Portland Center Stage is very happy to be hosting three vital conversations that touch upon three vital threads of Portland DNA:  Education/Youth Activism;  Bike Culture/DIY enterprise; The Arts & Evolving Audience.

The conversations are  part of The New Communicators, a three-day festival of events, being held October 28-30 throughout Portland. The festival is intended to inspire,  educate, and invite questions on the evolving nature of conversation in a rapidly changing public realm.

Conversation is the thing. The sociologist Richard Sennett gives us a high-five on that: “rethinking the practices of urbanism is involved in creating a place in which people can talk to each other, and this is huge issue. You can’t have a public realm. . .if people don’t exchange with another and the element of exchange is talk.”

The New Communicators is a series of events created to share experiences and inspire discussion about how we communicate with others using both online and offline media. It is for anyone interested in exploring new ways of creating conversations in our personal lives, within our communities or in business. It is a chance to share ideas, experiences and lessons learned.

NEW COMMUNICATORS day#1:
Youth Power: Speaking for the Future
Wednesday, October 28, 8 – 10 am
Gerding Theater at the Armory
FREE

Youth are an often overlooked, sometimes hard to reach constituency, but one that (as the “youthquake” of the presidential election proved) has the ability to activate great social change.  Not only do they represent a whole new generation of makers, doers and thinkers, they are a critical mass of highly savvy renaissance-thinkers who can offer new perspectives, innovations, flexibility and passion for the future.

Evolving social media technology is a powerful tool that offers incredible possibilities in the realm of engaging youth in social causes and empowering them to become a generation of leaders for change, as well as for leveraging new approaches to education and participatory democracy. Today’s youth has moved far beyond the traditional “old-growth media” of newspapers to a more open-source, thriving omniverse, rich in digital-connectivity and grassroots creativity.

Discover ways to leverage youth engagement and how youth can contribute not only to your success, but to building the future we want for the region.

Voicebox Media (part of the Multnomah Youth Commission) is a media production company operated by and for youth, whose recent projects include the Regional innovation Forum and Activate Oregon, events fostering youth voice and social activism–from grassroots to public policy.

A CONVERSATION featuring:
Travis Huntington is a strategic communications and grassroots social marketing consultant, as well as a commercial multimedia producer and the founder/leader of Voicebox Media: www.ourcommission.org/youthvoice

Catherine Leedy is a nonprofit and leadership development consultant, was on the design team of the Regional Innovation Forum, and led the Activate Oregon Youth Summit

Liz Grover is an expert in new media communications and engaging the youth audience for social causes

Martin Tull is a leader and activist for Climate Change and serves on the Governor’s Global Warming Commission.

Moderated by  Tim DuRoche, cultural advocate and Community Programs Manager, Portland Center Stage.

RSVP and see you there!

NEW COMMUNICATORS day#2:
Creating Conversations Through the Love of Bicycles
Thursday, October 29th, 8am – 10am
Gerding Theater
FREE

There are many people who love bicycles. But how many can take this love and turn it into a business? And once they’ve started their cycling-related business, how do they engage their audience, market and brand their company?

Join us for a conversation with a group of cyclists who are creating conversations through their love of bicycles… a panel of four cycling and communication experts will talk about why they’re doing what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and what’s next for cycling as communication.

The panel consists of:
Jonathan Maus, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BikePortland
Slate Olson, General Manager of Rapha, North America
Natalie Ramsland, Founder and Framebuilder of Sweetpea Bicycles
Heidi Swift, Newspaper Columnist, Freelance Writer, Photographer and Bike Racer
David Lowe-Rogstad, Co-Founder of Substance and former road racer (he’s back on the bike for Cross Crusade this year), will be moderating the panel.

Coinciding with Oregon Manifest , this panel is an opportunity for framebuilders, cycling enthusiasts, and business owners of all sorts to learn how different companies are utilizing events, technology and stories to create conversations.

RSVP and we’ll see you there.

