Daily Archives: February 5, 2022

One year after a military coup in Myanmar, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom joined human rights advocates and religious leaders in condemning the violence that has claimed 1,300 lives.

In the year since the Feb. 1 overthrow of the civilian government by the military, known as the Tatmadaw, the army has targeted religious minorities and destroyed houses of worship in Myanmar, also known as Burma, the commission noted.

USCIRF continues to stand with the people of Burma in condemning the military junta, which has only increased religious freedom violations since it took over the institutions of the state one year ago, Commission Chair Nadine Maenza said.

We urge the U.S. government to support the continued pursuit for accountability for the many human rights abuses perpetrated by the Tatmadaw, especially those committed against the predominantly Muslim Rohingya and various Christian communities.

The commission specifically noted the military has targeted Christian Chin, Kachin and Karen communities, along with Rohingya Muslims.

In 2017, the Tatmadaw targeted Rohingya Muslims, who weresystematically killed, raped, tortured and pushed out of their own homelands within Burmaand their villages and places of worship burned. CommissionerAnurima Bhargava said.

Last February, the Tatmadaw unleashed violence and persecuted anyone perceived to stand in its way, including many religious minority communities. USCIRF once again urges the U.S. government to determine thatthe atrocities committed against the Rohingya constitute genocide and crimes against humanity.

In its2021 annual reportand a November 2021Burma update, the commission urged the U.S. government to hold Burmese officials accountable by using the international legal system, implementing targeted sanctions, and designating Burma as a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.

In a video posted on social media, Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Elijah Brown called on Christiansand Baptists in particularto pray for the people of Myanmar and press for freedom for all.

Sign up for our weekly email newsletter.

We remember our Baptist brothers and sisters [in Myanmar] whothe year before the coupwere the second-fastest-growing Baptist convention in the world, and yet over the last 12 months, have had their lives upended by violence as they have sought to avoid military aerial bombardment on civilians, the crack of sniper rifles, the intentional targeting of pastors and religious leaders and their families, the occupation of churches, the intentional stoking of ethnic violence, and the suffering of a country that is in collapse, Brown said.

He also urged prayer for persecuted Rohingya Muslims and for the well-being of all who seek to live in peace.

We pray for the restoration of democracy, for transformative peace and justice, and for the flourishing of all of Myanmar, Brown said.

In September, Burmese military shot and killed Cung Biak Hum, a Baptist pastor who was trying to help a member of his church extinguish a fire after the mans home was set ablaze during a bombing attack.

In early December, Salai Ngwe Kyar, a pastor in the village of Thet Kei Taung and a student at the Asho Chin Baptist Seminary in Pyay Township, died from injuries sustained during a military interrogation.

A few days later, the body of a Church of Christ pastor was discovered with a bullet wound to his head after being arrested and subjected to enhanced interrogation.

On Dec. 13, several church buildingsincluding at least three Baptist houses of worshipwere damaged severely by bombs and then looted by the military.

A few days prior to the one-year anniversary of the coup, Physicians for Human Rights, Insecurity Insight and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health and Human Rights released a study reporting 415 attacks on medical workers in Myanmar and on the countrys fragile health care infrastructure.

Attacks on health care workers and health care itself has become a prominent feature of the coup dtat. Today, Myanmar is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a health care worker, the report states.

The study revealed 286 health care workers in Myanmar have been arrested or detained, 30 have been killed, and 128 medical facilities have been attacked.

The military junta in Myanmar targeted health care workers because many of them played a prominent role in the Civil Disobedience Movement and peaceful protests in the weeks immediately following the coup.

Last March, a Baptist doctor in Myanmarwho asked to be identified only as Octaviawrote in an email, Doctors, nurses and first responders have become the No. 1 enemy of the military for our role in saving lives and also for the countrywide Civil Disobedience Movement we initiated.

BWA supported the launch of the Red Ribbon Charity Clinic to provide medical care for individuals injured in the Civil Disobedience Movement protests, in addition to supplying oxygen concentrators to clinics in refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border.

The global Baptist group also provided food and emergency tarp shelters to displaced people hiding in the Burmese jungles and supported 200 Burmese pastors, enabling them to stay in Myanmar and minister to their people.

