my show?.
That's obviously an amazing opportunity and I'm so grateful that I had it but and New York provided me such an amazing community of very Leo, Aquarian axis, people, just these beautiful, freaky queer weirdos who were making really interesting things and would bring me into it. And so I had a lot of experiences, making things with other people, but they were never my own concept driven into the spotlight.
And so I honestly at that point, I had so many thoughts around intimacy and relationships, and knew that I wanted to write certain things about that. But I wasn't really sure what my voice was, I wasn't really sure exactly what I was trying to say, if that makes sense. Like, I had a lot of ideas for what kind of output it may end up with. But it was like, What is the big picture of what I'm actually like saying, as an artist, though, like if I back up before those projects,
And so I think, with COVID, I mean, the first eight months of COVID, from March 2020, to September 2020, I was alone in a two bedroom apartment in New York City, by myself, so I was forced to be with myself so to speak.
But the first few months of that was still a sort of whole scramble of avoidance.
Lenny Langley 22:48
And I would say by like, June, I was realizing that most of what I was desiring to spend my time doing was writing. And that's when I sort of ended up finding a bunch of creative workshops on zoom that wouldn't have been available otherwise.
Because of the pandemic, a lot of writing teachers who normally only offer their writing workshops at, you know, expensive retreat centers, like Esalen, which is like three grand for a week long type thing, all of a sudden, some of these teachers are offering zoom writing experiences for $100 for a whole month, and some others are offering things for free.
So it was all of a sudden, very affordable. And the world was, of course, like moving towards more Aquarian energy to during this time. Um, and yeah, so I just I noticed that the offerings, were also becoming more community oriented.
And since everyone was struggling, and suddenly I wasn't just this artist who's scrambling to make ends meet, suddenly, it's like, all artists are struggling and the world is forced to recognize that and provide support. So there's, you know, grants being made, there's unemployment that you're able to survive on and not spend all of your time scrambling to make ends meet so you can actually think about what you're creating.
So one thing led to another after joining these writing groups, and really leaning into the craft of storytelling. And just, it's a beautiful thing to be like, wow, I actually found the thing that does, when I have zero else that I can do, this thing makes me feel fulfilled. Like if I wake up and I write, I feel glad about my day and my existence. Despite everything else that's happening.
So I got to that place by having every other part of my life dissolve, as we all did. And then yeah, it has ended up in California, living van life after a four month road trip, which was also part of the portal.
And there's a different kind of spaciousness in Los Angeles, as far as being able to be at the beach. Just healing by the ocean has given me a different kind of physical spaciousness and landscape here has created more brain spaciousness for me than the kind of crowded New York atmosphere.
So it's, and it's been a bit of a Aquarian journey. As far as radical alienation. I mean, I'm out here basically just anchored to myself. And since it's been COVID, there haven't been a lot of opportunities to build a social scene. So I'm much less distracted by having an amazing community because I don't really have a community in Los Angeles.
So it's, it's been a time of like, radical alienation being out here, alienating myself from like, any former part of my existence, basically, and just being my own anchor and writing by the water has been kind of my new life.
Stephanie Briggs 26:48
Wow. Quite a transformation. So going from really like just in terms of like your, your living space, like going from like, almost like too much space. Or just like a very generous amount of space, especially by New York standards.
Lenny Langley 27:02
Oh, yeah. space, I don't personally like empty space. In an apartment, it sort of triggers something energetically of like being isolated when something is supposed to be full.
But paring down to such a minimal existence in a van life situation is, it's like I'm in a little womb. So I feel very held by the vessel of my vehicle of like, everything I own is right here. And no matter where I go, it's always with me. So I never have to pack for anything. And that's like, it's an interesting, compact existence.
But it's really cozy. And it's really cute. And it affords me the flexibility that I was also building up to the past few years. I had considered van life before, but COVID just sort of pushed me into this experience, for a variety of reasons to happen now, and it has been a blessing.
And it's, it's its own kind of, could be its own whole podcast conversation. But creatively, it's just so different to spend my days in the back of my really cozy space that I've made for myself, with the exact aesthetic exactly as I want and to just be with Mother Nature, by the water and be able to think and reflect.
yeah, it is a contradiction because obviously, the van itself is not spacious. But the van life is actually much more spacious conceptually.
The funny thing is, I'm much closer to all of my goals that I had for 2020 because of this change in lifestyle, because of COVID and all the time it's afforded me to like, recalibrate with my artistic mission, at the baseline.
