TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

announcement

Meet the first round of speakers for TEDxSalem VII

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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.

Rainbow Dance Theatre brings innovation to the TEDxSalem stage

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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.

Elizabeth Fournier found comfort, purpose and love in the funeral industry

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Fournier was always drawn to funer­als. They helped her make sense of los­ing sev­er­al fam­i­ly mem­bers in quick suc­ces­sion.

After earn­ing a degree in com­mu­ni­ca­tions from Lin­field Col­lege, there was only one career for her: Mor­ti­cian. She under­stood bet­ter than most what griev­ing fam­i­lies go through, and it helped her con­nect.

“If I had some­one pass­ing,” she said, “what would I want? I would want some­one to gen­tly hold my hand and be kind.”

Despite find­ing suc­cess in her field, she had not found her true love, yet. Over the course of one year, she braved 77 blind dates to find the one. She met a lot of nice guys, she said, but it was her col­league who lis­tened to her sto­ries about each date who turned out to be the best fit.

“Lit­tle did I know the guy who worked in the base­ment who I brand­ed Creep­er McCreep­er­son (the cre­ma­to­ri­um tech­ni­cian) would end up being my one true love,” she said.

“We have been hap­pi­ly mar­ried for 13 years.”

Now Fournier owns and oper­ates Cor­ner­stone Funer­al Ser­vice with her husband’s help in Bor­ing, Ore­gon. He works behind the scenes, and she is the one who answers the phone when­ev­er a fam­i­ly needs her, 24/7. They also run a res­cue farm as a way to unwind.

“We have goats and sheep that we hug and kiss, sing to, pat and take pic­tures of,” she said.

“Okay, it’s only me that hugs and kiss­es, sings and takes pic­tures of them. I would say tak­ing care of them and spend­ing time with them is def­i­nite­ly my main form of self-care.”

Fournier is known for blaz­ing a trail in envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly buri­als. She wrote two books on the top­ic: “The Green Bur­ial Guide­book,” and “The Green Reaper: Mem­oirs of an Eco-Mor­ti­cian.”

She is also known for giv­ing fam­i­lies the free­dom to say good­bye in their own way whether that is a daugh­ter dri­ving her dad in his favorite truck one last time or lay­ing a moth­er to rest on fam­i­ly-owned prop­er­ty.

In addi­tion to “Green Reaper,” she is also called the under­tak­er of Bor­ing, Ore­gon. She loves both titles equal­ly.

Hear her sto­ry and how your last act in the world can be your green­est at TEDxSalem Jan. 5.

Elizabeth Fournier

Home­town: Port­land, Ore­gon

Fam­i­ly:  Hus­band Michael and Daugh­ter Sofia.

Hob­bies: Pay­ing it for­ward. I also enjoy sneak­ing into friends’ pantries and rear­rang­ing their canned food.

Music: Any­thing that grooves my soul.

Favorite author: I like to flip through the dic­tio­nary and learn new words.

Favorite food: What’s not to like?

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.

DeafBlind, but Definitely Not Disconnected

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Here’s what Jen­ny­Lynn Diet­rich would like you to know about her:

She’s tak­en ser­vice learn­ing trips to Guatemala and Ghana. She’s a choco­late snob who wouldn’t dare touch the gener­ic stuff. She’s engaged to be mar­ried next year. She loves to paint, draw, and per­form on the the­ater stage. And she’s pas­sion­ate about help­ing oth­ers, point­ing them toward the resources that could help them change their lives.

You might learn these things if you just ask her. But Diet­rich says peo­ple are often too afraid or intim­i­dat­ed by two of her more obvi­ous traits: she is deaf and blind.

One of the main points Diet­rich hopes to make in her TEDxSalem talk, enti­tled “Deaf­Blind: Blind but Not Blind,” is that peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties val­ue auton­o­my — they want to be seen as reg­u­lar pro­duc­tive mem­bers of soci­ety, just like those with­out dis­abil­i­ties.

“We don’t want people’s pity,” she says. “We just want to be accept­ed as equals.”

Born with a rare hered­i­tary con­di­tion called Stick­ler syn­drome, Diet­rich is ful­ly blind in her left eye and has lim­it­ed vision in her right. She’s also pro­found­ly deaf in her left ear, but she can hear a bit in her right with a hear­ing aid. Her pre­ferred method to com­mu­ni­cate is Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage. She also uses a form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion called Pro­Tac­tile — devel­oped by the Deaf­Blind com­mu­ni­ty — that involves sign­ing on someone’s hand or using parts of their body to help give visu­al or emo­tion­al cues.

