Music & Dance: Musicians, Composers, Singers, Dancers, Choreographers, Performers Talk Art, Creativity & The Creative Process

"S. E. Hinton, Susie Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was 15 and 16. It was published when she was 17. She was told by one editor in particular that she couldn't have any swear words, so she was sort of forced to write about these very big, intense, love-and-death operatic themes where there's a boy who dies by suicide by cop. There's a boy who dies from a fire. So it's about grief. His parents die in a car crash prior to all that. There's this hugely stacked deck of grief that exists in the novel. But when you read the novel, there's a very sweet and loving tone to it. So when I started working on it, I recall childhood in Joliet, Illinois. My mom was a single parent, and she raised three kids on her own on a nurse's salary. So I had to give myself permission to take her great dark themes and actions that are in her novel and like give language to it that was also from an adult world.

Right now, live theater is probably much different than looking at a screen. It's much different than looking at your computer or your Game Boy or whatever. I see grown men on the subway playing video games on their phones. And we're not even looking at each other on the subways anymore. We're like deep in our in a screen. And I wonder what that's done. And so I think theater actually has a powerful ability to rewire us to the human experience. And maybe because of it, maybe we can find more empathy or more capacity toward kindness."

Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee.

Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders. 

www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246
www.imdb.com/name/nm1452688/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
www.imdb.com/title/tt1532495/
https://outsidersmusical.com/
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-rapp/wolf-at-the-table/9780316434164/?lens=little-brown

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness?

Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee.

Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders.

"S. E. Hinton, Susie Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was 15 and 16. It was published when she was 17. She was told by one editor in particular that she couldn't have any swear words, so she was sort of forced to write about these very big, intense, love-and-death operatic themes where there's a boy who dies by suicide by cop. There's a boy who dies from a fire. So it's about grief. His parents die in a car crash prior to all that. There's this hugely stacked deck of grief that exists in the novel. But when you read the novel, there's a very sweet and loving tone to it. So when I started working on it, I recall childhood in Joliet, Illinois. My mom was a single parent, and she raised three kids on her own on a nurse's salary. So I had to give myself permission to take her great dark themes and actions that are in her novel and like give language to it that was also from an adult world.

Right now, live theater is probably much different than looking at a screen. It's much different than looking at your computer or your Game Boy or whatever. I see grown men on the subway playing video games on their phones. And we're not even looking at each other on the subways anymore. We're like deep in our in a screen. And I wonder what that's done. And so I think theater actually has a powerful ability to rewire us to the human experience. And maybe because of it, maybe we can find more empathy or more capacity toward kindness."

www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246
www.imdb.com/name/nm1452688/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
www.imdb.com/title/tt1532495/
https://outsidersmusical.com/
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-rapp/wolf-at-the-table/9780316434164/?lens=little-brown

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What will happen when Artificial General Intelligence arrives? What is the nature of consciousness? How are music and creativity pathways for reconnecting us to our humanity and the natural world?

Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He has composed for Wayne McGregor (The Royal Ballet, London), Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Ammonite starring Kate Winslet, and The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes. He produced Katy Perry’s “Into Me You See” from her album Witness and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance. With six solo albums under his name, his latest album 1 0 0 1, which explores ideas of technology, humanity and mind-body dualism, is available on Deutsche Grammophon.

"And I think when all of a sudden music and art started to come out of AI, it was a wake up call to what is our purpose. Like, what are we? What are we bringing to humanity, to the human story? And I think it's interesting because a lot of artists now are concerned about it. What is the value of our consciousness? Consciousness has been something that I've been reading about. It's a vastly understudied part of science, and it's going to become very, very relative very quickly. And I think that it's getting to the core of creativity. What is creativity and ultimately where do we want to go? How are we going to connect with each other?"

