TEDxSalem Speaker Nicole Malinoff: Dancer, teacher and Sci-Fi fan

TEDXSalem speak­er Nicole Mali­noff is a pro­fes­sion­al bel­ly­dancer, dance instruc­tor and teach­ing assis­tant from Eugene. 

When she isn’t shim­my­ing to Mid­dle East­ern music or teach­ing dance at Cel­e­bra­tion Bel­ly Dance and Yoga, she loves to cook, eat, explore inter­est­ing places, hike, swim and rest. Her house­hold con­sists of “three humans and two dogs.” 

One ran­dom fact about Nicole is that she is “a film school drop out.” She is also an actress and pro­duc­tion man­ag­er at a small the­ater com­pa­ny (more on that in a minute).

We are excit­ed to wel­come Nicole as one of our many tal­ent­ed speak­ers for TEDxSalem 2020. 

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? Sit­ting at home watch­ing Scott Dins­more’s How to Find and Do Work You Love. I was unem­ployed and feel­ing real­ly lost. His talk gave me hope and some­thing of a plan. I watched it sev­er­al times after that and made every­one I know watch it.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? Fash­ion Styling for Peo­ple with Dis­abil­i­ties by Stephanie Thomas. As some­one who ben­e­fits from the priv­i­lege of being able to find clothes any­where, it brought the issue of cloth­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty into my aware­ness, and intro­duced me to the vibrant world of dis­abled beau­ty and fash­ion.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? I feel like the theme kind of encom­pass­es what TED is all about: New, world-chang­ing ideas, per­spec­tives and insights from peo­ple we don’t often get to hear from. In all hon­esty, I’m just so shocked that I’m a part of this that I haven’t real­ly con­sid­ered the theme.

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? Hav­ing all of my imme­di­ate needs met so that I have the lux­u­ry to fan­ta­size and dream about what I want for myself and the world.

Do you have any com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties? Tell us more about them…I belong to a Sci­ence Fic­tion the­atre com­pa­ny called Trek The­atre. We most­ly do Star Trek episodes, but dream of branch­ing out. We’re entire­ly vol­un­teer and dona­tion run, so our shows are free to the pub­lic. I just became their pro­duc­tion man­ag­er, but I also act.

Make one change in the world? I would have every­one in pow­er take cli­mate change seri­ous­ly, so we could have a shot at avoid­ing this impend­ing mass extinc­tion.

Great­est fear? Heights, bod­i­ly harm, phys­i­cal pain, death (I can’t pick just one)

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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