TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2020 TEDxSalem

Beyond Limits Aerial Dance to thrill audience at TEDxSalem

By

Grav­i­ty adds a sense of won­der and thrill to watch­ing dancers who leave the safe­ty of the ground to twirl from rings and oth­er geo­met­ric shapes over­head.

That’s the expe­ri­ence that Beyond Lim­its Aer­i­al Dance will bring to TEDxSalem Jan. 4. It’s rem­i­nis­cent of the soar­ing wild gamut of emo­tions you feel on a roller coast­er with­out the dis­joint­ed move­ments of a rick­ety track.

Jes­si Fouts and EJ Reinagel are the artis­tic direc­tors behind the Salem dance com­pa­ny Beyond Lim­its. They hail from mul­ti­ple locales from around the coun­try includ­ing New York, Cal­i­for­nia and Mis­souri.

To cre­ate the com­pa­ny, the cou­ple take pro­fes­sion­al dancers, often hand­picked, and put them in the air. Jes­si dances in some of the pieces, too.

They chore­o­graph pieces that help dancers move through prob­lems and issues they are fac­ing per­son­al­ly. Their work incor­po­rates all of that into the dance so not only is the audi­ence get­ting some­thing beau­ti­ful to watch, but the actors are releas­ing their scope of emo­tions as well in each aer­i­al twirl, swoop and dive.

Sec­ond, they write all the pieces with a spe­cif­ic theme or an event they would like to explore fur­ther. Their dances are expres­sions of time­less emo­tions sig­nif­i­cant to all peo­ple; love, joy, pain, loss.

“Every­one has expe­ri­enced feel­ings like loss on some lev­el,” says EJ, who is an artis­tic direc­tor of Beyond Lim­its.

While they both chore­o­graph the dancers’ move­ments, EJ is in charge of the appa­ra­tus­es that will help cre­ate the emo­tion­al peaks and val­leys the audi­ence sees. Jes­si brings a back­ground in dance with a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in dance per­for­mance.

She’s the one who stum­bled on to this art when she was fin­ish­ing school. Some­one need­ed aer­i­al dancers, she said, and she thought she would give it a try.

When they don’t have their heads in the clouds, Jes­si is an occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py assis­tant and EJ teach­es at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty. They dream of offer­ing class­es and pro­vid­ing a space to explore envi­ron­men­tal and social issues through mul­ti­me­dia plat­forms.

Even though this isn’t their bread and but­ter just yet, they hope it will be one day. EJ believes it is impor­tant for them to have a place to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty that can give back, a place where they can empow­er peo­ple to be their best selves.

You can see their lat­est work Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 4 at TEDx Salem. Don’t miss this ride.

For more infor­ma­tion about Beyond Lim­its go to https://www.beyondlimitsaerialdance.com/

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets. 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

Clinical Neuropsychologist Justin Feinstein: Diving into Float Therapy

By

Dr. Justin Fein­stein is a Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of the Float Clin­ic & Research Cen­ter at the Lau­re­ate Insti­tute for Brain Research. His lab­o­ra­to­ry inves­ti­gates the effects of Floata­tion-REST (Reduced Envi­ron­men­tal Stim­u­la­tion Ther­a­py) on both the body and the brain, while also explor­ing its poten­tial as a ther­a­peu­tic treat­ment for pro­mot­ing men­tal health and heal­ing in patients who suf­fer from anx­i­ety and stress-relat­ed dis­or­ders. Dr. Fein­stein joined the fac­ul­ty of the Lau­re­ate Insti­tute for Brain Research and the Oxley Col­lege of Health Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tul­sa in 2013, after com­plet­ing his Ph.D. at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa, and his post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ship at the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy. He earned his under­grad­u­ate degree in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, and com­plet­ed his clin­i­cal intern­ship at the San Diego VA hos­pi­tal with a focus on the treat­ment of vet­er­ans with
PTSD.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? Prob­a­bly towards the begin­ning of this decade when I watched my for­mer men­tors, Ralph Adolphs and Anto­nio Dama­sio, give TED talks.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? One of my favorite TED talks is Kel­ly McGonigal’s “How to make stress your friend.” She does a bril­liant job high­light­ing the adap­tive aspects of stress and how our per­cep­tion of stress can fun­da­men­tal­ly alter the bal­ance between life and death. This per­spec­tive has been use­ful in the con­text of my own research into inte­ro­cep­tion, and how the brain per­ceives when the body is in Home­osta­sis.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? The sur­vival of our species depends on our abil­i­ty to fore­see the future and adapt to the oncom­ing chal­lenges that face soci­ety. With­out vision, we are the blind lead­ing the blind, reac­tive­ly address­ing issues once the fire has already start­ed rather than proac­tive­ly try­ing to elim­i­nate such issues before they even begin.

