TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Entertainment

Experience Salem-based band Sleep Millennium at TEDxSalem VI

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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

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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.

Music translator Rian Gayle invites us to reinterpret music together

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Rian Gayle makes music come alive for those who can’t hear it and even those who can.

The Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage music trans­la­tor moves his body to the rhythm, uses facial expres­sions to con­vey emo­tion and spends count­less hours trans­lat­ing phras­es and metaphors into signs that dri­ve home mean­ing. At TEDxSalem Jan. 5, he will not only trans­late but teach every­one to sign a pop­u­lar song to the music.

“Some peo­ple who are deaf real­ly appre­ci­ate see­ing the music in ASL,” he said, “and they say ‘oh that’s what that song means.’ They’re fas­ci­nat­ed with the signs and the trans­la­tions them­selves. Some of them think final­ly I can access music.”

With­out this type of trans­la­tion, music can fall flat with lyrics that often make lit­tle sense in direct trans­la­tion. Imag­ine read­ing the lyrics to Bohemi­an Rhap­sody with­out expe­ri­enc­ing the emo­tion or the soar­ing ups and downs. Gayle can con­vey emo­tion, tone and show whether some­one is yelling or calm.

Gayle became deaf at the age of three, but he can still pick up the beat and feel the rhythm. He start­ed music trans­la­tion per­for­mances about 15 years ago at church and now offers class­es to those who want to learn through Salem ASLu­sic.

He loves reg­gae, hip hop, blues and pop, and his favorite song is “Redemp­tion Song” by Bob Mar­ley.

“It’s a great song,” said Gayle, who, like Mar­ley, is from Jamaica.

By day Gayle is the accom­mo­da­tions coor­di­na­tor at West­ern Ore­gon University’s Office of Dis­abil­i­ty Ser­vices. He also serves on sev­er­al boards and com­mis­sions that work to bring greater access to those with dis­abil­i­ties.

Music trans­la­tion is anoth­er way to not only pro­vide that access to the deaf com­mu­ni­ty but also build bridges. The per­for­mances are for deaf and hear­ing audi­ences.

Hear­ing audi­ences get to expe­ri­ence songs and ASL in a whole new way. He invites audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion and even teach­es a few of the signs. It also brings greater aware­ness, Gayle said, “yes we are deaf, but we can have fun, and we can enjoy music.”

To any­one look­ing to team up with Gayle, he said“We can work togeth­er through music, and I can per­form with you.”

“That is some­thing that I’m try­ing to work on for the future so our com­mu­ni­ty and our lan­guage becomes more vis­i­ble,” he said.

Rian Gayle

Home­town: Kingston, Jamaica,

Edu­ca­tion: B.A.  in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion and M.A. in Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment for per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties from Gal­laudet Uni­ver­si­ty, Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Fam­i­ly: Wife, Laine, daugh­ter, RiLana (com­bi­na­tion of Rian and Laine)

Hob­bies: Bik­ing, hik­ing, dance, sal­sa, read­ing, watch­ing movies and row­ing with drag­on boat team “Peace Drag­on War­rior”

Favorite recent movie: “Roma”

Favorite music: “I do love reg­gae, hip hop, rap and some indie music, neo soul and Span­ish music for danc­ing.”

Favorite Food: “I do absolute­ly love Indi­an food, and the Jamaican restau­rant in Port­land serves great food.”

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.

