TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Salem

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

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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

Melissa Pollman: Rare disease awareness

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Entre­pre­neur. Par­ent. Activist. Meet Melis­sa Poll­man. Co-own­er of ConKraft Con­struc­tion, Cen­tral Homes Prop­er­ty man­age­ment and Stor­age 4 Less, she’s mar­ried (to Dean) with four kids (Audrey, Madi­son, Cole and Haley), plus two dogs, a cat, two Pygmy goats and a bunch of fish. She earned her MBA from Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty’s Atkin­son Grad­u­ate School of Man­age­ment while work­ing full time and rais­ing a fam­i­ly. She loves boat­ing in the sum­mer and ski­ing in the win­ter, and most of all, spend­ing time with her fam­i­ly. She is a founder of Haley’s Heroes, a foun­da­tion rais­ing funds and aware­ness to help find a cure for Bat­ten Dis­ease.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? About 18 months ago I was invit­ed to watch my neigh­bor, Becky McBride, give a TEDx [like] talk as part of her nurs­ing degree. She spoke on pedi­atric pal­lia­tive care and was inspired to do so by our sto­ry of Haley and Haley’s Heroes Foun­da­tion.

What inspired you to do a TED talk? When faced with immea­sur­able grief you will do any­thing! I would nev­er have thought to do a TED talk before Haley’s diag­no­sis but now I will speak any­where and every­where peo­ple will lis­ten to spread aware­ness. It may not save Haley but at least it’s some­thing I can do when I’m pow­er­less to cure my daugh­ter. Fears of pub­lic speak­ing and being uncom­fort­able are noth­ing com­pared to the fear of los­ing a child. If my words can help one per­son, if I can add hope to a life, then maybe this jour­ney we are on won’t be for noth­ing. Haley will be a lega­cy and sto­ry that lives on and cre­ates hope in hope­less sit­u­a­tions.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? One of the symp­toms of Bat­ten Dis­ease is loss of vision. Haley’s loss of vision put us on this jour­ney. Her joy for life and spir­it inspired us to cre­ate a plan or vision to save her. The phrase “how to have vision when you can’t see” comes to mind. 

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life?  My fam­i­ly.  I’m blessed to have a hus­band that is also my best friend. My chil­dren are extreme­ly close despite the age dif­fer­ences. We are a close-knit fam­i­ly. My heart is full when we are all togeth­er.

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? I envi­sioned a fam­i­ly and all that goes along with it… watch­ing your kids grow up… watch­ing them get mar­ried… becom­ing a grandparent…etc. Receiv­ing the diag­no­sis that Haley has a fatal dis­ease blew that pic­ture up. I live with con­stant grief while bat­tling to stay present and grate­ful for the time we have. 

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? As a teen after I jumped off a bridge into a riv­er up at north fork. It was real­ly high up and I land­ed wrong. I had bruis­es all up and down the back of my legs. It was first and last time I ever did some­thing like that.

Do you have any com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties? I like to run races with friends. I have run Hood to Coast for the past five years and actu­al­ly find it fun! 

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Expert in cur­ing Bat­ten Dis­ease!

Favorite book? I love to read mur­der mys­ter­ies- par­tic­u­lar­ly with a hero­ine! I real­ly don’t know why but it’s all I read … except for the TED book.

Ran­dom fact: I am left-hand­ed but my kids are all right-hand­ed.

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

Michelle LaFontaine brings Bollywood dance to TEDxSalem VII

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When Michelle LaFontaine and her troupe Sun­dari Bol­ly­wood take to the TEDxSalem stage in Jan­u­ary, expect an inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence.

“Plan to move to the music,” said LaFontaine of the East Indi­an-inspired dance per­for­mance. “The music is so upbeat and fun, one can’t help them­selves!”

LaFontaine made the move from bel­ly-danc­ing to Bol­ly­wood dance after hear­ing about an open audi­tion when she lived in Seat­tle in 2011. She had a sched­ul­ing con­flict, but the direc­tor invit­ed her to try out a class the next week.

