TED Talks Daily - What's possible when the arts belong to everybody | Lear deBessonet with Brian Stokes Mitchell

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

With huge, city-wide casts from an array of communities, theater director Lear deBessonet's productions illuminate the unique power of the arts to transform our lives through collective expression. She explores the power of spectacle to inspire awe, connect individuals and heal loneliness with tangible, life-changing results. In a dramatic moment, deBessonet's message comes to life when Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell takes the stage for a dazzling performance of "The Impossible Dream (The Quest)," accompanied by pianist Todd Almond, the MEI Screaming Eagles Marching Band and some surprise vocalists.

TED Audio Collective. You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. I got to see almost all of the incredible talks at TED 2024, but there was one I missed, and the FOMO is real, y'all. I was obsessed with L'Heure de Bessonnet. Okay, set it up one I missed, and the FOMO is real, y'all. I was obsessed with L'Ere de Bessonnet. Okay, set it up because I missed it. Oh my god. Okay, well, thankfully, I think that quantum

computing guy is going to invent time travel, and then you can go because you really missed something. It was very special. Since we haven't quite cracked time travel yet, we're lucky enough to live in the era of video and podcasts. So you and I can still check out theater director Lear DesBessonette's talk. Taking the stage,

she made a case for the arts as a force for community and got rave reviews. That is what happens when you bring people together, when you gather and you show them

that they can get outside of themselves and be transformed in a collective experience. And you realize, like, this is the magic. Also, you'll want to stick around till the end of this talk for a special surprise from Lear and some friends. All coming up after a break.

Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my own home sitting empty. Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb? It feels like the practical thing to do. And with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think.

Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. AI keeping you up at night? Wondering what it means for your business? Don't miss the latest season of Disruptors, the podcast that takes a closer look at the innovations reshaping our economy. Join RBC's John Stackhouse and Sonia Sinek from Creative Destruction Lab as they ask bold questions like,

why is Canada lagging in AI adoption and how to catch up? Don't get left behind. Listen to Disruptors, the innovation era, and stay ahead of the game in this fast-changing world. Follow Disruptors on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. I want to tell you about a podcast I love called Search Engine, hosted by PJ Vogt. Each week, he and his team answer these perfect questions, the kind of questions that, when you ask them at a dinner party, completely derail conversation. Questions about business,

tech, and society, like is everyone pretending to understand inflation? Why don't we have flying cars yet? And what does it feel like to believe in God? If you find this world bewildering, but also sometimes enjoy being bewildered by it, check out Search Engine with PJ Vogt, available now wherever you get your podcasts. And now, our TED Talk of the day. Let me tell you, as a little girl growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, everyday life was full of spectacle. In the months leading up to Mardi Gras, people from all over our community knit beads into dresses, stirred steaming pots of gumbo, shaped chicken wire into grand, majestic carriages stuffed with brightly colored tissue paper. On the day of the parades, grown-ups would walk out of their homes as mermaids and alligators and kings and queens.

You could see your second-grade teacher, suddenly a peacock with beautiful sparkly feathers. We would paint our faces and flow into the street where all day long the city sang and danced together. Regular people of all ages, races, and classes who stepped outside of their daily life and into a collective radiance. In my world, pageantry was not just reserved for Mardi Gras. Every Sunday, a church voice is lifted together, inviting the holy down into daily life. Our church staged epic annual Christmas pageants,

complete with real smelly sheep. And down the road at LSU football games on Saturdays, the stomp of the roaring crowd led by the marching band and the color guard registered as an official earthquake on the Richter scale when I was eight years old. Big surprise, I became a theater director. I did so with the belief that these spectacles were more than just fun,

that something profound was happening when our community came together in the realm of the imagination. Pageantry and spectacle are, in fact, ancient, universal aspects of human experience, going back as far as we can trace the presence of humans on this planet. Religious ritual and celebration or carnival provided our ancestors much-needed joy and the unique kind of group bonding necessary

for facing their daily challenge of survival. The question is, what do these spectacles mean in our day when the interconnectedness of our survival is less immediately visible and technology offers the constant opportunity for isolation? As a theater director, I search for what a communal gathering in the realm of the imagination can mean in our time. And that quest led me to wonder, inspired by the Mardi Gras of my childhood, would it be possible to create the feeling

of a whole city on stage together? Well, what better way to try than the stage of production of The Odyssey with 181 people in the cast drawn from all over San Diego. I chose The Odyssey because as an epic story of the journey towards home, it felt large enough for us to all find ourselves inside of it. As I wandered around San Diego, I started to wonder, what if that amazing gospel choir played the goddess Athena?