Samantha Chisholm Hatfield: Combining science with storytelling

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As we edge ever clos­er to our big day, we intro­duce one more per­former and pre­sen­ter for our event: native sto­ry­teller and sci­en­tist Saman­tha Chisholm Hat­field, whose inter­ac­tive sto­ry­telling tech­niques com­bine the oral tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge of Native Amer­i­cans with stan­dard sci­en­tif­ic inquiry to con­vey a fuller pic­ture of the envi­ron­ment.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field earned her doc­tor­ate from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty in Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences, with a focus on the tra­di­tion­al eco­log­i­cal knowl­edge (TEK) of Siletz Trib­al Mem­bers. She is an enrolled mem­ber of the Con­fed­er­at­ed Tribes of Siletz Indi­ans, from the Tutut­ni and Chi­nook bands, and is also Chero­kee.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field has worked with the Ore­gon Cli­mate Change Research Insti­tute, and has worked to coor­di­nate trib­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in North­west Cli­mate Sci­ence Cen­ter and USGS Cli­mate Boot Camp work­shops. Her dis­ser­ta­tion has been her­ald­ed nation­al­ly by schol­ars as a pio­neer­ing tem­plate for TEK research. She is a Native Amer­i­can Long­house Advi­so­ry Board mem­ber at Ore­gon State, and a fea­tured blog­ger for the Union of Con­cerned Sci­en­tists. She was select­ed as an H.J. Andrews For­est Vis­it­ing Schol­ar, and cho­sen as a Kore­an Foun­da­tion Fel­low­ship Field Research Schol­ar to study TEK in South Korea.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field talked with us about her per­for­mance, and the val­ue of bring­ing Native per­spec­tives into the study of ecol­o­gy.

TEDxSalem: Talk a lit­tle about your appear­ance at this year’s event.

Saman­tha Chisholm Hat­field: I’m very excit­ed to bring a strong Native voice to offer a per­spec­tive not many have heard, or are even aware is there!

Look­ing through a Native look­ing glass out at the world pro­vides a rich depth and tra­di­tion­al views that are long­stand­ing. I offer a look at what grow­ing up Native “looks” like, what it takes to become an aca­d­e­m­ic pro­fes­sion­al, and why I do the work I do.

Many peo­ple are unaware of the rich­ness that Native Amer­i­can cul­ture brings, as well as the long­stand­ing and cur­rent con­tri­bu­tions that Native cul­ture holds.

TxS: How do you believe it ties in to the theme of the event, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

SCH: Many times it is assumed that per­spec­tives are all the same, or that a clas­sic stereo­type is cor­rect. Per­spec­tives vary from per­son to per­son when look­ing at the world, and the depth and breadth of cul­ture brings about a beau­ty that many miss when they assume or accept a stereo­type.

A look­ing glass can hold mul­ti­ple facets, depend­ing on the angle, so to [see] the light that shines through a Native “angle” is some­thing most have not had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence. The dom­i­nant world­view most are accus­tomed to see­ing, hear­ing, and believ­ing is not always the only view.

TxS: You’ve men­tioned that there are very few Ph. Ds doing what you do in the Native com­mu­ni­ty. Do you see your­self as a role mod­el for oth­ers Native Amer­i­cans to fol­low?

It’s not up to me to say. I hope to be show­ing a dif­fer­ent way to look at sci­ence and look at native cul­ture. So all peo­ple through TEK can gain anoth­er per­spec­tive, anoth­er way to see how the world works, and what diver­si­ty real­ly means.

TxS: What would you want the audi­ence to come away with, hav­ing learned about indige­nous TEK? What is your hope for the event?

SCH: I’d like for par­tic­i­pants to be more aware about the depth of indige­nous knowl­edge and TEK; how sto­ries are the back­bone of our tra­di­tions and the term “sto­ry” often entails mul­ti­ple lev­els. Enter­tain­ment has a pur­pose and is often a very effec­tive tool used for teach­ing.

I also look for­ward to [shar­ing] what it takes to live in two worlds, and the chal­lenges Natives face as they live and work in main­stream soci­ety. Native Amer­i­cans have often been termed the invis­i­ble minor­i­ty because of the lack of acknowl­edge­ment, and I rou­tine­ly hear indi­vid­u­als say they have nev­er met a Native per­son, when in real­i­ty chances are that they know some­one who is Native but don’t rec­og­nize it due to stereo­types and assump­tions.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place 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.

Tippy Toe: Taking over the TEDx stage

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As if there wasn’t enough to see and do, atten­dees of this year’s TEDxSalem event “Through the Look­ing Glass” will be treat­ed to a per­for­mance by Salem’s own Tip­py Toe Dance Stu­dio.

