Where We Live

This hour, we’re exploring the history of tap dance in America.

Tap was first developed as a fusion of footwork styles with roots in Africa and Ireland. Over the decades, tap legends like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Eleanor Powell, and Gregory Hines popularized the artform and brought it to the national stage.

Local dancers, choreographers, and teachers join us to discuss how they are keeping the rich legacy of tap dance alive in their work today.

GUESTS:

• Kevin Ramsey: Chair of the Theater Division, University of Hartford

• Ralph Perkins: Associate Professor of Dance and Music Theater, University of Hartford 

• Katie Cavenagh: founder of the Connecticut Tap Collaborative

• Jillian McNamara: founder of the American Dance Collaborative

Where We Live is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

This episode originally aired on December 2, 2024.

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Tolkien Reading Day is held on March 25th each year.

Libraries here in Connecticut and across the globe mark this day by paying homage to the works of J.R.R Tolkien. They host “second breakfasts,” offer presentations on Hobbit lore, and encourage visitors to read their favorite passages aloud.

This hour, we explore why Tolkien's characters and fantastical world building continues to resonate with readers today.

GUESTS:

• David Thorn Wenzel, Illustrator and children's book artist best known for his graphic novel adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit
• Michael Whelan: Illustrator specializing in fantasy and science fiction, winner of 15 Hugo Awards
• Kate Noonan: Senior Reference Librarian, South Windsor Public Library

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Daylight Saving Time: it’s just losing one hour of sleep right? How bad can that be?

But experts say, it goes beyond losing one hour of sleep. The practice of advancing clocks to make better use of daylight, can have long term disruptions to our circadian rhythm. That’s according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Today, we explore just how disruptive Daylight Saving Time can be to our sleep, our health and our behavior, and hear about some efforts to change it.

Would you like to see Daylight Saving Time abolished?

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Decades ago, actors like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne made their names playing gun-slingers in movies set in the American West. But Westerns aren’t just a thing of the past and they’re not just on the big screen.

Today, we’ll spend the hour with Pulitzer Prize winning author Hernan Diaz and hear how he subverted the Western genre in his first novel In the Distance. 

We spoke with him back in February at the Westport Library. His novel, was the 2025 selection for WestportREADS, an initiative to strengthen community through the shared experience of a book. He’ll also talk about the mythology of the American West, disorientation in his work, and the power of public libraries.

Find more about the WestportREADS series here.

GUEST:

• Hernan Diaz: author of In the Distance and Trust

Where We Live is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

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Reproductive health is historically understudied and underfunded in the United States. Scientists across Connecticut and beyond have been working to change that.

Scientific initiatives like EndoRISE, a Connecticut-based program focused on advancing endometriosis research, are making strides toward better understanding reproductive health.

This hour, we explore how President Trump’s recent funding cuts could impact their progress.

GUESTS:

• Michayla Savitt: State Government Reporter, CT Public 
• Dr. Danielle Luciano: Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and co-director of EndoRISE
• Dr. Lubna Pal: Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, Yale School of Medicine
• Julie Rovner: Chief Washington Correspondent, KFF

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This season alone, there have been over 30,000 COVID-19 cases in Connecticut. That’s according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.

Measles is on the rise across the United States, and the CDC is monitoring H5 bird flu activity as well.

Is it time to start preparing for the next global pandemic?

Last year, the World Health Organization published a checklist to help nations update their pandemic preparedness plans.

Today, physicians across our state join us to talk about what we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how to prepare for the next one.

GUESTS:

• Dr. Ulysses Wu: Chief Epidemiologist at Hartford Healthcare
• Dr. Megan Ranney: Dean of Yale School of Public Health and Professor of Emergency Medicine

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Five years ago today, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Since then, there have been over a million COVID-19 deaths in the United States alone.

It can be challenging to recall a time with so much fear, trauma and loss. But today, we’re revisiting the earliest days of the pandemic and asking you, what do you remember?

We’ll hear from the Pandemic Journaling Project out of UConn, and from Marked By COVID. This is a survivors-led organization working to establish a permanent National COVID memorial.

What are your earliest memories of the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic?

GUESTS:

• Kristin Urquiza: Co-founder of Marked By COVID
• Sarah Willen, PhD, MPH: Co-founder of the Pandemic Journaling Project and Professor of Anthropology at University of Connecticut

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It’s been five years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

What began as a mysterious “flu-like” illness spread rapidly, killing over one million people in the United States and over seven million worldwide. That’s according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

And while half a decade has passed, many frontline workers remember the months of fear and uncertainty as though it was yesterday.

This hour, hospital workers and a grocery store worker reflect on how the pandemic forever changed their jobs, what lessons they continue to carry forward today, and how they resist “collective forgetting” when it feels like the world has moved on.

GUESTS:

• Sarah Peltier: Grocery at Stop & Shop in Simsbury, CT
• Audrey Silver: Senior Clinical Operations Manager at Hartford Healthcare
• Chaplain Rolando Hernandez Lizcano: Chaplain, Hartford Hospital

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The National Park Service is gearing up for its busiest season of the year, with a smaller staff to assist visitors. The National Park Service has laid off over 1000 employees.

Here in Connecticut demand for outdoor recreation has grown exponentially. There was a 75% increase in state park visitors in 2022.

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) is working to make parks accessible to everyone. Last year, they launched all-terrain wheelchairs at five Connecticut State Parks and Forests. We’ll hear more about that later.

Today we hear about this effort and others making the outdoors more accessible for people with disabilities.

GUESTS:

• Kevin Harkins: Vice President of the Southeast Community Center of the Blind
• Lisa Friedman: reporter covering climate policy and politics for the New York Times
• Mason Trumble: Deputy Commissioner at Connecticut Department of Energy and Environment Protection (CT DEEP)
• Akiebia Hicks: Project Manager for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

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Children’s book author Mac Barnett has been named the Library of Congress' newest National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and during this appointment, he will be focusing on some really important literature: picture books.

Picture books can inspire young readers to make reading a habit, but don’t dismiss them as solely books for kids. Mac Barnett believes that picture books are real literature and can be enjoyed at any age.

Today, he joins us to talk about picture books and we also hear from picture book lovers locally. Kym Powe from the Connecticut State Library joins us.

And we want to hear from you: do you have a favorite picture book?

GUESTS:

• Mac Barnett: U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature at the Library of Congress, and children's book author
• Kym Powe: Children and Young Adult Consultant for the Connecticut State Library

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