Sixty years ago this weekend, young activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, demanding their right to vote and changing history in the process. Today, another group of young people is using art to make their voices heard.

A Boston-based arts group, beheard.world, has teamed up with Selma-area teens for "Selma Again," a production that blends dance, spoken word and music to shed light on the struggles the city still faces today.

Director and choreographer Anna Myer said the performance is about pushing forward, as well as looking back.

"The piece talks about real things that are happening and things that go to the heart," she said, "and it also talks about love and the only way forward is love and the only way to keep moving forward is if we do this together."

Myer said she first visited Selma years ago and was struck by how poverty and crime persist despite its historic significance. She and her husband, filmmaker Jay Paris, along with Selma natives, helped create a nonprofit initiative to blend nonviolence education, performing arts and storytelling for local youth. It's part of the Selma Cross-Cultural Nonviolence and Performing Arts Academy.

The academy was co-founded by Dallas County natives and civil rights veterans Charles Bonner and Viola Douglas, along with the Rev. Gary Crum of Elwood Christian Church. Through poetry and dance, teens confront modern challenges and honor past civil rights leaders.

Myer said this year's production highlights how today's youth can step into the legacy of activism left by the "foot soldiers" of the 1960s.

"For the kids, it's a big deal, because having a voice and speaking to an auditorium of people, it charges them up and really gives them an understanding that if they can speak and they have a voice, that people will listen - and that they should use their voice," she said. "And I think that's key."

"Selma Again" will be performed today (Fri., March 7) at the Morehouse College Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, and Saturday, March 8, at Ellwood Christian Academy in Selma, as part of the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

Myer emphasized that the show's ultimate goal is to spark meaningful conversations, promote understanding and inspire action for lasting change.


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By Jonathan Feakins for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Judith Ruiz-Branch for Illinois News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

"It's a bit of a grandma-core hobby," Tierney Brosius admits.

But whether at her children's soccer tournaments or organizing an "Entomoloknitting Circle" at the Entomological Society of America's annual conference, Dr. Brosius has found that insect-themed needlecraft can serve not just as an artistic outlet, but as an organic, social means of science communication.

"I love insects in fashion; they're often used [for] being pretty, but also scary," she explains. "And I think that fashion designers often reach to insects because of that duality. There's tension there."

For the past decade, Dr. Brosius has hung her hat-and a growing collection of bespoke, hand-knitted vests-as a professor of biology at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. But she's also built a budding reputation as the entomological fashion maven under the moniker, "Dr. Beetle."

Her Instagram account documents sartorial projects that include a vest festooned with Salt Creek tiger beetles (the subject of Brosius's PhD), or a cocoon-style coat that commemorates 2024's double cicada brood.

Her artistic outreach, however, extends beyond the closet. Inside Augustana's Hanson Hall of Science, a 40 foot-long wall now hosts a vibrant, larger-than-life "Beetles of Illinois Identification Mural." Every species pictured-in all of their exoskeleton-ed wonder-were collected by Dr. Brosius and her undergraduates over the course of a single field season.

Wendy DesChene, an artist and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, collaborated with Dr. Brosius to create the mural. She met "Dr. Beetle" years ago while touring Augustana with PlantBot Genetics, a "satirical biotech company." As their friendship grew, including on-brand gift exchanges (Brosius once knitted her a pair of moth mittens), DesChene proposed working together to make a mural a reality.

"As an artist, it's hard to find scientists who don't belittle arts, or don't think of us as a true partnership," DesChene says. "I really wanted to work with somebody who I know as a peer, and who treats me and what I bring to the table as equal."

Dr. Brosius, meanwhile, had no such hang-ups. "I think that's why I interact with artists that deal with insects," she says. "They invite people to be curious. And that fear and hesitation can unfold into this sense of wonder: 'Oh my gosh, I never knew.' Even a drain fly, right? The silliest little thing ... but if you really get up close, they're like little teddy bears with wings."