The stu­dio focus­es on bal­let, but also teach­es hip-hop, con­tem­po­rary, and pas de deux, along with fit­ness class­es and com­pet­i­tive danc­ing.

Those who came out to 2015’s “Fear­less” event will remem­ber their lights-out com­bi­na­tion per­for­mance with the Tru­Root break­danc­ing squad.

We sat down recent­ly with stu­dio founder Rebec­ca Swish­er, 32, and stu­dio man­ag­er Nicole Tea-Pel­ley, 20, about their upcom­ing per­for­mance.

TEDx Salem: Tell us about the start of the stu­dio.

Rebec­ca Swish­er: “We cre­at­ed it in 2009, and I had been work­ing local­ly as a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for quite some time. And I kept being asked by friends and peo­ple that I would meet in the com­mu­ni­ty: ‘Oh, could you just teach my child dance, or my friend dance,’ and so I start­ed with just a hand­ful of stu­dents, actu­al­ly in my back­yard, we built a small stu­dio for it.

And I just kept think­ing, if I’m going to have a stu­dio, I want­ed to do it dif­fer­ent­ly than stu­dios had been in the past. So, we’ve real­ly grown into this family…We real­ly focus on dancers find­ing their indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, their own cre­ativ­i­ty, and just feel­ing free to express them­selves in any way. And we’ve real­ly become a fam­i­ly out of that.”

Nicole Tea-Pel­ley: “From the ground up from the lit­tle kids to the old­est dancers – We have peo­ple who are in their lat­er twen­ties here – every­body knows every oth­er per­son who dances at the stu­dio, and we all can build off of that, and we become bet­ter dancers off of that.

We all have dif­fer­ent traits and you’ll see that in every stu­dio, but com­pared to oth­er places that I’ve seen, we real­ly embrace that, and we use that to make our­selves bet­ter and more well-round­ed.”

TxS: How do you feel your per­for­mance will align with this year’s theme, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

RS: “…when I think of TEDx, I think of a safe place where peo­ple come togeth­er to share ideas, and how it has this rip­ple effect with­in our com­mu­ni­ty when we share ideas with each oth­er. When think­ing ‘through the look­ing glass,’ I thought of that and put it on a larg­er scale.

Our piece express­es not always going with just the norm, not always just fit­ting in a par­tic­u­lar social group or way of think­ing… We’re try­ing to express to peo­ple being open to new ways of think­ing and real­ly expe­ri­enc­ing free­dom from that.

Once you’re will­ing to chal­lenge the way you’re think­ing a whole new world can open up to you.”

TxS: What can the TEDx audi­ence look for­ward to? What are you going to hit us with?

NTP: “They won’t just see dancers on a stage — they’re going to see real peo­ple, and the real emo­tions that peo­ple go through, as they, as Bec­ca was say­ing, break out of the norm of soci­ety and real­ly con­nect with some­thing in them­selves.

Because no mat­ter what somebody’s jour­ney is, every­body has gone through some­thing sim­i­lar to that, in one way or anoth­er. With this piece we are real­ly try­ing to con­nect with peo­ple on that lev­el. We get real­ly real, we get to points where we’re not doing spe­cif­ic moves, but we’re just being our­selves, and I think that peo­ple will real­ly be kind of shocked by that. And it’ll make them think real­ly hard.”

RS: “There’s also a lit­tle bit of sur­prise ele­ments in the dances, of pair­ing togeth­er dif­fer­ent styles of dance that you wouldn’t nor­mal­ly think of putting togeth­er.”

TxS: Tell me there’s going to be break­danc­ing!

RS: “There’s a lit­tle bit of break in there, yeah.” (laughs)

TxS: How do you keep it fresh?

RS: “Well, I don’t pay atten­tion to what oth­er peo­ple are doing. We def­i­nite­ly do things our own way, and we all play a part in chore­og­ra­phy, and we move the way we’re feel­ing.”

TxS: What do you want to accom­plish at TEDxSalem this year?

