ECO SPEAKS CLE

Inlet Dance Theatre- Using Dance to Further People and Sustainability

• Guest: Bill Wade • Episode 74

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Inlet Dance Theatre is a modern dance company in Cleveland, founded in 2001 by our guest, Bill Wade, a renowned dancer and choreographer who uses the power of dance to further people and explore human, societal, and environmental issues through movement. Located within the Pivot Center for Art, Dance and Expression on West 25th Street in Cleveland, Inlet's Dance Studio is called The Estuary, reflecting the company's nature-based and sustainability themes. 

Inlet's mission aligns with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, which promote health and well-being, quality education, equality, and sustainable cities. Deeply rooted in Cleveland, Inlet is helping nurture and grow the next generation of artists by offering free dance classes in public schools and other community programs. Bill explains that talent is everywhere, but access to developing that talent is not. He started Inlet to expose urban youth to the power of the arts and provide opportunities, mentorship, and creative expression to individuals who might otherwise lack access. 

The connection between dance and sustainability may seem unexpected, but the arts are universally relatable and offer a unique opportunity to promote environmental awareness. "Don't put on stage what is. Put on stage what could be," Wade says, capturing how art contributes to sustainability by envisioning possibilities rather than dwelling on problems. In a world facing climate change and social inequities, Inlet Dance Theater reminds us that sustainability isn't just technical solutions – it requires creative spaces where we can collectively imagine and embody more hopeful futures.

Enjoy this episode of Eco Speaks CLE as Bill describes his work, his creative process, some of the pieces in his repertoire, his love of Cleveland and its youth, and upcoming appearances for his company. 

Guest: 

Bill Wade, Founder and Executive/Artistic Director of Inlet Dance Theatre 


Resources:

About Inlet Dance Theatre and Upcoming Performances

Education and Community Programs 

Cain Park Annual Performance and Calendar of Events

Aim2Flourish and The Lavender Project

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Contact us:
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Diane Bickett:

You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for the eco curious in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Bickett and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together we speak with local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn and live with our community and planet in mind. Hello friends, Today we have something a little different for you. We're going to be exploring how the arts, and more specifically modern dance, can help elevate sustainability in exciting and creative ways.

Diane Bickett:

The idea for this episode came from a new friend of mine, Andrea Villalon, who I met through our EcoMeetCLE events, and those are our in-person meetup events. She came to our last one a few months ago and was excited to tell me about this local modern dance company that she's involved with. Their mission and programming aligns with the United Nations 17 global goals for sustainable development and is contributing to making Cleveland a more sustainable city. Well, they got me really curious about how dance and sustainability play together. So one thing led to another. Andrea invited me to a few performances and then introduced me to our guest today, Bill Wade. Bill is the founder and executive artistic director of Inlet Dance Theater, a nonprofit modern dance company in Cleveland which is coming up on its 25th season. This has been a great experience for me to learn more about modern dance, which I really don't know anything about, and this wonderful creative dance company which is deeply rooted in Cleveland and uses dance to further people. Welcome, Bill.

Bill Wade:

Thank you, that was very well done.

Diane Bickett:

Thank you. So you're located in the Pivot Center for Art, Dance and Expression on West 25th Street in Cleveland. Your studio is called the Estuary and your company is called Inlet Dance Theater, so you have some water and nature themes going on, absolutely. Tell us about that, tell us about your company, and what's what inspired the nature themes. Let's start there.

Bill Wade:

Well, so I was born on Ohio State University campus and then I grew up all over the country from like Lancaster, pennsylvania, st Louis, all the way out to Southern California, which had a huge impact on me as a kid. It was my favorite place to live Southern Cali. We lived down by Laguna Beach in Mission Viejo.

Diane Bickett:

That doesn't suck.

Bill Wade:

Yeah, it was pretty awesome, especially back in the 70s. Oh, yeah, it was gorgeous and I've always been like an animal lover in nature. But I grew up drawing and painting and doing sculpture and a lot of that stuff was out just naturally. Nature themed because I'm like nature is the best artwork ever you know.

