TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

TEDxSalem IV

A photo retrospective on TEDxSalem IV: Revolutions

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As we embark on our new TEDx event, we invite you to look back on our pho­to ret­ro­spec­tive of the last great adven­ture we shared with Salem and beyond: “Rev­o­lu­tions.” It was an event mem­o­rable for, among oth­er things, the dri­ving snow­storm that greet­ed folks at the exits after­ward.


But while the weath­er out­side was fright­ful, the “inspire” was so delight­ful! From the ambi­tious and breath­tak­ing stage piece by Kathryn Cel­leri­ni Moore, to excit­ing and pas­sion­ate speak­ers like Kelsey Juliana, there was enough warmth and fel­low­ship to brave the cold. There was danc­ing; There was rock ’n’ roll; There was even yoga for all to begin the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Check out the sights of the day on Flickr.

And remem­ber, advance tick­ets for our upcom­ing event, “Through the Look­ing Glass,” go on sale Sept. 1!

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.

 

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.

Meet Artist-in-Residence Kathryn Cellerini Moore

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Ore­gon-native and self-pro­fessed nerd Kathryn Cel­leri­ni Moore is a cre­ative force trans­form­ing child­hood mem­o­ries into thought-pro­vok­ing art instal­la­tions. And this year she is the TEDxSalem Artist in Res­i­dence help­ing set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate its theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

Drawn to art for its ther­a­peu­tic val­ues, Kathryn holds a BS in Psy­chol­o­gy and a BFA in Allied Visu­al Arts from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty. She earned her Mas­ter’s Degree in Stu­dio Art with a focus on print­mak­ing, sculp­ture and instal­la­tion from Stony Brook Uni­ver­si­ty in New York. Although across the coun­try, Kathryn want­ed a pro­gram that would allow her to explore.

“Stu­dio art was open enough for those like me who can’t decide on one medi­um,” she said. “I wasn’t good about mak­ing deci­sions, about focus­ing. I want­ed to do what felt should be done for what­ev­er the idea was.”

“I nev­er felt like I was going to mas­ter any one mate­r­i­al because I nev­er stick with one for very long,” Kathryn said. “What you are mas­ter­ing is how to take an idea and give it form. So I would say, I am most­ly drawn to con­cep­tu­al ideas where the idea forms every­thing else.”

“I am also very drawn to mate­ri­als,” Kathryn added. “The sump­tu­ous­ness, tex­tures and col­ors.”


Inspi­ra­tion for the artist derives from her child­hood and the envi­ron­ment in which she grew up.

“My art is very seat­ed in how I respond to my every day and con­nect­ing to that…asking the ques­tion ‘Why do I respond that way?’” Kathryn said, not­ing that how for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence con­tin­ues to impact our dai­ly lives has been a thread through her work for some time.

For her TEDxSalem stage instal­la­tion, Kathryn hopes view­ers will see some­thing unex­pect­ed. It’s a vision that’s chaot­ic and con­trolled at the same time, she said. But there is also a very per­son­al lev­el, a fam­i­ly por­trait, to the instal­la­tion.

“For me, this instal­la­tion pays homage to the sweat and tears that goes into a rev­o­lu­tion,” Kathryn said, “I am look­ing at rev­o­lu­tion on a broad­er scale….as being a per­son­al a‑ha moment, a break­through in per­cep­tion that changes your life for­ev­er. I cre­ate art­work from direct per­son­al expe­ri­ence with the intent and belief that the per­son­al is uni­ver­sal.”

“Rev­o­lu­tion is also from begin­ning to end…one full cycle…a destruc­tive force,” Kathryn said. “Rev­o­lu­tions can be the basis for com­mu­ni­ty and growth.”