What is the most impor­tant les­son you’ve learned in life? How did you learn it? In life, dreams do not always come true, but some­times the mere act of hav­ing the dream is more impor­tant than achiev­ing it. This is some­thing my father taught me in the first book he ever wrote, Catch Us If You Can.

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I have spent the past 15 years close­ly study­ing a rare group of humans who are miss­ing their amyg­dala, a brain region the­o­rized to be crit­i­cal for fear. My attempt to scare these patients was not exact­ly for fun, but rather for research, and through it we have now learned that the amyg­dala is not the epi­cen­ter of fear in the brain.

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Immunol­o­gy, as virus­es and bac­te­ria are the great­est threat (oth­er than our­selves) to human­i­ty.

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Def­i­nite­ly a pause button…in fact, I’ll be dis­cussing an actu­al pause but­ton in this year’s talk!

Catch that talk in per­son at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 4 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets. 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

Jewelia Owens brings electric-guitar-infused folk to TEDxSalem

By

If you’ve been out in the music scene, chances are you have heard Jew­elia Owens and her elec­tric gui­tar mes­mer­iz­ing the crowd.

If you grew up in Salem in the ‘90s you might have crossed paths with her too. With her mag­net­ic gui­tar and cap­ti­vat­ing voice, she isn’t one to eas­i­ly for­get, which is why you won’t want to miss her at TEDxSalem Jan. 4

Jew­elia Owens to play folk with elec­tric gui­tar for TEDxSalem VII.

She comes from cre­ative par­ents. Her dad was a play­wright and her mom act­ed in his plays. Grow­ing up, there were always fam­i­ly friends play­ing music around her. As a girl, Jew­elia played vio­lin and sang in the choir, but then as a high school fresh­man she met peo­ple who had gui­tars. One day some­one left a 12 string at her house, and she held on to it for a while and learned all the strings and chords

She has trav­eled a bit, seen Europe, and tried to move to New York once, but says she real­ly is a home­body. She has a large, close-knit fam­i­ly in Salem includ­ing aunts, uncles, cousins, grand­par­ent and par­ents. In fact, she lives with her broth­er and his girl­friend, who is also her best friend. Fam­i­ly is impor­tant to her. It was her uncle who first taught her gui­tar.

She loves that they get to pick and choose who hosts for the hol­i­days. But even though she loves Ore­gon, she wouldn’t mind see­ing “some­thing seri­ous­ly trop­i­cal, with clear waters and sun umbrel­las.”

By day you can find her teach­ing music at Riv­er City Rock Star Acad­e­my, and this fall she took a sec­ond job at Sil­ver­leaf School.

“It’s ful­fill­ing and chal­leng­ing to teach a class of chil­dren,” she said of her new gig at Sil­ver­leaf. “They have so much ener­gy!”

She also said that Sil­ver­leaf is fun because she teach­es kids whose par­ents just want them to have the expe­ri­ence of try­ing new things. And the kids don’t care what they play or if they sound good, they just bang drums and play the piano.

“My most fun kids are the ones with no direc­tion, I guess!” she laughed.

Over the years she has changed the direc­tion of her music, mov­ing from an acoustic gui­tar and easy-going folk songs to a dark­er folk on an elec­tric gui­tar.

As she pre­pares her setlist for TEDxSalem, she is think­ing about the theme – VISION and imag­in­ing what songs she can share that include this idea of vision; think­ing about where she is going and where she is com­ing from. It inspires her to think about life and what it means.

“I believe we are here for each oth­er. We real­ly are. Peo­ple are here for peo­ple,” she said.

“It is why we are all alive. All I want in the world is to spread love and kind­ness.”

You can find Jew­elia Owens on Face­book, Insta­gram, Band­camp, and of course, at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 4.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets. 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

Nina Baliga: Accessible tech is better tech for everyone

By

Nina Bali­ga is the man­ag­ing part­ner for Break­ing the Bias, a pro­gram that helps com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als cre­ate tools, meth­ods and strate­gies to build more inclu­sive work­places.

When she isn’t advo­cat­ing for acces­si­ble tech, she spends her time snow­board­ing, rock climb­ing, play­ing video games and spend­ing time with her hus­band Pierce and two dogs, Tavvi and Rook.

One thing that you wouldn’t know about the 39 year old is that she has a ran­dom col­lec­tion of belt buck­les from when she lived in the deep south. We are thrilled to wel­come Nina to the TEDxSalem stage Jan. 4th. 

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? Elaine Mari­no’s “Bring­ing the Work­place into the 21st Cen­tu­ry”. Elaine has been a thought leader in how we can build work­places that tru­ly val­ue diver­si­ty and inclu­sion. I’ve been inspired by her work for years.  