Bill Wade:

So then in college I found modern dance, um kind of on an accident, I went to college to be an animator, to do animation and because I wanted artwork that moved right and I had a lot of music training and as a kid, um, music lessons and everything and I ended up being trained by some world-class people right away wow and in three years um I long story short.

Bill Wade:

I moved to cleveland in 1984 and I danced with al Alice Rubinstein's Footpath Dance Company, which at that time was Ohio's leading professional modern dance company, and a lot of her work was also kind of embedded in the community and community engagement and nature-themed work, so it just was a good fit for me. In the 90s I spent time as an artist-in-residence at Cleveland School of the Arts. I was asked to do two weeks of master classes, fell in love with the kids. I was there for 11 years, ended up at the White House, got a big award from the NEA and it was awkward.

Diane Bickett:

What were you doing at the White House getting the award?

Bill Wade:

Yeah, I was getting an award. I had to wear a jacket and a tie.

Bill Wade:

That's pretty it was awful, but the work that I did, um, really opened my eyes to the inequities, because these are, you know, inner ring urban kids, clean school, the arts part of cmsd, and I just fell in love with these kids. The talent is everywhere. Access to develop, to developing that talent, is not everywhere and it kind of lit a you, you know something in me. So in 2001, as sort of an outflow of my work at Cleveland School of the Arts, sending kids to Juilliard and other places and watching them thrive all over, the world.

Diane Bickett:

Wow, that's amazing.

Bill Wade:

Yeah, I mean the talent's there.

Bill Wade:

They just needed the real training that I had to give to them. Nice. So I started Inlet because I realized that, you know, I grew up, coming up was rough, okay. So, um, dance was the thing for me when I dove in. Um, no compromise, just go pulled me away from a lot of the toxicity and trauma that I I grew up with. Um, and then I got a clean school of the arts and I'm like, oh, oh, I can pay this forward. This is awesome. So that paying it forward is sort of like the, the thing that drives in my dance theater, right. So I started that in 2001. And, um, like you said we have. We started 25th anniversary season in September, which is kind of weird, um, cause that was fast, was fast. But we now tour nationally. I'm doing work internationally.

Diane Bickett:

Wow, that's amazing.

Bill Wade:

Yeah, it's been a ride right, but just the idea of the words inlet, inlet is a passageway, a way of letting people really into my field. Letting people really into my field and I see that the transformative properties of dance or like work something I experienced Right, so I'm like I get it and so I'm, I'm, I'm one of those kids so, but I'm just much older now and so paying that forward and helping watching lives transform is is what it's all about. Whether that's some performing or education programming, I don't see those two things as separate. They're really the same thing. They're just like this ball that keeps getting bigger there you go.

Bill Wade:

I like that yeah and I because, yeah, back in the 80s I, you know, I worked for not just footpath but a couple of other companies and it was very clear to me, ballet companies, modern dance companies um, they were using their education, education, outreach to fund their dance making and I that I don't know that hit me wrong. Um, I was, like I'm not going to use kids to justify my art, like there's something awkward about this, like why don't we share and scale down what we're doing with kids and transform their lives with it instead? So that's been a theme, obviously, in inlet dance theater. So just this, this idea of going into water ankle deep and then knee deep, and then the more you study, the more you learn, the more it lifts you, and then just that imagery has always stuck with me.

Diane Bickett:

That's a great analogy. I have a quote here. I don't know if I got it from your website or when we talked earlier. I don't know if I got it from your website or when we talked earlier, but the dance world is an ecosystem to nurture and grow the next generation of artists. Like estuaries are places for raising the young and mentoring.

Bill Wade:

Exactly, and that's why we call our space the estuary, because during COVID a lot of people shut down. We were doing a national tour when COVID hit and I came back to Cleveland. The dancers gave, gave them time off and we transformed the space that is now our home at the pivot center.

Diane Bickett:

It's beautiful.

