Final day of Idea Festival recap

The final day of Idea Festival has been a melting pot for eccentric speakers talking passionately on an array of topics.

Among those topics:
-Using art to bring people together
-Grants given to non-traditional artists
-Are we Rome?
-The benefits of negative thinking vs. positive thinking
-Making education a global priority
-Purpose driven brands
Here are the important takeaways from the speakers:

________
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer uses art in communities to bring people together to interact with the art and each other.

Takeaways- In the art world absence and presence aren't mutually exclusive, they can coexist. Art is about a communion of people and a moment of complicity.
To learn more about Rafael and his projects visit lozano-Hemmer.com.
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Creative Capital helps fund artists' projects though grants.

Takeaways- "Artists are entrepreneurs in the creative arena." What's the role of ugliness in art? Art imitating reality, life & intent to tell a story about what's real.
To learn more about Creative Capital and their artists click here.
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Cullen Murphy spoke on the comparisons of America to ancient Rome.
Takeaways- Important parallels of Rome to America:
1. The sense of manifest destiny
2. Power of assimilation
3. Privatization
4. Outsourcing of military functions to private companies.
To learn more about Cullen Murphy visit his website.
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Oliver Burkemann, a writer, spoke on how to achieve happiness by using negative thinking instead of positive thinking.
Takeaways- Four negative thinking tools that can help make you happier:
1. Sometimes it's helpful to focus on the worst case scenario. Focusing on the worst case scenario can be a good antidote to anxiety. This is called defensive pessimism.
2. Practice non-attachment. This will give you a sense of relation to your thoughts and help you be present.
3. Recognize that uncertainty can be a creative force. The quest for uncertainty blocks the search for meaning.
4. Don't forget that you're going to die. It gives you a gentle reminder that there is a finale to your life and not to waste it. The subliminal reminder of the thing we all share helps unloads our compassion.
To learn more about Oliver's method visit http://www.oliverburkeman.com/.
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Tererai Trent is the founder of Tinogona which builds and repairs schools in rural Zimbabwe and was featured on Oprah.
Takeaways- There is no greater education than the realization that we all have a role in making the world a better place. Your dreams have meaning if they are only connected to your community.
Tererai had a dream for education and her dream became her great hunger.
To learn more about the work that Tererai's company is doing please visit tinogona.org.
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Kris Sirchio, former CMO of Brown-Forman spoke about the purpose driven brand. For purpose driven brands it's not about what people buy, but what they buy into.
Takeaways- There are three things that purpose driven brands do:
1. They activate higher ideals.
2. They build authentic relationships
3. They help make the world a better place.
To learn more about Kris visit his LinkedIn page by clicking here.

Day two of Idea Festival recap

This is a banana piano. That's right- a banana piano. I found this to be the perfect picture to describe what Idea Festival is all about; people staying curious and discovering what else interests them.

Here is a recap of Day 2 subjects:
-Sustainable beauty
-How to bounce back from failure
-Follow your passion, no matter what time in life you start
-The themes of innovation
-"Farmocology"
-Empowering our youth
-General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea
Here are the important takeaways from the speakers:

________
Lance Hosey talked about sustainable beauty.
Takeaways- Design is everywhere; it affects everything. Sustainability and design aren't or shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Architectures typically build for themselves and not for the consumers. And sometimes sustainability is just a better design that is "hidden under the hood".
To learn more about Lance visit his website at http://lancehosey.com/.
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Roger Newton, Founder and CEO of Esperion Therapeutics, Inc., had 6 major lessons he learned from a failed business that was able to come back better than ever.
1. Don't eliminate your options; surround yourself with people who implement your strengths and weaknesses.
2. Never burn bridges.
3. Your colleagues are your teammates, not your adversaries.
4. Never underestimate your resilience.
5. Do the best science you can.
To learn more about Roger and Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. just click here.
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Ariel Waldman is an interior designer turned NASA employee after a documentary changed her life.
Takeaways- You're never too old or need a science background to get involved in space exploration. You never know where and when inspirations will come and change your life. Bring a Science Hack Day to Louisville.
To learn more about what a Science Hack Day is, and more on Ariel just visit her website.
________
Beth Comstock is the CMO of GE and had four key innovation themes that make GE successful. They are:
1. We need more creative brains.
2. Challenges are becoming increasingly more complicated.
3. There must be a local application of global technology.
4. You have to profit with a purpose.
To read more about Beth just click here.
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Next up was Daphne Miller, a practicing physician, with her talk on "farmocology". Her important lessons that she has learned about holistic farming are:
1. Farm as Vitamin:There are 10% more vitamins in plants grown with holistic farming than with conventional methods.
2. Farm as Immune Support: In Germany the "farm effect" is a phenomenon where citizens who were eating off farms in Bavaria weren't as sick and had fewer allergies.
3. Farm as Community Medicine: Urban gardening has many powerful benefits
including lowering obesity and having less crime in the community with the garden.
4. Farm as a model for cancer care (see book "Farmocology")
5. Farm as a model for stress management
To learn more about Dr. Daphne Miller visit her website http://www.drdaphne.com/.
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The Commissioner of Kentucky's Department of Juvenile Justice, Hasan Davis spoke talk briefly but powerfully.
Takeaways- Community and choice make a difference in life. Help empower youth to keep them away from the criminal system.
To learn more about Hasan's story click here.
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Lastly we had the pleasure of listening to Brooks Simpson speak about Civil War General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea.
Takeaway- It's harder to defeat a people, than its army. But by marching through the South, Sherman did just that.
To learn more about Brooks just visit his blog.

