TEDxSalem

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American Sign Language spoken here at TEDxSalem

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Ten stu­dents from West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty, pic­tured here with class­mates, will offer ASL inter­pret­ing at TEDxSalem Sat­ur­day.

TEDxSalem will offer ASL inter­pret­ing for the third year in a row so every­one can join the con­ver­sa­tion.

Salem is one of the few TED events around the world that offers the ser­vice thanks to our vol­un­teers. With­out them, it would cost thou­sands of dol­lars.

This year Salem teamed up with 10 ASL inter­pret­ing stu­dents from West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty, their men­tors and mem­bers of the deaf com­mu­ni­ty to make it hap­pen.

“It’s real­ly a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty for our stu­dents,” said Vic­ki Dar­d­en, vis­it­ing assis­tant pro­fes­sor of inter­pret­ing stud­ies at WOU.

TEDx is a great way for the stu­dents, all seniors, to get real-world ASL inter­pret­ing expe­ri­ence, she said. But the part­ner­ship is a win for every­one. The event gets inter­pre­ta­tion, and the deaf com­mu­ni­ty gains access to the TED expe­ri­ence not only in Salem, but around the world online.

Each stu­dent will inter­pret one TED talk with sup­port from their men­tor, and the remain­ing talks will be cov­ered by men­tors. Stu­dents will also have a chance to refine their inter­pre­ta­tions for the videos, which will fea­ture the ASL inter­preter on the screen.

Dar­d­en hopes to con­tin­ue the part­ner­ship between WOU and TEDxSalem next year, she said.

“I look for­ward to a real col­lab­o­ra­tion between TEDx and our stu­dents,” she said, “to pro­vide access to the deaf com­mu­ni­ty as well as expe­ri­ence for our stu­dents and expo­sure for TED.”

TEDxSalem stu­dent inter­preters

Patri­cia Desrosiers
Jaymee Gowdy
Halle Hamil­ton
Jacob Hogan
Caitlin Mas­ter­son
Alis­sa McAlpine
Lynne Mur­phy
Allis­sa Phoenix
Shaw­na Put­nam
Caitlin Woods

It’s not too late! Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. You can also buy tick­ets at the door! The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

TEDxSalem entertainment fuses yoga, Broadway, Latin jazz, and Middle-Eastern folk dancing

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For those of you who have been to TED con­fer­ences in the past, you’ll know it’s more than just speak­ers (although they are cer­tain­ly a high­light!). It’s a whole day of inno­v­a­tive think­ing, engag­ing con­ver­sa­tion, mak­ing new friends, stretch­ing your brain, par­tic­i­pa­tion and enter­tain­ment. Beyond our ros­ter of speak­ers, we have break­out ses­sions and per­for­mances lined up to real­ly round out your day.

And if you’ve been to a TEDxSalem event before, you’ll know our enter­tain­ment always rocks.

This year is no dif­fer­ent. We have Mik­ki Trow­bridge teach­ing yoga; Ishtar Sumar with Iraqi folk danc­ing; Edna Vazquez per­form­ing folk, rock, pop and Mari­achi music; and a sur­prise per­for­mance from the folks at Enlight­ened The­atrics!

Mik­ki Trow­bridge

Mik­ki Trow­bridge has been teach­ing a flow­ing, vinyasa style of yoga since 2010. She received her 200 hour Yoga­Works cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in 2011 and also have com­plet­ed cer­ti­fi­ca­tions or advanced train­ings with Strala, Yoga Med­i­cine and Street Yoga. Her class­es are anatom­i­cal­ly informed and soul­ful­ly inspired and promise to be fun, flow­ing (often a lit­tle sweaty) and leave you feel­in’ good. She aspires to infuse her pas­sion for the prac­tice, her love of music and gen­uine, life-inspired mus­ings into each class.