Bill Wade:

It's so what a blessing.

Diane Bickett:

So light and airy.

Bill Wade:

It's so, it's gorgeous, it's some of the nicest dance studios in the city and I'm incredibly grateful. I mean, I've been at it for 40 some odd years at this point. So I'm like, okay, it's time to have my own spot and instead of being nomadic because the company was nomadic for 20 years and during covid, we renovated this space. I worked a lot with the building owner and the architects and I designed a space that was intentionally open, light-filled, airy, a sharing space. I didn't want a theater because there's just a lot of perceived barriers with that and I, you know, I like to work with real folks and like give them an access point, right.

Bill Wade:

So our space has become the home for, like, joppo cultural arts institute, which is cleveland's west african dance company. It's the home for pacific paradise, which is a polynesian dance company. It it's the home for Pacific paradise, which is a Polynesian dance company. It's 10 K teaches class there. That's a hip hop organization. So my space almost immediately, and I never put a shingle out like, hey, come rent our space. It was because I've been here for so long and I've trained so many people over the years and work with so many different pockets of neighborhoods and stuff.

Greg Rotuno:

Um which it's?

Bill Wade:

full of dance seven days a week. And, um, I was like we, yeah, we need to. We need to name this space something that's a little bit more neutral than, like, the home of inlet dance theater, right it's like it's not just my house. Um, I have a nice big house I want to share with all my friends. Right, very cool, um, so that's kind of how all of that happened, and an estuary is an inlet, but I love the metaphor, like what you just read from the website.

Bill Wade:

Yeah well, it was your quote I had help writing that trust me um, where so?

Diane Bickett:

how? How big is your company? Where do you perform? You mentioned some locations, nationally and internationally you want to name some places but in cleveland, specifically cleveland specifically right.

Bill Wade:

So um I'm I'm proud that I'm playhouse square, which is the second largest performing arts center in the country. Um is a client of mine um, that's an honor we do. It's such a blessing we, we, we do a lot with playhouse square, cleveland public theater. We perform there every year for for dance works. You went to DanceWorks.

Diane Bickett:

I did.

Bill Wade:

And Kane Park. We're about to do our 24th performance at Kane Park in Cleveland Heights. I love that spot and we've been doing Tremont every year for many, many summers at Tremont's, lincoln Park. We're not doing it this summer because they lost their funding. So we're doing some other things.

Bill Wade:

Yeah. So there's that. That's happening everywhere and we also do a lot of education programming all over the city, not only at our own space, obviously, where people come take classes or whatever, but there's two schools right around the corner. One's down the street Luis Munoz Marin is one of the CMSD school. It's pre-k to eighth grade, and then around the corner is is um scranton school and we do residency work with both these schools every year and get the kids in the studio and then we go over there and, um, you know, we we kind of tailor what the programming is based on conversations with you know the principals. Side note, the principal samuel at luisunoz Marin. When he was young he was a ballet dancer in New York City.

Diane Bickett:

Wow, the great big Puerto.

Bill Wade:

Rican dude and I could tell he was good too, so the day we met we just clicked. Dancers are like a people group, no matter where you go on the planet, it's like we have a similar thing yeah, well, you're opening up this whole new world to me.

Diane Bickett:

I didn't know any of those names of any of those dance companies that you just mentioned. So yeah, yeah check them out and I was able to go to your sneak peak event at the estuary all right uh, earlier in april, I think yeah, yeah and um just met you, know your, your people. It's like man, I feel so good you know your, your people. It's like man, I feel so good. You know, when I left, I was happy smiling.

Greg Rotuno:

It's just like it's a very positive experience. You have good people for sure.

Diane Bickett:

So you do your own. Um, so when you put together a dance performance, you do your own choreography.

Bill Wade:

I'm the choreographer.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, okay.

Bill Wade:

Yeah, but I choreographed collaboratively, collaboratively.

