Categories
Culture Living

Asked and answered

We’ll put just about anyone in The HotSeat—visiting performers, interesting professionals, local tastemakers—as long as they don’t mind answering a few of our hard-hitting questions (asking about a go-to Bodo’s order is the height of journalism, folks). Here are a few of our favorite answers from 2024. 

Grad student/lecturer Chandler Jennings

Most embarrassing moment: A few years ago, I ran into an acquaintance from high school. We chatted for a bit, and then she kind of waved goodbye at me. I didn’t realize that it was a wave and reached out and clasped her hand, interlocking fingers, and we kind of rocked them back and forth for a sec before I disentangled and ran away. 

Actress/musician Schuyler Fisk

Best advice you ever got: “You meet the same people on the way up that you meet on the way down.”—My mom [Sissy Spacek]

Podcast hosts Mendy St. Ours and Bree Luck

How did you settle on “Well, That Was Awkward” as a title and concept? 

Mendy: Pretty much every day, people tell us about something awkward in their lives. Sometimes it’s a small story—like going to a PTA meeting with your skirt tucked into your drawers—or a BIG story, like your ex showing up at your wedding with a clown nose on.

Bree: That happened to me.

Local Girl Scouts Penny (age 10) and Beatrice (age 10)

What’s something about Girl Scouts that people would be surprised to learn? 

Penny: We learn knife skills.

Most embarrassing moment: 

Beatrice: When I accidentally said “farted” in front of the class instead of “started.” 

Trivia host and Monticello tour guide Olivia Brown

If you could be reincarnated as a person or thing, what would you be? I think I’d like to be a millennial’s house plant. Just put me in a nice sunny spot, doted on day in and out, happily growing.

Charlottesville Ballet teacher Izabelly Gleed

What have you forgotten today? To buy eggs at the grocery store—I was too focused on planning my ballet classes!

Virginia Film Festival Artistic Director Ilya Tovbis

Why is supporting the arts important? Especially in our ever-more polarized society, I believe the arts are our best, most honest, and most direct way of connecting to, and understanding, those different from ourselves.

Comedian Brian Regan

What’s something about your job that people would be surprised to learn? I’m not funny every waking moment. And I’m not funny at all when I’m asleep.    

Writer, organizer, director John Gibson

Favorite Charlottesville venue: Various basements, leaky warehouses, overgrown gardens, and fire traps, all long since condemned or torn down, replaced with things fancier, safer, and saner.

Musician Robert Earl Keen

Proudest accomplishment: Proudest accomplishment objectively is my two daughters. My oldest—when she was 5—she won the Miss Apple Dumpling Beauty Contest. It knocked me out of my chair and I was so proud. 

Theater Director Bob Chapel

Favorite curse word? Or favorite word: (I’m) Sorry.

Categories
Arts Culture

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Thursday 12/19 at John Paul Jones Arena

I thought I knew enough about Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but it turns out that just about everything I had in mind was wrong.

For starters, I let the name fool me—its founding members were American, with the band’s visionary producer, composer, and lyricist, the late Paul O’Neill, born in Flushing, Queens. Next, I would have eagerly wagered that the group had formed in the ’70s (nope, 1996). I also thought, yeah, sure, it’s a hard-rock prog band that did some Christmas stuff and somehow fell ass backwards into regular rotation on holiday radio playlists. That assessment is far from correct. 

TSO’s debut record actually emerged by jamming the Yuletide full throttle with Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996), followed up with The Christmas Attic (1998). A year later, a made-for-TV theatrical, “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve,” was broadcast, and then, between the release of two ponderous non-late-December-based concept albums, TSO put out The Lost Christmas Eve (2004), and a 2012 EP, Dreams of Fireflies (On a Christmas Night). The band even published a novella in 2013 as part of its trilogy of the aforementioned full-lengths called—and I’m not joking here—Merry Christmas Rabbi

Did I have Trans-Siberian Orchestra confused with Mannheim Steamroller? Because that band has a lot of Xmas discs to its credit, too. It led me to raise the question: How much Christmas is too much? One thing that simply cannot be refuted is that excess and Christmastime reign supreme with TSO.

