your creativity has the power to
transform the places that you call home
and that is essential work I’m sure that
all of us have little things or maybe
really big things that we wish would be
different about the places that we live
and maybe we feel overwhelmed about our
inability to do anything about it we
feel like the problems are too big but
today I believe this is true that true
creativity can transform the world
around us for me that big problem wasn’t
just a pothole in the street it wasn’t
just a rule or regulation
it was the very ethnocentric Florida to
experience our community and they
experienced this a very small piece of
how our city is defined and I’m an
annual pass holder I’m all for there’s
some wonderful things about our themed
entertainment but for those of us who
call Central Florida home we know it to
be so much more and we care about seeing
those things platformed and I care about
seeing those things platform and not
only in the eyes of the visitors who
come to Central Florida but the people
who call Central Florida home sometimes
it just feels like we have such a
transient population that people are
reluctant to plant roots deeply and call
this the place that they champion as
their home and so in 2012 I decided to
do something about it by calling a bunch
of my creative friends musicians and ask
them hey would you come out and play
your instrument on a street corner or
dancer friends would you come out and
just perform on a street corner and
every day during the month of October in
2012 we just had a little performance
happening around the streets in public
spaces of downtown Orlando in 2013 we
decided to do it again we condensed it
all down to one day and we had some
momentum building from artists and we
had a couple dozen people there this is
one of the business plazas downtown and
we kept doing it 2014-2015
20:16 that same business Plaza we had
experienced such massive and exciting
growth in this past weekend in October
of 2018 we platforms more than a
thousand artists and performers for an
audience of 40,000 people in the streets
and public spaces of downtown Orlando
and it’s beautiful to see people coming
together and valuing who we are the
depths of who we are and having
meaningful shared experiences in the
public spaces of our city and
experiences that audiences can’t have
anywhere else in the world whether
that’s a Cirque de Soleil performer
hanging from a crane in the middle of
Orange Avenue the main thoroughfare of
our city while singers sing live from
balconies close by or the 100-piece
Central Florida Community Arts Orchestra
on five stages so that the audiences the
audience can stand among the sections of
the orchestra for a truly immersive
orchestral experience or a ballet
performance right in the middle of the
urban center or our performers having a
lot of fun with smoke and fire and the
outdoor spaces of our city creating
intensely beautiful moments and for us
we have a big vision of afford a global
destination performing an interactive
arts event that happens in the streets
in public spaces of our city by 2020
welcoming a hundred thousand guests with
the big vision of transforming the way
people around the world see and perceive
our city but also helping create a
greater sense of connectedness for those
of us who call Central Florida home and
along the way we’ve learned a lot about
the power of creativity and today I want
to talk about four ways creativity helps
us transform the places we call home and
I’ve been talking about music and I’ve
been talking about dance and those are
really wonderful forms of creativity but
today I want to talk to you about a
creative mindset thinking like an artist
and thinking creatively about the
problems that you face every day and the
things that you want to change about the
place that you call home the first of
those is that create
Vivat ii helps us overcome despair it’s
so easy for us to get caught in the
cycle of our own experience and allow
our past experiences to shape our
expectations of the future but
creativity awakens us from the
expectations that come from the patterns
of the past and allows us to start
dreaming with hope and once we can break
the cycle of our negative mindset that’s
based in the negative experiences of our
past it frees us into dreaming
creatively about what could be and when
we begin doing that it leads us to the
second idea that creativity reforms our
expectations once we break free from the
negative cycles of our past and we begin
dreaming it moves us into a place of
beginning to expect radically different
outcomes from our actions every day it
sets us on a course of positive change
and it makes us believe that we actually
have influence over the things that are
happening around us for me when I
stepped out of that place of despair
just saying this is what I’ve
experienced of our city or this is the
way people see it around the world I
moved into a new place of walking around
and gathering inspiration everywhere
about what could be in 2009 I went to
Valencia Spain and they had this
festival there every every spring called
las viejas and they build the city the
residents of the city all over the city
build hundreds of statues the main one
in the center square is about 90 feet
tall and in beautiful fashion the last
day of the festival they set them all on
fire and it’s an amazing experience the
city of Valencia estimates that more
than a million people come together for
this really amazing yet maybe equally
bizarre shared experiences in the
streets and public spaces of Valencia
every spring and there I am standing in
the heat of a hundred and thirty foot
flames flying into the air thinking we
don’t do this in America we haven’t
developed an aesthetic and a value for
connecting
meaningful shared experiences in the
public spaces of our city and at birth
this new expectation hey move away from
the negative cycles and ways of thinking
of the past begin dreaming about what
could be and in that we moved into this
new phase that creativity makes our
dreams tangible so we had this idea
let’s call friends and just ask him to
come out and do stuff we didn’t have
sound we didn’t have lights we didn’t
have permits we didn’t have a bit of
permission and of course we had $0 but I
just said come out and do something this
is one of those performances the very
first year two dancers just there on a
street corner and you can see people
just standing around taking pictures
because it was different people were
encountering something creative simply