Bill Wade:

I love that saying um, none of us is as smart as all of us, and that is so true saying and um, you know, I'm at that age older where you know I receive commissions to create work and um, I also we employ human-centered design thinking so that you have the end user in mind when you start the project. And we have many different projects that have different sort of pockets of town or people, groups that we're focusing on or topics that we're focusing on, and we get people involved in the in right away. So when I'm creating a new work, if it's connected to a specific population, they're involved in the creative process. And then I I'm a choreographer who pulls the movement out of the dancers that I work with.

Bill Wade:

I was just in houston working with somebody else's dancer, so there's a dance company down there and I walked in and I I know the guy. He's like my older brother, practically we've known each other for many, many decades and um, my process in that kind of work is really different than his and I said you guys are just going to be really, really open-minded dancers, just follow my lead. And I pulled a 25-minute experience out of them that was placed into a high-end art gallery because it was an exhibition from a Danish painter that came over and I got to meet him and talk about his process, and then I mimicked his process with the dance making process in the studio and his dancers were like we have never done anything like this before how do you do that?

Diane Bickett:

how do you pull a dance out of, out of?

Bill Wade:

I don't know. For me it's like really easy. You just watch them move. You're like, okay, do do that again, but do this like I had to do. The first day and a half was like some foundation laying Okay, because our company like we. I had a dude at CPT dance works come up to me one year at intermission. He's like are you the choreographer and the director? I was like yeah, and I'm like you good. And he's like I'm having a blast. My wife dragged me to this.

Bill Wade:

I'm not going to lie, but got married and had a child and I'm watching the child perform and I'm like that's a really good analogy because we climb on each other, we throw each other through the air.

Bill Wade:

It's the work is really, really athletic it is and um and I love that analogy but that you know, those dancers down there come from the whole post-ballet world and they're beautiful and they've got legs and spins and all kinds of things that they do and I was like you're gonna climb on each other and I'm gonna teach you how to do that and just follow my lead.

Bill Wade:

And then I taught them how to see the imagery, the way that I see the imagery, because this I'm embedded in the midwest for many, many, many reasons cost is one of the biggest ones, but also, like I love it here, um, and my family roots are in ohio and um, it was fun for me to open their eyes to this whole new way of thinking about choreography and moving their bodies and working with each other and they became like this, really tight, and they were like this when I walked in, a tight-knit family, but like the dynamic of the trust that they have for each other now is in a completely different level and I've been talking to their choreographer, their director, since being there and he's like man, you helped me so much with, yeah, with how, how things flow in the studio wow, what I thought was cool, what I went to see your you perform, your group perform at dance works which was at cleveland public theater.

Diane Bickett:

Um, there were, I think, six different, what do you call just dances? Pieces, yeah, pieces um but you gave an introduction to each one so that helped me understand what I was looking at. That thought that was super helpful thank you.

Bill Wade:

You talk about how they all, we all, came together sort of learned to do that over the years, because we work really hard on the like, the program, the play build people have, but if they don't read it I'm like, well, that's frustrating, that's frustrating, it's really. I'm not a writer.

Diane Bickett:

Much more interesting to see the person who created it. Yeah.

Bill Wade:

So we, we, we just we've been doing this for a few years now and we get a lot of feedback, like you just said. So our feedback is so important in our process, right, and we're like, okay, let's continue that. How might we upgrade it? Um, and because I really want people to feel engaged and that they're a part of what's happening, so just giving like a 90-second or a two-minute video. You hear from the choreographer, you hear from, perhaps, the musician, you hear from the dancers and the roles that they're learning or helping to develop for the piece, and then you watch the piece. It just gives you this like on-ramp into the freeway of this pretty abstract art. And not everybody less and less now, because what's going on in the schools in America and in DC with the arts in general? Less and less people are art literate. So what can I do? That's an opportunity for me right.

Bill Wade:

So let me help people kind of understand this stuff. Can I do? That's an opportunity for me, right. So let me help people kind of understand this stuff. So creating those short films in between things we have found to really help people understand what they're looking at well, the one I think I like the best was red tape, which, yeah, that turned out to be an audience favorite that night really. Yeah, we've got a lot of feedback about it can you describe what that is?