From the bombast of electric violins and the chorus of many vocalists, to the over-the-top dexterity of well-rehearsed rockers speeding up the necks of their guitars as if the holiday itself depended on it, TSO does not deal in moderation. Interlocking rainbow webs of lasers, platforms raised to the heavens, whirling lights, and enough fire plumes to make a vintage KISS concert seem chilly, the band’s live show is a mad search to eradicate the Grinches among us with good will, sleeveless shirts, aggressive hip thrusts, and as many moving pieces as Cirque du Soleil.

TSO has become so synonymous with the holiday season in the U.S. that there are actually two versions of the band on tour simultaneously. While the East Coast TSO demonstrates the power of giving to Charlottesville, with guitarists Joel Hoekstra (of Whitesnake) and Chris Caffery leading the charge, a West Coast TSO is held down by original member Al Pitrelli stuffing the ever-loving stockings of a dazzled audience in Indianapolis.

If you’re doing your utmost to keep Christ in Christmas, and I don’t mean to imply that going to this show is the opposite of that directive, or that the show is antithetical to praying at church for that matter (look, I’ve probably never been to your church), but epileptics, celibates, and fundamentalists should be aware that TSO sure as hell ain’t Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas

Hopefully these factors don’t scare you away from getting pumped, getting glammed up, and getting your Chrimbo on with the same great joy as the angel who brought good tidings from Bethlehem to the shepherds, who, if memory serves, were also momentarily terrified before they realized what was happening.

Categories
Arts Culture

The best reasons to have left the couch in 2024

It’s all too easy to get disgruntled about some of the usual entertainment in a tight town like ours—that is, if you close your eyes and ears too tightly and just stay home all the time. Here are some of the events that made me glad I got my ass off of the couch.

Please Don’t Tell

March 9, The Southern Café & Music Hall

After years and years—first as a piano and cello duo, and since 2021 as a trio with violin—Please Don’t Tell finally committed its feminist tilt of Victorian parlor violence to record, and held this Spirit Ball to serve as an audio coming out party of sorts. Though the annunciated operatics of pianist and lead vocalist Christina Fleming were confined to an EP’s worth of tracks on vinyl and other platforms, they were given a much longer runway on which to soar at the Southern. The lengthy set’s highlights were elevated further by violinist/vocalist Anna Hennessy’s adroit musicianship, while cellist Nicole Rimel’s spooked-out presence stayed thematically on brand. PDT wrapped up the somberly festive evening by ghosting on to the stage hand-in-hand, gushing forth with an a capella number about leading a man to the woods to die. Good times!

Temple Grandin

May 21,The Paramount Theater

A talk with autism and animal behavior expert Dr. Temple Grandin is a lot to take in at one sitting. But to get a handle on how other brains operate by a living example and proponent of neurodiversity is perhaps the best way to recognize the value that different cognitive styles hold for education, employment, and society. As a visual thinker, Grandin explained that her cognition type represents one kind of thinking—in pictures—while patterns or words are the other overriding ways of understanding the world. Surprisingly, the Colorado State University College of Agricultural Sciences faculty member, who came into fame with her pioneering work redesigning slaughterhouses to lessen trauma and anxiety in livestock, drew a line between neurodivergence and inventors, from Michelangelo to Elon Musk. In doing so, she stressed the need for parents and schools to give autistic (and potentially autistic) children more hands-on ways to tinker and thrive through science projects, car repair, animal care, craft hobbies, playing and writing music, and building machines, among other ideas.

Ruby The Hatchet 

June 22, The Jefferson Theater

Baroness may have headlined the show, but Philadelphia-area doom-chugging Ruby The Hatchet brought an indomitable fire to the night. Jillian Taylor’s gritty vocals recalled the pantheon of classic hard rock’s most celebrated practitioners and paved the way for a churning and captivating demonstration of their uncompromisingly heavy and dramatic songwriting style. A charged-up track like “The Change” and the righteous fuzz of “Primitive Man” were rivaled only by the surprise cover of Quarterflash’s top-10 hit “Harden My Heart.” The overwhelmingly metal fan crowd, seemingly surprised at its own memory, sang along with the choruses. No doubt they were swayed by keyboardist Sean Hur’s busting out of a saxophone to nail the song’s signature horn line, born amidst the power ballad schmaltz of the early ’80s.