More here:

Conditions worsen in Myanmar one year after coup - Baptist Standard

WebMD's Chief Medical Officer, John Whyte, MD, speaks with Alexander Hardy, Chief Executive Officer, Genentech, about the impact COVID-19 has had on pharmaceutical partnerships, clinical trials, disparities, and misinformation,all of which he sees as silver linings of the pandemic.

John Whyte: Partnerships, regulatory flexibility, virtual care, speed of innovation, diversity, and inclusion. These were not concepts or even buzzwords that typically were associated with the pharmaceutical industry just a couple years ago, but the COVID pandemic has changed the way we develop drugs, and many like my guest today believe the process has changed permanently and it's all for the better.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Alexander Hardy, the chief executive officer of Genentech. We had a wide-ranging conversation about the impact of COVID, the renewed focus on accountability to ensure diversity in clinical trials, the urgent need to combat misinformation. One thing you'll notice is that he kept coming back to what he sees as the silver linings of the COVID pandemic.

Alexander, thanks for joining me.

Alexander Hardy: It's a pleasure, John. Thanks very much for the conversation.

John Whyte: I want to start off with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on drug development, and you have consistently talked about the need for partnerships, and that's one of the things that you've learned and you've partnered with Regeneron on monoclonal antibodies, you've partnered with Gilead Sciences on treatments for COVID pneumonia in hospitalized patients. That's not the normal thinking for the pharmaceutical industry, this idea of partnerships. How did you come to that sense of need for partnerships?

Alexander Hardy: Well, I think it's one of the silver linings coming out of the pandemic, is the growing understanding of, of the impact that we can ... greater impact we can have as a result of partnerships and, you know, the, the examples you're, you're talking are private partnerships, but there's also public/private partnerships.

And, you know, our partnerships with the FDA and with BARDA, for example, have been very, very important as well. But I think, you know, we, we were all really challenged by the, the threat of the pandemic to, to our world.

And that's what galvanized us into, into action.

John Whyte: But isn't the pharmaceutical industry inherently competitive, right? So, here you're trying to compete against others, and you're saying, "No, we've got to work together to address this."

Alexander Hardy: Absolutely. I mean, you know, the, the ... We're all aligned around the enormity of the threat, and I think that was the ... The call to action was what changed mindsets. And the, the need for speed. So, you know, we're constantly partnering. We, we do a lot of particularly early-stage partnerships.

And those will continue to be very important, but those will often take months and sometimes years to, to make those partnerships happen.

And these partnerships happened literally in, in weeks.

And, and, you know, I think that's, those are the sorts of things that we want to carry on out of the pandemic, and, and, and the partnerships were, as you said, with, with companies that we are actually fierce competitors with and will continue to be fierce competitors.

Because that's a, that's very, very positive in terms of motivating progress and, and, and, and pushing the frontiers. Um, that's great, but I think partnerships are here to stay, and I, I think that's really exciting.

John Whyte: Yeah. Well, let's talk more about these public/private partnerships. You mentioned the FDA, a regulatory agency. What do you say to folks who will suggest that there should be this inherent tension between regulators and industry? What's your thoughts around that, that there, you know, can't truly be partnerships, because they have to decide at the end of the day with no vested interest whether or not they're gonna allow a drug to market? Is that change in thinking that's gonna persist?

Alexander Hardy: You know, I, I think this is a really a really interesting topic. So I see no change and I believe in no change in terms of high regulatory standards. They should maintain those, and they are maintaining those in the highest rigor. But I think the, the opportunity for dialogue, uh, the opportunity for fast and frequent conversations and consideration of doing things differently, because the science is moving so fast outside the pandemic.

And then inside the pandemic, you know, obviously there were frequent times where we needed a fast decision because things were changing.

John Whyte: Has COVID changed clinical trials permanently?

Alexander Hardy: I think COVID has certainly changed clinical trials permanently. We've already talked about the, the speed.

And how clinical trials are done. I think the other aspect which I, I think is another silver lining is we've seen, you know, the, the tremendous negative impact of, of COVID on underserved populations.

You know, we've, we've... It was always there, but now we've seen it in, in starkness.

