The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society: Books, Film, Music, TV, Art, Writing, Creativity, Education, Environment, Theatre, Dance, LGBTQ, Climate Change, Social Justice, Spirituality, Feminism, Tech, Sustainability

“Lincoln Center is multiple stages. I think probably over three dozen stages across 16 acres. It is a vast canvas in and of itself. And then we have this beautiful plaza that leads to this beautiful campus, and that’s the visual I think that most people have when they think of Lincoln Center is this beautiful fountain in the center and these three gorgeous buildings.It’s New York’s biggest plaza, and it feels very vibrant and beautiful. In the summer, we really take that plaza and we transform it into a dance floor. So this idea of also interrupting what people’s notion of Lincoln Center is because it’s a space that is very aspirational, which is a great thing.”
Shanta Thake is the Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—the nation's largest performing arts complex. Before stepping into this role, she spent sixteen years at The Public Theater, shaping the city's cultural landscape through Joe's Pub and expansive community initiatives. Today, she is tearing down walls—both the literal barriers separating Lincoln Center from its neighbors, and the figurative ones that dictate who belongs in our cultural spaces. She views the arts not as a luxury, but as essential civic infrastructure. We are pleased to have Shanta Thake to discuss her journey, the power of radical curation, and the future of public performance.
(0:00) Reimagining Lincoln Center
(2:27) Art and the Human Experience
(4:40) The Curiosity of Childhood
(5:44) Alvin Ailey and the Pivot
(8:29) The Invisible Arts
(9:06) The Power of Public Theater
(17:03) Curation, Programming and the Art of Listening
(23:42) San Juan Hill and The Wall
(31:23) Art as the Oldest Technology
(35:02) globalFEST: Music and Connection
(38:20) Finding Universal Belonging
(41:20) The Gift of Pause
(54:27) A Collective Caretaking
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"I really do believe that the arts are critical to how we move forward together, and live performance in particular, I think, is a way of us practicing how to move across our ideological boundaries and find one another and imagine these new worlds together and create together."
Shanta Thake is the Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—the nation's largest performing arts complex. Before stepping into this role, she spent sixteen years at The Public Theater, shaping the city's cultural landscape through Joe's Pub and expansive community initiatives. Today, she is tearing down walls—both the literal barriers separating Lincoln Center from its neighbors, and the figurative ones that dictate who belongs in our cultural spaces. She views the arts not as a luxury, but as essential civic infrastructure. We are pleased to have Shanta Thake to discuss her journey, the power of radical curation, and the future of public performance.
"I really do believe that the arts are critical to how we move forward together, and live performance in particular, I think, is a way of us practicing how to move across our ideological boundaries and find one another and imagine these new worlds together and create together."
Shanta Thake is the Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—the nation's largest performing arts complex. Before stepping into this role, she spent sixteen years at The Public Theater, shaping the city's cultural landscape through Joe's Pub and expansive community initiatives. Today, she is tearing down walls—both the literal barriers separating Lincoln Center from its neighbors, and the figurative ones that dictate who belongs in our cultural spaces. She views the arts not as a luxury, but as essential civic infrastructure. We are pleased to have Shanta Thake to discuss her journey, the power of radical curation, and the future of public performance.
(00:00) Reimagining Lincoln Center
(03:09) A Collective Caretaking
(03:47) The Technology of Human Creation
(04:20) The Curiosity of Childhood
(09:25) San Juan Hill and The Wall
(14:20) globalFEST: Music and Connection
(16:06) The Gift of Pause
(17:20) A Collective Caretaking
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way.  Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.”
Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinov is widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prize for Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.
Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.
(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia
(2:13) The Art of Translation
(5:44) The Pandemic of the Past
(11:30) Reading from ‘Time Shelter’
(14:28) Death and the Gardener
(19:34) The Translator's Calling
(26:05) Cultural Rhythms of the Bulgarian Language
(30:00) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling
(34:30) Separating Personal and Historical Pasts
(42:55) Storytelling vs Propaganda
(47:19) Bodies, Animals and the Loneliness of the Minotaur
(56:00) Reading ' Eight Minutes and 19 Seconds’
(1:00:28) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?
(1:04:18)   Childhood, Memory and Imagination
(1:10:38) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him
(1:17:20) Education and the Empathic Imagination
(1:23:25) The Museum of Memory
(1:26:15) The Importance of Hugging and Empathy
(1:28:02) AI and the Future of Humanity
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinovis widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prizefor Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.
Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.
(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia
(1:22) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling
(3:53) Translating the Atmosphere
(4:31) The Pandemic of the Past
(6:37) Death and the Gardener
(9:49) The Translators Calling
(11:00) Slowing Down Time
(13:14) Storytelling vs Propaganda
(15:54) Translating the Atmosphere
(18:19) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?
(20:56) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him
(23:43) The Importance of Hugging, Empathy and Storytelling
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Our creative lives are shaped by those who come before us. But where does creativity come from? Today, we hear from voices across the arts and sciences. The visual artists exploring emotions through imagery: Eric Fischl, Donald Sultan, Anthony White, Lee Jaffe, and Gloria Pacis. Director Benh Zeitlin, cinematographer Chayse Irvin, and actor, director, and art historian Peter Weller discuss the beauty of small details hidden in the larger story.
We examine jazz and the improvised life with musician and artist Dickie Landry, and author Bruce Evan Barnhart. We speak with former NYTimes Magazine editor Adam Moss on how magazines help us understand and honor the urgency of events like 9/11, while sociologist Richard Sennett, writer Paul Levinson, and scientist Julio Ottino talk about the need for a nexus of creativity across disciplines to meet the challenges of our current moment.
(0:00) PETER WELLER (Actor, Director, Musician) Remembers Miles Davis
(3:08) CHAYSE IRVIN (Cinematographer, Blonde, BlacKkKlansman) On Imperfection
(4:30) LEE JAFFE (Artist, Writer) On Life with Bob Marley and Basquiat
(6:02) ERIC FISCHL (Artist)  To Create an Immediate Narrative,  You Need to Have Imbalance
(8:02) ADAM MOSS (Fmr. Editor New York Magazine)
(12:12) ANTHONY WHITE (Artist)
(13:54) DICKIE LANDRY (Musician, Artist) Art, Music and Rauschenberg
(16:47) BRUCE EVAN BARNHART (Author) Jazz and Improvisation
(18:05) BENH ZEITLIN (Director, Writer of Beasts of the Southern Wild) Freedom, Childhood, Films
(20:11) RICHARD SENNETT (Sociologist) Art Can Create or Destroy
(21:17) DONALD SULTAN (Artist)
(22:59) GLORIA PACIS (Artist) The Dance of Life
(24:17) PAUL LEVINSON (Writer)
(26:17) JULIO OTTINO (Scientist) The Nexus of Art, Tech, Science
For more, listen to their full interviews http://www.creativeprocess.info/pod
http://www.creativeprocess.info/interviews-featured/anth-role-artist