Pete Davidson

June 27, The Paramount Theater

Everyone’s favorite controversy-stirring vulgarian, Pete Davidson brought his Prehab Tour to town, furiously driven with all of the honest self-inflicted invectives that provide an unhealthy excuse to laugh along with, or directly at, him—and that’s what complicates the King of Staten Island star’s stand-up. You feel bad for the dude, but not that bad when all is said and done because, well, you’re laughing and he’s a celebrity. So here he was, claiming to have kicked ketamine and coke, but despite lessening the amount, still sticking with pot. And what happens? He goes on to cancel a chunk of his tour the following month in a too-accurate prediction or self-fulfilling prophecy, checking himself into a facility for mental health treatment. If anyone (or everyone?) saw that time-out coming, it didn’t make his stand-up any less funny, and therein lies the problem on the audience’s side and/or the source of the man’s talent: tragedy+cannabis+no values=comedy.

“Out of Context”

October 4–November 22, Second Street Gallery

A six-person group show exquisitely captured what curator and contributing artist Paul Brainard set out to do with “Out of Context”: Let the art do the talking for this complicated and engaging collection of works. That said, many titles were nothing less than intriguing, and, at times, hilarious. Amber Stanton’s striking protagonist females in various states of undress searched for answers across fantastic landscapes (“Soon, Oh Soon the Light”); Jean-Pierre Roy’s “Maybe we’re all just guessing, Margaret” offered a vivid alternative universe bug-out on the traditional Western historical portrait; Miriam Carothers’ five-canvas “SLO Excursion” series caught drunken neon robot rampages; Michael Ryan’s life-size mixed media “The Birthday Party” peered into family figures too close and just too weird; and Hyunjin Park’s eye for detail and intricate color use came to a dozen heads on “I AM Good Looking,” a horizontal panel depicting Brainard, making a rainbow of his expressions.

Categories
Arts Culture

Disco Risqué

Looking to dance away 2024 and usher in the new year with funky fun? Disco Risqué is shakin’ up the Lobby Bar on NYE at the newly rechristened Doyle Hotel. This five-piece dance-party band brings a distinct brand of rock ‘n’ roll defined by its high-energy performers. Searing guitar solos and a driving rhythm section are complemented by keys and horns that make you want to move. Admission includes hors d’oeuvres and a sparkling toast at midnight, alongside cash bars and Champagne bottle service.

Tuesday 12/31. $50–60, 9pm. The Doyle Hotel, 499 W. Main St. thedoylehotel.com

Categories
News

How area organizations are giving back this season

In addition to celebrating the season themselves, a number of local organizations are gathering donations for community members this December.

The median household income in Charlottesville is $67,177, but the poverty rate in the city is more than double the state average—23.6 percent, according to current census data. To ease the burden of holiday expenses, several area nonprofits and businesses are hosting donation drives for individuals, families, and animals experiencing hardship. C-VILLE spoke with five organizations via email about their merry-making efforts: The Salvation Army, Come As You Are Cville, Madison House, Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA, and Jefferson Area Board for Aging.

Through the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program, 1,009 children and 191 teenagers across the Charlottesville area will receive gifts this year. Recipients qualified for the program through an application, interview, and verification process earlier in the fall, and will pick up their gifts at an assigned time.

“We are happy to be providing this service again to those who are struggling with making ends meet,” said Major Jennifer Van Meter, corps officer for the Salvation Army. “We want people to be able to celebrate Christmas without a financial burden.”

To adopt an Angel, visit one of the many trees at locations around town, including the YMCA, Walmart, and Dairy Market. The deadline for dropping off gifts is December 15.

Come As You Are Cville has partnered with several groups for its annual Christmas toys giveaway.

“By providing gifts, you are helping to level the playing field and provide opportunities for these children to experience the joy of Christmas,” said Stephane Kabesa, associate director of CAYAC. The nonprofit hopes to give gifts to 160 registered children in lower-income families in Charlottesville and Albemarle. Donations should be dropped off by December 12 at 4pm at the Jefferson School Foundation on Fourth Street, NW.

The Holiday Sharing program at the University of Virginia’s Madison House will support more than 40 families this year. Those referred to the program receive personalized gifts and need-based donations, and are welcomed by student volunteers at events throughout the season. Through a partnership with the Batten School, Madison House also provides families with food and grocery-store gift cards.