In coop­er­a­tion with the Salem Art Asso­ci­a­tion through a new pro­gram cater­ing to the Artist-in-Res­i­dence con­cept, Kathryn will be work­ing on her TEDxSalem stage instal­la­tion on-and-off at The Annex through Jan. 6. The Bush Barn Art Cen­ter and the Annex are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tues. to Fri. and noon to 5 p.m. Sat. and Sun., at 600 Mis­sion St. SE in Salem. The build­ings will be closed from Dec.  25-Jan. 3.Learn more at salemart.org/programs/annex.

Teressa Raiford: #blacklivesmatter was just the beginning

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Don't Shoot PDXIt can be easy to over­look Ter­es­sa Raiford in a crowd­ed room, and that seems to suit her quite fine. Short in stature, she is soft-spo­ken and unas­sum­ing in per­son, often with gaze avert­ed and the occa­sion­al half-smile.

There’s a notice­able hint of lone­li­ness in Raiford’s demeanor that the com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er and leader of Don’t Shoot Port­land does not try to hide, one of the ironies of lead­er­ship that she accepts as part of the job.

“I couldn’t love too much,” said Raiford, 46, speak­er at TEDx Salem’s REVOLUTIONS event.  “You’re not avail­able to pets or fam­i­ly or any­body.”

“It’s real­ly bad, but it’s most­ly for the safe­ty of the peo­ple we love.”

From online harass­ment and threats against her life, to an arrest and tri­al for dis­or­der­ly con­duct, Raiford accepts and puts aside the costs of doing her job. A gen­er­a­tional Ore­gon­ian who traces her family’s roots in the state back to the 1880s, she spent her youth in and out of fos­ter care from the age of 7 through 18. It’s one rea­son she often feels out of place, in the place she should call home, she said.

Yet at Port­land City Hall, two months ago, there again was Raiford, help­ing lead the charge of pro­tes­tors demand­ing to have a voice in delib­er­a­tions between the city and the police union.

For her TED talk, Raiford will speak about the heart of protest — the impor­tance of get­ting involved and mak­ing a dif­fer­ence. And she will share why she does it.

Specif­i­cal­ly, it was one day in Sep­tem­ber 2010 that changed the life of this for­mer accoun­tant, the day she learned of the shoot­ing death of her nephew, Andre Pay­ton. It was a loss that forced her to come to grips with the plague of gun vio­lence, a com­mu­ni­ty issue that seemed to get no trac­tion among city lead­ers who would seem on the sur­face to be recep­tive to such a pro­gres­sive cause. Port­land is sym­pa­thet­ic, but is also main­ly white, she said.

“Port­land is a fake pro­gres­sive town,” she said.

See­ing the inac­tion forced Raiford to rec­og­nize that more need­ed to be done to make minor­i­ty voic­es heard, and more would be asked of her than just fundrais­ing and march­ing, she said.

“The only way that I could empow­er my com­mu­ni­ty was by protest­ing,” she said.

Get­ting the courage to lead the com­mu­ni­ty in protests didn’t come too hard, though. The old­est of 11 sib­lings, Raiford had had to take charge of her life and fight through her sit­u­a­tion from an ear­ly age, as both her par­ents end­ed up serv­ing time in prison.

“It was always on me to take care of sib­lings and cousins, and even my moth­er,” she said. It’s what dri­ves her to each protest, each ral­ly, each plan­ning ses­sion.

“It hurts to go out there. It hurts. All this stuff is bad. Mass incar­cer­a­tion, fos­ter care audits. The pain of my expe­ri­ence, and the val­ue of my age, and know­ing that I can fight for that child. I have to have courage.”

And in the end, it’s what gives Raiford her iden­ti­ty, no mat­ter how tired, or scared she might be.

“[The com­mu­ni­ty will] come get you,” she said. “They won’t let you not serve them.”

“I am the peo­ple that I serve,” she said. “Doing some­thing is rev­o­lu­tion­ary. And it’s nec­es­sary.”

“We might not always know exact­ly what we have to do, but if we don’t do any­thing, then that means that we don’t mat­ter. And that’s telling the world that it’s okay that we don’t mat­ter.”

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.