Bill Wade:

well, yeah, so I made this because of my painting background. I'm really exploring, like taking my previous dance life and, now that I'm much older, my dance life and combining the two together. And so we have this huge monolithic black on black painting on the stage, and when the lights come up, the dancer looks like she comes out of the painting and she's dancing in response to the art that's having an impact on her. And then these faceless, nameless, literally suits come out and basically like okay, you can continue this, but we're going to lay this red tape on the floor in this. Here's the parameters that you're allowed to do this inside of. And of course, that starts to shrink and shrink, and shrink and shrink and pretty soon they've like taped her to the painting to the wall.

Bill Wade:

Yeah, and then there's another scene where it's like marionettes, they, they, they lowered, like what looks like nooses, but then she puts them on, they put them on her hands and her wrists and then they do this trio with the two puppeteers at the top, with these long things attached to her, and they do this trio. It's like the dance inside of a dance, like shakespeare play inside of a play, and, um, it's examining like how might we create together given diminishing resources? Can we listen to each other and create together the suits and the artists? Because there's a bit of a divide there and a lot of artists are really, really business averse when it comes to their art. As soon as you want to monetize your work, you're going to have to deal with the fact that you are no longer the artist.

Bill Wade:

You are also now a business person and whether we like it or not and I I went through this myself years ago as a choreographer I was like you know what, If I want to bless more than just my own community, I have to learn this stuff and examining-.

Diane Bickett:

That's not the fun stuff, but it's got to be done.

Bill Wade:

It's not but it can be. So that's kind of where the piece goes. And then they, you know, they try to taper her to it again and she ends up climbing up the red tape literally and sitting at the top and wearing it as a seatbelt and dances on top of this painting Because, basically, you're not going to stop making when you're a maker, when you're born with this stuff, you know.

Greg Rotuno:

Yeah.

Bill Wade:

Using that stuff as a way to elevate literally in the space.

Diane Bickett:

It's pretty literal what was beautiful to watch and you explained it really well. Listening got a picture of that so I want to touch on sustainability, many guiding themes that you have through your company um, such as social justice, the environment, urban, youth.

Bill Wade:

We've touched on a bit so far, right, right, right.

Diane Bickett:

Can we talk specifically about how you've aligned your mission with the UN global goals for sustainable development? And I'm just going to read a few that were on some of your promo pieces here. Those are goal number three good health and well-being. Number four quality education. Goal number eight decent work and economic growth. Goal number 10, reducing inequalities. And 11, sustainable cities and communities. How does that play into the work you're creating, both with your dance and also kind of how you're serving the community Right?

Bill Wade:

right, right, right, right, right. Well, a lot of our community engagement sort of education programming focuses on the acts of creating, performing, responding and connecting right. So, um, when we create and perform dances connected to the themes of sustainability or social justice, like from the list, um, we can provide opportunities for the community to engage and respond to the content and the form of the work, like red tape, for example right and this and the dialogue that happens as a result of watching something that that feels meaningful.

Bill Wade:

But you gotta, you know, have a conversation with somebody to kind of unpack what you got out of that. Um, and we, we use the art to create conversations and dialogue like when you went to a sneak peek. It's about like, here's behind the scenes, as we're making some things, we're about to do a sneak peek on Friday, the 11th of July, in our space, showing people a glimpse of what's being created that will premiere at Kane Park, for example.

Diane Bickett:

Okay cool.

Bill Wade:

So it's this opportunity for people to look through and and how we're going about building it, asking questions. We use critical response process. It's a method of getting feedback that's actually gets the artists excited to get back in the studio the next day. And then the people want to. Now, they want to come see the concert because they had this meaningful dialogue.