John Whyte: I'm gonna turn to that.

Alexander Hardy: Yeah.

John Whyte: (Laughs) I have some, some tough questions. As you know, minority populations have represented the very small percentage of clinical trial participants, in the single digits, that, as you point out, COVID has shined a light on these disparities that honestly have persisted for decades. And, and now a broader population is recognizing that. Genentech has done several surveys in 2020, in 2021, including health care practitioners, in terms of trying to understand the impact of disparities and what we need to be doing. Can you talk a little bit about what your studies found?

Alexander Hardy: Well, the, the studies are very concerning. They show that, that people who are medically disadvantaged don't trust the health care system. Fifty percent of them don't trust the health care system.

John Whyte: Half.

Alexander Hardy: Yep.

John Whyte: Half. Yep.

Alexander Hardy: And that actually results in them, you know, what is the outcome of that? That results in them not doing the checkups and the preventative medicine. Taking their medicine, getting vaccinated. So it has real, it has real outcomes. And, again, we've seen those real outcomes in the pandemic. Really quite, really quite alarming, and very, very stark. We also see the issue of, of misinformation. You know, 80% of providers believe that misinformation is impacting specifically, disproportionately, the medically disadvantaged population. So, we already know that misinformation around science and, and medicine is an issue. It's a disproportionate impact on those medically disenfranchised.

So, it's another call to action for us to solve. So, the, the survey data, unfortunately, is not getting better. It's getting worse.And it's, it's a further call to action, and, and, and there is responsibility of, of companies like Genentech to, to lean in here and be part of, of, of changing this. Uh, I mean

John Whyte: So what is your commitment? And I'm gonna push on you if I may a little.

Alexander Hardy: Please do.

John Whyte: You have a great line on your site from your medical affairs group, that it says investigators need to be intentional about recruiting diverse populations. But if you think about it, people are incentivized to be first, right? You want to be first to market, so you enroll who comes in the door, and minority populations are not typically coming into the door, even though these trials are being conducted in very ethnically and geographically diverse centers. So how is Genentech going to address that? You want to be intentional in recruitment, and you've done that in the setting of COVID, in terms of trials, but how do we do that in a post-COVID world?

Alexander Hardy: Well, you know, you know, this is, this is an area where I don't just want to talk about it. It's about action. And, and we were actually already taking action prior to COVID. This was already an area of focus for us. But, but actually we did things in COVID that have further proven, you know, what can be done here.

And, and, you know, let's unpack this, because, you know, it, it is often said, OK, speed is important.

And clearly speed is, is important, but, you know, if we, if we are trying to, to make sure that the studies are represents of the U.S. population, is that gonna be at the expense of speed? I don't believe it is, and I think we've shown that during COVID. Actually, the fastest study that we've ever set up, recruited, and moved to data analytics to, to final study report was in COVID and focused on, on underrepresented population, which was the IMPACTOR study.

85% of the population we recruited it was a phase III study were in underserved communities. The largest recruitment site was right on the, the edge of the Navajo nation.

John Whyte: But you do that from the very beginning, that point about being intentional. Some of your colleagues will say we do this post-market, right? We do it almost in a, in a phase IV. That's where we can look at it, because we need to get the drug available to people. Are, but are we gonna flip that around to some degree, as you're pointing out? We're gonna focus on getting them involved early on?

Alexander Hardy: Absolutely. We have a commitment that every single molecule team has to do a look at their, their clinical trial program with an inclusive lens. They're held accountable for doing that. And then, you know, to turn it into, to specific action to help them we have a, for example, we set up an inclusive research site alliance of, of sites that we're helping get up to speed where they have access to these populations.

And then we can, we can just put the studies into those sites. This is in oncology, so these, these sites are around the country in, in areas with, with underserved populations. We have an ongoing relationship with those sites, and we have a huge oncology portfolio. And we can then, those molecule teams can just go to those sites all the way through from phase I through to phase III, and they're ready to go.

John Whyte: But how do we hold, then, people accountable, as you say? Because when we look at the field of oncology, typically African-Americans represent 3% of clinical trial participants, and, as you know, many cancer trials are conducted outside

Alexander Hardy: Absolutely.