One highlight of Holiday Sharing for many students is distribution day, when children of participating families visit Madison House and decorate cookies, make gifts for parents, and play games.

Individual and business contributions to Holiday Sharing can be made year-round.

For furry friends, the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA is accepting donations to its Branches of Hope Giving Tree program through Christmas Day. There are currently six trees at businesses around town, with roughly 300 ornaments, according to Development Manager Lauren Krohn.

“Each ornament contains either a ‘wish list’ of items we use or provide [for] the animals regularly here at the shelter, food to stock our Pet Food Pantry, or a monetary donation amount that corresponds to an item or treatment (such as vaccines, microchipping, etc.) that we provide the animals,” said Krohn. “This donation drive will benefit our resident animals here at the SPCA, as well as the families who rely on our veterinary and pantry services.”

CASPCA is expected to surpass its 2023 total of 2,658 adoptions, and has served almost 500 families in its veterinary clinic this year. Pantry services are also popular, with more than 29,000 pounds of dog and cat food distributed.

While giving trees end after Christmas, CASPCA accepts donations year-round. Popular items include pet food, dog beds, and toys.

Across its service area of Charlottesville, Region 10, and five neighboring counties, Jefferson Area Board for Aging is working to bring merriment to older and disabled adults this December. More than 150 people will benefit from the holiday gift drive, which includes both practical and fun items.

“We hope that the gift bags will let our members know that they are loved, appreciated, and, most of all, seen,” said Teresa Cooper, a JABA volunteer service coordinator. “We were blown away by the donations and support from our community, and are so thankful. Our volunteer center is overflowing with gifts for our members.”

The donation window for JABA’s holiday gift drive has closed, but the organization always welcomes items such as arts and crafts supplies, puzzle books, and household items.

More information on donation drives and other ways to support community members can be found on the organizations’ websites.

Categories
News

Monticello researchers receive funding for largest study of colonoware in history

For 24 years, Monticello’s Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery has been studying and cataloging artifacts left behind by early and enslaved Americans, creating an online archive that enables intersite, comparative archaeological research on slavery. Now, thanks to $354,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation and The Conservation Fund, the DAACS and its collaborative researchers will launch the largest study ever conducted on a particular kind of artifact known as “colonoware,” a type of handmade, low-fired pottery crafted by mostly Indigenous and enslaved Americans. 

Through studying colonoware, co-principal investigators Beth Bollwerk and Lindsay Bloch are attempting to paint a more complete picture of how early, Indigenous, and enslaved Americans lived their lives. 

“One of the main questions we hope to answer with this project is, ‘Why were people making and using colonoware?’” Bloch says. “We know that it isn’t as simple as them not being able to afford other pottery. There are likely cultural reasons why people may have wanted to cook in these rather than iron pots.”

Seventeenth- and 18th-century Americans had access to imported and commercially made pottery and cookware. Thus, when archaeologists discover colonoware, they are able to glean certain facts from both its existence and the context in which it is discovered. Where was it found? What is it made of? How was it made? The answers to these questions are how researchers are able to learn more comprehensively how the first Americans—people who did not make it into the history books—lived their lives.

The first study examining the phenomenon of colonoware was conducted in 1962 by British archaeologist Ivor Noël Hume in Colonial Williamsburg. Initially thought unique to Virginia, further study revealed similar examples of colonoware in other parts of the Mid-Atlantic.

The DAACS colonoware study has brought in a “rock star team” of archaeologists and historians that includes Mary Beth Fitts from UNC-Chapel Hill, Karen Y. Smith from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and Brandi MacDonald from the University of Missouri’s Archaeometry Laboratory. The study will include approximately 180,000 artifacts and fragments, and more than 600 samples from 40 sites in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

“One of the key techniques we’ll be using is laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry,” Bloch says. “You can think about it sort of like an equivalent DNA analysis for pottery, because it’s based on the unique makeup of the sample. But instead of DNA, this technique tells us the different proportion of elements that make up the pottery. By testing the pottery in this way, we will be able to compare samples and identify which pots were made with the same clay sources, because they have the same fingerprint, and we can tie that to where that clay came from.”