Dur­ing her ear­ly years grow­ing up in Okla­homa, Diet­rich attend­ed a main­stream school. It wasn’t until high school that she went to a state school for the deaf. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies from Gal­laudet Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Ulti­mate­ly she moved to Seat­tle to work as a Case Man­ag­er at the Deaf­Blind Ser­vice Cen­ter. She helped oth­er Deaf­Blind peo­ple by pro­vid­ing ser­vices to make their lives eas­i­er — includ­ing advo­ca­cy, infor­ma­tion and refer­rals, edu­ca­tion, and out­reach — and she ulti­mate­ly dis­cov­ered she had a pas­sion for help­ing oth­ers.

One of the most use­ful resources Diet­rich found in Seat­tle was Sup­port Ser­vice Providers (SSPs) — sight­ed guides who pro­vide Deaf­Blind peo­ple with visu­al infor­ma­tion about their envi­ron­ment so that they can par­tic­i­pate in reg­u­lar main­stream activ­i­ties such as gro­cery shop­ping, read­ing mail, or bank­ing.

“When I moved to Ore­gon, it was a chal­lenge because there’s not an SSP pro­gram here for peo­ple like me to access,” she says. “I’ve been work­ing hard this year to get some­thing like that estab­lished here by reach­ing out to oth­er Deaf­Blind peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty and lead­ers in pub­lic ser­vice.”

Diet­rich came to the Willamette Val­ley to pur­sue grad­u­ate stud­ies at West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty. She is no longer a stu­dent there, but she is focus­ing her time on attempt­ing to devel­op sup­ports for Deaf­Blind peo­ple in the state. She is cur­rent­ly a facil­i­ta­tor for a non­prof­it called the Ore­gon Deaf­Blind Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance Net­work, some­thing she hopes will become a larg­er statewide orga­ni­za­tion to help pro­vide resources to those who need it.

Advo­ca­cy would be a crit­i­cal part of their work — to help the gen­er­al pub­lic look beyond their dis­abil­i­ties and learn about their inter­ests, their per­son­al­i­ties, and their goals.

“Instead of watch­ing us in fear from afar,” she says, “be brave, and come and learn from us by engag­ing with us!”

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.

Melissa Michaux builds pathways to restorative justice

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Melis­sa Michaux’s work is life chang­ing.

The Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Pol­i­tics at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty start­ed the Restora­tive Jus­tice pro­gram at the school, which works with inmates at the Ore­gon State Pen­i­ten­tiary.  It pro­vides an insight­ful expe­ri­ence for stu­dents about the prison sys­tem and those with­in.

The pro­gram inspires com­pas­sion and gives mean­ing to the par­tic­i­pants through their involve­ment on both sides of the prison walls.

“I hope the Willamette stu­dents have an increased under­stand­ing of the stakes involved in pub­lic pol­i­cy, specif­i­cal­ly crim­i­nal jus­tice pol­i­cy, by meet­ing peo­ple who are affect­ed by the sys­tem we have in place ” she said.

The pro­gram also pro­vides a space for learn­ing and growth that allows inmates to devel­op their own ideas and under­stand­ing about why they are in prison and to devel­op a sense of effi­ca­cy for pos­i­tive­ly affect­ing the world around them, she said.

Michaux is the incom­ing Chair of the new Pol­i­tics, Pol­i­cy, Law and Ethics depart­ment at Willamette. She is a cham­pi­on of com­pas­sion­ate approach­es to pris­on­ers – both dur­ing their incar­cer­a­tion and on paths to rein­te­gra­tion into soci­ety.

“Restora­tive Jus­tice in prison is nec­es­sary,” she said, “to trans­form pris­on­ers for safer com­mu­ni­ties.”

Michaux received her PhD from Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty and her BA with Hon­ors from Boston Col­lege. She has exten­sive­ly dis­cussed health­care pol­i­cy and wel­fare reform and Amer­i­can Pol­i­tics, as well as the pol­i­tics of moth­er­hood. There is a com­mon thread through these sub­jects and that thread is mean­ing­ful lives, for all.

Hear more from Pro­fes­sor Michaux at TEDxSalem Jan­u­ary 5.