because it was a group of people who
were doing what they could with what
they had today with an expectation that
starting small is the only place that we
can start sometimes and now on a whim
that very same year I called the friends
down at Cirque de Soleil I didn’t know
anybody there I called them friends now
but I just on a whim called him and said
hey we’re doing this thing every day
during the month of October this year in
2012 would you want to do something the
last Friday of the month they pull up a
big bus in front of Orlando City Hall
and more than two dozen performers spill
out into City Hall plaza and more than a
thousand people came to experience that
performance that day and it showed that
there was a community of people who were
hungry for meaningful experiences and to
connect around them and now tens of
thousands of people from all walks of
life of all ages and all backgrounds
join us the third weekend of October as
we put together this festival immerse in
the streets and public spaces of
downtown Orlando and it’s not just about
immersing people and performance it’s
about connecting them audience members
to artists artists to one another
audience members to one another around
unusual experiences and ultimately both
artists and audience members to the
physical spaces of our city
radically transforming the way they see
it and perceive it and so we free
ourselves from the thoughts and mindsets
of the past we begin expecting new
things we begin bringing those dreams to
life and ultimately as we manifest those
dreams by doing what we can with what we
have
creativity manifests a brand new reality
consistent consistent creative work in a
common direction has an overall net
positive effect on the world around us
there have been amazing days in this
past weekend as tens of thousands of
people smiled and laughed and danced in
the streets I was running from place to
place putting out fires and solving
problems and there have been days where
I’ve woken before my alarm because I was
so full of anxiety and there are times
where I don’t know how what we’re
dreaming about will ever come to life
and there are problems along the way but
consistent work in a common direction
over the long haul has had a consistent
net positive effect as we continue to
push through the rough days we see
beautiful things begin to happen as the
world around us transforms and this
isn’t just nice stuff if this was nice
stuff and only nice stuff I would have
given up a long time ago because frankly
it’s not worth it but this is essential
our ability to transform the world
around us through creativity is
essential why because we as human beings
have lived in communities and traveled
as tribes for the whole of our human
existence in a 2011 cornell university
study reports that most american adults
don’t have more than two people in whom
they feel comfortable confiding a
Brigham Young University study revealed
that personal relationships and social
integration are two key indicators of
longevity our ability to connect with
one another and
create a sense of home in our cities and
in our communities isn’t just nice it is
essential for our lives and it is are
essential for our ability to thrive so let’s do it
transform the places that you call home
and that is essential work I’m sure that
all of us have little things or maybe
really big things that we wish would be
different about the places that we live
and maybe we feel overwhelmed about our
inability to do anything about it we
feel like the problems are too big but
today I believe this is true that true
creativity can transform the world
around us for me that big problem wasn’t
just a pothole in the street it wasn’t
just a rule or regulation
it was the very ethnocentric Florida to
experience our community and they
experienced this a very small piece of
how our city is defined and I’m an
annual pass holder I’m all for there’s
some wonderful things about our themed
entertainment but for those of us who
call Central Florida home we know it to
be so much more and we care about seeing
those things platformed and I care about
seeing those things platform and not
only in the eyes of the visitors who
come to Central Florida but the people
who call Central Florida home sometimes
it just feels like we have such a
transient population that people are
reluctant to plant roots deeply and call
this the place that they champion as
their home and so in 2012 I decided to
do something about it by calling a bunch
of my creative friends musicians and ask
them hey would you come out and play
your instrument on a street corner or
dancer friends would you come out and
just perform on a street corner and
every day during the month of October in
2012 we just had a little performance
happening around the streets in public
spaces of downtown Orlando in 2013 we
decided to do it again we condensed it
all down to one day and we had some
momentum building from artists and we
had a couple dozen people there this is
one of the business plazas downtown and
we kept doing it 2014-2015
20:16 that same business Plaza we had
experienced such massive and exciting
growth in this past weekend in October
of 2018 we platforms more than a
thousand artists and performers for an
audience of 40,000 people in the streets
and public spaces of downtown Orlando
and it’s beautiful to see people coming
together and valuing who we are the
depths of who we are and having
meaningful shared experiences in the
public spaces of our city and
experiences that audiences can’t have
anywhere else in the world whether
that’s a Cirque de Soleil performer
hanging from a crane in the middle of
Orange Avenue the main thoroughfare of
our city while singers sing live from
balconies close by or the 100-piece
Central Florida Community Arts Orchestra
on five stages so that the audiences the
audience can stand among the sections of
the orchestra for a truly immersive
orchestral experience or a ballet
performance right in the middle of the
urban center or our performers having a
lot of fun with smoke and fire and the
outdoor spaces of our city creating
intensely beautiful moments and for us
we have a big vision of afford a global
destination performing an interactive
arts event that happens in the streets
in public spaces of our city by 2020
welcoming a hundred thousand guests with
the big vision of transforming the way
people around the world see and perceive
our city but also helping create a
greater sense of connectedness for those