John Whyte: ... of the world. So it's a different prism and what we're seeing of what defines diversity. But how are we gonna hold people accountable? There's been multiple examples, including breast cancer, where we're talking single digit numbers of African American women, not just percentage, but numbers of participants. And we don't know what the right number is in some ways.

Especially in diseases where it, you know, is small percentages. But you just look at that and you say, hmm, that, that can't be right. Not that there needs to be proportionality, but there needs to be representation.

Alexander Hardy: It isn't right. And, and it hasn't been right. And you should, you should hold us accountable. And we're prepared to be held accountable. For now and in the future, you know, are our studies representative of not only the American society, but specifically, let, let's go down to a particular tumor type. Let's say triple-negative breast cancer

John Whyte: Exactly, yes.

Alexander Hardy: which is obviously one which is disproportionately impactful to underserved populations in the United States. You know, are our studies mirroring that, that disease incidence and prevalence?

John Whyte: Historically, no.

Alexander Hardy: And historically, no. But you know, as I am explaining to you, we, we, we now have that lens. We're now very transparent, and we have a mechanism. And there's lots of, there's lots of other things.

And, you know, we're, we're, we're very keen to talk about these things, because we, we only we don't want to just change Genentech. We actually want to change the industry and the whole medical environment in this space. So, you know, our ambitions are beyond just Genentech here. This, this needs to change at large.

John Whyte: Should we pay participants in clinical trials, particularly phase II and phase III? There's been a lot of discussion about that, particularly in the last 18 months. Not just from an issue of inclusion, but an issue of equity. These participants are giving us a great deal. Everyone else is benefiting from it. Academia, the clinical research organizations, you know, industry. Should they get paid to participate? That could increase the number of participants.

Alexander Hardy: I think we should consider this. And, and I'll tell you why, and, and it's, you know, it, you know, that's part of the reason why, you know, only 5% of the American population is involved in clinical studies in oncology is because, you know, it, it asks a lot of the patient to, to travel in frequently to a center, to, to go through all the treatment and the tests involved and the, the screening and so on and so forth. And we're missing out on 95% of the, of the populations with, with cancer data. And, and as, as the science becomes increasingly personalized, we're just, we're actually missing a big scientific opportunity to learn from that.

But there's also and I think you raised a really good point here's also an equity lens there.

That, you know, who are the people that can afford to take the time off to travel, to be part of a phase II, phase III studies. We're not reaching the underserved communities when we don't have these sorts of compensation.

John Whyte: Because historically correct? folks have not supported the idea. The fear of paternalism, undue influence, and inducements. But we know, particularly in cancer, if you fail standard therapy, if you don't enroll in a clinical trial, you have very limited options.

Alexander Hardy: You know, I think, you know, that some of the things we're gonna have to deal with are the topics you talked about. So there needs to be a discussion here around these things, because it's, it's, it's not simple. And there needs to be a, a discussion of what are the unintended consequences here or what could be the potential conflicts of interest involved. But there needs to be a discussion because the status quo is not satisfactory. And, again, you know, where the science is going, my, my concern is, you know, we've talked about some of the opportunistic parts of, of the, of where the science is going, and, and the COVID impact in terms of speed and partnership, but my concern is that the science could be heading in a way that actually perpetuates or even worsens disparity of access. So, for example, you know, as we're doing more and more science discovery and treatments that are focused on particular subpopulations with genetic characteristics of their cancer, you know, do we have that data? Do we really understand that data for our populations in the United States? Are we developing the drugs to produce the evidence which then will translate through to access for those populations? That answer is, no, we're not, and we need to do a better job. And there needs to be a whole bunch of different things that happen.

John Whyte: Sure.

Alexander Hardy: And you, you talk about the, the, I, I think the role of the investigator is critical. As a sponsor of clinical studies, you know, we have to ask for diversity. We have to build that into the contract.

John Whyte: You have to demand people.

Alexander Hardy: Exactly. Demand it. We have to work in partnership with the sites to recruit.

John Whyte: Back to partnerships (laughs), yes.

Alexander Hardy: Exactly.

John Whyte: Absolutely.