Day one of Idea Festival recap

Day one of Idea Festival recap

Day one of Idea Festival has been a whirlwind of incredible speakers talking passionately on an array of topics.
Among those topics:
-How to think like Sherlock Holmes
-How magic is more than just illusions
-How innocent people can be wrongfully convicted
-How comedy is a form of communication
-How we can learn from nature to adapt and solve problems
-How to solve big problems with radical solutions
Here are the important takeaways from the speakers:
________

Maria Konnikova had four things that someone can do to think more like Sherlock Holmes-
1. Mindfulness meditation can help you focus and be more productive. Ten minutes a day of focused breathing with change your brain.
2. Keep an organized and stocked mind attic. This means to learn how to organize your brain and memories to keep only the things you deem important in storage.
3. Know when to smoke your pipe: imagination. This doesn't literally mean to smoke a pipe; it is more along the lines of needing to have time to let your imagination work. You have to take space for creativity to start working.
4. Dogs that don't bark. Think what else can be there. Learn how to ask the
right questions and don't take things for face value.
To learn more about Maria visit her website.
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The next speaker was Alex Stone, a magician and writer for The Wall Street Journal among other things. Some of his major takeaways included cognitive blindness, which is the inability to see something that is happening in your vision because you are so focused on something else.
Another takeaway is that people remember an event by the most emotional experiences and the ending of that said event while forgetting most of the in-between things.
To learn more on Alex and his book Fooling Houdini just click here.
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The next set of speakers were Calvin Johnson and Stephen Saloom. Calvin was wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn't commit and served 16 years in prison for it before DNA testing was able to prove his innocence. Stephen Saloom works for the Innocence Project.
The major takeaways were the Innocence Project has helped overturn more than 300 wrongful convictions with DNA testing and that if you are found innocent after serving jail time you are not automatically compensated for your lost time.
To learn more about the Innocence Project and how you can get involved visit their website at innocenceproject.org/.
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The next speaker had everyone laughing from the beginning until the end of his talk. Chris Bliss, a stand-up comedian is no stranger to laughter and the spotlight, but during his time touring and working he learned that the audience of a comedy club brings both willingness and judgment with them much like anyone who comes to a performance.
Some takeaways include reinventions are not always the path forward. Sometimes you have to learn how to just go with what you know. And comedy, like magic, is keen on misdirection. Being able to lead an audience from one subject and ending up at another seamlessly is key in communication and comedy. Then right before he left he treated everyone to an amazing juggling routine.
To view a sample of his juggling or more of his stand-up visit http://chrisbliss.com/.
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Next up was Rafe Sagarin with a talk about how nature learns to adapt to problems and how we as humans can learn from that strategy.
One of his examples was that you don't see a fish trying to turn a shark into a vegetarian. In other words we have to be able to not try and change the others around us but learn how to adapt ourselves to find a solution.
Another major point, nature uses redundancy. They focus on what is successful for them as opposed to learning from mistakes, because in nature one mistake could be your last.
To learn more about adaptable solutions just click here.
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And lastly to round off an incredible day of learning we heard from Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review. The major takeaways from this lecture were Jason's top four ways to solve a major problem:
1. Political leaders must care to solve a problem
2. Institutions must support its solutions.
3. The problem we're seeking to solve must be a technological problem.
4. We must understand it. Really big problems are often overlooked as simple.
To learn more about Jason Pontin visit his LinkedIn profile.

Wrap up of Thrivals 6.0

(Louisville, Ky.)The Kentucky Center was alive and buzzing with excitement today during Thrivals 6.0, part of the weeklong Idea Festival. The concept behind Thrivals 6.0 is simple, bring diverse speakers from around the world to share their stories and inspire those around them. With students from multiple schools around Louisville along with professionals in town for the rest of Idea Festival, the audience was very diverse and eager to see what the speakers had to offer.