Bill Wade:

But I just think that, given the state of things in the world right now, creating work that is anchored on the conversations that we're all having about you know health, whether it's physical health or healthcare or mental health, and, like you know, I watch people leave our studio. You said it earlier, leaving the studio, big smile, feeling so much better than the, you know the day or the week that you just had. Um, those types of. You know these. You know these alignments with the list, the 17 goals. Um, you know our space is used by everybody, every color of the rainbow, right, so we're reducing inequalities by the use of our space. Um, we make sure that the dancers are healthy. We're giving them professional development, not just in the training and the performing, that receiving, but like we'll bring in specialists to to talk about, like trauma-informed arts and how we work with the populations that we're working with.

Bill Wade:

I'm having a conversation with immigration right now, and what could we be doing? There's a lot of people groups that recently moved to our city. Where they came from, dance was very much part of their everyday thing, and now they're in America. Could we provide a space for them to bring that part of themselves back?

Greg Rotuno:

oh, I love that. You know what I mean.

Bill Wade:

I just think that if you're an alien, you land on any part of the planet and you look at human beings there's. Wherever you land, those people are dancing.

Diane Bickett:

That's the thing, it's just a human thing.

Bill Wade:

So, like, if you're displaced and you come to this city and america is a lot, capitalism is like out of control, um, and like to have a place in a space where you can. I mean, this is why joppo does what they do. This is why the polynesian dancers are in there doing what they do. This is why the hip-hop kids are in there. You know, hip-hop is 50 year old art form.

Bill Wade:

These, you know, these kids need a place to be where they feel safe and they can just enjoy sort of the physicality but also the mental health and the community engagement. And you know, so like, as you look at the quality education, teaching them how to make it, teaching it, teaching them how to sell it, teaching them how to serve the community with it. You know, I'm having conversations regularly with the directors of all these other entities that are in my space because I'm older at this point, and so they're like well, how are you? I'm like, well, you need, okay, you need a capacity building grant so you can hire a person you know and it just how can you help elevate your community? Um, and and if you're thinking about these, I mean there's plenty of content in these 17 goals to focus on learn some stuff about, talk to professionals that are dealing with that specific one, and create art out of that I think so much.

Diane Bickett:

Everything that's happening right now with climate change and loss of biodiversity and all that stuff is so heavy. Um, I think what you do and what others in the arts do is just help us find a way to express our frustration and our anger, but it also helps release some of that too, and you know what I have a thing about.

Bill Wade:

Don't put on stage what is Put on stage. What could be oh, I love that. Put on stage what could be yeah, is put on stage. What could be oh, I love it. Put on stage what could be um, I'm thinking the music industry 60s and 70s. Some of us grew up with um motown, like if you go up there and you go to the house and you take the tour, that's, that's what made motown ping, is they? They wrote in their music and it was very strategic and intentional hope, wonder, awe, a glimmer of. You know what I mean, what it could be I like that not ignoring what it is.

Bill Wade:

yeah, and I and I, I don't know that's because that that was the music I grew up with, right, and so going, going there years and years ago, I was like that's what I'm going to do with mine, yeah.

Diane Bickett:

You created, um a dance, a piece around, a book called what is a children's book. What do you do with an idea written by Kobe Yamada?

Bill Wade:

Yeah, kobe Yamada.

Diane Bickett:

Beautifully illustrated. I have a copy here. Yeah beautifully illustrated. I have a copy here. Yeah, maybe some did the illustrations. Um, you were talking about the book when I went to the sneak peek and you said that you were also working a second. It was a commission piece, right? Yes um a second supplement it's another book.

Bill Wade:

In this he has a series of three of those okay, the second book is what? What do you do? The problem?

Diane Bickett:

yes, yes so what if? Like, what would? What is the? You don't really identify the problem, or? The idea in your, in your piece. But like what if you were to do a piece around an environmental problem like you know, an endangered species or I don't know, overpopulation or something like?

Bill Wade:

that Right right, right right.

Diane Bickett:

How would you take, like ideate that into a performance?

Bill Wade:

Yeah. So the whole human centered design thinking process, right? Is you start with kind of defining what is your goal and then talking to the people who really know a lot about that topic and listen with empathy. Who are the, the experts? Who is that topic affecting most, getting a really three-dimensional grasp and vantage point on that thing? Involve their feedback in the process.