Because we were in Jupiter in Capricorn all of COVID it was working on these foundations, like what are the foundations of the art I'm trying to create? What is the foundation of my craft?
Okay, it's writing, which I already had been a writer, but I was also a dancer. Writing and dancing have been my mediums for ever. I've been doing both of them since I was able to do either of them. So technically, I've been dancing before I've been writing, because you have that capacity before you have, like language knowledge as a human development thing.
But ever since I could write I have been writing and ever since I could move I have been moving. But I was so much more focused on movement performance before and I think I had been avoiding writing. And I think writing is actually my bigger talent as far as making an impact in the world.
Stephanie Briggs 30:23
Wow. So yeah, yeah. I mean, you've always been an amazing writer. And just like, always had that storytelling ability.
What are you working on right now and how is it expressing this artistic mission that you have, and drawing on that foundation that you've been able to create during the last year?
Lenny Langley 30:45
Yeah. So I actually didn't even really plan to move to Los Angeles, necessarily. But part of why I have been here all of this year is that one of the people in the Zoom writing workshop with me turned out was 10 minutes away from me in Los Angeles.
And it was only my third day here, so I was so vulnerable. And it was just like, I don't know what's happening. I just ended this four month road trip with my friend. And now I'm here and Okay, cool. Let's meet. So we met up.
And I mean, this was during the height of lockdown. So you know, it's all masked, and like a short, lived meeting, but we aligned pretty immediately as far as our intensity and our boldness when it comes to what we're willing to do with our art.
So I think there's lots of people that make things. But when you're willing to make something that's really saying something that most people won't say that's like a different category of artistry. And it's actually less easy to find that than you would think in the art world because lots of people are still censoring what they're willing, where they're willing to go as far as how taboo what they're saying might be.
So I found this person, Lori Hoeft, who I'm now creating a show with and we really bonded over our ability to dive into taboo topics and really speak out our innermost shadowy selves.
We believe all people have these parts inside too. So we're creating a show called Sugar and Shit and it is at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in August for three performances. And it is a 60 minute duo show that covers topics of the sugary and shitty parts of life and whether you'll be trapped or freed by these concepts.
But it's ultimately a show about trauma and the emptiness that everyone has inside. And the ways that they try to fill up these kinds of psychological voids that they have, because of trauma or because of shitty experiences. And not something that everyone has inside. But we all kind of have different modes of reckoning with the holes that we have. So some people may take it, like there's the literal part of sugar of sugar, being a food that people eat, sometimes psychologically to fill up their stomach or their emotional hole. But there's also conceptual sugar as a sweet thing. So we have personified these concepts in the show, where sugar is a stripper in a strip club, and she's exploring how this transactional love environment is basically an exploration of two people trying to fill up these voids. So there's that portion but it's also an exploration of fake sweetness and real sweetness because as we know, sugar as a food substance, as the literal version of sugar is also addictive. Sugar is a substance that you can get addicted to. So as a persona for that side character. Sugar can be sugar, the stripper can be manipulative. She knows that people have a hole and she is purposefully being sweet in order to attract the attention and respect and money that she needs. So it's good gets pretty deep. Yeah, I'm
Lenny Langley 35:02
you're going right into the deep end. Yeah, it can be abstract, but the show is going to be pretty wild and fantastical and fun. And it's partially narrated by Tony the Tiger and the shits section, like the tiger from frosted flakes. And in the shits portion, it's all about being an unwanted adoptee and I think anyone who's like reformed, or like, previously was Catholic and has dealt with sort of the nuances and the dark side of that of like people that say they're doing something because the Lord, sanctions, it is good. But when they're not actually treating that thing, well, is it really still good? So it's some of these questions. And, yeah, it's obviously for diverse audiences. Anyone in sex work, anyone who has dealt with the nuances of adoption, anyone who is queer, anyone who has trauma, anyone who has had to free themselves from these religious undertones? Anyone who likes comedy? So it's deep, but it's also going to be fun and funny. Huh?
Stephanie Briggs 36:33
How does the humor fit in? Is that part of the healing?
