TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Carlee Wright

Meet the first round of speakers for TEDxSalem VII

By

TEDxSalem is proud to announce the first round of speak­ers for TEDxSalem VII.

Mike Stud­er of North­west Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Asso­ciates will speak on the regen­er­a­tive capac­i­ties of the human brain.

There­sa McCormick, Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry, will address the ques­tion, “Is hydro­gen per­ox­ide the fuel of the future?”

Kaeli Swift, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, will dis­cuss the pow­er of crows to enrich our lives and con­nect us to nature.

Melis­sa Poll­man of Haley’s Heroes Foun­da­tion will delve into how rare dis­ease, research and hope are con­nect­ed.

Nicole Mali­noff will explore dance and acces­si­bil­i­ty and how it can ben­e­fit our com­mu­ni­ties.

Bas­sam Tarazi will share things you learn in a go-cart in the mid­dle of the Turk­men Desert (or…Purposeful Dis­com­fort and the Pow­er Of Planned Grit)

And as men­tioned at our 2019 event Salem artist and com­mu­ni­ty advo­cate Danielle Baca will be this year’s Artist-in-Res­i­dence. 

Keep an eye on our web­site as over the next few months we will delve into the sto­ries behind our speak­ers learn­ing more about their “ideas worth spread­ing.”

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It takes place 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets will go on sale in Sep­tem­ber. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Experience Salem-based band Sleep Millennium at TEDxSalem VI

By

TEDxSalem atten­dees will get to expe­ri­ence the artis­tic expres­sion of Salem-based band Sleep Mil­len­ni­um as one of the enter­tain­ment fea­tures of this year’s event.

Found­ed by award-win­ning artist and song­writer-turned-DIY film­mak­er Josh Schroed­er (gui­tar, keys, lead vocals), the band also includes Jarred Ven­ti (bass, keys, vocals), Ronan Bak­er (gui­tar, keys, vocals) and David Aizuss (drums).

The con­cept of Sleep Mil­len­ni­um is some­thing evolv­ing said Josh.

“…It is the mech­a­nism through which I’m try­ing to explain (or process) my expe­ri­ence of that “yin/yang” of order and chaos and dis­cov­er/derive/shed-light on mean­ing and truth,” he said. “The world is incred­i­bly com­plex. There’s a seem­ing­ly end­less uni­verse to draw inspi­ra­tion from. From the begin­ning of Sleep Mil­len­ni­um as a group, we decid­ed that there would be no bar­ri­er to explore what we want­ed to do. And that we would chal­lenge our­selves to dream big­ger about what was pos­si­ble giv­en our resources or lack-there­of. It’s also about hav­ing the best time we can while attempt­ing to make art we can feel excit­ed about and proud of.”

Sum­ma­riz­ing their sound as some­what exper­i­men­tal, but only to the degree that the group grav­i­tates toward a spacey, almost film-score-like approach to pro­duc­tion, Josh said: “At the end of the day these are pop songs in their form, and we’ve orches­trat­ed them to have a com­mon the­mat­ic thread. Any­thing goes in terms of genre, but you’ll hear ele­ments of rock, pop, elec­tron­ic, and touch­es of the avant-garde.”

And of being asked to per­formed at TEDxSalem VI, Josh said: “Our first thought was that it’s a huge hon­or. And with that hon­or we feel it’s our respon­si­bil­i­ty to do our best to per­form at the high­est lev­el we can. It’s hum­bling to have been asked to per­form at TEDxSalem and the four of us are very excit­ed.”

Keep an eye on Sleep Mil­len­ni­um through its web­site at www.sleepmillennium.com.

“We have a series of sin­gles we’ve been work­ing on that we’re get­ting ready to release,” Josh said. “There’s talk of some tour­ing abroad, the sec­ond annu­al Blood Moon Music Fest is also some­thing we’re think­ing about, and we’re begin­ning to imag­ine what we might do to chal­lenge our­selves to dream even big­ger on our next full-length album.”

But until then, catch them when they per­form live at TEDxSalem VI on Jan­u­ary 5.

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Rainbow Dance Theatre brings innovation to the TEDxSalem stage

By

Rain­bow Dance The­atre draws inspi­ra­tion from the world around us; from tech­nol­o­gy and social media, from music and art, and from the artists with whom they work and the “messy” cre­ative process that devel­ops through the rela­tion­ships that form.

Atten­dees of TEDxSalem VI will get to watch this inspi­ra­tion come to life on stage Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 5.