Bill Wade:

So we'll go to, we'll, we'll do like a story circle and we'll get all this information. We'll go to our studio and ideate and create some little prototype sketches, movement sketches, like we did at the sneak peek with the fabric right for the you know as as the metaphor for the storm in that second book, and then we get feedback, like we did that night, and we take that feedback and that helps us shape the scenes further and further and further. So, um, you know, what do you do with? An idea was commissioned by playhouse square. Um, because they he was, you know, daniel, he's the head of education came to me and he said I want really high quality work. When I bust these little kids in thousand at a time to the mimi theater, what are they looking at and what is it saying to them, and can it be awe-inspiring would you be interested in creating something like that? And I'm like hell, yeah, yeah, you're paying for it absolutely, are you?

Bill Wade:

serious and I felt like a kid in a candy store and then. But so in the process we took three years to develop that book into the dance theater adaptation, and I'm not exaggerating. Hundreds of little kids from all over cleveland came to the studio or we came to them and we did these little workshops, read them the book, asked them what was their favorite part and why what parts should we spend more time in in our production? And they, these little kids, will just tell you they don't have any kind of adult grid of like, being polite or whatever, and they're very clear. So now that that's been touring nationally, that production that you just mentioned.

Bill Wade:

Oh, congratulations, it's been touring nationally for seven or eight years. So, because of the success of that, we just landed we're going to make a big announcement about this in September but we just landed a commission from seven performing arts centers from all over the country to do the second book. What Do you Do With a Problem to do the second book? What do you do with a problem in light of these issues that we're all facing globally and nationally and regionally? You know, um and in our even in our city, in our neighborhoods, like um, putting out a piece that kind of just what do you do with this? What do you do with the problem? How do you go about tackling it? Do you? Do you tackle it? You know, I mean, it's very clear in the book. I'm so glad that he wrote the book. I'm just going to literally put the book on stage and tell it through dance, theater and d perry from um npr is going to be the narrator really yeah, she narrated what do you do with an idea?

Bill Wade:

and she's like, she has that voice that like you just wanted to read to you, um, and first time I ever met her I was like, oh my gosh, I just will you read me a book. And I'm like this grown adult. But she has that like a very recognizable yeah and I'm like.

Bill Wade:

She's like a queen in cleveland, right I'm like we gotta have her voice on the project because she loved it. So she said yes, so she's gonna do the next one. So, as soon as we're done with all this performing that we're doing this summer which is a lot, um, we're gonna. We're gonna start at the end of of August working on this new project.

Diane Bickett:

When do you think it'll be out?

Bill Wade:

I have probably 10 months to create the entire production. I see, Last time took me three years, but because we're in our own home now and we have everything that's under our roof and I have the same team of people that did that book, all said yes, like so fast. It was like so encouraging, because the whole team of people was like we absolutely want to, you know, be involved in creating the next book. We just when you see a thousand little little kids stand up at the end of the production before the adults, do you know you're, you're hitting it's hitting you know.

Bill Wade:

So that's.

Diane Bickett:

That's going to be fun to work on well, I haven't seen the performance, but I do like the book because, like I said, it's beautifully illustrated. But it's a little boy and this he comes up with this idea and he follows him around, follows him around and won't. He won't let it go, even though he's not sure if it's a good idea. He doesn't tell anybody, he keeps it a secret. And finally this idea comes to life and it turns out to be big and great. We don't know what the idea ever was like we probably won't know what the problem is, but it can

Bill Wade:

be applied to yes, anything, and I. That's why I was like these books are amazing, because he doesn't get specific, because you, as you read it, you immediately you fill in the blanks yourself right and and that, and they're gorgeous books and they're really not for children.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, I fill in the blanks.

Bill Wade:

I've gotten to meet Kobe and they use that book. What Do you Do With an Idea? They also use the other book. What Do you Do With a Problem? And there's a third book. What Do you Do With a Chance?