NEW COMMUNICATORS day#3:
10,000 Invitations:
A roundtable on arts institutions and new/social media
Friday, October 30, 4 to 6 pm
The Gerding Theater at the Armory

Hosted by Lisa Radon, Portland Monthly’s Culturephile.

Good minds from Portland arts institutions share the ways they’re using new and social media to engage audiences.

The Portland Art Museum creates conversational videos about works in the collection, creates a community website for its China Design Now exhibition, and tweets as M.C. Escher. Portland Center Stage creates show preview videos that go viral and uses Twitter in innovative ways. The Museum of Contemporary Craft creates video and podcast and invites audience response. PICA integrates Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube into its TBA Festival blog.

In education, programming, and marketing, we’ll talk about what’s worked and what’s on the horizon as the landscape continues to change with new tools and new challenges all the time.

Participants include:
Christina Olsen, PhD – Director of Education & Public Programs, Portland Art Museum
Beth Heinrich – Director of Marketing & Public Relations, Portland Art Museum
Cynthia Fuhrman – Marketing and Communications Director, Portland Center Stage
Patrick Leonard -Public Relations, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art
Rebecca Burrell-Public Relations and Marketing Specialist, Museum of Contemporary Craft
Namita Gupta-Wiggers -Curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft

RSVP and we’ll see you there!

As the brain-trust behind New Communicators writes: “This is not a traditional sort of conference. ..Anyone can attend and anyone can organize an event. Whether you are a individual, an existing organization who already holds regular events or a business, you can organize a New Communicators event. …If you have an event idea, are willing to organize it and can find a venue to house it, you are welcome to.”

The only limit is your imagination, after all as Benjy Barber tells us, “Imagination is the link to civil society that art and democracy share. . . . It is the faculty by which we stretch ourselves to include others, expand the compass of our interests, and overcome the limits of our parochial selves. Only then do we become fit subjects to live in democratic communities.”

Hope to see you here, contributing to conversation and communication’s evolution!

How do stories come to life in unexpected ways? Sometimes through very unexpected partnerships. And sometimes by just asking the right questions.

Like for example: how might the story of Ragtime illuminate salient truths and metaphors for homeless and at-risk youth in Portland?

One word that answers both questions is “empathy” – the ability to see the world through the restorative lens of someone else’s journey.

Next week, October 6-8, PCS will be sponsoring a workshop with two invaluable service organizations, New Avenues for Youth and Outside In and Write Around Portland around themes and ideas in Ragtime. It’s a great opportunity to use arts-integrated teaching (that is learning in and through the lens of creativity and the arts) and participant-centered, experiential learning to talk about real world skills.

As happenstance would have it:
Outside In (through their education program that helps youth obtain their GED and enter college) has been studying American Labor history, including the Lawrence, Massachusetts IWW textile strike of 1912 –which figures into the plot of Ragtime–and the Portland Longshoremen’s Strike of 1934.  As part of their study they’ve talked about the power in organizing.  To get beneath the surface a little more have even engaged in role playing games around the 1934 event–to understand the issue more deeply.

Throw into the mix: Youth working with New Avenues’ Skill Building component (which includes a similar GED prep program) have been using the notion of “perspectives” as guidepost in their creative writing.

Over the three days next week, youth from New Avenues and Outside In will work with workshop facilitators from Write Around Portland exploring empathy, multiple perspectives–engaging in free-writes; seeing Ragtime and participating in a Q & A; and diving into another day of writing using the idea of Historical fiction, employing images or events in history as “Prompts” to craft story. In this case the prompts are Ragtime and images of Portlanders of different age, class, and ethnic make-up from the era currently on view (courtesy of the extensive Nelson Photo Archive) in the lower lobby gallery spaces of the Gerding Theater.

Since I began working at PCS, I’ve been searching for the right fit to do a project with Write Around Portland. I’m a big fan of their work and find their commitment to the literary arts as an empowerment tool very inspiring.