“I showed up, jumped in head first as I tend to do,” LaFontaine said. “She was impressed with my abil­i­ty to pick up chore­og­ra­phy quick­ly and asked that I be a part of her team. So I start­ed learn­ing.”

Learn­ing soon turned to per­form­ing, which in 2014 turned to teach­ing.

“Dance is an incred­i­ble way to express one­self through move­ment and gain both body aware­ness and con­fi­dence,” she said. “It’s also an incred­i­ble form of exer­cise and helps main­tain youth in the body and brain.”

She now teach­es week­ly class­es in Salem and hosts month­ly shows for those who decide they’d like to per­form.

“I want to encour­age every­one to explore some form of dance, in par­tic­u­lar, women,” she said. “I believe the boost­ing of our­selves is of utmost impor­tance!”

LaFontaine is excit­ed to bring the joy and expres­sion of Bol­ly­wood to even more of Salem through TEDx. The city has been home “for about 12 years, minus the four years I was in Seat­tle.”

“I enjoy the com­mu­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly the diver­si­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty,” she said. “I love work­ing in Salem as a small busi­ness own­er and strive to sup­port my local busi­ness­es.”

She’s also involved in the Indi­an com­mu­ni­ty via the board for INDUS, a non­prof­it whose vision is “to pro­mote and strength­en friend­ship and under­stand­ing of cul­tures between the peo­ples of Indi­an Sub-con­ti­nent and Unit­ed States.”

“I get the plea­sure of help­ing pre­pare the events we hold and per­form for the com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple I tru­ly adore,” she said.

So when you see Sun­dari, be ready to move.

“My favorite part about per­form­ing is see­ing the smiles on my audience’s faces and con­nect­ing with them,” LaFontaine said. “They often can’t help but tap their foot to the music and clap their hands, and their involve­ment makes per­form­ing even more fun for me and my group!”

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

Transformation through Awareness: Meet chiropractor & yoga teacher Zohra Campbell

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It’s hap­pened to all of us. We’re lis­ten­ing to a lec­ture or read­ing a book, but we’re not real­ly pay­ing atten­tion — our minds have wan­dered off to some­thing else.

At a day full of pre­sen­ta­tions and new ideas, like TEDxSalem, we can eas­i­ly find our­selves strug­gling with focus.

That’s where Dr. Zohra Camp­bell will try to help.

The long-time Salem chi­ro­prac­tor and yoga teacher will lead two ses­sions — one in the morn­ing and one after lunch — of mind­ful­ness and pranaya­ma, yog­ic breath­ing prac­tices that help our mind get focused, present, and aware.

She’ll be ask­ing audi­ence mem­bers to breathe, move, and become more aware of their bod­ies and sur­round­ings.

“My hope is that I can help us focus on what we are here for, notice what we bring to the table that day, and let our old pat­terns go so we can be present and open to the day ahead,” Camp­bell says.

Camp­bell believes that aware­ness is trans­for­ma­tion, and that is the heart of the busi­ness she has run for 15 years, Indi­go Well­ness Cen­ter.

A chi­ro­prac­tor since 1992, Camp­bell has found that her clients’ pain is often relat­ed to stress or ten­sion pat­terns they hold in their bod­ies.

“Pos­tur­al habits, emo­tion­al habits, men­tal habits — they keep us trapped in either pain or emo­tion­al suf­fer­ing,” she says. “My pas­sion is to help peo­ple unwind that.

“I start every yoga class by hav­ing peo­ple sit and breathe and just notice what they’re com­ing with today. Once we’re aware that we hold ten­sion in our neck, every time we have that aware­ness, we have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond.”

Indi­go began in 2004 in a loca­tion on south Com­mer­cial Street.  After sev­er­al loca­tion changes and with the sup­port of many stu­dents and clients, Indi­go found a home in Pringle Park Plaza, down­town Salem, five years ago.

Today, the busi­ness includes four chi­ro­prac­tors, sev­en mas­sage ther­a­pists, a coun­selor, and a full yoga stu­dio with 23 class­es each week.