Researchers will also seek the input of Indigenous tribes and descendants of enslaved people in the region for their insight on how these artifacts were created and used. The Catawba Nation of South Carolina, as well as descendant communities from Monticello and Mount Vernon, are being consulted to help inform the study’s research and analysis. 

“We are forging new relationships with descendant communities who are known through ethnohistory and oral tradition to have been involved in colonoware production,” Bollwerk says. “In particular, the Rappahannock Indian tribe and Pamunkey Indian tribe … have a well-documented tradition of pottery production. The Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia and the Cheroenhaka [Nottoway] tribe do, as well. We have reached out and consulted with these tribal communities as the project moves forward.”

Categories
News Real Estate

UVA unveils preliminary design for new Center for the Arts

As the University of Virginia continues to expand onto Ivy Road, its new buildings are creating a new urban fabric for the public institution’s footprint in Charlottesville. On December 5, a committee of the Board of Visitors reviewed a preliminary design for the proposed Center for the Arts, and recommended a smaller building. 

“You’re dealing here with a welcoming site to the university,” said John Nau, chair of the Buildings and Grounds Committee. 

The Center for the Arts would be located in the northeast corner of the Emmet/Ivy Corridor. As presented, the building would house the 1,200-seat Richard and Tessa Ader Performing Arts Center and serve as the new home of The Fralin Museum of Art and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. The Department of Music would also move to the site, freeing up space for other UVA uses at Old Cabell Hall. 

“The Center for the Arts will have an internal promenade on the ground floor that builds on the design guidelines of the previous buildings developed in the Emmet Ivy District,” said Gary McCluskie, an architect with the Toronto-based firm Diamond Schmitt, which has been hired to design the arts center. 

Those buildings are the School of Data Science, the Virginia Guesthouse hotel, and the Karsh Institute of Democracy. One rendering shown to the Buildings and Grounds Committee depicted the possibility of films being screened on media walls above the entrance to the theater. 

Nau expressed concern that those media screens might distract people at the busy intersection of Emmet Street, Ivy Road, and University Avenue. 

“I have seen traffic come to a halt around sporting venues around the country that use these screens,” Nau said. 

The project has an internal budget of $315 million. Nau and others questioned the scale and asked whether the center is something UVA really needs to build. Another committee member asked for updated financial projections to see if the center would provide revenue by attracting shows that currently don’t have an appropriate venue in the greater community. 

While part of the funding for the center comes from a $50 million donation by the Aders, the bulk of the project might depend on a $200 million capital funding request made to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the General Assembly. UVA’s Senior Vice President for Operations and State Government Relations Colette Sheehy said Richmond has already authorized pre-planning work as well as given the green light to proceed with design. 

“That is normally a signal from them that they are going to support the construction,” Sheehy said.

UVA President Jim Ryan said the project has been in the works for a long time. The building’s large size is comparable to what’s being built nearby, he said, and the structure would hide the Lewis Mountain parking garage. Ryan also noted that moving The Fralin would allow that building to serve as a new entrance for the School of Architecture, which is currently tucked away from public sight.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get to the architecture school but if we wanted to create a secret spot for architecture, we succeeded,” Ryan said. 

Earlier in the meeting, the committee also approved amending UVA’s Major Capital Plan to add $160 million for the construction of three residential buildings at the western end of the Emmet Ivy District. BOV member Bert Ellis was the lone vote against doing so because he said UVA needs to cut spending.

Categories
Arts Culture

Christmas with Elvis

Break out your bedazzled jumpsuit, it’s time for Christmas with Elvis! Reigning King of Rock and Roll tribute artist Matt Lewis performs holiday hits and other classics from Elvis’ repertoire, including selections from his rockabilly era, the “’68 Comeback Special,” and the Viva Las Vegas years. Backed by the 12-piece Long Live the King Orchestra—aka Charlottesville’s own Big Ray and the Kool Kats—Lewis curls his lips and sways his hips, driving away any thought of a “Blue Christmas.”

Thursday 12/12. $24.75–34.75, 7pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net

Categories
Culture Living

The sport of queens

A delightful side effect of writing this column is that people in my life now give me ideas based on their bucket lists and more obscure interests. When a friend said she’d always wanted to try falconry and asked if I would join her, “Heck yeah!” was my nigh-instant response.