Mik­ki teach­es pri­mar­i­ly in the Salem, Ore­gon area with stu­dio class­es at Indi­go Well­ness Cen­ter and pri­vate class­es at Ore­gon State Hos­pi­tal and at a vari­ety of local busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions. In addi­tion, she hosts reg­u­lar Yoga + Beer events at local brew­eries around the state and offers StandUp Pad­dle Board Yoga class­es in Pacif­ic City.

Ishtar Sumar

Ishtar Sumar is an Iraqi folk dancer using move­ment to con­nect with cul­ture. She is a dance and fit­ness instruc­tor at Chemeke­ta Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege with expe­ri­ence in Mid­dle East­ern dance, as well as jazz, hip-hop and mod­ern dance plus health and fit­ness.

With cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and degrees in his­to­ry and sports fit­ness, Ishtar uses her danc­ing to teach move­ment and the his­to­ry of Mid­dle-East­ern folk dance. Ishtar is also the vice pres­i­dent of the Iraqi Cul­ture and Arts Asso­ci­a­tion in San Diego, as well as the chair of the Iraqi Jour­nal­ist Union in Amer­i­ca.

Edna Vazquez

Edna Vazquez is a Port­land-based Latin Amer­i­can singer-song­writer who per­forms orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions that pay homage to her inter­na­tion­al influ­ences with a pas­sion that comes through in every note of her music. She lifts the audience’s spir­its dur­ing her cathar­tic live per­for­mances with a vocal range that allows her to tran­si­tion seam­less­ly between folk, rock, pop and Mari­achi, all while explor­ing jazz stylings. Edna’s songs are deeply root­ed in uni­ver­sal human emo­tion and she has trav­eled far and wide spread­ing her mes­sage of light, love and cul­tur­al heal­ing.

Born in the Mex­i­can state of Col­i­ma but raised in Jalis­co, Edna spent half of her life immersed in the cul­ture and music of Mex­i­co and Latin Amer­i­ca, mov­ing to the Unit­ed States as a teenag­er. Her pas­sion for music and per­for­mance was born from these bicul­tur­al roots and has led her on a path of self-dis­cov­ery through song that has brought her suc­cess at each turn in the road. Whether shar­ing the stage with her musi­cal influ­ences or win­ning the first prize on Saba­do Gigante with her ren­di­tion of Cucur­ru­cucú Palo­ma, Edna’s spir­it and pow­er­ful vocal per­for­mance have been the cor­ner­stone of her career.

Enlight­ened The­atrics

Found­ed in 2013 by the­atre pro­fes­sion­al Vin­cen­zo Meduri, Enlight­ened The­atrics, a 501(c)(3) non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that aims to fur­ther the cul­tur­al enrich­ment of Salem by pro­vid­ing pro­fes­sion­al musi­cal the­atre expe­ri­ences and edu­ca­tion for all.

A Salem native and grad­u­ate of Sprague High School, Vin­cen­zo earned a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in Musi­cal The­atre from Elon Uni­ver­si­ty in 2011. Fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion, he pur­sued his dreams in New York City dis­cov­er­ing a love for direct­ing and teach­ing, which inspired him to return to Salem to estab­lish an orga­ni­za­tion for artists, stu­dents and dream­ers ded­i­cat­ed to instill­ing hope, edu­ca­tion and inspi­ra­tion in gen­er­a­tions to come.

Enlight­ened The­atrics brings the Broad­way expe­ri­ence to Salem, while con­tin­u­ing to breathe new life into a rich, his­tor­i­cal insti­tu­tion at the cen­ter of the city’s cul­tur­al, social and eco­nom­ic evo­lu­tion.

In Jan­u­ary 2015, the Meduri fam­i­ly acquired Salem’s His­toric Grand The­atre. Con­struct­ed in 1900 and list­ed on the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places, the the­ater has served as a sta­ple of Salem cul­tur­al life for more than a cen­tu­ry hous­ing and host­ing every­thing from per­form­ing arts to enter­tain­ment, retail, restau­rants and more.

It’s not too late! Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. You can also buy tick­ets at the door! The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

Kelsey Juliana: Millennials will make a difference

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JulianaWhen it comes to stand­ing up to cli­mate change Kelsey Juliana is relent­less, and expects you to be, too.

