Season 4 - Episode 7 - Interview with Natalie Griffith Robichaux

I really feel like our inner work, doing our inner work is the way to change the world and how we have an impact on the outer world. And I so, so deeply believe and know in my heart that embodiment is the way to freedom, and connection, and joy… And all of those things that we long for. So now, I’m moving into building a coaching business, but also writing a book. I feel like some of it is gonna be exorcised from me in the form of public speaking, or teaching, or possibly performance… That’s the way I’m going to disseminate the experience to other people. So that is in the works! And I’m still constantly working on—and this has a place in all of these things that I’m mentioning—I’m still working on a solo performance piece that I have been working on for years. I’m performed it along the way in its different iterations at different places. It’s called Bicycle Face. In my body and heart and mind, it’s going to end up being in an anthology of sorts with other women and folks who identify as women.

That’s a thread that’s through all of this too, and I don’t know how all of these things are coming together, but I tell you what! At this time in my life, when I’m rounding the corner to 50—comin’ in hot on 50—it feels like all of these things are being braided together in this sort of glowing… Golden braid.

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Thanks for joining us on the podcast! So… Natalie Griffith Robichaux.

Yes.

Cool. Got it. Yay. So what is your age?

I am 49. Gonna be 50 in January!

Amazing. When’s your birthday?

January 18th!

Okay cool! That’s a little less than a month after mine! Hehe.

Ah, all right!

Are you a Capricorn?

I am a Capricorn. I’m very much a Capricorn.

Yeah? Are you into astrology?

Totally! I have been my whole life. It just makes sense to me. It always has.

I’m a Capricorn too! What about the Capricorn sign do you resonate with? Like what comes to mind when you think, “I’m a Capricorn!”

I’m fiercely loyal. Can be very… Systems-oriented. Like I kinda get into the organizational, ambition behind organization, making systems work… I’m super passionate, I’m grounded. I can be a little… Jealous… At times? Stubborn! What else… I mean those are the things that come off the top of my head. I have three, including myself, Capricorns in my house. My daughter’s a Capricorn, and my husband’s a Capricorn. And then my son is a Virgo. So, very different. He’s living with three Capricorns in the same building, so it gets interesting!

I’m just picturing all the rams butting heads. Is it like that? (Laughs)

Sure! (Laughs) There’s some of that. But I think we’re all very passionate in our own ways. Yeah.

Cool! Yeah. So you mentioned you’re a mother. What other roles do you currently carry? Like, how do you refer to yourself, and what do others refer to you as?

I’m an artist, a performing artist, a teacher, a coach, a guide… I’ve been shifting the sort of roles and names as I’ve gotten older. I’ve become more comfortable with taking up roles that I would’ve been more timid about taking up before, when I was younger. I like to refer to myself as a witch, in the way that… I read this definition of a witch that an artist made, I don’t remember who said this. Maybe we could find it. But it was in the New York Times, this artist that said, “A witch is a woman with unconstrained relationship to her power.”

Ooooooh.

And so I was like, “I wanna be a witch! So I’m gonna start saying, ‘I’m a witch.’ I’m gonna invite that in.” So I guess “witch” would be a role that I would like to embody, that I try to embody. Definitely mother, friend, partner, sister, daughter—those are all very important to me.

And you mentioned roles that you are becoming more comfortable with now as you’re becoming older. Is that specifically the witch one, or are there others?

The witch one, and some friends of mine… A particular friend of mine, who I consider a spiritual guide in my life, has been inviting me to entertain the idea of “shaman” or “shepherd” or… I’ve been a mentor already, and am a mentor to several young artists, young women. Did that quite a bit and enjoyed that part of my academic career—which is now over. I moved out of academia. So I guess witch, mentor, shaman, guide, shepherd.

Okay. And yeah, you mentioned you’re an artist. What all does that entail for you? What kind of art?

It entails a lot, Juliana! I enjoy making things. I called myself a maker for a long time, cause I really enjoy making things. I love sewing. Years ago I had a handmade handbag line, when I lived in New York City, called Brooklyn Cowgirl, that I did for several years. I like making patterns for things, like sewing patterns. I paint! I also dabbled in a little bit of sculpture. And I’m a performing artist! I’ve been an actor and a dancer basically my whole life. That would be where my education is, in acting, dancing, movement, performing, and directing. Intimacy choreography for the stage, and all sorts of things.

Intimacy choreography?

Yeah. Have you heard about this?

Mm-mm.

You know, it’s been a few years now that that’s come into play. It’s essentially somebody there to help you choreograph intimate moments, or sexual moments, or moments of violence that are of an intimate nature—for the stage.