We were first treated to "My Quest to Green the Ghetto" given by Majora Carter. Her credits include Urban Revitalization Strategist, MacArthur Fellow, and Peabody Award Winning Broadcaster just to name a few. Majora was born and raised in the Bronx and felt the need to improve the community around her after having to move back home to get her Masters at NYU. After completing life changing projects to help clean up the Bronx she came up with a "secret sauce" on how to tackle problems: identify your market, design an attractive solution, receive angel investment, create a Beta version, learn from previous projects and refine, and lastly reiterate and expand. She closed by making the strong statement that she wants people to understand that they don't have to move out of their neighborhood to live in a better one. For more on Majora visit her website.

Next we were all treated to the most incredible 11-year-old I have ever seen speak with his "Quest to Persuade". Zev Dickstein isn't your typical sixth grade student. Aside fromt the fact that he takes piano lessons, violin lessons, and has personally met President Barak Obama he can ad the incredible title of Campaign Manager for Joyce Gerber for Cambridge School Committee to his resume. After hearing Zev speak it's easy to see why. His political journey started in fourth grade when he petitioned for healthier school lunches, now his free time is spent knocking on doors to promote the campaign and prepping his candidate for debates. His strong message on how to be successful, just show up. If he hadn't of shown up and put in the volunteer time he would just be another 11-year-old. Watch out for this kid, he's not only charismatic but completely adorable. To listen to Zev's interview on NPR click http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=196911702.

The next speaker was Ron Finley with his "Quest to Create Urban Food Forests". Ron is considered a guerilla gardener, which is a person who gardens in places that aren't typically used for gardens. This can include a patch of land on street corners, a window sill, really anywhere that will keep soil and grow things. His message was mainly about empowering everyone to create a garden, no matter what your surroundings. He also believes that gardening is inside every person naturally. After Thrivals 6.0, Ron is going to plant a garden behind the Muhammad Ali Center which will include plum trees. To learn more about Ron Finley visit his website here.

The last speakers were a duo named Wilson Meikuaya and Jackson Ntirkana who are Maasai Warriors with their talk entitled "Are You A Warrior? The Quest to Transform our Culture". A Maasai Warrior is a member of the Maasai tribe in Kenya who has completed the necessary training to become a tribe warrior. The incredible thing about these two is that they had an interesting motivation for wanting to complete the warrior training; a high school education. Wilson and Jackson were told by their parents that if they completed the warrior training and killed a lion then they would be given permission to go to high school. Many people take for granted the education we in the United States have access to that others have to hold tribe fundraisers just to send two boys to high school so they could receive a higher education. Their message was simple, everyone really can make an impact by working with others. If you want change, you must create it yourself. To learn more about these Free The Children Foundation speakers visit their website at http://www.freethechildren.com/.

Overall Thrivals 6.0 was high energy, motivational, and eye opening. With this just being the first day of Idea Festival13, the attendees will surely feel renewed and inspired come this time Friday. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @KC_Presents all week for our live tweets during the seminars. Also check back here at the end of each day for more wrap-ups on Idea Festival13. Idea Festival runs now through Friday, September 27 at The Kentucky Center.

 

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo, Romeo where fore art thou Romeo? This is one of Shakespeare’s most lines from the play Romeo and Juliet. Almost everyone knows the premise of Romeo and Juliet; two star-crossed lovers who will do anything to be together despite their families’ wishes, but do they remember the dance club scenes? There have been many different adaptations of this classic play, but none as gripping and unique like the one being performed at Actors Theatre.

The stage is set up like a pool house with an outdoor pool in Orange County, California. Two young girls appeared to be tanning by the pool, yes a real pool, while two boys are inside the pool house playing video games on the big screen tv. Not how you remembered the play? That’s what makes this adaptation so fresh and unique. The director, Tony Speciale, took the original script and not only used the original lines, he somehow seemed to create a new script in his own way. With occasional rapping, adlibbing, and even a Justin Bieber musical moment, Romeo and Juliet is told like never before.

The show in its nature is very graphic and violent, but this version is filled with good modern twists that keep the audience guessing with every scene. With very relevant themes to today’s society like teen violence, peer pressure, bullying, and suicide, the story of Romeo and Juliet seems to continually evolve without losing its essence.

Actors Theatre’s version of Romeo earns a whopping 5 out of 5 stars. It’s difficult to shock and awe an audience that knows this story by heart, and yet Mr. Speciale’s version does just that. This centuries old play is transformed to a modern day’s peek into youth culture.

Billy Elliot the Musical- Preview

Louisville, Ky. - Billy Elliot the Musical tells the great story of a young boy from a small English town who goes from boxing gloves to ballet shoes. Once Billy discovers he has a talent for dance, his pursuits inspire not only his family, but an entire town. Winner of 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Billy Elliot has been called "THE BEST SHOW YOU'LL EVER SEE" by the New York Post.

