The AARP has begun to do creative placemaking through its Livable Communities initiative, and we interviewed a New Jersey chapter leader who innovated a Facebook live series as a way to connect the community during the pandemic. The series engaged New Jersey musicians and a local music historian to entertain, engage, and educate the public about research findings on the positive correlation between music making and listening and brain health. Listen in on this conversation with Christine Newman-Young, Director of Outreach at the AARP-New Jersey chapter and creator of the Melodies of the Garden State series, which was webcast in September and October of 2020. The chat was part of The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking's Community Coffee Talk series recorded September 24, 2020. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Recorded Sept. 10, 2020 What does back to school look like when it’s an art form that requires space to move the body? In this recording from a Community Coffee Talk show we asked creative movement professionals. Guests were Ginger Haithcox, Executive Director of Modern Motion in Somerset, NJ and Paul Besaw, professor of dance at the University of Vermont. Armanii Saahd-Tann, Creative Director of Rahway Dance Theatre made a brief appearance via pre-recorded audio. Bios appear below. Want to be a part of our next live, interactive program? Ginger Haithcox is the Executive Director of Modern Motion. She started Modern Motion in 2005 after her ballet instructor in college encouraged her to pursue founding a nonprofit dance company. Initially focused on liturgical dance for local churches and teaching at local dance studios, her vision for Modern Motion soon included a full scale dance school for children. Founded in 2010, Modern Motion Dance School had humble beginnings with Monday night classes all taught by Ginger while she built her career in non-profit ministries and youth serving organizations. Her leadership of Modern Motion dance school has focused on the development, training, and implementation of the school's curriculum; building up a youth leadership and mentoring program for older dancers; widespread community outreach performances; as well as extensive staff development. Paul Besaw who was born and raised in rural New Hampshire. He’s a dance and theatre artist with a primary interest in developing original performance works that integrate collaboration across art forms. He currently serves as Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Vermont, where he teaches courses in choreography, dance history, directing, performance, among others. Armanii Saahd-Tann made a brief appearance by pre-recorded video is the artistic director and owner of Rahway Dance Theatre, a 20 year old local ballet school. RDT aims to share the gift of dance with the community by showcasing cultural diversity, by using dance as an educational tool, and by clearing the biases of who is "fit" to be a dancer. Armanii's life work thus far has been to lead by example in helping dancers of all ages to feel empowered in their own skin - no matter their physique or experience in dance. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Listen in on this chat with theater artists Darryl DeLoach and Juli Hendren of CworxTraining.com and PositivePolicing based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The pair have been using their theater arts tools to make interactions between law enforcement officers and young men of color safer. We had a conversation with them on July 23, 2020 as part of our Community Coffee Talk series, an unscripted, interactive video show for creative placemakers. Hear their exchange with other artists from across the country. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Want to learn the secrets of crowdfunding? Join The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking as we chat with the innovators at ioby.org, who specialize in providing technical assistance, support, and a legal financial structure for community volunteers who crowdsource funding under a variety of circumstances. At the onset of quarantine, the non-profit organization stepped up with additional support for projects that specifically responded to the pandemic, and that included creative placemaking initiatives to care for artists and commission art that communicates public health messages. In this talk, ioby.org Community and Growth Manager, Dana J. Schneider, will introduce community leaders from Detroit and New Orleans, who will talk about how they care for artists and their communities during this crisis. This is the lineup of guests and their projects: Amelia Duran, Art on the Block: Detroit Artist and Community Relief Fund Eno Laget, URGENT: Shelter in Place Billboards in Detroit Neighborhoods Lindsay Glatz, Revelry: A visual celebration of New Orleans culture helping artists who are struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Listen in on this chat with Kent Kerr and RJ Thompson of Plus Public based in Bellevue, PA, just north of Pittsburgh. This live, interactive, open-to-the-public call was recorded on June 11, 2020. Guest hosted by Meghan Rutigliano, Burning Man Cultural Ambassador and Founder of Globally Curated. At the time of recording, Kent was a Master of Fine Arts candidate at Radford University, and his thesis was a research project on using design thinking techniques to uncover how a community thinks of itself. He and RJ did their research in Bellevue, a small, rust-belt town that has experienced something of a renaissance after ending prohibition in 2015. They spoke with The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking as part of the organization's Community Coffee Talk program, a series of live, interactive, virtual conversations. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