Oh wow.

So we bring in all kinds of tools to explain and set up consent culture in the rehearsal room, and on the stage, with everybody involved in the production. And we choreograph like it’s a dance—the actual movements of an intimate scene. So it’s not just like, “Oh uh, roll around on the bed and kiss each other twice, and let’s see what happens!” You know, you choreograph it like it’s a dance movement, so that you can count on what’s gonna happen—all the people involved can count on what’s gonna happen, and you can repeat it. And then you are somebody who maintains, helps the actors and stage management maintain that choreography throughout the run.

And sometimes the artists are scared that it’s gonna limit things and take the spontaneity, in-the-moment creativity out of a moment that’s about the human condition and about connecting in an intimate way. Making an imagined circumstance real. But I’ve found that the choreography and the consent culture guidelines actually give some guard rails, so that then you can play jazz when you’re up there—it really just opens things up in a huge way.

Interesting! Yeah, I’ve never heard about that.

That study that I did, and that practice of choreographing several things for the stage, and working with theater groups and things like that—really informs the coaching and therapeutic work that I do. It feels like all of these different elements come in together to… Now as I turn the corner to turning 50, it feels like all of these different areas of study and experience are joining together finally, in a way that I haven’t felt before.

I’ve always struggled with doing too many things. Maybe that’s something you can relate to—I know you’re multi-faceted.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that in the past has felt like a struggle, and like I’m not doing anything completely… How can I really commit to something. This story, that I need to commit to one thing. Take that one thing all the way—that sort of thing. But now, it really feels like those seemingly disparate things have been really a gift, many gifts, that are now weaving together.

Wow! Amazing. I really resonate with what you said, so many different things. That’s really cool! Wow. Oh my gosh, there’s so many different directions we could go in. How about… Can you talk about your performing arts, how that has shifted? Maybe like how did you first get into it? I mean, I’m sure you always dancing as a kid. But like, how did that evolve? You’re a teacher, now you do coaching. Can you talk about it from like a dancing lens, and how that’s shifted, changed, and evolved in your lifetime?

Yes, yes! Well, dancing is where I started. And the way that I feel it is that it was always through my body, I was really drawn to and excited by and thrilled by expressing myself through my whole body. And that was something that came really easily to me, and it felt really powerful and impactful. It felt like a way that I could be impactful on an audience, or you know, using my expression through my body. And I maybe wasn’t the most technically disciplined, or you know, my technical abilities were not always really high, just because of my sheer body shape. I don’t know what you know about ballet or any sort of dance, but they can be very rigid, and very prescribed. You know, like a certain body type is a dancer, and there were certain things that my body just wouldn’t do. Like there was a limit, even at a very young age, just because of anatomy.

But I was always, always, always drawn to expressing myself with my body, and that led me to acting. I found that when I was dancing as a preteen and a teenager, I wanted to speak on stage. I wanted to see what other ways I could do that, those sorts of things. I was also always really fascinated with the human condition, psychology… Feelings! Why we have them! What happens in relationships? All of those things—it’s been an area of interest for me for sure. So I went into acting with a BFA undergrad program. And then went directly from there into a graduate acting program, at UCSD in San Diego. That was in the late 90’s—the 1900’s, as my kids say. (Laughs) They’re like “Mom, that movie is from the 1900’s, and I’m like ‘Yes, so am I. So am I. I am also from the 1900’s.’” That was in the late 90’s.

In a graduate acting program, your classes are acting, obviously, but there’s also movement, and yoga, and body awareness, and vocal training, which is also body awareness-related, and breath-related, and singing and speech. And then how all of these things work together to produce sound! You know, all of that stuff.

So I did that training. Loved it. Loved being in that training. And again, I was always an actor, and am still an actor, who first approaches it through the body. I taught a little bit in graduate school—like you are doing, right—as part of my graduate program. And then went to New York City, started working in theater: regional theater, Broadway, Off-Broadway, that sort of thing, in New York. I didn’t do a lot of teaching while I was doing that. I was really trying to get jobs as an actor, and honing my retail sales skills, and my waiting tables skills, which I did for many years. (Laughs) Which have actually brought many, many skills that I still use today!

And then I found myself wanting… And this was always kind of in the background when I was doing my graduate studies and when I was performing in theater productions and that sort of thing. I found myself wanting some sort of outlet to give back, and I knew that my experience in getting to know my body and using my imagination through movement was such a therapeutic experience for me, that I wanted to share that with other people. And I couldn’t quite figure out how to do that.

