PINC Blends Entertainment with Myriad Perspectives

People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity performance blends an array of speakers, performers.

From the quasi-slapstick antics of an extreme balloon sculptor to an examination of “a culture of hate” documented by experiments on ravens and crows, the fifth annual “bubblebath for the brain,” otherwise known as PINC, left another sold-out audience standing and swaying in a hip-hop sing-along during Thursday’s finale at the Sarasota Opera House.

But in the most solemn moment of the 12-speaker lineup, anti-trafficking advocate Kathy Bryan drew a prolonged standing ovation for sharing her story of being raped and exploited repeatedly as a teenager in Virginia in the 1980s. Bryan has since put her experience to work, testified before Arkansas legislators, and is a consultant for the Department of Homeland Security on human trafficking issues.

“What really makes this event work is its unpredictability,” said Anand Pallegar, the PINC (People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity) director who opened the event with an unscheduled performance from a professional aerialist. “And the emotion it triggers in people makes it all the more worthwhile.”

Also making an unscheduled performance was Ringling College of Art and Design President Larry Thompson who, dressed in commando black, descended from the ceiling by a cable while fog machines billowed and the “Mission Impossible” theme played.

In a pointed pushback against the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics movement dominating education, the former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame CEO warned that, in the race to perfect artificial intelligence, “We’ve neglected our right brain,” calling creativity “the oil of the future.” Thompson told educators they need to be injecting Arts into the STEM acronym.

“STEM just sits there,” he said while a Ringling performance artist painted complex three-dimensional shapes on the big screen with a Google Tilt Brush program. “STEAM gives it energy.”

Making a belated appearance was award-winning journalist Christiaan Triebert, who was supposed to address the PINC audience last year, only to be denied a visa into the U.S. because of his travels into some of the countries blacklisted last year by the Trump Administration.

In his work for an online investigative group called Bellingcat, Triebert detailed how, using open-source material, social media and satellite imagery, he was able to identify the exact Russian anti-aircraft brigade, platform launcher, and entire crew that shot down a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine in 2014 and killed 298 people. All the evidence was publicly available, Triebert said, if you just know where to look.

The most kinetic presentation was staged by balloon artist Mark Verge, whose obsession for creating creatures, gowns, flowers, Chihuly glass knockoffs, Swiss Army knives and motorcycles wound up spilling into the crowd of 450. Spectators who plopped down $425 a seat amused themselves by punching and bashing the balloons he’d tossed at them into the air.

Unable to bring the scale of his work into the Opera House, puppeteer Ulysses Jones, whose massive creations were paraded at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, resorted largely to photos and video. He gave a detailed accounting of the difficulties in mastering a 56-foot long, 36-foot tall, 1.5-ton brachiosaur with just three puppeteers.

Then there was “heliographer” Michael Papadakis, who discovered how to create artwork by using a magnifying glass to turn sunlight into a laser pen. Among other things, his creations included scenes from his travels in Asia, and he described heliography as a “third language” that all cultures can speak and a “tool for self discovery.” He reminded listeners that the internet search icon is a magnifying glass.

Bird-brain researcher John Marzluff, with the U.S Fish Fish and Wildlife Service’s Recovery Team for the endangered Mariana crow in Washington state, followed up by sheepishly announcing “I have to admit, I’m one of those kids who burned ants.” The ornithologist took a deep dive into the brains of corvids, which are structurally similar to humans, and reviewed social experiments that evoked advanced avian cognitive skills, and an ability to warn other flock members of humans wearing masks.

The biggest news, however, didn’t come from a performance. Pallegar announced he would be expanding the PINC concept in Detroit next summer. “Detroit used to be the Paris of America, and it’s undergone a massive resurgence and revitalization,” he said.

Pallegar also introduced a dozen or so Dream Large Scholars to the audience — local students who attended Thursday’s session for inspiration they can incorporate into their studies. “We need to ensure there’s a level of intimacy between the speakers and the audience, so we will not sell more than 450 tickets,” he said. “So I think it’s going to get trickier as we bring more kids into it and try to connect the stage to the classroom.”

Although he likes mixed themes, Pallegar says his team tries to select experts with relevance to locally important issues like conservation and sustainability. That explained the presence of Pashon Murray, the Detroit activist whose Detroit Dirt Foundation promotes zero-waste policies, particularly as they apply to discarded food. And there was especially moving testimony from reluctant clergyman Rev. Richard Joyner.

Tired of burying congregation members dying from diabetes and malnutrition in rural North Carolina, and with the help of an imam from a nearby mosque, the Baptist minister turned his “food desert” into a 25-acre tract of organic gardening maintained largely by children.

At least one speaker — Nashra Balagamwala — is trying to change an entire culture. Born in Pakistan, the women’s rights advocate invented a board game called “Arranged!” in which no female player can escape without getting trapped in an arranged marriage. “I wanted women to realize they are not alone in this struggle,” and men to “get educated about the things women go through.”

Others wanted to change humanity at large. Sanford Greenberg, a White House Fellow under President Johnson and a member of President Clinton’s National Science Board, described the horror of going blind while he was pitching during a summer baseball game in 1961. Using Jonas Salk’s eradication of polio and President John Kennedy’s moon landing for inspiration, Greenberg is offering a $3 million prize for his own project, “End Blindness by 2020.”

All attendees left the PINC conference with samples of sugar-water “bee saving paper” produced by Anna Gadecka of Poland. If mass produced and incorporated into common paper products, the paper could provide a source of food and keep honeybees from going extinct.