The featured recording is from The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking's Community Coffee Talk series. Guests are the innovators from Opositivefestival.org in Upstate New York, who have been organizing festivals that bring underinsured artists together with medical providers. Recorded on May 28, 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. With Meghan Rutigliano , Founder of Globally Curated & Burning Man Cultural Ambassador, Tamara Gatchell, Principal at Cadence Creative, Andrea Orlando, Community Director at NCCP, and Joe Concra and Holly Kelly of Opositivefestival.org . The audio was taken from a live videoconference. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Washington D.C.-based social innovator Philippa Hughes was close to refining best practices for bringing together liberals and conservatives together over food and art to engage in meaningful discussion on politics and policy. Then the pandemic happened, and one key element of the formula was rendered impossible--at least for a while--the ability to gather face-to-face. The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking hosted a live, interactive video conference on May 14, 2020 with co-host Meghan Rutigliano to find out how she's shifting her work to cross political and social distance until it's safe to gather again. The video conference was the pilot in a new series called, Community Coffee Talk. Register for the next one on Thursday, May 28 at 1 pm EDT for a chat with guests from Opositivefestival.org, which brings underinsured artists together with medical providers in Upstate New York for an exchange of services. Guest host, Tamara Gatchell, Principal of Cadence Creative, will lead the discussion. Meghan Rutigliano, Founder of Globally Curated and Burning Man Cultural Ambassador, will co-host. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Listen into this audio recording of a webinar with David B. Pankratz recorded live on Tuesday, April 21, 2020. Learn how to use evaluation to grow your creative placemaking projects. David serves on the steering committee for the Culture Research Network and was formerly Research & Policy Director for the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council where he conducted research for diverse audiences on the impacts of the arts & culture, racial equity and arts funding, the health of the arts and culture sector, and the working lives of artists. He is also an instructor in the Certificate in Creative Placemaking program hosted jointly by The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking and the New Hampshire Institute of Art and Design at New England College. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking's Founder, Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP offers some words of encouragement for creative placemakers as they move from shock to acceptance and action during the pandemic. This reading was recorded on April 4, 2020 less than a month after millions of Americans were ordered to stay home to help flatten the curve of the Coronavirus outbreak.

In this episode of CreativePlace you'll join the teens from Territory Design Studio in Chicago. We caught up with them after they presented a session at the 2019 Midwest Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit in Cincinnati in October. Hear what Jaime Flores, Victoria Norrington, Tamia Johnson, and Martin Herrera had to say about their experience. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Hear what Executive Director Meggan Gomez has to say about her work at Theatre of the Oppressed NYC in this November, 2019 interview. Gomez talks about how the organization's unique theatrical process helps communities become more just, and how her journey began when she quit acting school to follow her calling. The road took her from Allentown, PA, to Bogotá, Colombia, Albuquerque, NM, Italy and back to the East Coast. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Sit on the porch with three guests from Indianapolis, collaborators who are engaging community theater, neighbors, and small business owners to imagine a better future. The guests are Moriah Miller of the Harrison Center, Keesha Dixon of Asante Children's Theatre, and Shirley Webster, a longtime resident and community organizer. The three were instructors at the 2019 Midwest Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit in Cincinnati in October. They taught a session on engaging theater to address neighborhood change and cultural gentrification. Themes include gentrification, community theater, improvisation, honoring and integrating elderly residents, cultural festivals to encourage dialogue around difficult topics and more. The event is called PreEnact Indy. Learn more by watching this video: https://vimeo.com/387485504 Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Albuquerque native Carlos Contreras has made a name for himself as a slam poet who now organizes community engaged art events through Immastar Productions. We caught up with him during his tenure at the City of Albuquerque as the municipality's Director of Marketing and Innovation. Find out what happened when The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking asked him to share his insights through teaching a session entitled, "Introduction to Creative Placemaking" at the 2019 Midwest Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Listen in on this chat with Kiran Singh Sirah, Executive Director of the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN. He stopped in to record with us while visiting New York City for the United Nations International Day of Peace in September, 2019. He also joined the climate strike, Fridays for the Future, and was beginning a collaboration with the organizers on a storytelling game app. He also became involved in designing the nation's first storytelling hospital. Find out why he believes storytelling is the solution to many of the world's most vexing problems. