TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

TEDxSalem

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.

Make the most of your TEDxSalem experience with these 10 tips

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We’re less than 24 hours away from TEDxSalem VI. Don’t have tick­ets yet? Don’t wor­ry, you can still get them here.

Do we all have our tick­ets now? Good! Now read these ten tips on how to get the most out of your TED expe­ri­ence Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

10. Take notes! Bring a small note­book or down­load a notes app for your smart­phone. You def­i­nitely want to remem­ber those moments that made you smile, made you think or just jumped out at you. Take a moment dur­ing the event and at the end of the day to jot down the insights you gained.

9. Be present in the moment. We love that you want to Tweet and Insta­gram about your amaz­ing TEDxSalem expe­ri­ence. But don’t get so wrapped up in your phone that you miss a poignant moment dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion or a TED talk!

8. Be open-mind­ed. Some of the ideas worth shar­ing may be shock­ing. Some might be a lit­tle con­tro­ver­sial or entire­ly new to you. Don’t write off a TED talk even if you find your­self bristling at it. Be open to new ideas!

7. First in the door, last out the build­ing. Get there ear­ly. You can find your seat, chat up the per­son next to you, get com­fort­able and see what oth­er good­ies await through­out the day. Last year, par­tic­i­pants had the oppor­tu­nity to pur­chase books writ­ten by our speak­ers or get some awe­some TEDxSalem swag. Stay the whole day and leave late. Lis­ten to every sin­gle talk. Do the break­out ses­sions. Ask a mil­lion ques­tions. By the end of the day, you won’t want to leave!

6. Bring some­thing to share. It can be some­thing tan­gi­ble like your busi­ness card or some­thing that’s not like a thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion or a great book you’ve read recent­ly.

5. Do your research! We love a good sur­prise, and we hope some of the top­ics and thoughts will be delight­fully sur­pris­ing. But there’s some­thing to be said for get­ting excit­ed about your favorite speak­er ahead of time! Take a moment to read the TEDXSalem blog for more infor­ma­tion about each speak­er. Revis­it last year’s speak­ers to get in the spir­it of TED! Or vis­it the offi­cial TED blog for more engag­ing TED talks and choose a few favorites.

4. Net­work, net­work, net­work! TEDxSalem is not a pas­sive or iso­lated expe­ri­ence. You are at the beau­ti­ful Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter with hun­dreds of peo­ple just as excit­ed about new ideas as you are! Talk to every­one. Intro­duce your­self. Don’t ask what they do for a liv­ing — ask what they’re pas­sion­ate about. Make friends, get con­tacts, dis­cuss the TED talks with them. Force your­self a lit­tle out of your com­fort zone and chat up a stranger. (Did the intro­vert in you just cringe? It’s ok. TEDxSalem is for intro­verts, too.)

3. Our vol­un­teers are a resource! They are the heart, soul and back­bone of TEDxSalem, and they are there to make your expe­ri­ence extra­or­di­nary. If you need any­thing at all, don’t hes­i­tate to ask them!

2. Be sure to par­tic­i­pate in the break­out ses­sions. One high­light of TEDxSalem is our speak­ers, but there’s so much more that goes on through­out the day. If you real­ly want to make the most of your time, don’t shy away from sit­ting in on the break­out ses­sions and shar­ing your own ideas. It’s all about mak­ing you think.

1. Immerse your­self in the spir­it of TED! TED is a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­ally in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. It began in 1984 as a con­fer­ence where tech­nol­ogy, enter­tain­ment and design con­verged (hence the name) and now cov­ers almost all top­ics, includ­ing sci­ence, busi­ness and glob­al issues. Keep all of this in mind as you approach Jan. 6. The day is devot­ed to shar­ing ideas!

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5, 2019, 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.

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.

Come for TEDxSalem, stay for the sights

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You don’t have to leave Salem once the TEDxSalem par­ty is over. Stay. Explore. Enjoy.

We think Salem rocks, which is why we work so hard to bring you TEDxSalem, a show­case for just how cool this city, and our com­mu­ni­ty, is.

Here are a few ideas to help you get to know us.

Ice Skat­ing. Try your skills at Salem’s newest attrac­tion: Salem on Ice, an ice skat­ing rink at Salem’s River­front Park.

The Capi­tol. Guid­ed tours occur on week­days only, but it’s worth wan­der­ing in just to see the rotun­da.

The Elsi­nore The­atre. This beau­ti­ful his­toric the­ater shows clas­sic films, com­mu­ni­ty per­for­mances and nation­al tour­ing enter­tain­ment.

Eat your way through down­town. You’ll already be down­town for TEDxSalem, so why not do some explor­ing? We have clas­sic, long-stand­ing lunch coun­ters, qual­i­ty Ital­ian, Span­ish and French restau­rants, local­ly beloved estab­lish­ments and cozy cof­fee shops.

River­front Park from City of Salem web­site

Head to the river­front. You could stroll the pedes­tri­an bridge, go for a spin on the Carousel or just soak up the atmos­phere. Use the new Minto Island bicy­cle and pedes­tri­an bridge to walk to Minto-Brown Island Park.

Taste the best wine Ore­gon has to offer. We’re pret­ty par­tial to Pinots. There are dozens of world class vine­yards and winer­ies just out­side city lim­its, many of them offer­ing wood-fire piz­zas, cheese plates or full kitchen options. Yum!

Take in a show, comedic or musi­cal. The options are darn near end­less. There’s fam­i­ly-friend­ly improv at Capi­tol City, the hottest indie films at Salem Cin­e­ma, and the lat­est musi­cal from the Pen­ta­cle The­atre (The Lit­tle Mer­maid launch­es the same week­end as TEDxSalem!).

Feel col­le­giate at Willamette. Our local uni­ver­si­ty has one gor­geous cam­pus, with wind­ing trails and autumn leaves just beg­ging for a leisure­ly stroll.

Art? Check. His­to­ry? Check. See the lat­est exhib­it at the Hal­lie Ford Muse­um of Art, peruse the finest pieces for sale at the Bush Barn Art Cen­ter, see the film-famous Ore­gon State Hos­pi­tal muse­um or soak up local his­to­ry at the Willamette Her­itage Cen­ter.

If wine isn’t your thing, maybe beer is? Our small but wild­ly tal­ent­ed (and deli­cious) col­lec­tion of brew­eries are win­ning awards and mak­ing head­lines.

Still need a place to stay? May we rec­om­mend the Grand Hotel in down­town Salem? Not only is it right next door to the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, but TEDxSalem atten­dees get a dis­count! Just men­tion that you’ll be at the con­fer­ence, and you will get the dis­count­ed rate of $139 plus tax.

Look­ing for oth­er must-see tips about Salem? Ask any of our vol­un­teers or team mem­bers!

Still need tick­ets for TEDxSalem? Nev­er fear, they’re still avail­able online.

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.