I recently had the chance to talk with Kathleen Hennessey (www.katHennessey.com) who plays Billy’s Mum in the Broadway Across America show coming to Louisville June 26- July 1. Here is what she had to say on the differences from the film to stage, Billy’s journey, and even a special surprise unique for the Louisville audience.

Q: What makes the play adaptation unique from this beloved film?
A: The audience will get a chance to see a different pace of the journey. In the movie, the story is must faster. On stage you see more of the journey. You also get to see his courage come through dance which is really beautiful.

Q: What is it like to put on a Broadway scale performance while traveling all over the US?
A: It’s challenging. We have an incredible system worked out and the crew and management really make it happen. They take 12 hours to load in, to completely install the set. They make it really easy for all the actors to show up and really just do our job. The set up for different shows happen remarkably quick and you just get used to adapting. When we arrive at a new city, the cast members will show up at 5:30 p.m. with a quick orientation on the way things are set up, then sound check, sing through, and a mark through certain things on stage. Then we are just shot right of a cannon into the show.

Q: As Billy’s mom, what kind of journey do you go through during the show?
A: It’s a really unique aspect. Technically I’m kind of a ghost or apparition, or even a figment of Billy’s imagination. It’s up to each person to decide what Billy’s mom is in the show. For me it’s really lovely because you’re coming into a story where Billy’s mom has been gone for a couple of years and the whole town has become submerged in the strike going on. There is a lot of anger and frustration going on in the town. It’s lovely to come in and be the lighter, sort of uplifting character that just kind of softens things for Billy.

Q: Being on the road constantly, how do you make time for yourself as a traveling actress?
A: My photography is what really keeps me sane and productive. In the touring life we don’t really have our normal day-to-day social life that we have when we’re at home. For me (photography) helps me not get totally lost in the theater world/acting world and I love it so much that it gives me the sanity and reality while still allowing me to use a different side of my artistic brain. I try and shoot as much as I can. I will even shoot pictures of the cast during rehearsals.

Q: Billy Elliot the Musical has won numerous Tony Awards, what makes this specific cast unique for this production?
A: When we arrive in Louisville we will be launching two new Billys, which is going to be very unique. It’s actually really a special thing to watch a young boy take his step on the stage as Billy for the first time. In the history of Billy Elliot we have had 19 Billys in the US production so far. Each Billy has such a short life cycle as Billy because unfortunately it’s such a tortured age to put a child on stage between the ages of 11-14. It will be very fun for the Louisville audience to watch these two new Billys take the stage and experience the joy of completing Billy’s story for the first time there. We are also unique because our cast has been together on the road for quite some time now so we are really bonded as a town, as our own little family unit on stage.

Q: This play is all about going against a social norm to fulfill a dream, what advice would you give all the other Billy Elliot’s out there?
A: If you have a passion or a drive for something just go for it. I think that aspect applies to not just kids, but adults too. I think sometimes we forget in life we don’t have to feel tied down and trapped in something if it’s not bringing us joy or passion in our lives. I think that’s something for even me as an adult I’ve even been given the chance to reinvent myself over and over again. I think that is something this story definitely gives truth to. We can rise above any challenge; we can pull together and support each other to do the kinds of things to live the life we want to live.

Death Tax- Humana Festival play 7

The Beatles once said "money can't buy me love,” but can it buy you, your life? Maxine Judson, an old woman in a nursing home, certainly hopes so. What do you do when you are wealthy and trying to by more time in life, why pay for it of course. Who do you pay, the nurse that you think is trying to kill you. Then you throw in the complication of an estranged daughter wanting an early inheritance, and you have yourself a show!

The audience is filled in the small theatre while the open space is occidental by a hospital bed, a chair, and a stand with a radio playing. Maxine comes and gets comfortable in the bed while the narrator/nurse comes into to announce the scene title and begin the show. There are five scenes in all, one more powerful than the next. As the show develops, along with the characters, the audience begins to have a hard time deciding who is the villain and who is the victim. With a waterslide of twists and turns this show takes you through laughs, cries and even justifications of unspeakable actions.

Death Tax is successful because the characters are so real and relatively normal. They are put in these insane situations where a person thinks they know what the right thing to do would be, but by the end of the show that line becomes very blurry and the little gray area becomes vast.

This show receives a 4/5 bells. It gets notably high marks for its dynamic characters and ever changing definition of the ideas of right and wrong. Some downsides to the show are the incredibly long monologues. Even a profound thought can lose its power if spoken to death. There is also no intermission, so make a bathroom break before the show and get settled for a bumpy ride through one woman's desperate attempt to "preserve" her own life, even if it means costing her the only family she has left.