#42 Donna Costello (Choreographer) / Reverend Jordan Scruggs (Modern Spirituality) “Process Junky and Modern Day Spirituality”

Happy election results! Let’s hear it for the rainbow!!! And the women who are a part of that rainbow. It’s about time politics looked different. As this NY Times Article explores, the women "marched, they ran, and on Election Day, they won." Way to do it ladies, of both parties!

Shana’s calling in from the road on her 2018 Fall Tour, and today she and Theresa thanked all of those who volunteered and canvassed and worked so hard against the odds to get their candidates elected. Congratulations to Antonio Delgado, Juan Figueroa, and Jen Metzger with the big wins in our region. We discussed the type of perseverance it takes to run a political campaign. S

Our first guest is Donna Costello, choreographer and dance educator at the Park Avenue Armory in NYC. She’s been a dancer her whole life, and managed to move quite quickly into her success in NYC. She calls herself a ‘process junkie’ and she gets into how to create a free and honest atmosphere when working in a group so that there can be a good work flow and creative feedback. She loves teaching but she also loves collaborating, and recently created Jitterbug and the Aftermath, a movement theater duet. This work was presented in 2018 at the Estrogenius Festival in the East Village and at Definitive Figures, A FemFest of Performance, a festival that Donna and Jenny Sargent conceived & produced together in New Orleans holding space for over 10 inspiring femme and female-identifying artists of mixed disciplines. This interview really dives into the world of dance expression and artistry.

Our second guest is Reverend Jordan Scruggs, Deacon and Community of Ministries Director at Saint James United Methodist Church in Kingston, NY. In her role at the Church Jordan is broadly focused on the alleviation of poverty which translates into some truly beautiful community building activities like "Waffle Church" and the transformation of a neighboring Church building into a community driven center open to all regardless of faith. . She quotes Martin Luther King Jr., "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Toward Justice," when asked about how we overcome the conflicts we are experiencing politically and spiritually in our country. She hopes that we will learn to celebrate diversity rather than pretend our differences don’t exist, and when asked about how she reconciles the role women have historically played or rather not played in religion, she sums it up with her impression that God is your Mother. Amen to that!

Today’s show was engineered by Manuel Blas of Radio Kingston, http://www.radiokingston.org.
We heard music from Shana Falana, http://www.shanafalana.com/, and audio from the film, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, http://www.shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to our pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND US 🙂

Follow Us:

INSTAGRAM * https://www.instagram.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast/

FACEBOOK * https://www.facebook.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast

TWITTER * https://twitter.com/wantwhatshehas