The role of art and forgiveness in democracy | Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Wendy Whelan

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Role of Art and Forgiveness in Democracy" | Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Wendy Whelan

Podcast Information

• Title: TED Talks Daily
• Host/Author: TED
• Episode Title: The Role of Art and Forgiveness in Democracy | Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Wendy Whelan
• Release Date: April 23, 2025

Introduction In this compelling episode of TED Talks Daily, cultural visionary Marc Bamuthi Joseph collaborates with Wendy Whelan, the Artistic Director of the New York City Ballet, to explore the intricate relationship between art, forgiveness, and democracy. Hosted by Elise Hu, the episode delves into how creativity and empathy are essential for fostering a more humane and equitable society.

Exploring Forgiveness and Memory in Society Marc Bamuthi Joseph opens the discussion by posing critical questions about the ability of individuals and societies to remember and forgive in today’s complex social landscape. He challenges listeners to consider the role of art in facilitating these processes, asserting that creativity is intrinsically linked to empathy and healing.

Key Discussion Points

1. The Intersection of Art and Public Healing

   • Wendy Whelan shares her experiences from her tenure at the Kennedy Center, emphasizing the importance of forgiveness both on a personal and political level. She highlights the challenges of addressing national traumas, such as the events of January 6th, and the systemic issues that lead to collective forgetting.
   • Quote: “Forgiving requires a deeply personal commitment to healing. But forgiveness is also a political animal.” (02:26)

2. Historical Erasure and Disinformation

   • The speakers discuss how systemic forgetting occurs through methods like book banning and the spread of disinformation, which create disputed realities and hinder collective memory.
   • Quote: “Historical erasure in schools is how forgetting happens in a systemic way.” (04:15)

3. Art as Infrastructure for Empathy

   • Marc posits that art should function similarly to other social infrastructures, such as healthcare systems, by intentionally cultivating empathy within the economy.
   • Quote: “Can we use art to manufacture empathy as an intentional aspect of our economy?” (05:00)

4. The "Cuckoo" Piece: A Blend of Music and Dance

   • The centerpiece of the talk is the collaborative piece titled "Cuckoo", which reimagines Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals within the context of the Capitol building on January 6th.
   • The performance intertwines classical music with contemporary dance to symbolize the cyclical nature of social and political unrest.
   • Quote: “The Cuckoo is not about crazy. It's about cycles.” (06:00)

Performance Highlights

• Integration of Movement and Narrative

  • Wendy Whelan performs a dance piece that embodies the themes of repetition and memory, mirroring the Cuckoo’s relentless song as a metaphor for societal patterns.
  • The choreography synchronizes with Marc’s narration, creating a unified artistic expression that emphasizes the necessity of remembering to foster forgiveness.
  • Timestamp: [07:30] to [12:10]

• Symbolism and Metaphor in "Cuckoo"

  • The Cuckoo represents the persistence of historical cycles and the continuous need for public healing.
  • The piece questions whether democracy can survive without the empathy required for collective forgiveness.
  • Quote: “Can our democracy survive if we don't manufacture the empathy it takes to forgive?” (05:45)

Insights and Conclusions

Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Wendy Whelan conclude that art is not merely a reflection of society but a vital tool for social impact. By fostering empathy and facilitating dialogues about forgiveness and memory, art can bridge divides and promote healing in democratic societies.

• Art as a Catalyst for Change

  • The speakers advocate for elevating art to a foundational role in societal structures, encouraging intentional use of creativity to address and mend collective traumas.
  • Quote: “Our job is to elevate the stock of art that helps create an infrastructure for both remembrance and forgiveness.” (06:20)

• Call to Action

  • Listeners are encouraged to engage with art not just as consumption but as active participation in the healing and building of a more empathetic and just society.