Home­town: Bal­ti­more
Fam­i­ly: hus­band Rick and three daugh­ters Sophie (25), Emma (16) and Clara (13)
Hob­bies: ten­nis and read­ing mem­oirs
Favorite Music: favorite band is Pink Mar­ti­ni
Favorite Author: Mar­garet Atwood
Favorite Food: blue crabs
Favorite TV Show of All Time: “Buffy the Vam­pire Slay­er” (Our dog is named after Buffy’s sec­ond boyfriend Riley Finn.)

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.

Singer-songwriter Kristen Grainger to host TEDxSalem VI

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Kris­ten Grainger will take the stage Jan. 5 as the first woman to host TEDxSalem, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

She’s an award-win­ning singer/songwriter in the band True North and a long­time com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gist in Ore­gon pol­i­tics and high­er edu­ca­tion.

Despite writ­ing speech­es for two Ore­gon gov­er­nors, one attor­ney gen­er­al and three uni­ver­si­ty pres­i­dents, she said she is not a speech giv­er so TEDxSalem will be a refresh­ing change of pace.

“I am excit­ed, flat­tered and up for the chal­lenge, par­tic­u­lar­ly since, hav­ing viewed pri­or hosts’ videos, I know that have some big shoes to fill. I’m also proud to be the first female host for a Salem TEDx event.”

We offer you a Q and A with Grainger to get to know her before the big day.

 

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence?

My long-time friend and sis­ter-in-law is a physi­cian and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er and was part of a TED talk spon­sored by the Gates Foun­da­tion about world health. (She shared her doc­u­men­tary “Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Opti­mists” about find­ing hope in the slums of Kolkata.)

That was my first expo­sure to TED. It was mem­o­rable because, well, it was a fam­i­ly mem­ber on a world stage, issue-wise. The total effect of all of the pre­sen­ters in that new con­text was mind-blow­ing.

 

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive?

Rox­ane Gay’s Con­fes­sions of a Bad Fem­i­nist and oth­ers — the inter­face between the speak­er and the lis­ten­er is pow­er­ful and the for­mat is acces­si­ble and con­ducive to learn­ing. I gained greater aware­ness of spe­cif­ic issues and broad­ened my own perspective/world view.

 

Ever thought of doing your own talk? What would it be about? 

Not real­ly before now. If I did:

  1. Why does col­lege cost so much?
  2. How Women Lead
  3. It’s In Me, and It’s Got to Come Out: Cathar­tic Song­writ­ing

 

You are on the board for The­atre 33. I am curi­ous to know more about what that is.

It is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing region­al play­wrights vet and improve new works. The­atre 33 pro­vides pro­duc­tion resources to pro­duce plays as works in progress. The play­wrights get feed­back from a live audi­ence and use that info to improve or mod­i­fy their work mid­stream. This is of huge ben­e­fit to the cre­ative process.

 

When did you start the band True North? What is your lat­est project?

I co-found­ed the band with Dan Wet­zel in 2005. We just released our fifth album, which debuted at #1 in Jan­u­ary on the nation­al folk charts, and it’s still in the top 25. Two tracks on the album won the Wild­flower music fes­ti­val song­writ­ing con­test in in Dal­las, TX last May.

 

What does RE (this year’s theme) mean to you?  

I love that it is total­ly with­out a pre­cise def­i­n­i­tion and sub­ject to inter­pre­ta­tion — it leaves the field wide open, an intel­lec­tu­al grab bag, if you will, of top­ics, sto­ries, issues, and per­spec­tives.

 

Any­thing else that might be inter­est­ing to add?

Cau­tion: I did not com­mit to leav­ing my ukulele at home, because RE could also be inter­pret­ed to mean “Refresh­ing­ly Enter­tain­ing [Host].”

 

Name: Kris­ten Grainger

Age: “Old­er than Bran­di Carlile; younger than Sheryl Crow.”

Edu­ca­tion: BA in English/Creative Writ­ing from Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton

Job Title: Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent for Strate­gic Ini­tia­tives at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty

Home­town: Boston, MA

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band: Dan; Step­son: Jake; Daugh­ter: Sam and Son-in-Law: Evan

Pets: Dog, Cody

Favorite movie: “RBG” (today, any­way!)

Favorite song or artist: “Skele­tons” by Rick­ie Lee Jones

Hob­bies: Music, music, music. Also hik­ing, fish­ing, read­ing, movies, and fam­i­ly stuff.

Favorite book: “Pos­ses­sion” by A.S. Byatt

What do you want to be when you grow up?: Pro­fes­sor Karen Hol­man, obvi­ous­ly. Doesn’t every­one??

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.