Alexander Hardy: To recruit the, the patients to make sure there's awareness, there's trust in those communities. This is what clinical studies are. Consent process, make sure that's really clear, transparent, and understandable. Building trust entirely all the way through. Investigators need to be representative.

John Whyte: And I want to point out, because you have a great section on your site that's actually called advanced knowledge of clinical outcomes across race, ethnicity, and gender, and it's exactly to your point. To phrase it another way, it's this variability of drug response. That people might respond differently to drugs based on certain characteristics. But if we don't study it, we're not gonna learn that. How did we come to this thinking over the past 18 months? Or am I being too tough? It was evolving to that point anyway, in terms of this representation in clinical trials?

Alexander Hardy: I, I, I think this was evolving, but like everything else in our world, it's been accelerated and the pandemic's had a role in accelerating it. There's also been, of course, the, the broader increase in, increase in awareness around social justice and inequity in our society and an awareness of the inequities. So I think these things are all working together.

And, you know, I see tremendous movement and, and, and commitment. I hear it constantly from the, the medical societies, from providers, from payers. I mean, we're, we're all, you know, lined up around this issue and, and making a difference. I mean, you know, as a company we have, we feel, you know, it's not just our role to advance science. The science is, is fantastic, but unless it gets ultimately to the patients that need it, and if we're talking about improving outcomes in a particular disease, which is our, is our passion, to, to, to push advances in, in, in, in outcomes and, and, increase survival in, say, lung cancer, you have to do that, not just improving outcomes in terms of this molecule, but equity is also how you're gonna do that.

We, we have a, we have a, a vision in, in the pharma division to, to increase the medical impact, the patient benefit, by three to five times in the next 10 years at half the cost to society. You know, part of that is increasing the output from our, from our labs with better molecules.

But it's also topics like personalizing care, making sure that the drug goes to the specific person that's gonna benefit from it. It's about topics like health equity, making sure that everybody has access, which is a complicated, long-term issue.

But that's how we're gonna get to three to five times patient benefit compared to what we're delivering right now at half the cost to society.

John Whyte: Absolutely. And, and let's talk about the future and as well as leadership during the pandemic. And, and as you know, we're interviewing several CEOs such as yourself to talk about how the pandemic has impacted leadership. And I want to start off with asking you, how has your leadership style changed, if at all, during the pandemic?

Alexander Hardy: You know, my, my leadership style was, was very much about empowerment and enabling. Making sure that decisions are pushed down the organization. Deeply, deeply listening to the experts.

We have so many technical experts at a company like, a company like Genentech in all their different fields. What the, the pandemic has done is sort of heightened the need for that, for us to, to move at the speed of the, the pandemic. It's actually accentuated the, the need for those things.

John Whyte: This is a beautiful campus that we're at. You can't go around (laughs) as much talking to people.

Alexander Hardy: Exactly, exactly.

John Whyte: You can't just, you know, meet with folks as easily, can you?

Alexander Hardy: Yeah.

John Whyte: Has, has it had to change the way that you engage with folks, or have you, like many others, have you just pivoted and marched forward?

Alexander Hardy: No, it, it's fundamentally changed, you're right. I do miss the, the ability to, to bump into people as I walk around the campus and hear what they're, they're working on and what do they need from us. Again, that's that's my style of leadership. What, what do you need? What's standing in your way?

One of the things, for example, that we've done, and, again, I think this is, this is, this is a silver lining, we're gonna continue to do this after the pandemic is, you know, every couple of weeks during the height of the pandemic we, we had an all company virtual we called it the Genentech executive committee office hours where we would, for, for 90 minutes, it would be the executive team with all the employees dialing in, and we would have live questions.

John Whyte: OK.

Alexander Hardy: In a, in a large organization, I mean, this shortened the distance between the leadership team and the organization. We could see and hear exactly what was on the minds of, of people.

John Whyte: Well, let's talk about what's on the horizon for a few minutes. Alzheimer's disease is an area you're working on. That has undergone some controversy with some other areas of drug development. Recently there's been talk of a trial relating to vaccines for Alzheimer's. Lots of research going on. What's your prediction on where we'll be in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease in a few years?