And those salsa dancers, what if they created Circe's lair? And that amazing high school drum line, what if they took care of the big archery contest that saves Odysseus at the end? Sort of like medieval passion plays, when it was like, bakers, you take the last supper, butchers, you do the crucifixion. When the Odyssey opened in 2011 at the Old Globe,

even I was not prepared for the wave of joy it unleashed. Look, I'm not a social worker. I'm an artist. But the show surprised me. I did the show thinking it would be beautiful, but it was so much more than that. People were overcoming the challenges of fear and self-doubt in the imaginary process, and somehow it was making them feel equipped to face the challenges in their real life. After the show, we stayed in touch, and I started hearing anecdotally what I would later learn scientifically. Students who had been part of the show were doing better in school. Some of our elders experienced noticeable health benefits like better blood flow and increased mobility. A remarkable man in his early 50s who had come to us through a homeless shelter got a job,

a steady job, for the first time in his adult life after the show. And ten years later, he was still employed. He traced it back to performing in The Odyssey. Why? I asked him, and his answer was simple. He said being part of the show reminded him that he had value. And he knew that if other people were counting on him, He said being part of the show reminded him that he had value, and he knew that if other people were counting on him,

he could show up. Well, the Public Theater in New York was willing to give me a home for this work, and in 2012, I started Public Works, a program that brings together community members from all over New York City, including children and senior citizens, domestic workers, military veterans, men and women rebuilding their lives after prison, and Broadway stars, all to create 200-person pageants annually at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. I want to share with you for fun the quick math of how we put a city on stage through public works. In, for example, our production of The Winter's Tale, we had 107 community ensemble members, ages 2 to 92, 34 choir singers, 16 bongra dancers, 12 ballerinas, 7 Sesame Street characters, And that's how we made a city.

But when we were young, we were able to make a city. And that's how we made a city. And that's how we made a city. And that's how we made a city. And that's how we made a city. And that's how we made a city. And that's how we made a city. And that's how we made a city. And that's how we made a city. But why stop there?

This July, 18 cities and towns across America will simultaneously premiere their own large-scale public artwork responding to the theme, No Place Like Home. Local artists partnering with their municipality and their local community health centers to manifest what is possible when the arts belong to everybody. The beauty of this type of art making is that people who might not encounter each other in any other aspect of life except jury duty gather together around life's deepest questions.

This collaboration reinforces that we all deal with the same emotions. We have all known love, fear, frustration, joy. And because we meet as equals in the realm of the imagination, something is possible that's often not when we're separated and boxed into our social roles. And now, back to the episode. Whereas in San Diego, my observations about transformation were anecdotal, with Public Works, we brought on a linguistic anthropologist from the very beginning to trace the impact of the work over many years, and the results were the same. In my now 20 years of directing theater everywhere from prisons and shelters to Broadway, I have seen seniors recover from strokes and surgery more quickly than their doctor said was possible. I've seen children diagnosed with autism who had been told higher education was not an option

go on to thrive in college and graduate. I've seen a homeless man in Philadelphia suffering from severe AIDS-related complications show up at our rehearsal immediately after leaving his hospital bed because he wanted to dance in our production of Don Quixote that night. So after all of this, I am not surprised to learn that the World Health Organization pooled 3,000 studies on the relationship between arts and health and found that arts interventions

have a significant role to play in the reduction of ill health, the promotion of good health, and the management and treatment of disease. The good news is that this type of health benefit comes from things as simple as joining a choir, going to a museum, being part of a weekly drawing class. Loneliness is now an epidemic in our world, and the growing belief that we have nothing in common with people who believe differently from us politically or religiously is tearing our social

fabric apart. Participating in something much bigger than yourself, working hard towards a shared good, this restores our sense of connection. And in the realm of the imagination, perhaps even behind feathers and sequins, what becomes visible is the divine spark in every human being and in our one collective humanity. Friends, the sociologist Emile Durkheim says something I love and believe in. They find a remedy because they seek it together. Thank you. Thank you. It was so fun to talk to you all about that. But now I want to give you a little bit of a summary of what I think Thank you. It was so fun to talk to you all about that.

But now I want to give you a little taste of it. I want to bring to the stage now my good friends, Broadway legend Brian Stokes Mitchell and Todd Allmans, my frequent collaborator on many of the things you saw on that screen. applause on many of the things you saw on that screen. To dream the impossible dream To fight the unbeatable foe to bear

with unbearable sorrow to run where the brave dare not go to right the unrightable wrong to love pure and chaste from afar

to try when your arms are too weary to reach the unreachable star This is my quest to follow that star No matter how hopeless, no matter how far To fight for the right Without question or pause

To be willing to march into hell For a heavenly cause And I know if I'll only be true To this glorious quest That my heart will lie peaceful and calm When I'm laid to my rest And the world will be better for this That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable stars This is my quest This is my quest To follow that star No matter how hopeless No matter how far To fight for the rights

Without question or cause To be true to this glorious quest That my heart will lie peaceful and calm When I'm laid to my rest And the world will be better for this That one man scorned and covered with scars Still strove with his last ounce of courage To be With this last ounce of courage To reach The unreachable Star Be a reachable soul. Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel.

They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my own home sitting empty. Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb? It feels like the practical thing to do. And with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. that was Lear de Bessonette at TED 2024

joined on stage by Broadway legend Brian Stokes Mitchell pianist Todd Almond the MEI Screaming Eagles marching band and participation from TED attendees turned singers throughout the TED theater all singing the impossible dream The Quest

if you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Autumn Thompson, and Alejandra Salazar. It was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan.

Additional support from Emma Taubner, Daniela Balarezo, and Will Hennessey. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. Looking for a fun challenge to share with your friends and family? TED now has games designed to keep your mind sharp while having fun. Visit TED.com slash games to explore the joy and wonder of TED Games.