Diane Bickett:

He uses them in the IT sector in Northern California, like with like corporate execs and stuff, these books um.

Bill Wade:

So I was like I love an all-age pixar moment, like let's do this, you know, so let's create let's make some stuff.

Diane Bickett:

Well, good luck with that project thanks. Yeah, it's a little daunting um before we wrap up here, do you want to talk about your cane park coming up? Yeah, so we have um.

Bill Wade:

Cane park is coming up um. It's our 24th annual concert at kane park. It's on saturday night um july 26th, okay it starts at 8 pm.

Bill Wade:

We do have a um. There's a lot of people like to go to this. We have a pre-show twilight reception. It's like a fundraiser thing to help pay for everything we just did over the summer. Um, and that's twilight receptions at 6 30 um and it's up in the colonnade at the top of kane park and it's you know, there's like champagne and nosh and um. They get to hear an insider story about what they're about to witness happen for the first time, because half the concert is premieres of brand new works. I use the summer months to give my company dancers an opportunity to be work on their craft as emerging choreographers. So, like on monday or tuesday, tuesday of next week I'm going to sit and look at what they've been developing and they're all like I need to talk to you, I want you to look at my work and I help me develop this and um, so that mentoring thing right is is huge for me.

Bill Wade:

That's like my one crayon, um. So I'm to draw a world with it, help them develop their skills as emerging choreographers, and they're going to premiere new work set on the dancers from the Inlet Training and Apprentice Program, the pre-professional program and the students from our Summer Dance Intensive, and all of them will be on stage together at Kane Park.

Diane Bickett:

I'm going to get tickets. That sounds really it's free, it's free well, I got to come for the nosh and the champagne well, that's there's a.

Bill Wade:

There's a price point for that. There's a price point for that. That's a. It's a fun event. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really beautiful I will.

Diane Bickett:

I will pay for that. Yeah, cool. So, um, is there anything else you want to add anything we didn't touch on? Before we move to, I just have a couple things for our tip time no, I think.

Bill Wade:

I think it's just. Dance affords people to look at things that may be familiar from a completely new lens. We do workshops in our studio, for example, for corporate people who their team like team building exercises or or um just kind of affirm their creativity and their innovation, because a lot of people like I oh, I'm not creative, and by the end of it they're like this is so fun, I never realized I was so creative, and I think that there's not enough of that sharing happening and I'm doing everything I can to make that more accessible to people and once you make the work, I mean that brings people together, makes them happy.

Bill Wade:

It builds community Exactly, it changes the mood. It's connected to these very good.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, well, a couple things from tip time for me. I've got um. First of all, by the books. What do you do with an idea and what do I do with the problem? No, what do you do with the problem? By kobe Yamada. And then I just wanted to shout out Andrea Villalon with the Lavender Project. So, back at the beginning when we started talking. I talked about how she introduced us, but she's got a cool project of her own.

Bill Wade:

Yes, she does.

Diane Bickett:

She's the founder of the Lavender Project, which is a social enterprise based in rural Mexico. They're growing lavender to create jobs and to support and empower women and their families, and to foster sustainable agriculture and production. The lavender that's grown is made into these beautiful soaps that you can buy online and through local farmers or farmers markets here this summer, I think. So we'll put a link there in our show notes and thank you, andrea, for introducing me to modern dance and the Inlet Dance Theater. Thank you, bill Wade.

Bill Wade:

Absolutely. Thank you so much. This has been fun Cool.

Greg Rotuno:

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak CLE. You can find our full catalog of episodes on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available the first and third Tuesday of each month. Please follow EcoSpeak CLE on Facebook and Instagram and become part of the conversation. If you would like to send us feedback and suggestions, or if you'd like to become a sponsor of EcoSpeak CLE, you can email us at hello at EcoSpeakCLEcom. Stay tuned for more important and inspiring stories to come.

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Diane Bickett

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Greg Rotuno

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