Speaker 1: Was up April twentieth, story seven of our Week of Citizening.
Speaker 1: This time we going to New England to the Great
Speaker 1: State of Maine. The Maniacs. This is this is a
Speaker 1: story about gathering. UH. If you if you wanna really
Speaker 1: get deep into to gathering, UH, check out our episode
Speaker 1: with Pria Parker and and talking about uh how we
Speaker 1: citizen through our gatherings, whether it's uh a church meet up,
Speaker 1: a house party, or or a conference. And and today's
Speaker 1: stories about the conference experience and trying to use that
Speaker 1: experience to gather people well to get the most out
Speaker 1: of it. And we're living through some real harsh times
Speaker 1: and a lot of unnecessary hardship is falling on folks.
Speaker 1: And UH, we're also very isolated from each other, for
Speaker 1: we have a crisis of loneliness. And so whenever we
Speaker 1: we actually get together, it becomes even more important because
Speaker 1: it's increasingly rare. It's important that we do it with
Speaker 1: intention and with purpose and with consideration and respect. And
Speaker 1: I like this story out of Maine, the Sea Change Conference,
Speaker 1: because it is a truly embodied experience, because they weave
Speaker 1: the arts in and dance and movement, cause there's a
Speaker 1: lot of joy and it's this multi racial, multi everything
Speaker 1: and like a little town in Maine, So it's defying
Speaker 1: a lot of expectations of what Maine is, of what
Speaker 1: small towns are, and of what a conference can be,
Speaker 1: and how we can turn these moments of gathering into
Speaker 1: something deeply meaningful healing recharging and who among us doesn't
Speaker 1: need a recharge right now? Just not a Tesla superstation
Speaker 1: charge because we're not doing that anymore. All right, stories
Speaker 1: how to sitizen dot com. That is where we encourage
Speaker 1: you to sign up for the mailing list to give
Speaker 1: us some feedback and raise your hand if you have
Speaker 1: more stories to share. We are approaching the end of
Speaker 1: this sprint to test this out, and UH, and we
Speaker 1: wanna hear how this was for you. Uh. It's been
Speaker 1: great for us, little little tiring to like do this
Speaker 1: daily thing. But it's a good commitment to uh to
Speaker 1: test out. We will need to be testing lots of
Speaker 1: commitments together in the coming months and years and and
Speaker 1: probably decades, uh, in the United States and around the world,
Speaker 1: cause we're all going through some big transitions right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: have a great day. We're dropping this on Sunday, but
Speaker 1: you're listening to it right now in a world being
Speaker 1: ripped apart, how do you make bringing people together truly count?
Speaker 1: This little known multi racial conference in small town Maine
Speaker 1: figured something out.
Speaker 2: Why can't we start a conference with movement and dance?
Speaker 2: We could be doing so much more with the amount
Speaker 2: of time and energeering people put into gathering conferences that
Speaker 2: just barely get the plane flying of human interaction right?
Speaker 2: What happens if we design for human interaction and creativity
Speaker 2: and art. I think that's a lot of what Sea
Speaker 2: Change is about.
Speaker 3: My name is Naudie Brown. I'm a playwright. I'm also
Speaker 3: a photographer, I direct, I choreograph, and I created along
Speaker 3: with Robert Sapiro and Beftannor, the Sea Change Conference that's
Speaker 3: located in Elliot, Maine. Our focus was really how to
Speaker 3: use the arts to heal.
Speaker 2: In the way we do it. There's so many different
Speaker 2: workshops and small groups and big groups and extended casual
Speaker 2: meals and so that members attending the conference are talking
Speaker 2: in meaningful ways, dancing together, doing creative work side by side.
Speaker 2: You know, when you watch other people who are confident
Speaker 2: in their creativity or other people trying things, it just
Speaker 2: creates an environment of true warmth, safety, and belonging.
Speaker 3: I honestly feel like the impact for a lot of people,
Speaker 3: especially artists of color, is connecting them to other people
Speaker 3: who are just like the in terms of spirit