“If you’re won­der­ing if you’re doing enough, then the answer is prob­a­bly not,” said Juliana, 20, a col­lege stu­dent cur­rent­ly work­ing with Part­ners for Sus­tain­able Schools to teach chil­dren about sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the envi­ron­ment.

“If you’re not uncom­fort­able, you’re not being hon­est about what we’re up against.”

Grow­ing up in Eugene, Juliana said her pas­sion for the envi­ron­ment was instilled in her by her par­ents from a young age, and from a young age she’s quick­ly ratch­eted up her activism, from writ­ing reports in mid­dle school to tak­ing part in protest march­es, to now being part of a fed­er­al law­suit to force the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment to act to pre­vent the con­se­quences of cli­mate change.

For her TED talk, Juliana will share her expe­ri­ence being part of the land­mark US Fed­er­al cli­mate law­suit, and how it has rein­forced her belief in mil­len­ni­als to change the world.

Being a part of the pro­ceed­ings, being in the court­room to attend the hear­ings has been a “huge hon­or, and a huge priv­i­lege,” she said.

On Novem­ber 10 of last year in a momen­tous deci­sion, a fed­er­al court in Eugene ruled against the government’s motion to dis­miss, paving the way for Juliana and 20 oth­er youth plain­tiffs ages 9 to 20 to sue the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to take deci­sive actions to lim­it car­bon emis­sions. The core argu­ment – Allow­ing cli­mate change to hap­pen is in fact depriv­ing the youngest gen­er­a­tion of its con­sti­tu­tion­al right to life, lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness, and is there­fore fun­da­men­tal­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

“It’s beau­ti­ful… that [lit­i­ga­tion has] been the way to seek jus­tice for any mar­gin­al group,” she said.

“We are per­son­al­ly affect­ed by cli­mate change,” Juliana said. “We are not okay with the fact that peo­ple allow­ing this and caus­ing this are elect­ed to pro­tect us from harm.”

It feels fair to say that fed­er­al lit­i­ga­tion is not the kind of child­hood mem­o­ry most peo­ple have. But that’s pre­cise­ly the point, accord­ing to Juliana. Mil­len­ni­als are not the dis­tract­ed slack­ers of media por­tray­al, but are, like her, active and aware. They need to be tak­en seri­ous­ly as agents of change, she said.

“Young peo­ple don’t just have cute pic­tures of polar bears,” she said, “they have real ideas and inno­v­a­tive solu­tions and they need them to be tak­en seri­ous­ly.”

And they don’t need your sym­pa­thy.

“Applaud us but join us.”

At a per­son­al lev­el, it’s her pas­sion for chil­dren that moti­vates Kelsey Juliana. Teach­ing school chil­dren about the envi­ron­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty is her way of being true to her­self, which is the key to empow­er­ing each of us to make a dif­fer­ence, she said.

“Every­one always asks, ‘What can I do?’ But instead of just call­ing con­gress­men, reflect on your­self,” she said.

“Who are you, what makes you hap­py? Then tran­si­tion that to: What do you love, what do you care about? What kind of world do you want to see in 20 years?”

“Peo­ple con­tribute very dif­fer­ent things,” she said. “Each of us has a unique gift that we can offer.” 

 - Learn more about the case and the plain­tiff’s legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Our Chil­dren’s Trust, here.

 

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

 

2017 won’t change itself, join TEDxSalem Revolutions

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I’ve heard peo­ple wish away 2016 as if a new num­ber will sud­den­ly trans­form our world.

2017 isn’t mag­i­cal. It won’t erase the real­i­ties many want to escape. Only we can change through ideas, actions, rev­o­lu­tion. On Jan­u­ary 7, a com­mu­ni­ty will come togeth­er to cel­e­brate ideas worth spread­ing in Salem and beyond.

You can be a part of it.