The professor is especially fond of watching these transformations happen in real-time, in the class she teaches for non-majors. These are students who often enroll in the hopes of simply snagging a required biology credit, but who leave with a newfound love for nature's more chitinous creepy-crawlies. A few have gone so far as to become professional entomologists themselves.

"And I think that's what's so great about insects," she says, "because it's a great analogy for life: you can be a little tense and fearful, and it's probably because you don't know enough about it. Once you start to peel back the layers, that fear can fall away. And you're left with appreciation and love."


Jonathan Feakins wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Scene: It's December 2023. Reggie Holmes, 72, faces the audience at a choir concert. She's been singing since she was a baby, but things have changed.

"I turned around to apologize to the guy behind me. I said, 'I just want to sing, but it will sound really bad,'" Holmes says.

"My voice was lovely, but Parkinson's stole that from me."

In the past couple of years, she's somewhat reclaimed that voice-in large part thanks to Parkinsong Choir in rural Washburn, Wisconsin. Last year, it sprouted from a network of choral groups across the Midwest (and world) for folks with dementia and their caretakers.

Eyleen Braaten is the executive director of that parent network: Giving Voice, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In it, she sings with her dad, who has dementia.

"[It] is an opportunity to have a human-centered approach to creating programs that really bring wellbeing to people that are often told that they don't have too much to give," Braaten says of Giving Voice, which offers free toolkits for communities looking to start their own choirs.

Getting your song on is proven to boost memory and overall health, especially in cases of dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Polls show music (even just listening) is especially remedial with older adults. Music is social. Active. Even scientific.

It's something Stephanie Johnson knows well. In 2009, the board-certified music therapist founded Music Speaks and has worked with clients struggling with communication, memory, learning, early development, mental health ... the list goes on.

"If the brain is not operating in a way that it used to, due to a physical traumatic injury or a stroke or Parkinson's or dementia, we can incorporate music and help pull the information from a healthy part of that brain back into processing, whether it be speech or motor or cognition," Johnson says. She's helped nonverbal clients sing, even when speech remains difficult.

Think of the alphabet, she says: Would you have been able to memorize those 26 letters, in order, without that kindergarten-famous alphabet song?

Johnson's team of music therapists works across the Midwest and beyond, adjusting song tempo and dynamics to meet client needs. But folks without this care access, a local choir, or even a diagnosis can still reap musical benefits.

Anyone can queue up a beat (may we suggest our Essential Midwest playlist?) and let the brainwaves work their magic.

"Most often, the western world thinks of music as a song or a genre or an artist," Johnson says. But what about music as healing? As identity, recovery?

Singing, especially with Parkinsong Choir, is a source of joy, friendship, and belonging for Holmes: "My voice is not what it used to be . . . It's still kind of harsh and I have a vibrato you wouldn't believe," she says, laughing.

"But I can sing. And it's beautiful."


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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A Pennsylvania literacy organization is commemorating the Juneteenth holiday by highlighting the history and contributions of Black people in the United States through literacy and artistic freedom.

Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati, founder of the African American Children's Book Project, said books are vital to communities of color. She explained that before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, it was against the law in some states for enslaved people and freed Black people to be educated.

"The Emancipation Proclamation not only freed enslaved people, but it also gave Black people the opportunity to freely be able to read, write and spell," she explained.

In 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth a national holiday, which means federal and some local offices are closed, as well as banks and the U.S. Postal Service.

President Donald Trump has made rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion practices a major part of his platform. He has also expressed an interest in ending the Juneteenth holiday, but has not taken any action.

Lloyd-Sgambati said her group promotes books by and about Black authors to preserve Black history, adding that families play a key role in keeping that history alive, especially as schools cut back on cultural and DEI programs.

"If they're not teaching Black history in the schools, then it's your obligation," she continued. "Just like you nourish your children with food, the proper food, with clothing, it is important that you nourish your children with books - because if you can read, you can succeed."

Lloyd-Sgambati added that the American Library Association conference, set for later this month in Philadelphia, brings together global library leaders to share bold ideas and shape the future of libraries. She's producing two panels, one focused on children, the other for adults. More details are online on the ALA website.