Camp­bell also leads a 200-hour yoga teacher cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram and sev­er­al yoga retreats annu­al­ly. She has led retreats in Cuba, Mex­i­co, Guatemala, Hawaii, Cos­ta Rica and Italy.

Many of the retreats include a ser­vice ele­ment. In April, Camp­bell will be co-lead­ing a trip with Mik­ki Trow­bridge to India, where par­tic­i­pants will raise funds for an orga­ni­za­tion that helps vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing.

No mat­ter where she is teach­ing, Camp­bell tries to bring par­tic­i­pants’ focus back to the per­son­al aware­ness that can lead to heal­ing.

“We all feel great after we go to a yoga class or get a mas­sage, and we all wish we could feel that way all the time,” she says. “That’s real­ly my goal: to give you the tools you need to feel that way more of the time. The more we’re aware of our habits, the more oppor­tu­ni­ty there is to change them.”

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

TEDxSalem poet explores identity, female empowerment through words

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Poet. Col­lege stu­dent. Black woman. Hait­ian immi­grant. Adoptee.

These are just a few of Jolie Brownell’s many iden­ti­ties.

When the 20-year-old takes the stage at TEDxSalem, the audi­ence will hear her grap­ple with these iden­ti­ties through her poet­ry.

“I want to express through poet­ry my walks of life, the inter­sec­tions of my dif­fer­ent iden­ti­ties, and what that means to me and to soci­ety,” Brownell says.

Brownell, who grad­u­at­ed from Sun­set High School in Beaver­ton, is a sopho­more at Loy­ola Mary­mount Uni­ver­si­ty in Los Ange­les. She’s major­ing in women and gen­der stud­ies.

Her choice of major wouldn’t sur­prise any­one who knew her in high school.

By age 19, Brownell had already won awards for her blog, “Me Too Girl,” and she had self-pub­lished a book with the same title. The book is a col­lec­tion of mes­sages and poems on girl empow­er­ment.

She has giv­en speech­es on this top­ic to hun­dreds of women and girls in the Port­land area, and led work­shops in part­ner­ship with Girls Inc., I Am That Girl, Pro­duced By Her, and Chick­Tech.

Brownell is orig­i­nal­ly from Haiti, but a Port­land fam­i­ly adopt­ed her when she was 3.

She first became ded­i­cat­ed to female empow­er­ment issues when she was just 13.

“Like many young girls around that age, I was con­sumed with self-hatred, self-doubt, lack of con­fi­dence,” she says. “Dur­ing the sum­mer between mid­dle school and high school, I decid­ed to shift gears because I real­ized that I’m going to have this body, I’m going to be this per­son for the rest of my life. Do I want to spend the rest of my life hat­ing this per­son, or do I want to spend it try­ing to teach myself how to love myself?”

Her essays and jour­nal entries about self-dis­cov­ery even­tu­al­ly led to her blog and her book.

“I’ve always loved the pow­er behind words, and I want­ed to use my words to uplift and inspire oth­ers,” Brownell says.

Brownell hopes that TEDxSalem audi­ence mem­bers will expe­ri­ence that inspi­ra­tion dur­ing her per­for­mance. But, ulti­mate­ly, the work to improve self-con­fi­dence is an indi­vid­ual pur­suit, she says.

“I’m try­ing to encour­age and uplift women. But I can only do so much and then you must car­ry it; you must do the work, the final step of lov­ing your­self,” she says. “I encour­age the audi­ence to find the deep­er mean­ings in my work and what that means for them.”