Like many wheezy, middle-aged folks, the pandemic afforded me time to become emotionally invested in the birds frequenting the feeders on my deck—to the extent that I intervened when a hawk was trying to make off with one of my mourning dove friends. 

In my youth, the 1982 cult classic The Beastmaster tickled my imagination. I longed to have similar furry and feathered friends, like Dar’s slippery-pawed ferrets Kodo and Podo and his majestic eagle Sharak, whose eyes he could see through. At every ren faire and theme park my family visited, the raptor shows were a must. This is all to say I’ve always been enthralled by birds of prey yet never knew much about them, until now.

What

The Falconry Experience at Boar’s Head.

Why

Birds of prey are very cool.

How it went

While one can’t literally learn to fly by simply touching a falcon, figuratively I floated home.

At the Boar’s Head Outfitters desk, we met our falconer. He gave us each a falcon glove and bottled water before we headed out. In hindsight, I wish I’d left the water behind. Yes, I drank it. Yes, hydration is essential, but I’m a Gen Xer (therefore, part camel), and can make it an hour-and-a-half without needing water. What I found myself wanting during the experience was free hands for bird-holding or picture-taking.

As we walked to the falcon house (obvi not the technical term), our guide provided info about American falconry and regaled us with stories about the Boar’s Head’s falcons, Wily and Goldie. Mischievous Wily (think Wile E. Coyote vibes), an African auger buzzard, would be our companion for the experience. Falconry includes different types of birds of prey, such as falcons, hawks, and others, like our buzzard Wily, who is more akin to a red-tailed hawk. After collecting Wily from his abode, we walked to a picturesque spot near a pond where our falconer showed us what Wily can do.

Tempted by bits of unhatched chicks still dripping with yolk (yes, the visuals still haunt my dreams and inspire the urge to rewash my hands to avoid salmonella), Wily flew back and forth between the falconer’s glove and nearby trees. Our guide explained that it’s the food that motivates the birds, not a relationship with the handler, and that one must walk a careful line when feeding Wily to avoid him getting “fed up.” If a falcon gets full, the bird is not motivated to go back to the handler.

Soon our falconer invited us to hold Wily on our gloved wrists, after he tempted him to join us with more chicken. Even though we’d been awestruck by the beating of Wily’s wings as he flew over and around us, nothing prepared me for the rush of him alighting on my outstretched arm. Falcons pack a lot of awesome power per inch, weighing in at just a couple pounds though they have about 200 PSI grip strength in their talons. It felt humbling for Wily to hold onto my arm. At one point, he did his bat impression, dangling from my arm inverted. 

As I looked to our falcon whisperer for instructions, Wily let go and toppled unceremoniously onto the dirt. Let me tell you, falcons’ extraordinary vision extends to giving superior side-eye. Despite my faux pas, my friend and I must have passed the vibe test, because our falconer commented that Wily spent a lot of time with us during our experience.

Categories
Culture Living

Local therapists and researchers take on psych’s buzziest topic

Renee Branson considered herself a resilient person. She suffered a sexual assault in her late teens but soldiered on. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Ohio State University and a master’s in counseling psychology at the University of Colorado Denver. She built an outwardly happy home life and went into business helping others overcome their own adversity.

But things began to slip. Branson’s first marriage failed. She was inwardly unhappy. Finally, decades after her initial trauma, she realized she was the wrong kind of resilient. She was practicing what she calls “Rocky resilience” in her new book, Resilience Renegade.

“I was operating from this place of constantly living with my boxing gloves on. It was self-sabotaging,” Branson says. “I realized there was a different way to operate.”

Branson, who grew up in Ohio but has lived and worked in Charlottesville for the past 14 years, discovered what she now calls “renegade resilience.” Unlike Rocky resilience, renegade resilience is the ability to pick your battles and avoid situations where you’re forced to repeatedly overcome trauma. It’s the ability to listen to your needs and stand up for them. It’s being proactive rather than reactive.