Conclusion This episode of TED Talks Daily offers a profound exploration of how art intertwines with the processes of remembering and forgiving, essential components for the sustenance of democracy. Through the innovative collaboration between Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Wendy Whelan, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the transformative power of creative expression in addressing societal fractures and fostering a culture of empathy and reconciliation.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Marc Bamuthi Joseph: “Forgiving requires a deeply personal commitment to healing. But forgiveness is also a political animal.” (02:26)
• Wendy Whelan: “Historical erasure in schools is how forgetting happens in a systemic way.” (04:15)
• Marc Bamuthi Joseph: “Can we use art to manufacture empathy as an intentional aspect of our economy?” (05:00)
• Marc Bamuthi Joseph: “The Cuckoo is not about crazy. It's about cycles.” (06:00)
• Marc Bamuthi Joseph: “Can our democracy survive if we don't manufacture the empathy it takes to forgive?” (05:45)
• Marc Bamuthi Joseph: “Our job is to elevate the stock of art that helps create an infrastructure for both remembrance and forgiveness.” (06:20)

Further Engagement To experience the full depth of the performance and delve deeper into the themes discussed, listeners are encouraged to visit TED's official website to watch the accompanying dance piece and explore additional curated content.

Transcript

[Mark Bamuti Joseph]

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[Elise Hu]

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. Today's speaker, cultural visionary Mark Bemouti. Joseph asks us to consider some profound questions. Is it possible to remember and forgive in our society today? And if so, how does art make that possible? In his 2024 talk, Mark shares how his work digs into these questions. With the help of dancer and New York City Ballet Artistic Director Wendy Whelan, this talk looks at how creativity and empathy are fundamentally connected and why art is necessary for our humanity. That's coming.

[Wendy Whelan]

About five years ago, I moved to Washington, D.C. to become one of the vice presidents of the Kennedy Center. For the last 25 years, I've made a living writing everything from poems in Oakland to operas in Amsterdam. Living in D.C. though, has made me obsessed with forgiving and also with forgetting. Forgiving requires a deeply personal commitment to healing. But forgiveness is also a political animal. Like, how do I as a citizen forgive what happened on January 6th? How do I reconcile what I think is a national injustice, which is that since the pandemic through the jungle of managing a national trauma in public health, we haven't really invested very much in public healing. Which leads me to forgetting. It seems like when you start banning books in a country, you're asking us all to forget a bunch of things. Historical erasure in schools is how forgetting happens in a systemic way. But forgetting also happens through disputed realities and disruption in disinformation, through a culture that manages to produce multiple options of facts. Says, yeah, maybe it was a riot, but also maybe it was a feral tour of a federal building, as if we're all supposed to forget what we actually saw. So is it possible to remember and forgive? And let's say we can remember and forgive? How does art make that possible? My job at the Kennedy center is not social passivity. It is social impact. People ask me all the time, what can art do to help create an equitable society? But that's the wrong question, and it puts the onus on the wrong people. The actual question is, why aren't our health care systems more like music? Why doesn't our political apparatus operate more like the flow of a poem? How do we elevate the stock of art that helps create an infrastructure for both remembrance and forgiveness? Chasing these questions led me to a piece of classical music called the Carnival of the Animals by Saint Sans. Historically, the Carnival of the Animals is performed as a series of 14 mini suites, each inspired by a different being in the animal kingdom. Our version of the Carnival, which has a mix of Saint Sons music, some new music, some acapella moments, asks a different set of questions. We ask, what if the Carnival of the Animals took place in the capitol building on January 6th? Who were the animals that were present on that day? We ask, can our democracy survive if we don't manufacture the empathy it takes to to forgive? This country uses alloys to manufacture cars. We use brick to construct buildings. Can we use art to manufacture empathy as an intentional aspect of our economy? As an example, we want to share with you our version of the Cuckoo. Now, our piece premiered in an election year when one of the candidates running for president was indicted in federal court for his role in the riot. That said, the Cuckoo is not about crazy. It's about cycles. It's a moment in Our work that remembers the toxic cycles that led to January 6th. It's a piece that asks, how do we forgive the actors of chaos if we don't remember the cycles of inaction that propagated them? Here to help me is the great Wendy Whalen. The Carnival of the Animals is a parable about structure structured in parallels about animals. I want to bring one of those animals to life. Joining me is New York City Ballet icon, the artistic director of the New York City Ballet. This is Wendy Whelan.