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? It’s all about acces­si­bil­i­ty. Hav­ing worked with build­ing web­sites and apps that are acces­si­ble for the visu­al­ly impaired, I want­ed to start build­ing things that would be acces­si­ble for peo­ple of all dis­abil­i­ties. I rec­og­nized from the very begin­ning that build­ing acces­si­ble prod­ucts and ser­vices means build­ing amaz­ing prod­ucts for every­one. 

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? I knew that I would nev­er work a desk job. My biggest fear as a high school­er was the idea of work­ing in a cubi­cle. Even though I’ve held cubi­cle jobs, I’ve shown to myself that how we define work is up to us in many ways. I’ve been able to define my job in my own terms.  

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I learned Irish for my lan­guage require­ment in col­lege. I would go to under­ground Irish-speak­ing pubs in Gal­way when I lived there for a sum­mer. You can imag­ine peo­ple’s faces when a brown 20-some­thing-year-old woman was going in there and speak­ing to them in Irish.   

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Video game design. I believe video games are not only an escape from our hec­tic lives, but can also be used as a tool for social impact. They’re a pow­er­ful form of sto­ry­telling that any­one can access.   

Go-to karaoke song? “Pour Some Sug­ar on Me” by Def Lep­pard.   

Under your bed right now? Prob­a­bly a whole bunch of dog fur. 

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Smooth

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  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

Hailey Hardcastle: student advocate

By

At 19, Hai­ley Hard­cas­tle is already an accom­plished advo­cate.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon stu­dent is a mem­ber of Stu­dents for a Healthy Ore­gon and was one of four teen activists who lob­bied for a men­tal health bill (HB 2191), which excus­es stu­dent absences for men­tal health rea­sons. The law was enact­ed this year. 

Her fam­i­ly includes three younger sis­ters, a won­der­ful hard­work­ing moth­er and two Alaskan husky pups. Hai­ley enjoys paint­ing, read­ing the news, lis­ten­ing to musi­cals (her favorite is Hamil­ton) and watch­ing foot­ball. In Jan­u­ary, we will wel­come her to the TEDxSalem stage to speak about her advo­ca­cy, but first, let’s get to know Hai­ley Hard­cas­tle. 

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? I had a fan­tas­tic math teacher in mid­dle school who would show us an inspi­ra­tional TED talk every Fri­day. I remem­ber think­ing that every per­son who gave a TED talk must be a celebri­ty or incred­i­bly smart. When I grew old­er and learned that TED speak­ers are just reg­u­lar peo­ple, the talks became even more empow­er­ing, know­ing that I could be like one of those peo­ple I admired so much in mid­dle school.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? My favorite TED talk is called Be The Hope by Gay­athri Ram­prasad. I came across this talk after meet­ing Gay­athri per­son­al­ly to dis­cuss the men­tal health leg­is­la­tion that I helped pass. Her sto­ry changed the way in which I talk about my own men­tal health strug­gles. I used to be embar­rassed about what I’ve been through but her talk inspired me to see the pow­er with­in my sto­ry and myself. I now open­ly share my sto­ry and embrace it to fur­ther my men­tal health advo­ca­cy work.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? Vision to me means look­ing ahead to the future. There is a time and place for reflec­tion but right now is the time to con­sid­er what a bet­ter future will look like.

Hai­ley Hard­cas­tle TEDxSalem 2020

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? My three younger sis­ters, two of them are in mid­dle school and the oth­er is four years old. They’ve helped me see life from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive and can always put a smile on my face.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I have severe gen­er­al anx­i­ety. My anx­i­ety makes some things a lot hard­er for me but it also led me to find­ing my pas­sion for lead­er­ship and activism.

Do you have any com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties? I’ve always been very involved in stu­dent gov­ern­ment! Now that I’ve grad­u­at­ed I still enjoy vol­un­teer­ing for the Ore­gon Asso­ci­a­tion of Stu­dent Coun­cils to work with kids on build­ing their lead­er­ship skills.

Under your bed right now? Well I’m in col­lege so under my bed right now there’s an unrea­son­able amount of snacks.

Make one change in the world? If I could change only one thing in the world, it would be the way in which peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate. I wish more peo­ple would be will­ing to empathize and com­pro­mise with oth­ers who may not have the same beliefs as them.

Great­est fear? The ocean because so much of it is still unex­plored so we real­ly have no idea what’s out there.

Ran­dom fact: My favorite place I’ve ever been to is Machu Pic­chu in Peru.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  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

Musician J.J. Gregg to play sitar at TEDxSalem Jan. 4th

By

Play­ing the sitar is not some­thing you real­ly pick up on a whim. At least, that’s the expe­ri­ence of J.J. Gregg, who will be per­form­ing at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 4th.