For more infor­ma­tion about Jolie Brownell, check out her web­site at www.joliebrownell.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

Mike Studer: Physical therapist, world record holder, pun enthusiast

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Salemite Mike Stud­er nev­er imag­ined him­self as an endurance ath­lete, espe­cial­ly grow­ing up as a base­ball play­er in the 1980s when the thought of run­ning more than 360 feet at a time (the length of an inside-the-park home run) seemed point­less. But that is what he became and now holds the world record for the fastest under­wa­ter tread­mill marathon. A Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist with a Master’s degree in Neu­ro­log­ic PT, Mike enjoys run­ning, bak­ing healthy food, puns and dad jokes. He is also a ded­i­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ty vol­un­teer — “I love work­ing with the Mar­i­on Polk Food Share sort­ing food as a team with peo­ple from our clin­ic; serv­ing at our church in dra­ma roles; work­ing a med­ical tent at local sport­ing events to pro­mote healthy activ­i­ties” — and will be able to add TEDx speak­er to his list of accom­plish­ments come Jan­u­ary 4, 2020, when he speaks about the regen­er­a­tive capac­i­ties of the human brain. So meet Mike, then join us for his “idea worth spread­ing” in Jan­u­ary.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? I believe that it was the 1998 Aimee Mullins inter­view TED talk. For obvi­ous rea­sons, this is rel­e­vant to my pro­fes­sion as a phys­i­cal ther­a­pist.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? Per­son­al­ly, I am a bit of a health nut, and I very much appre­ci­at­ed Eliz­a­beth Black­burn’s TED talk about the Sci­ence of Aging, specif­i­cal­ly regard­ing the length and lifes­pan of DNA through telom­eres. I mod­i­fied my already strange the­o­ries on caloric intake and eat­ing in gen­er­al as a func­tion of this talk. 

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? The abil­i­ty to see what oth­ers might not. We have a human spec­trum of vis­i­ble light, that is well-stud­ied. How­ev­er, giv­en our indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences and inher­ent bias­es, we bring dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on human lim­its. I bring a per­spec­tive that caus­es me to believe in my vision for greater accom­plish­ments that what we present­ly achieve in peo­ple — and specif­i­cal­ly the human brain.

What is one of your favorite child­hood mem­o­ries? Pitch­ing the entire game of a lit­tle league all-star game and no-hit­ting the oppos­ing team. 

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? My work eth­ic and my wife. 

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? I nev­er imag­ined myself as an endurance ath­lete, grow­ing up as a base­ball play­er in the 1980s when the thought of run­ning more than 360 feet at a time (the length of an inside-the-park home run) seemed point­less.

What are some of the most impor­tant lessons you’ve learned in life? How did you learn them? Do the right thing. Admit to your­self and oth­ers when your con­cept of the right thing, was wrong. 

What is some­thing unex­pect­ed that has changed about you in the last few years? Med­ical advance­ments and our own fam­i­ly’s expe­ri­ences with chron­ic health con­di­tions, includ­ing pain and the rela­tion­ship to changes from the body to the brain and reverse…due to the pres­ence of chron­ic pain. 

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I know more point­less facts than any­one real­ly should store in their brain. Triv­ia about sports, music, his­to­ry, etc. 

What song best describes your life? “I Did It My Way,” pop­u­lar­ized by Sina­tra or “It’s a Beau­ti­ful Day,” by U2

If you could live in the set­ting of any book or movie, with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly being involved in the sto­ry, which would you choose? “A Field of Dreams” or “Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry”

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? At about 12 years old, I con­fi­dent­ly but inept­ly sad­dled-up a Shet­land pony and pro­ceed­ed to ride it with my cousin, Fred Stud­er, 13, at the same time. Not long into the ride, the sad­dle proved to be too loose and we were soon upside down on a 5‑foot tall horse with­out enough ground clear­ance to ride upside down. 

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Jazz piano

What is the best gift any­one has ever giv­en to you? Love

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Rewind. I have enjoyed many moments that I would glad­ly relive. 

Favorite book(s)? And why. Bro­ca’s Brain by Carl Sagan — the insights into how the brain oper­ates fas­ci­nat­ed and con­tin­ue to fas­ci­nate me. 

Top 3 songs or artists? Where the Streets Have No Name, Start Me Up, Beau­ti­ful Day. U2, Rolling Stones respec­tive­ly.

Go-to karaoke song? Every­body Hurts by REM

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Chunky

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