[Elise Hu]

Elise, here again, I wanted to take a moment to describe what's happening on the TED stage right now. Mark is continuing to tell his story, and dancer Wendy Whelan walks on and begins to dance. Together, they perform a piece from a larger work of theirs called Cuckoo. Mark speaks and joins Wendy in movement. At key moments during the rest of his story, his words and their physical movements come together to form one unified piece of art. So with that in mind, here's the rest of the talk.

[Wendy Whelan]

About 2:30, maybe 2:45. My mom texts me to see if I'm safe. That's a lie. I text her to see if she's okay. My mom is from Haiti. She's seen this before. A riot, a coup, a despot, his crew. I ask her if she's triggered. She's seen this before. The cuckoo flies above and after a while falls slowly to the earth. It has a slight speech impediment. The human ear thinks it's called repetitive. The human ear thinks it's called repetitive. As if humans could be the arbiters of another species song. Though in this case the human ear is not wrong. The cuckoo repeats herself, like each leaf on the branch upon which she perches is a rosary bead or a Tibetan mala. The human ear doesn't hear the slender bird's prayer. No matter, no matter. She attends to other concerns. Laying eggs in other birds nests, eating insects, learning French. Le cucu Vol. Un voir et appreze en estant el ton doucement parterre. Because her mantras strike the ear as monotonous drone, humans clone her tone in their clocks. The hour comes. The hour comes like clockwork. The song that we recognize as time does not stop.

[Elise Hu]

Stop.

[Wendy Whelan]

The cuckoo is no yeoman laborer, singing like the incessant swinging of a mountain sculptor's chisel. Her song is not relentless work. It is incessant prayer. Humans think her crazy, repeating herself, repeating herself. They use her name. Impajorda vein, call each other out by slurring the sound of cuckoo. Cuckoo. Expanding her striped feathered breast and giving the sky her mouth. Cuckoo comes in many colors. Mad styles got family in Europe and the tropics. Tragic and romantic like unrequited love on a North Pacific island. And for the record, for the record clock fabricators and American gift makers, she is not simple brained. She happened to be outside the window when George Santayama coined the aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Condemned to repeat it. She's been there for trickle down economics, for TV personalities running for public office, for athletes rapping, for European peace treaties with native people, and for 14 different ends to the COVID 19 pandemic. Remember the past. Remember Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Matter of fact, she's noticed that in the cyclical strain on the infrastructure of public health, there hasn't been very much attention being paid to public healing. Like the act of intentionally and collectively acknowledging the social and psychological trauma of loss and divisiveness, acknowledging that the planet has endured a rift and being intentional about healing together from that rift in public. Public healing. Cuckoo. Repeating cuckoo. The song on the automatic rifle, mediocre and entitled, tantalizingly bland middle class white supremacist disconnected white men is on the premises. American terrorists thinking and praying and thinking and praying like American senators or American second Amendment defenders neglecting the context of the weapons that the framers was suggesting. They was talking about muskets. Yo, they was talking about muskets. Yeah. The cuckoo repeats herself. The cuckoo flies above and after a while falls slowly to the earth. Cuckoo, Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

[Elise Hu]

That was Mark Bamuti, Joseph and Wendy Wheeland at TED next 2024. To watch the dance piece performed during this talk, and I highly recommend you see it. Visit ted.com if you're curious about Ted's curation, find out [e-mail] curationguidelines and that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar and Tanzika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faizy Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balaurazo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

[Mark Bamuti Joseph]

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[Wendy Whelan]

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