And while I was in New York… I don’t even remember where I first heard the term “drama therapy”, but when I heard it, I was like “Oh, what? What??” And it was, you know, theater processes used for therapeutic purposes, right. And I was like, “Oh my god, that would be so great!” Immediately thrilled about it! And at that time, there were only two programs in the country. One at NYU, and one at University of San Francisco. And I applied to the one at NYU—it was another masters program. I was a, you know, struggling, starving actor who was working periodically but not making a lot of money, just making ends meet, and had no health care for a little while. Then would have health care through the actor’s union, then I would not have it. Thank god for Planned Parenthood in Manhattan in the early 2000’s. They saved my life on several occasions, for just basic female health care. I digress—it is part of the story.

I interviewed for the program at NYU, and part of the interview process was they pulled out fifty applicants from their scores of applicants for their drama therapy program, and they all came to NYU for a weekend. And we went through all of these drama therapy exercises as a group, as a sort of like interview process where they would decide who would be M.A. candidates, who would become part of the program. So I got a real taste of what it was. And I was so thrilled by it, Juliana. I just took to it immediately. It made sense in my body. I was doing things with these other people who were interested in it as well, and it was working therapeutically for us in that weekend, even in that short period of time. I was just so excited by it. I got accepted to the program, and then found out the cost of the program. (Laughs) And was not able to do it.

And that felt like a derailment. Like oh… Okay… But knew that I was still interested in it. So I got a few books that were written at the time about it, and started reading as much as I could. At that time, I moved with my then-boyfriend, who then became my husband, who I’m still married to now. We moved from New York to Los Angeles. He’s an actor as well, and as acting teacher. And we moved to LA, and at that time in my acting work, I realized that I was 33, and… The parts that I was going up for in theater were getting less and less and less. There seemed to be an age gap in the parts that were there. It was like… 30 to 60, it was like there wasn’t a lot there.

Hm.

And, I had reached a point where… I remember being in my agent’s office in New York City. We were looking at something called the break downs, where they send out for auditions… They send out like what the characters are and actors they’re looking for. So they’ll say like… Woman, in her 20’s. The character is flamboyant, and whatever. They’ll tell the agents what kind of actors they’re looking for for the parts. And he read a break down out to me, and it was for something like Cincinnati Playhouse, which was a regional theater, a great theater that would audition in New York and would be a great job to have. I don’t remember if it was actually Cincinnati Playhouse, but it was one of those regionals.

And it said next to the part that I would be up for, it said “Stars Only”. And that was during the time when reality TV was coming up, and lots of reality stars were starting to do theater, and bring in people for audiences, and theaters were looking for people who had some star power. That was not something I had. I was 33, and I felt like I was coming into a desert zone of parts. And so when I moved to Los Angeles, I left my agency, and I was like, “I’m done. If acting is breaking up with me, I’m gonna break up with it before it gets a chance to break up with me.” (Laughs) So I’m like nah, not gonna do that anymore. Gonna do something else.

So in LA, I was really floundering, and trying to find what I was gonna do with this Masters degree in acting, and experience in theater… And I didn’t know. And I found a drama therapy institute in Los Angeles, where I could take some classes. It wasn’t a degree program, but I could take classes. So I started some classes there. My husband and I decided to start an acting company, or an acting school, in Los Angeles. He was the main teacher, and then I would supplement some things sometimes. So I started teaching a little bit there.

And then it went on from there. We moved to Austin, Texas, after we had been in Los Angeles for about four years. We opened an acting studio in Austin, Texas, had that for several years. I had two kids during that time, who are my greatest spiritual teachers. And from there, we decided to move and take up academic appointments at Penn State University. They were offering my husband a job there—he had been teaching in universities in Austin, and they offered him a job, and they offered me a job as well. So that’s how I got into academia. And when I started at Penn State, I was really interested in the imagination, and the imagination being the gateway to all progress and growth. And particularly something a teacher called Movement Imagination, which is… It’s not a visualization exercise. The best way I can describe it is that your energetic body is moving. And you use it for creative purposes.

So I was super, super interested in studying that. That led me Michael Chekhov work, which is an actor training theory and program, that is about the energetic body and expanding creative abilities through the body. And I was training to teach acting, but as the years went along and I got more attuned with Michael Chekhov and my energetic body and all of the doors in my creative abilities started to blow open because of this work… I started noticing my students were having positive therapeutic results from an acting class.

Now, you don’t ever want to make an acting class a therapy session. That would be unethical. But I was noticing that it was a by-product of the work that was really powerful, and I was really interested in that.

Do you want me to keep going?

Yeah!

That was… Very long-winded answers.

No, no, I love this! Yeah, please keep going!

(Full transcription of interview can be found on wisenotwithered.com)