RS: “I want to feel like our mes­sage has been heard, and I think TEDx is a real­ly good plat­form for that. For me as an artist, when I have some­thing that I need to express, I need to be able to know that I was heard or I was seen, and it’s like some­thing in me that has to get that out.”

NTP: “I’m excit­ed about the con­nec­tion between the audi­ence and us. TEDx has audi­ence mem­bers from all walks of life, but def­i­nite­ly there’s a strong sense of peo­ple who do have the artis­tic and cre­ative minds there. And I think that if we can con­nect with some of those peo­ple and impact some of those peo­ple, that’s where we get real­ly cool new and big ideas, and that’s where that flow starts to go that we real­ly are inspired by.”

TxS: Now this is real­ly impor­tant — How are you going to avoid hit­ting the TEDxSalem sign when you dance?

RS: “That’s a real­ly good ques­tion. We’ve actu­al­ly been tap­ing out our stu­dio [floor], to say if you cross this line of tape you are going to be hit­ting the TEDx sign. So right now that’s our plan of attack.”

Learn more about the stu­dio at www.tippytoedancestudio.com, and join us Jan. 6 to catch ’em live on our stage.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, 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.

Stereo RV: Bringing the beatbox to TEDxSalem

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For six years, Stereo RV has been a fix­ture on the Port­land music scene, but lead singer Myra Glea­son and vocal per­cus­sion­ist and hus­band Gabe Glea­son have been per­form­ing for even longer togeth­er, ever since their paths crossed on the stage at “Port­land Teen Idol.”

The duo, which hails from Keiz­er and Port­land, respec­tive­ly, recent­ly released their debut EP, “Human,” and will be per­form­ing live at our TEDx Salem event. We recent­ly caught up with Myra who spoke to us about the group, their inspi­ra­tions and their hopes for their TEDxSalem appear­ance.

TEDxSalem: Talk a lit­tle bit about the name — You both chose to live in an RV for some years. What was that expe­ri­ence like?

Myra Glea­son: Well, up until last Decem­ber, we were liv­ing in an RV. The expe­ri­ence… [laughs]

We bought the RV three years ago, so that we could down­size our life, that we would have more mon­ey avail­able for oppor­tu­ni­ty should it come with music, because we were liv­ing in Port­land at the time and Port­land it was just so expen­sive. So the RV was real­ly the best way that we could go to save funds and pur­sue music.

So that’s evi­dent­ly where our name came from… Stereo is dual, you have your left and your right, and we’re mar­ried, so we thought that fit in as a duo, and then the RV, because that’s where we lived for three years, and that’s where all the songs on our “Human” EP were cre­at­ed. But right now we are not liv­ing in the RV. I get to live in a fine town­house with my moth­er. So…

TxS: Where’s the best place to camp out? 

Myra: Uh, gosh, somebody’s dri­ve­way? [laughs] We nev­er got to take her camp­ing, to be hon­est with you, because we lived in her, and so she was just always stuck on a pad in one of the Port­land parks, so… We met a lot of inter­est­ing peo­ple, though.

TxS: Now you say “her…” Does this RV have a name?

Myra: Yeah, her name’s Beat­rice. She’s a beast, that’s why her name is Beat­rice.

TxS: Talk a lit­tle about how your part­ner­ship with Gabe formed. On your web site it says you met at a singing com­pe­ti­tion.

Myra: I was a spe­cial guest per­former that sang dur­ing the judges’ delib­er­a­tion, and Gabe was also a spe­cial per­former that did some beat­box­ing with anoth­er artist. I saw the beat­box­ing and the oth­er per­son play­ing, so it was quite cool cause I’d nev­er seen any­thing like that, and I want­ed to bring Gabe in for beat­box­ing on one of my songs, which we were solo artists at the time, so I had Gabe come in, and we put some beat­box­ing down on some of the songs I was doing at the time, and that led to him giv­ing me gui­tar lessons, and us start­ing to write togeth­er, and then we did Salem’s Got Tal­ent back in 2011, and we got fourth place on that, and so that was the first take that we did as a duo, to see if we had the chem­istry that it need­ed to be on stage.