TEDxSalem is a full day of bril­liant speak­ers, thought­ful dis­cus­sion, art, food and enter­tain­ment meant to leave you inspired and ready to act. It doesn’t mat­ter on which side of the polit­i­cal spec­trum you fall. These ideas are for every­one.

Where else can you hear from a bug farmer, mind­ful thinker, bud­ding sci­en­tist, Pulitzer-nom­i­nat­ed writer, social jus­tice cham­pi­on, child advo­cate and so many more in one day?  Join us. Let the rev­o­lu­tion begin.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

Say hello to host Mark Powers

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Mark Pow­ers is a per­cus­sion­ist, an artist, an author, edu­ca­tor and men­tor. Plus, he’s no stranger to the TEDx stage. In fact, he has two talks under his belt and played the role of host for TEDxMt­Hood (for­mer­ly Con­cor­diaU­Port­land) three times.

“I’ve long been a fan of TED and TEDx talks, so being invit­ed to step on stage at sev­er­al of them has led to some of my all-time favorite (and, at times, most ter­ri­fy­ing) expe­ri­ences,” Mark said.

The for­mer Salem res­i­dent (he lived here from 2006 to 2012) who has called Port­land home for the past two years, lives by the adage of lots of eggs in lots of bas­kets.

“I’m try­ing to replace busy with blessed in my vocab­u­lary,” Mark said.

Gen­uine and sin­cere, music has been the cat­a­lyst spark­ing many of his adven­tures as he has trav­eled and taught through­out the world.

As a drum­mer, you can see him per­form with the Port­land band Mbras­catu, or with Haley John­son and Aman­da Richards. He’s shared the stage with Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Devon Evans of Bob Mar­ley and the Wail­ers, Rolling Stones sax­o­phon­ist Tim Ries and Bad Company’s Lynn Sorensen.

He free­lances when­ev­er pos­si­ble and is hap­py for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in record­ing projects, too.

“Two albums I am stoked about are M Ward — I played drums on half — and She & Him. I’m play­ing drums on one track of the Christ­mas album,” Mark said.

He’s been pub­lished in mag­a­zines, com­posed solo/ensemble per­cus­sion pieces and writ­ten numer­ous books on drum­ming. His first children’s board book, I Want to Be a Drum­mer!, was released in Sept. 2016, and his sec­ond book, I Want to Be a Read­er!, will be out in the spring.

He’s an entre­pre­neur, always think­ing about cre­ative ways of mak­ing mon­ey; How he could use his musi­cal knowl­edge to his advan­tage.

“I didn’t think of myself in that way for a long time,” Mark said

Plus, he’s a past Guin­ness World Record hold­er (Longest Drum Roll by a Group: 2003–2005) for play­ing a con­tin­u­ous 12-hour drum­roll.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

S. Renee Mitchell: Art as survival

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For S. Renee Mitchell, art is sur­vival.

This is not an over­state­ment.

For 25 years, Mitchell worked as a suc­cess­ful news­pa­per jour­nal­ist, most recent­ly for The Ore­gon­ian. This high­ly pub­lic role cov­ered up her inner strug­gle — the doubts, depres­sion, self-loathing.

Then she redis­cov­ered her cre­ativ­i­ty, and that saved her life, she says.

“Even­tu­al­ly, I came to a point where I need­ed to leave behind every­thing I pre­tend­ed to be, all the roles I played so well, all the belief sys­tems that no longer worked for me, and get back in tune with how to live my live authen­ti­cal­ly and with con­scious inten­tion,” she said in an email. “Art was in the cen­ter of that jour­ney that brought me back to myself.”
Now, Mitchell is a full-time teacher artist, design­er, poet and play­wright, among many oth­er cre­ative roles.
Mitchell and the upcom­ing TEDxSalem event may be a per­fect match. She calls her­self a Cre­ative Rev­o­lu­tion­ist, and works to help oth­ers find their cre­ative cen­ters so that they can “gath­er up and move on.”
Want to learn how to tap into your own cre­ative pow­er­house? Get your tick­ets here.