of us who call Central Florida home and
along the way we’ve learned a lot about
the power of creativity and today I want
to talk about four ways creativity helps
us transform the places we call home and
I’ve been talking about music and I’ve
been talking about dance and those are
really wonderful forms of creativity but
today I want to talk to you about a
creative mindset thinking like an artist
and thinking creatively about the
problems that you face every day and the
things that you want to change about the
place that you call home the first of
those is that create
Vivat ii helps us overcome despair it’s
so easy for us to get caught in the
cycle of our own experience and allow
our past experiences to shape our
expectations of the future but
creativity awakens us from the
expectations that come from the patterns
of the past and allows us to start
dreaming with hope and once we can break
the cycle of our negative mindset that’s
based in the negative experiences of our
past it frees us into dreaming
creatively about what could be and when
we begin doing that it leads us to the
second idea that creativity reforms our
expectations once we break free from the
negative cycles of our past and we begin
dreaming it moves us into a place of
beginning to expect radically different
outcomes from our actions every day it
sets us on a course of positive change
and it makes us believe that we actually
have influence over the things that are
happening around us for me when I
stepped out of that place of despair
just saying this is what I’ve
experienced of our city or this is the
way people see it around the world I
moved into a new place of walking around
and gathering inspiration everywhere
about what could be in 2009 I went to
Valencia Spain and they had this
festival there every every spring called
las viejas and they build the city the
residents of the city all over the city
build hundreds of statues the main one
in the center square is about 90 feet
tall and in beautiful fashion the last
day of the festival they set them all on
fire and it’s an amazing experience the
city of Valencia estimates that more
than a million people come together for
this really amazing yet maybe equally
bizarre shared experiences in the
streets and public spaces of Valencia
every spring and there I am standing in
the heat of a hundred and thirty foot
flames flying into the air thinking we
don’t do this in America we haven’t
developed an aesthetic and a value for
connecting
meaningful shared experiences in the
public spaces of our city and at birth
this new expectation hey move away from
the negative cycles and ways of thinking
of the past begin dreaming about what
could be and in that we moved into this
new phase that creativity makes our
dreams tangible so we had this idea
let’s call friends and just ask him to
come out and do stuff we didn’t have
sound we didn’t have lights we didn’t
have permits we didn’t have a bit of
permission and of course we had $0 but I
just said come out and do something this
is one of those performances the very
first year two dancers just there on a
street corner and you can see people
just standing around taking pictures
because it was different people were
encountering something creative simply
because it was a group of people who
were doing what they could with what
they had today with an expectation that
starting small is the only place that we
can start sometimes and now on a whim
that very same year I called the friends
down at Cirque de Soleil I didn’t know
anybody there I called them friends now
but I just on a whim called him and said
hey we’re doing this thing every day
during the month of October this year in
2012 would you want to do something the
last Friday of the month they pull up a
big bus in front of Orlando City Hall
and more than two dozen performers spill
out into City Hall plaza and more than a
thousand people came to experience that
performance that day and it showed that
there was a community of people who were
hungry for meaningful experiences and to
connect around them and now tens of
thousands of people from all walks of
life of all ages and all backgrounds
join us the third weekend of October as
we put together this festival immerse in
the streets and public spaces of
downtown Orlando and it’s not just about
immersing people and performance it’s
about connecting them audience members
to artists artists to one another
audience members to one another around
unusual experiences and ultimately both
artists and audience members to the
physical spaces of our city
radically transforming the way they see
it and perceive it and so we free
ourselves from the thoughts and mindsets
of the past we begin expecting new
things we begin bringing those dreams to
life and ultimately as we manifest those
dreams by doing what we can with what we
have
creativity manifests a brand new reality
consistent consistent creative work in a
common direction has an overall net
positive effect on the world around us
there have been amazing days in this
past weekend as tens of thousands of
people smiled and laughed and danced in
the streets I was running from place to
place putting out fires and solving
problems and there have been days where
I’ve woken before my alarm because I was
so full of anxiety and there are times
where I don’t know how what we’re
dreaming about will ever come to life
and there are problems along the way but
consistent work in a common direction
over the long haul has had a consistent
net positive effect as we continue to
push through the rough days we see
beautiful things begin to happen as the
world around us transforms and this
isn’t just nice stuff if this was nice
stuff and only nice stuff I would have
given up a long time ago because frankly
it’s not worth it but this is essential
our ability to transform the world
around us through creativity is
essential why because we as human beings
have lived in communities and traveled
as tribes for the whole of our human
existence in a 2011 cornell university
study reports that most american adults
don’t have more than two people in whom
they feel comfortable confiding a
Brigham Young University study revealed
that personal relationships and social
integration are two key indicators of
longevity our ability to connect with
one another and
create a sense of home in our cities and
in our communities isn’t just nice it is
essential for our lives and it is are
essential for our ability to thrive so let’s do it
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