Direct­ed by inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned dancer-chore­o­g­ra­phers Valerie Bergman and Dar­ryl Thomas, Rain­bow Dance The­atre cre­ates mod­ern works root­ed in cul­tur­al tra­di­tion, works that cel­e­brates diver­si­ty and style through visu­al expres­sion while meld­ing West African Dance, Hait­ian Dance, Hip Hop, Mar­tial Arts with Amer­i­can Mod­ern Dance.

“Our cre­ative process is very ‘messy,’” said Valerie. “We do not start at the begin­ning of a dance and then work lin­ear­ly through to the end. We may begin with just a ker­nel of an idea or even of cou­ple of move­ment phras­es and/or music choic­es. We will first teach the move­ment and then set para­me­ters for cre­ative explo­ration of those move­ment phras­es with the dancers. They will then phys­i­cal­ly explore from their indi­vid­ual per­spec­tive and return with move­ment gen­er­at­ed from this cre­ative explo­ration. This in turn will send us in a new direc­tion that will in turn gen­er­ate new explo­ration, and so on.”

“Out of this cre­ative ‘soup’ a vision begins to mate­ri­al­ize, often far from the orig­i­nal start­ing idea, and that begins to inform the flow of the chore­og­ra­phy as the con­text emerges,” Valerie said. “Many times it seems that at this point the dance begins to tell us who it is or what it is about, and we do our best to stay with the cre­ative flow and allow it to direct us as much as we are direct­ing it.”

In 2017, Rain­bow Dance Theatre’s pro­duc­tion of The Gar­den of Earth­ly Delights evolved as a result of a com­mis­sion from the Salem Con­cert Band (now: Salem Sym­phon­ic Winds) to set a bal­let to the epony­mous score by Leroy Osmon. “We drew inspi­ra­tion from both the music score and the actu­al trip­tych itself. The paint­ing fed us with a pletho­ra of images from the heav­en­ly to the hell­ish and back to the sub­lime. The music score chal­lenged us with a mul­ti­tude of unusu­al rhyth­mic and melod­ic chal­lenges that pushed us to new places in the chore­og­ra­phy.”

And a new place in chore­og­ra­phy, as well as tech­nol­o­gy, is where Rain­bow Dance The­atre will take the audi­ence of TEDxSalem VI, where Valerie said, it is an hon­or for the Com­pa­ny to present.

For the past six years, the Com­pa­ny has been focused on design­ing ways to inter­sect tech­nol­o­gy with dance through a mean­ing­ful approach that push­es the art form into new fron­tiers of expres­sion, said Valerie. “By col­lab­o­rat­ing with engi­neers, tech­ni­cians and artists from oth­er dis­ci­plines, RDT is push­ing the enve­lope on this inte­gra­tive approach. To be includ­ed in the TEDxSalem event offers a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case this unique artis­tic genre to a diverse audi­ence that might not oth­er­wise attend a more tra­di­tion­al dance per­for­mance.”

But the group will not be rest­ing after its TEDxSalem per­for­mance as the fol­low­ing day they have a tech rehearsal for an upcom­ing per­for­mance of Ori­gins and Gar­den of Earth­ly Delights, which will be pre­sent­ed at the Smith Fine Arts Series on Jan­u­ary 11 in Mon­mouth. They will also be pre­mier­ing anoth­er per­for­mance, which includes high-impact chore­og­ra­phy, tech­nol­o­gy, and robot­ics, on May 9, so keep an eye on rainbowdancetheatre.org.

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Meet the next 5 speakers of TEDxSalem VI

By

TEDxSalem is proud to announce the next five of our speak­er line­up for TEDxSalem VI “re.” Keep an eye on our web­site as over the next few months we will delve into the sto­ries behind our speak­ers learn­ing more about their “ideas worth spread­ing” at TEDxSalem VI on Jan­u­ary 5, 2019.

Weblog­ger, neu­ro­sci­en­tist, and author Darya Rose will speak on how psy­chol­o­gy impacts your abil­i­ty to cre­ate healthy habits and what to do about it.

Author Moe Car­rick will explore the provoca­tive ground of women advo­cat­ing for men (ver­sus “help­ing” them) with new ideas of redefin­ing mas­culin­i­ty.

Hebah Hasan will share how she over­came the soci­etal pres­sure of the Mid­dle East cul­ture she grow up in to obtain an advanced degree and work her way into a lead­er­ship role in her cur­rent job.

We will also hear from Geri Rich­mond, the Pres­i­den­tial Chair in Sci­ence and Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon who con­ducts research to under­stand the chem­istry and physics of com­plex sur­faces and inter­faces. Geri holds numer­ous notable sci­en­tif­ic accom­plish­ments and was recent­ly award­ed the 2018 Priest­ley Medal from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety.

