a few celebrations and growth 🌱🌱🌱

Ellen Chenoweth

05 Jan 2025 — 4 min read

My end of the year reflections have been centering on how much fun it is to learn things. A few weeks ago, my heat wasn't acting like it was supposed to and I got the chance to learn about how my heating system works. I saw a bunch of students going on a field trip via subway in New York and got unexpectedly emotional; honestly, is there anything better than a field trip? So I was ripe for these words from civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill about how to cope with our incoming challenges:

But our primary work must be first and foremost to work in our communities – both physical and ideological. To build them up and to share time and ideas with those committed to democracy and justice. We each need a curriculum of local service.

We also need a personal curriculum that will allow us to contribute to the building of the future we dream of for ourselves and our families. That means that our core work must be to commit during this time to do less watching,* and more learning and more growing. We need to become better citizens for the democracy we want. That means we must dedicate time to expanding our thinking and our knowledge, and to building up our democratic imagination. That means our work is to imagine, to ally, to experiment, restore, befriend, study, read, write, serve, and create. Every one of us. Even as chaos swirls around us.

I love the idea of a curriculum of local service.

And I got curious about what people around me had learned this past year and where. One of my best educational experiences of the year was tackling a couple of ambitious reads in the company of others, so I read The Power Broker by Robert Caro, along with a community created by the podcast 99% Invisible, with monthly episodes devoted to a manageable chunk of the book, and Moby-Dick with one of my book clubs. I wouldn't have undertaken either without the structure and help of others and both were so extremely rewarding.

Here are some other mind-blowing educational experiences that folks around me shared:

"It sounds like a cliche, but I really learned so much from being around my child. She teaches me so much about being present and focused." - Sarah Lewitus

"Being part of the Bread and Roses Gender Justice Giving Project; it was a cohort of Philadelphians, diverse in age, race, class, and gender coming together to think about all of those things and how they affect our communities and learn how to raise money using our networks and together decide how to redistribute that money." - Sarah Bishop-Stone **

"I took a workshop called Communal Epic Fiction with Isabel Lewis - reality quaking!" Courtney Mackedanz

"Ben Grinberg did a 3 hour 'game image task' workshop for Cannonball and it was 🤯." Karen Orrick

"Audio description workshop series with Krishna Washburn" Rachel Repinz

"i did a butoh workshop with atsushi takenouchi and it was 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯, in tuscany, where he lives and mostly teaches. it was def the best workshop i've ever taken outside of a pochinko workshop." Donna Oblongata

Thai massage training, an anatomy dissection lab, a class in window restoration, a webinar about interviews for podcast recording also got shout-outs... what a delight that there is so much to learn out there. (If you'd like to share a memorable educational experience from the past year, or what you'd include on your own curriculum of local service, I'd love to hear it!)

Spark of Change Award goes to....

BEN GRINBERG!!!! Hooray!! 🥳🥳🥳

Ben is being very modest about this award, but APAP (the Association of Performing Arts Presenters) gives out a handful of awards each year, and this year Philadelphia's own Ben Grinberg is being honored. The Spark of Change Award is only in its second year and goes to "an emergent individual under the age of 40 or group less than 15 years in existence, who demonstrates trail-blazing innovation and vision in the presenting, creative producing, booking and touring field." The work Ben and the other Cannonball organizers have done definitely deserves national recognition and this is my virtual standing ovation. Congratulations, Ben!

Three cheers for Pam Tatge, Executive and Artistic Director of Jacob's Pillow, as well, receiving a distinguished service award.

25 dancers to watch: Kayla Hamilton

In more well-deserved national recognition, Dance Magazine put out their annual 25 to Watch list, and my friend and colleague Kayla Hamilton is among them. As fellow choreographer Sydnie Mosley puts it, "Pay attention to what Hamilton is cultivating in each space she is creating. It just might be the key to help us all get free." As someone who gets to learn from and with Kayla every day, I co-sign this recommendation.

Here's a little video introduction to Kayla and what we are building with Circle O (there is a farm involved):

(Additional versions of the video with captions and audio description are available here.)

Sisterly Affection (a bit of Philadelphia appreciation)

Today's image comes from freelibrarypix, one of my new favorite instagram follows. They say: "Independence Hall. A Federal Art Project WPA Pennsylvania Poster. Creation Date: ca. 1943."