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Listen in on this conversation with Cornell Carelock, a hip-hop teaching artist and founder of True HeART Academy in Westchester County, NY. Carelock is a Certificate in Creative Placemaking graduate from the class of 2019 and developed a series of workshops that integrate arts modalities into mindfulness practice. In this conversation he talks about a concept he calls 'heartfulness' and why it's such a useful tool for practitioners in the field. This interview was recorded in August of 2019. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Hear how the Anchorage Museum in Alaska has partnered with the Northern Norway Art Museum to address some of the challenges that are unique to Northern places. The museum is exploring equitable community solutions through its new Solutions for Energy and Equitable Design Lab (SEED Lab). This episode is a conversation with Julie Decker, Director and CEO of the museum and Bodil Kjelstrup, who is serving as curator of the SEED Lab. Kjelstrup is from the Northern Norway Art Museum, and the two met at a conference on the arts in the circumpolar north several years ago. Find out how the SEED Lab is engaging the creativity of the community to address some of its most pressing challenges. This conversation hits on climate change, equity in indigenous communities, do-it-yourself culture and shifting narratives to empower local communities. The two museum officials co-taught a breakout session at the 2019 Pacific Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Dancing in a big circle? Show and tell? Drinking cocktails made from the fruit of an old tree? Flower arranging? These may not be the activities that one associates with anti-displacement community organizing, but they play a central role in fight to preserve Little Tokyo, LA, one of three remaining historic Japantowns in the nation. This episode is a conversation with Scott Oshima of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. The JACCC is involved in the campaign to preserve the historic neighborhood. We chatted with them at the 2019 Pacific Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit in LA in June where they taught two breakout sessions and led a field workshop into Little Tokyo with Summit participants. Although this conversation is about a specific neighborhood we go deep on why arts and culture remind community activists what they are fighting for in the first place. They also discuss some of the tactical urbanist and cultural asset mapping strategies they use to gather data and celebrate small wins in the long, hard work of reaching towards a vision several years into the future. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Hear how free concerts transformed two communities in Texas and Nevada. We had a conversation with Sharon Yazowski, Executive Director of the Mortimer and Mimi Levitt Foundation; Patti Diou of the Levitt Pavilion in Arlington, TX, and Gina Lopez-Hill of the Brewery Arts Center in Carson City, NV. This episode touches on the power of getting the community together over free, outdoor concerts. Our guests give their programs credit for introducing couples who later got married, helping local employers retain talented employees, and helping neighbors meet and bond over music. The recording took place during the 2019 Pacific Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit in Los Angeles, which was co-produced by the Mortimer and Mimi Levitt Foundation, The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking and ArtPlace America. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

Listen to this interview with a father-daughter team who are taking cultural tourism to the next level in South Dakota. Their company, Tatanka Rez Tourz, offers custom tours of the Pine Ridge Reservation that can feature music and dance performances, a discussion of tribal governance, a history lesson at Wounded Knee, genealogy, or a prayer ceremony. Warren "Guss" Yellow Hair and Tianna Yellow Hair do it all in the spirit of serving their community and telling their story to those who come to listen. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com

With the early 2019 release of "Rural Prosperity Through the Arts & Creative Sector" and the 2019 Rural Generation Summit, the creative placemaking world is turning its attention to arts and culture-driven economic and community development in less-populated areas. Bob Reeder, Program Director of Rural LISC, explains why it's important for people in the field to learn the 'languages' spoken in other sectors, and how that knowledge can result in more productive creative placemaking. We interviewed him at the 2019 ArtPlace Summit in Jackson, MS, which was immediately followed by the Rural Generation Summit, also in Jackson. He served on the advisory committee for the Rural Generation Summit. Host: Andrea Orlando lives, records, and writes from her home in New Jersey. Contact her at andrea.orlando.530@gmail.com