Plus Artist-in-Res­i­dence Rebec­ca Shapiro, who is cre­at­ing our stage dis­play to help set the tone and con­vey the theme of TEDxSalem; Her con­cept is “Refram­ing the Jour­ney.”

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets on sale soon. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Meet the first 6 speakers of TEDxSalem VI

By

Drum­roll please…TEDxSalem is proud to announce the first six of our speak­er line­up for TEDxSalem VI “re.” Over the next few months we will be delv­ing into the sto­ries behind our speak­ers, so keep an eye on our blog to learn more about who will be shar­ing their “ideas worth spread­ing” at TEDxSalem VI on Jan­u­ary 5, 2019.

Jen­ny­Lynn Diet­rich, an Ore­gon Deaf­Blind Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance Net­work (ODBCAN) Facil­i­ta­tor,  will give us an inner look at the Deaf­Blind com­mu­ni­ty in “Deaf­Blind: We’re Blind but not Blind.”

Michael Rousell, of South­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty, will take us on a jour­ney into how your brain secret­ly changes your beliefs dur­ing moments of sur­prise.

Car­la Brauer, own­er of Der­mesti­dar­i­um, will speak about how recon­nect­ing with her food changed her life and led her to a career bring­ing new life to the dead as a bone clean­er.

Under­tak­er Eliz­a­beth Fournier from Cor­ner­stone Funer­al will explore “The Ulti­mate Act of Envi­ron­men­tal Vol­un­teerism.”

Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Melis­sa Michaux exam­ines “Restora­tive Jus­tice in prison is nec­es­sary to trans­form pris­on­ers for safer com­mu­ni­ties.”

Michelle Jones of the Wayfind­ing Acad­e­my will speak on the high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem, and new mod­els pro­vid­ing alter­na­tive ways of look­ing at the pur­pose of col­lege and its role in help­ing cul­ti­vate ded­i­cat­ed cit­i­zens who know their pur­pose in soci­ety.

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets on sale soon. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Anna Nixon: An advocate for girls in science

By

Anna Nixon, Founder of STEM 4 Girls

Meet our final sur­prise speak­er for TEDxSalem V “Through the Look­ing Glass.”

Anna Nixon’s STEM career began in the sec­ond grade, when she and her father start­ing build­ing robots togeth­er in their garage. She was hooked imme­di­ate­ly.

“I loved that feel­ing of accom­plish­ment that came with final­ly get­ting a robot work­ing after hours of hard work,” she said.

Now, a senior at West­view High School in Port­land, she intends to take her pas­sions to a big­ger stage. Once she earns her degree in com­put­er sci­ence, com­put­er engi­neer­ing, or bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing, she aspires to work with robots that will be used to pro­vide med­ical aid.

Anna has learned a lot since the sec­ond grade, being involved in FIRST Robot­ics, tak­ing advanced STEM class­es in school, and start­ing a non­prof­it, STEM 4 Girls. She’s not only more knowl­edge­able and skilled, she’s become aware of the field’s chal­lenges recruit­ing and retain­ing girls and women.

Ever since Anna first joined robot­ics, she was often the only girl in the room.

“I think that the biggest chal­lenge that comes with being the only girl in the room is feel­ing the pres­sure that your actions will reflect on every girl,” she said. “And I think this is true for any minor­i­ty in any field. It’s easy to get into the mind­set of ‘If I make a mis­take peo­ple are going to think it’s because all girls are bad at this’ instead of mere­ly accept­ing your mis­take and mov­ing on. While it may seem unfound­ed, that fear of fail­ure makes you less con­fi­dent tak­ing risks or ask­ing oth­ers for help which can have a neg­a­tive impact.”

Anna’s non­prof­it, STEM4Girls, aims to solve these issues and help girls stay in STEM by build­ing up their con­fi­dence and fos­ter­ing a sup­port­ing and encour­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

“Var­i­ous stud­ies have shown that girls actu­al­ly tend to do bet­ter in STEM sub­jects than their male coun­ter­parts, at least until around mid­dle school,” Anna said. “As they grow old­er, girls often tend to lose inter­est in STEM because they don’t see oth­er girls doing it or they get the mes­sage that ‘STEM is a guy thing’. Thus, the great­est sup­port that girls can get is mak­ing them feel includ­ed in the STEM com­mu­ni­ty. This means pro­vid­ing them with female role mod­els and peers that they can depend on as well elim­i­nat­ing prej­u­diced views against women in STEM.”

Join us Jan­u­ary 6 to hear more about Anna’s sto­ry and her call to action.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.