Could we make this as a duo, could we do this as a work­ing rela­tion­ship? And from there we just liked each oth­er and here we are, mar­ried. [Laughs]

TxS: So it sounds like he won you over with his beat­box­ing.

Myra: Yeah, that was the start of it, and he was real­ly, real­ly fun­ny with it, so humor and beat­box­ing got me.

TxS: …must be some beat­box­ing.

Myra: [Laughs] Yeah.

TxS: For your song, “Human,” you say that a lot of your inspi­ra­tion comes from your time spent work­ing with fos­ter chil­dren. Tell us about that expe­ri­ence and how it informs the song.

Myra: For me, we build this rela­tion­ship, and at first, there’s noth­ing there. It’s like, “Okay, here’s anoth­er adult that’s forced to come and work with me, because my case work­er says so, or because I’m in this pro­gram,” and the foun­da­tion for any type of change is trust, and rela­tion­ship build­ing. Once I start work­ing with these indi­vid­u­als, you start to find com­mon­al­i­ties with them with­in our rela­tion­ship, and start to learn about trust. And in that trust they told me their sto­ry.

They’ve cried in my car, they’ve explained to me what real­ly affects them and a lot of it, is… One girl just broke down cry­ing, because she want­ed to be loved, and she doesn’t care who it’s by, as long as some­body loves her. I had anoth­er gal who self-harmed, and so she has all of these scars on her arms, and to get her to not wear a long-sleeved shirt in 90-degree weath­er was a big vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty for her to be exposed, to have those real­is­tic scars exposed, and the emo­tion­al ones. So, the first line of “Human” is “I’ve got scars / That show me just where my past has been.” It’s from a con­stant three years of telling her those scars don’t define you, and you don’t have to be afraid of them any­more. Because she had changed so much from who she was. So a lot of it what makes us human?

TxS: Have any of them heard your music? What have they said?

Myra: They have, actu­al­ly, and the first com­ment that I got was, “Myra, did you write this for me?” Every sin­gle youth that I have come in con­tact with, they’ve either asked to hear it, want to hear it, they actu­al­ly talk about the songs that I wrote, and it inspired a lot of them to actu­al­ly start writ­ing, and devel­op that cre­ative, musi­cal side of them. And a lot of them start with rap songs, but it’s been a real great plea­sure to watch how music is work­ing with­in fos­ter care. It’s real­ly cool, it’s real­ly cool to be able to expe­ri­ence that with them, and say, “Yes I did write that for you guys, so you guys could have a voice.” And that encour­ages them to say, “What else is in my voice?”

TxS: Head­ing into our new TEDxSalem event, how do you think Stereo RV fits with the theme, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

Myra: Our music is based off sto­ries, of course, look­ing through the micro­scope of each per­son as an indi­vid­ual human, and what makes them their own indi­vid­ual per­son, and we tend to judge peo­ple by stereo­types or by assump­tions, or by their cir­cum­stances, and being able to find the com­mon­al­i­ties with­in us all. It’s some­thing our music is able to achieve in the sense of through the look­ing glass, through the eyes of some­body else.

TxS: What about your songs do you think will make them res­onate with our audi­ence?

Myra: I think in some way, we’ve all been at that point, where we’ve said, “well, gosh, I’m human. Stop beat­ing me up for mis­takes that I’ve made…” I think our songs will res­onate with the TED audi­ence because they’re hon­est, and trans­par­ent, and they’re melod­i­cal­ly made in a way that can bring inspi­ra­tion or just any­thing pos­i­tive to them as peo­ple who are in our com­mu­ni­ty com­ing to these events to be inspired, to learn some­thing.

TxS: Any­thing else the TEDx Salem audi­ence should know?

Myra: Well, I think we’re going to… [REDACTED: Hmmm, curi­ous? Join us at TEDxSalem “Through the Look­ing Glass” on Jan. 6 and find out.]

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, 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.