A fantastic community-based literary arts organization, Write Around Portland has facilitated more than 370 creative writing workshops, unleashing the creative power of more than 2,400 adults and youth by helping them access the literary arts and community. Their traditional workshops are held in partnership with social service agencies, community organizations, health care providers, correctional facilities and schools (see list at bottom of this page). These workshops are offered free to people living with HIV/AIDS, veterans, survivors of domestic violence, adults and youth in addiction recovery, low income seniors, people in prison, homeless youth and others who may not have access to writing in community because of income, isolation or other barriers. To ensure that everyone in our city has access to the power of writing in community, writing journals, pens, bus tickets, childcare and snacks are provided for participants in these workshops.

I’m excited and curious to watch as the ideas unfold and the writing pours out. We’ll keep you posted on the results!

Recently I was talking to Terry Currier, the sage force and owner of Music Millennium, a 40-year-old icon of indie-biz that’s quite literally a “place where people and music still matter. After talking a bit we realized that the arts and the independent music and book fields share similar struggles—competing with online entertainment, building and retaining audience and the need to foster a larger sense of community to ensure a durable future.

I threw out the idea that while public spaces for creativity (theaters, clubs, art galleries) are vital we actually probably have a symbiotic relationship with “third-spaces” and creative free spaces like the indie-record store, bookstore, library, etc.—we both nurture wonder, conversation and the development of artists. I know that for myself, hanging out in the local record store, listening to the wise-acre behind the counter who knew every nook and cranny of jazz history was every bit as valuable as the teachers I studied with or the gigs I played in clubs.

So in an effort to support locally grown talent, locally grown business and give you all some good music to listen to in the process, Music Millennium joins forces with PCS to present SOUNDS. LIKE. PORTLAND—an early evening showcase of the best in local music, every Saturday from 5-7 pm in the Lobby of the Gerding Theater. Free—and all ages.

For October, in conjunction with our production of Ragtime, we feature blues/ragtime guitar master Mary Flower, jazz-blues-gospel pianist extraordinaire Janice Scroggins + special guests

Please join PCS and Multnomah County Library on Tuesday, June 30 at 6 p.m. for a special evening with Vailey Oehlke, the newly appointed Library Director for the Multnomah County Library system.

Vailey Oehlke (pronounced VAY-lee EL-key) is forward-looking and energetic and brings a deep understanding of the library’s operations, challenges and opportunities and its prospects as a key animator of civic renewal. A strong participant in national and international library leadership, Vailey is known as a consensus builder and strategic thinker with experience in three library systems as well as a fantastic 12-year tenure  with the Multnomah County Library.

Following a brief reception, Vailey will talk about her vision for the Library and the vibrant role that libraries play, alongside arts, cultural and civic institutions, in convening and engaging vital conversation, catalyzing change, and harnessing a community’s creative and civic energies. Since its founding in 1864, Multnomah County Library has played a dynamic role in the evolution of the Portland metropolitan area.  Vailey will explore how today, amidst a turbulent economy, evolving technology and increased pressures on our educational system, the public library can become an evermore essential and integral part of the city’s community-building fabric.

Moderated by Tim DuRoche, Community Programs Manager at Portland Center Stage.

A Place for Books, A Space for People:
A conversation about libraries with Vailey Oehlke
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Gerding Theatre at the Armory, Mezzanine
6 p.m.  no host bar, light hors d’oeuvres
7 p.m.  program

WEDNESDAY APRIL 29 12:30—2 P.M.
Gerding Theater at the Armory—Mezzanine
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

As co-director of Americans for the Arts’ Animating Democracy initiative, Barbara Schaffer Bacon has spent more than a decade mapping the potential of arts and culture to illuminate civic experience—exploring significant and timely opportunities to engage the public in dialogue around key civic issues and to stimulate a cross-fertilization of ideas and action, dually inspiring community-builders to consider arts and culture as an integral partner in their efforts.

Join Bacon and members of the Portland civic, educational and cultural community for an informal lunchtime discussion on her work and a wider look at how Portland organizations might discover bold opportunity in the face of our current economic crisis around community engagement and partnership.

Bring your ideas and join the discussion—cultural and economic recovery begins with conversation!