It started as a dance piece with choreographer dancer Fukiko Takase. And we had met when I was doing a dance piece with Wayne McGregor with another project that I do called the Winged Victory for the Sullen. We did a piece called Atomos, and Fukiko was one of Wayne's principal dancers. And I just loved how she was able to express in movement. It was a very profound experience to realize how connected music is to dance, this sense of communication without words, and how it gets elevated when you bring dance and movement into music."

https://dustinohalloran.com/
www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/dustin-o-halloran
www.imdb.com/name/nm0641169/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Music courtesy of Dustin O’Halloran and Deutsche Grammophon

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He has composed for Wayne McGregor (The Royal Ballet, London), Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Ammonite starring Kate Winslet, and The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes. He produced Katy Perry’s “Into Me You See” from her album Witness and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance. With six solo albums under his name, his latest album 1 0 0 1, which explores ideas of technology, humanity and mind-body dualism, is available on Deutsche Grammophon.

https://dustinohalloran.com/
www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/dustin-o-halloran
www.imdb.com/name/nm0641169/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Music courtesy of Dustin O’Halloran and Deutsche Grammophon

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"I love Bernstein's excitement in talking about how he says, for Beethoven, was he the best harmonist? No. Was it his orchestral abilities? Absolutely not. It was just that each note that he chose was exactly the right note to follow the note that proceeded it as if he had 'a private telephone wire to Heaven' and that he was channeling the note that created and mirrored the divine harmonies of the universe.

And it was so striking to see John Adams compare the harmonies of a great piece by Handel to the harmonies of the State. And harmony is truth, which is reason, which is the Divine, according to the classical authority. And we have not only a right, but a duty to live according to reason in order to align ourselves with the divine harmonies of the universe.

Recently, I've started writing songs, and there's just something about the golden hour of the sunrise that waits for us each day. And whatever else is going on in the world or in our lives allows us to recommit to and experience once more the glorious beauty and harmony of the universe.”

Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.

https://constitutioncenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/jeffrey-rosen
www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476
https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcasts

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good?

Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.

"I love Bernstein's excitement in talking about how he says, for Beethoven, was he the best harmonist? No. Was it his orchestral abilities? Absolutely not. It was just that each note that he chose was exactly the right note to follow the note that proceeded it as if he had 'a private telephone wire to Heaven' and that he was channeling the note that created and mirrored the divine harmonies of the universe.

And it was so striking to see John Adams compare the harmonies of a great piece by Handel to the harmonies of the State. And harmony is truth, which is reason, which is the Divine, according to the classical authority. And we have not only a right, but a duty to live according to reason in order to align ourselves with the divine harmonies of the universe.

Recently, I've started writing songs, and there's just something about the golden hour of the sunrise that waits for us each day. And whatever else is going on in the world or in our lives allows us to recommit to and experience once more the glorious beauty and harmony of the universe.”

https://constitutioncenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/jeffrey-rosen
www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476
https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcasts

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused. 

The awareness in the industry, with acknowledging the injury from all those who came forward around the Weinstein allegations is the injury of when someone's coerced into doing something or that their career being threatened is emotional, psychological injury. It's really clear if you've got a stunt and someone's going to be jumping from roof to roof, they might fall down the cracks and break an ankle. Of course, the producers need to mitigate that risk and put in place everything so that the risk that you can perceive might happen is mitigated."

Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).
https://www.itaobrien.com/
https://www.itaobrien.com/intimacy-on-set-guidelines.html
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1357677/

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can intimate scenes be brought to the screen in ways that respect the emotional well-being and privacy of the artists themselves? How do we make sure that we can create a story about abuse without anyone being abused in the process?

Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).

"For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused.

The awareness in the industry, with acknowledging the injury from all those who came forward around the Weinstein allegations is the injury of when someone's coerced into doing something or that their career being threatened is emotional, psychological injury. It's really clear if you've got a stunt and someone's going to be jumping from roof to roof, they might fall down the cracks and break an ankle. Of course, the producers need to mitigate that risk and put in place everything so that the risk that you can perceive might happen is mitigated."
https://www.itaobrien.com/
https://www.itaobrien.com/intimacy-on-set-guidelines.html
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1357677/

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!"

From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House M.D, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.

Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion.

https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/
www.lisaedelsteinpaintings.com/
www.imdb.com/name/nm0249046

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Artworks:
“Beach Day”, “Marsha”, “Karen” Courtesy of the Artist

Lisa Edelstein in the Studio
Photo credit: Holland Clement, Courtesy of the artist

How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world?

From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.

Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion.

"When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!"

https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/
www.lisaedelsteinpaintings.com/
www.imdb.com/name/nm0249046

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Photo credit: Mitch Stone
Courtesy of the artist