“The sitar is a dif­fi­cult instru­ment to learn, but it’s very reward­ing over the long haul,” said Gregg. “Progress can be quite slow. It’s like walk­ing from Salem to Seat­tle. Well, maybe Salem to San Diego. It’s absolute­ly pos­si­ble, but it’s a long-term com­mit­ment rather than a week­end moun­tain climb.”

Gregg’s ultra-marathon jour­ney to mas­ter­ing the sitar began with a love of music with intri­cate or com­plex beats. He often lis­tened to favorite albums repeat­ed­ly from every angle on dif­fer­ent speak­ers and dif­fer­ent times of day.

“I’ve prob­a­bly lis­tened to ‘Sgt. Pepper’s [Lone­ly Hearts Club Band]’ at least 200 times, and more recent­ly the album ‘Amer­i­can Don’ by Don Caballero,” he said.

This pas­sion led him to the real­iza­tion that he want­ed to be a good musi­cian but couldn’t quite fig­ure out how to get there on his own. A cou­ple weeks after this epiphany, he arrived in India on a study abroad pro­gram and short­ly there­after met his now guru, Ustad Usman Khan. He start­ed tak­ing sitar lessons with him twice a week for five months.

“Over many return trips to study sitar in India,” he said, “I slow­ly devel­oped a love and devo­tion toward the sitar – it’s now the only instru­ment I real­ly play.”

What is your favorite part about per­form­ing?

One of my favorite things about per­form­ing is impro­vis­ing, and the chance to sur­prise myself musi­cal­ly. Every audi­ence and per­for­mance is dif­fer­ent, depend­ing on size, time of day, venue and the ener­gy of the audi­ence. I love the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take my audi­ence on a jour­ney. Often the sounds I use calm people’s ten­sions and allow them to explore thoughts, ideas and pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences while lis­ten­ing to the music.

Do you play oth­er instru­ments?

I took piano lessons for nine years and played the french horn for sev­en years, and start­ed an exper­i­men­tal rock band with my best friend after Kurt Cobain’s death. In that group, I sang and at dif­fer­ent times played bass, drums, gui­tar and oth­er dif­fer­ent things that made inter­est­ing nois­es. I also spent a lot of time record­ing our music and releas­ing things most­ly on cas­settes and then lat­er CD-Rs, so you could say that I have always been pas­sion­ate about per­form­ing and pro­duc­ing music.

How does the sitar dif­fer from a per­former’s and a lis­ten­er’s stand­point?

The sitar is dif­fer­ent from a gui­tar in that it’s pri­ma­ry pur­pose is to play melodies. It also pro­vides sup­port­ing rhythm for those melodies. A gui­tar, while it often plays melodies too, is a whole world of har­mon­ic pos­si­bil­i­ties in chords. The sitar is real­ly in just one key.

The sitar as an instru­ment evolved along with South Asian clas­si­cal music. That broad tra­di­tion empha­sizes melody and rhythm, with har­mo­ny cre­at­ed from note to note as part of the melody rather than through the chord changes found in much of West­ern music. So, from my performer’s per­spec­tive, play­ing South Asian clas­si­cal music on sitar feels like a per­fect match. With­in this tra­di­tion, there’s great scope for impro­vi­sa­tion.

What can you tell TEDxSalem atten­dees about your upcom­ing per­for­mance? 

I hope atten­dees can enjoy my per­for­mance as a time to relax, process oth­er ideas from the con­fer­ence, or be trans­port­ed into a dif­fer­ent frame of mind.

How long have you been in Salem, and what do you like about liv­ing and work­ing here?

I live in Salem and have for about five years. There are lots of great things about Salem: We have awe­some trees on our streets and in our parks. You can gar­den through the win­ter, and I like my neigh­bors!

If peo­ple are inspired to learn them­selves, how can they find more infor­ma­tion about the sitar?

I teach sitar lessons here in Salem, so that’s a great place to start. I think every­one has the capac­i­ty to learn to sing or play the sitar or any oth­er instru­ment. First, you need a strong desire to learn your cho­sen instru­ment. Then it’s real­ly a mat­ter of reg­u­lar, delib­er­ate prac­tice; fam­i­ly sup­port to make your prac­tice pos­si­ble; and an expe­ri­enced teacher to guide you.

If you’re inter­est­ed in tak­ing sitar lessons, Gregg can be reached at charukeshi.roopak@gmail.com. To hear his music, go to jjgregg.bandcamp.com or lis­ten to his guru Ustad Usman Khan’s album “Yaman/Charukeshi” who recent­ly re-released on New Earth Records as “Pure Yoga” on iTunes and Spo­ti­fy.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  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