Branson isn’t the only therapist or researcher thinking about resilience. While the concept traditionally falls under the umbrella of psychological constructs like “emotional regulation” and “cognitive flexibility,” and has taken a backseat to buzzword attributes like “grit,” resilience is having its moment. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people are thinking about the ways we bounce back from trauma. And in November, the peer-reviewed journal American Psychologist published a special issue on the topic, “Rethinking Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth,” that “aims to provide a foundation for a new generation of resilience … research.”

Among other things, the journal’s special issue takes on the definition of the term resilience, examining it in the context of community support, systemic societal issues, and the way it’s been studied for decades.

“The general advice I would offer anyone who is thinking about resilience, self control, or other psychological processes is to try to avoid the fundamental attribution error,” says Benjamin Converse, an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the University of Virginia. “That is, we have a general tendency to try to explain people’s behavior by appealing to personality while neglecting the power of social situations.”

Understanding resilience

According to Stefanie Sequeira, an assistant professor of psychology at UVA, people tend to observe others who bounce back from tragedy and think of them as being intrinsically resilient. 

“Resilience is this process of adapting well when we are facing adversity—health problems, natural disasters, relationship problems,” Sequeira says. “Adapting requires flexibility, but that is a skill we can develop. Resilience is not a personality trait.”

Thinking of resilience as something we’re born with can actually do us harm, Sequeira says. The mindset might make people decide they are incapable of adapting to hardship and thriving, or that resilient folks don’t feel things deeply. Sequeira says being resilient doesn’t mean you don’t experience negative emotions. Indeed, experiencing sadness is critical for resilience.

In the introductory article to the recent special issue of American Psychologist, the editors likewise call resilience “the ability to adapt successfully to adverse events.” The guest editors go on to say that resilience springs from two sources: both the psychological and social resources within individuals and communities.

Bethany Teachman, the UVA psych department’s director of clinical training, says that part of the conversation today is recognizing that individual actors are often less important than the systems making things difficult for them. In other words, clinicians never put the onus on their patients to solve all their problems or be resilient on their own. “We want to say, ‘you are trying to navigate the system you are in,’ as opposed to saying, ‘this a weakness in you that you are struggling with,’” Teachman says.

According to Teachman, current events like the COVID pandemic, global wars, and the recent U.S. election make overcoming adversity as ubiquitous as ever in clinical psychology. At the end of the day, clinicians help people navigate the hard things in life, and resilience is key for overcoming challenging emotions, relationships, and situations.

Thinking of resilience as something we’re born with can actually do us harm, says Stefanie Sequeira, an assistant professor of psychology at UVA. Photo by Eze Amos.

Enhancing resilience

If resilience is a systemic phenomenon, anyone—from young people to adults—can grow their resilience. For parents, that might mean giving children the “right scaffolding to work through problems,” Teachman says. At the same time, an overprotective environment can hinder resilience development.

Adults who may have failed to develop the social systems necessary to enhance resilience aren’t stuck. Teachman offers several approaches, such as practicing mindfulness during hard times: gain control of your attention, be aware of what you are focusing on, and recognize that you can change your focus rather than being reactive. “That leads people to develop the acceptance they need,” Teachman says.

Clinicians often use motivational interviewing to overcome trauma. If patients feel unsure about whether or how to make a change, the clinician’s job is to help them recognize their desires, abilities, reasons, and needs. (Teachman suggests remembering the acronym DARN.) Through motivational interviewing, individuals facing adversity can find that they want to make a change and have the ability to make a change, why they should change, and the support they require to make it all happen. 

Resilience can also be built on what Teachman calls “behavioral activation,” or recognizing that you are overwhelmed, taking small steps to re-engage, and finding pleasure in small rewards. Cognitive reappraisal is another technique. Say you want to be resilient after being fired from your job. The resilient person focuses on taking action on the opportunity, rather than dwelling on why the hardship happened.

“You want to look at the ways you are withdrawing from a situation or avoiding it and re-engage, even if it is a small step,” Teachman says. “It could be as simple as calling a friend.”

Still, it’s difficult to tell yourself simply to change the way you feel, Sequeira says. Folks suffering from anxiety can’t just stop being anxious. Clinicians must therefore find ways to help their patients embrace change, notice “thinking traps,” and avoid catastrophizing. “It can be helpful to think about times you have felt like this before and how you bounced back” from adversity, Sequeira says.