Lenny Langley 36:37
Yeah, the humor. I mean, I think most comedians are comedians, because they're using humor to deal with their trauma. And I think, to make such deep topics palatable, it's often easier to sweeten the shit with a little laughter. Um, so yeah, I mean, and that's a whole other thing. It's just like, why do we have to be sweet? When we talk about things that are shitty, but I think our culture does often requested of us, even if it's not said out loud. A lot of people you know, it's like the tone that you say things and really influences whether or not people listen to you. And so, I mean, at its core, it's also these explorations of like, the ways that we can use that to our advantage, but also still realizing that it's a role that we play, like being sweet, because we know that sweetness works to get people attracted to something, whether it's a show that we want them to come see, or a concept that we want them to think about in their brain, or a stripper in a club that needs money to survive and is, like, using sweetness to attract their clients. It's like, why is that? That we need to do that, like, especially like, in any, in any is, in our country, someone who's not in the majority, over and over and over. It's like, if this person speaks out and they sound angry, and they sound irritated and sounds like a bitch fast, like, people don't listen. So that's also a thing. It's like, why do we have to be sweet when we talk about this, but the reality is that humor is more palatable. And it's, it's also fun, and it's also empowering. So it's, it's a potentially a role and it's potentially a manufactured way to say things, but it's also highly effective. And it's also highly effective for audiences, but also the performers like humor is what got us through these experiences in the first place, because we have our imagination and we have our sense of humor. I'm pretty sure that's my personal equation for hope is like if I still have humor, and I still on my imagination I can get through anything in life.
Stephanie Briggs 39:36
I want to talk about storytelling as a healing modality and how you're experiencing that with creating sugar and shit.
Lenny Langley 39:44
I'd love to share a little about our second part of the experience is actually going to be a creative writing workshop. So anyone who comes to our show will see our show and then we have an additional 45 minutes experience with James Nava and Allegra Houston, who will be streaming in from Taos, New Mexico to lead part of their process called imaginative storm. And we have used their imaginative storm process for a large bit of the show. And they're also a free writing group every Saturday morning that were a big part of. So we really love their process. And one of their taglines is what is it inside your imagination that keeps surprising you and their whole process is so that you can basically get to that place on the page in your writing. So part of being a writer, that's not just I'm writing this thing about something that happened to me, it's being able to get to a place on the page where something that you wrote, you did not predict that you were going to write that, like when you actually say something that you're like, Whoa, do I really think that did I just say that, and that's where a lot of people, that's where they censor themselves, or that's where their inner critic stops them, because they're like, Oh, you can't see that, Oh, my God, and they start making judgments about what that means about them if they write that, which might be valid. But in the process of writing, I think it's so important to not censor yourself and not stop yourself when you get to that place. Because that's usually where most of the gold is. And that's usually exactly the thing that will make the compelling story. And that's also usually what's healing. Because when you start doing that more often, and when you start surrounding yourselves with other storytellers, who are also doing that, you start seeing the humanity in everyone, for various kinds of feelings. Like, we all have a villain, we all have the Cruella DeVille inside of us, or there wouldn't be a box office Disney hit, called Cruella De Ville. If it wasn't possible to feel that way, then we wouldn't have examples of people feeling that way. But what happens is people are like, Oh, my God, like this is bad, or I can't say that, because that makes me such and such. It's like, Oh, well, actually what it makes you as human, it actually makes you someone who has feelings in writing, you are exploring your feelings on the page. And the more you can actually feel those feelings while you're writing. That's kind of the embodiment piece to the more the story is going to heal you by getting it out. And that's also something that I find like, the story itself changes through curation. And when you write a story, you have the power to write it however you want. And can power a narrative in a way that you might not have seen when the thing actually happened to you. So writing is like also far out experience, because you're in that experience anymore. But you are, I forget who said this, but there is someone that quoted, writing is like living twice, it's like you are going to feel some of the emotions in order to write them of the experience, but you just have so much more control. Like you, you are controlling the experience, the time you write it, when potentially you weren't in control, what happened to you. And that's the part of writing that's healing, but also empowering and so amazing to communicate things about our world, because you have the power to make the narrative. go in the direction of what you want to say. Yeah,
Stephanie Briggs 43:54
I want to hear more from you about what it is that you want to say. And in particular, the feminist leanings that the show has, and speaking to
Lenny Langley 44:04
experience of like life on the margins in some way, whether that's like, in your intimate relationships or like in society, kind of going back to this thing of like sweetness makes things more palatable, as far as how women or beings are expected to operate in the society and I identify as genderqueer and non binary and womanhood is complicated, but I was still socialized, as a female and I do still operate in a lot of female oriented contexts, like the strip club, for example. So I do still really feel connected to the conversation of female empowerment. What I've noticed is that we have a lot more expectation in this society for Women, or anyone that is assumed a woman to show up as sweet, and to show up as a sugary thing that will soften people's edges. And that's despite what kind of shitty things were going through ourselves. So no matter what shit we're going through, we're still expected to be the sugar. for other people. We see that so much in gender dynamics. Men want a bobble head Barbie that's like gonna listen to them then and things like that the strip club is a microcosm for the rest of the world is one of my favorite things to say about about that environment. And it's, what it's doing is formalizing gender dynamics that already exist. It's formalizing ways that people objectify one another already in the rest of the world, but it's making that a profitable transaction. I mean, the conversation is often like, is it exploitation? Or is it empowering? It has been said before that it's neither. And it's both. And I totally agree with that. It's a way to kind of flip these dynamics. The only reason it's empowering is because these scenarios, women are choosing to play their own role in that they are choosing the role they play in it, people act as though you're not objectified until you choose to do sex work. And it's like, bro, you're already objectified in this world, so I might as well, I might as well use it to my advantage if I can get something out of it. Hmm. Yeah. Kind of the theory. Hey, sugar. Hey, honey, honey.