Branson suggests considering what is physically happening to your body in times of stress. If you’re having a difficult interaction with a colleague or loved one, tell yourself that your cortisol levels are high and you can do things to lower them—practice a slow breathing technique, step away from the immediate conversation, or simply take a walk.

Community resilience 

Like individuals, communities can be resilient. So, how do you know if you live in a resilient community? Branson says she sees evidence of Charlottesville’s resilience, but she also sees room for improvement. “We could be more brave and more proactive versus reactive,” she says.

Branson has transitioned from a traditional therapy practice to working with law firms and other organizations, including nonprofits, in recent years. In her work, she’s found people throughout the C’ville community who provide the services needed to help people be resilient. 

But as it is for individuals, resilience is not a have-it-or-don’t-have-it phenomenon in communities, Branson says. It lies on a continuum.

“One of the things I say in my book is that resilience has several levers,” she says. “We might have times when one lever for resilience is low. For me, after the election, my ability to self-soothe was low. So I am trying to push up the lever on that while also building connections.”

Sequeira points out that research shows loneliness is detrimental to our health, and people are struggling with isolation now more than ever due to remote work and social media. To be more resilient, she says we have to “make social connections, develop relationships, find other people in the community that share the same values as you.” Community groups can not only be a source of support, but they can also give one a sense of purpose. 

Parents can help guide the social systems needed to build resilience in their children, Sequeira says. Resilience keys for young people include sticking to a routine, having a sense of control, and meeting small, achievable goals—not to mention sound nutrition, hydration, and sleep. 

“Teens want control, they want agency,” Sequeira says. “They are supposed to be departing from their parents and want to feel like they have some control over their environment. So for example, instead of telling teens, ‘you need sleep,’ you might ask them, ‘how are you sleeping and how is that making you feel?’” Taking a break from social media and avoiding behaviors that are “mood congruent,” like listening to sad songs when you’re sad, are also good ideas.

In soliciting articles about resilience, the American Psychologist special issue editors found several recurring themes in the research, including reimagining ways to conceptualize adversity, how we study resilience, and pathways for enhancing resilience. But what emerges most often is how we think about resilience for marginalized communities.

Teachman points out that there are some groups, such as people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, that are repeatedly put into situations where they face adversity and attack. Those people are more likely to develop psychological issues as a result of trauma, according to Teachman, but they are also among the most likely to develop resilience.

“I think it is a really important group to highlight,” she says. “There are costs to being resilient all the time. We can’t just teach people how to cope and think that will solve all their problems.”

Bethany Teachman, the UVA psych department’s director of clinical training, says clinicians never put the onus on their patients to solve all their problems or be resilient on their own. Photo by Eze Amos.

Rethinking resilience

Can a person have too much resilience? Like so many things in clinical psychology, the answer depends on term definition. “You cannot overdose on resilience, but there might be times when you see yourself as a highly resilient person, and that can get in the way,” Sequeira says.

Some of the clients Sequeira has worked with say they feel invalidated by the word resilience. It sounds like an individual-level skill, and they’re turned off by the idea that they just have to cope with all the bad things in their lives.

For her part, Branson doesn’t completely discount Rocky resilience, the ability to take punches and stagger back up. We need Rocky resilience. But for folks in marginalized communities, being resilient becomes too heavy a burden after so many knockdowns. 

Renegade resilience, on the other hand, is a long-term solution.

“We have to put ourselves first and nurture our own needs,” Branson says. “When it really started resonating with me, both in my own life as a survivor and working with other survivors, was when I realized resilience is what sustains us.”

So often, we feel like life is about getting past whatever is plaguing us. Maybe it is a severe trauma, or maybe it’s just that ever-present feeling that “as soon as I get through this week, things will slow down.” Branson says that’s no way to live.

Think about the way the heart works, she suggests. Your heart relies on valves to keep certain things in and other things out. In the world of renegade resilience, those valves are “boundaries and vulnerability.” Our boundaries tell the world what is and what is not okay. Our vulnerability allows us to stay open to social connections and be our authentic selves.

“Renegade resilience is something that we don’t have to wait for; it is something we can start to practice now,” Branson says. “We don’t jump out of a plane, then make sure our parachute is buckled up. Prioritizing ourselves is one of the most generous things we can do.”