Stephanie Briggs 47:02
Are you singing is part of the show?
Lenny Langley 47:05
That's a funny question. Because it did just come up when we were doing a table read. As I was reading through our script, kind of ad libbing random songs being like, and then this song is gonna be here like done and on and on like that. And then the person was like, Well, what if you just sing it instead of playing the track, because that was kind of cool, what you just did, and you know, intimacy and real quote, unquote, real vulnerability versus manufactured vulnerability, which would be real sweetness versus fake sweetness is the theme of the show. So that is a thing you will have to find out by coming to the show which decision made but there may be some singing from me, which is the total ad so I'm freaking out.
Stephanie Briggs 48:02
Oh, wow. I'm so excited about the show. And it seems like you are like, getting to that place of the empowerment of, of telling your own story and like deciding what the story even is
Lenny Langley 48:15
the Aquarius part of me cringes being like, Oh, god, it's another female empowerment show like, oh, like that super alien side of me is just like, I'm so over the narratives that are even available for conversations around. Again, any ism. But this one particularly we're talking about feminism, when does humanity evolve? Like when do we get to move past this narrative? When do we get to move past this. And I think that COVID has been a time of pushing us towards this evolution. And it is definitely a female empowerment show. And it is about empowering through your own story. And that's why we are offering a way for audiences to have a much like an experience that we had of unleashing their story at the end of our show. And we hope people are inspired and surprised by that experience, too, just like we were and maybe it will. You can totally partake in that if you've never written something before. Or if you're already a professional writer, performer yourself. It's totally meant for all people to experience and so we hope that whatever your previous experience with writing has been that it will be some sort of inspiration for you.
Stephanie Briggs 49:38
Well, you're certainly pushing the boundaries here. So how can people connect with you and how do they get tickets.
Lenny Langley 49:45
So this show is going to be live streamed as well as in person in a theater so you can watch this from your couch anywhere worldwide that you have access to YouTube, Facebook or Vimeo and if you are in LA and are open to Coming to a live theater experience. You can see us in person at the Hudson theaters. We are doing the show on August 8, August 21 and August 29. You can buy tickets at www.tigerlicious.live. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can see more about the show and any of those places.
Stephanie Briggs 50:22
Awesome. Yeah, all those will be linked on the web page below this. I'm so excited for opening night August 8. So, thank you for having me. Yeah, it was such a delight and definitely need to have you back on to dive into some 70 the other tangents totally free now. I hope all of you will check out sugar and shit and money's work.
Stephanie Briggs 51:02
I want to thank you so much for spending your precious time with me today. You can find the full show notes and an archive of past episodes at soul to life podcast.com If you'd like to learn more about me and my work, you can go to my website at heart blossom dot life. And that's also where you can get on my email list to be notified about new episodes and to receive other subscriber only goodies and updates. You can also follow me on Instagram at heart blossom dot life or by searching for soul to life podcast. If you're enjoying soul to life, you can help sustain this offering by leaving a rating and review on Apple podcasts as well as by sharing soul to life with your people or by making a contribution at soul to life podcast comm slash sustain. Soul to life is created and produced by me. Stephanie Elizabeth breaks in collaboration with my guides of earth and sky and our theme music is the song Pleiades by starry eyes. This is my musical alter ego. Thanks again for being here with me today. Until next time, wishing you all the best on your journey. Take care
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Soul to Life is created and produced by Stephanie Elizabeth Briggs. Our theme song is “Pleiades” by Starry Eyes.