Alexander Hardy: I'm very excited about Alzheimer's. I, I think, you know, this is, this is an area where, you know, the industry has once again, I, I don't think it's fully understood, but where the innovation in the United States of this industry has been really extraordinary.

The, the science is enormously hard, but everybody understands the unmet need, and we've been continuing as an industry in Genentech, despite setbacks, we've continued to, to push forward and, and, and, bring forward different approaches. And I think, you know, I think that's enormously exciting. We've, we've got lots of failures in our rear-view mirror, but I'm actually optimistic right now that, that we're gonna see some significant progress, and we, we have a number of different

John Whyte: In Alzheimer's disease?

Alexander Hardy: In Alzheimer's.

John Whyte: OK.

Alexander Hardy: You know, we have a number of different approaches in research and in development. We're, we're waiting right now for the phase III readout on two phase III studies reading out on one of our late-stage molecules. We'll have to wait for the results. I mean, you know, it's all about, you know, does this change cognition? We've already seen it, it has some effect in terms of biomarkers, but for us, you know, we have to see that profound impact on, on cognition. You know, I, I think this is, is an area where we'll see, you know, tremendous progress.

John Whyte: Right.

Alexander Hardy: I think precision medicine is, is a large part of where we're gonna continue to make progress, which is enormously exciting. If we can make sure the drug is, is being used in that population that expresses a particular form, a subtype of that particular cancer tumor type, you know, I think we can, we can really profoundly improve outcomes, reduce the burden in terms of side effects and reduce the cost to society. So it, it fits the sort of thing that we want to make, we want to see the progress made.

I think also cancer immunotherapy is enormously exciting. It continues to be enormously exciting.

John Whyte: Absolutely.

Alexander Hardy: And, and it offers so much. We're also seeing, you know, new modalities. I mean, we're, we're a company that, that has a history in terms of monoclonal antibodies. We're really excited about the progress we're making with antibody engineering, and some of our nearest, nearer-term investigational molecules are bispecific drugs. I mean, this is, this is enormously exciting. And, and, and then you're talking about the combination of these different approaches. And, and the prospect is, you know, continuing to make improvements on some of the really difficult to treat cancers.

So I think, you know, neuroscience and oncology, these are enormously exciting times.

John Whyte: Are we gonna see partnerships in there? Are we gonna see speed? Are we gonna see diversity? Are we gonna see all those things that we've been talking about?

Alexander Hardy: We're gonna see diversity. We're gonna see, certainly, speed. I mean, you know, it speed, we're, we're optimizing for speed in a great, a great degree. We're increasingly going from signal-seeking phase I studies where we see a clear sign of efficacy, to then going straight to phase III. Um, this is tremendous risk involved in this, but we, you know, we're, we're doing a better job with the phase, the phase I studies, uh, taking on additional risks, and then this is the area where, of course, you know, regulatory partnerships are really critical where there's that dialogue.

You know, we've seen something that it really, that could, that could profoundly change the treatment paradigm in a particular tumor type. Having that discussion and then the support to go to phase III, uh, which is, which is enormously exciting.

John Whyte: What's the one word you would use to describe the last 20 months?

Read more:

Change Makers: Alexander Hardy on the Future of Health - Medscape

(Credit: Luke Jamroz)

The long-awaited Greensboro Opera production of George Gershwins Porgy and Bess starring Rhiannon Giddens,Thomas Cannon, and Sidney Outlaw was performed on Jan. 21 and 23, 2022 at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. Originally the opera was scheduled to take place in 2020 but was postponed due to the start of the pandemic.

The wait was well worth it.

Over the past two years living with COVID-19, life has been altered for everyone. People have clung to what brings them comfort and to the people that are most important to them. Artists, especially performing artists, have felt this deeply. In 2020 when performances were being canceled and rescheduled, the opera community found ways to keep going and to support one another. While it took this production four years in total to finally be performed, it happened because of the resilience within the community.

The story of Porgy and Bess overlaps with todays current pandemic. Porgy and Bess is set in the small Charleston, South Carolina neighborhood, Catfish Row during the Great Depression. Much like today with the effects of the pandemic, the people of Catfish Row rely on their community to keep them going.

This production in particular showed this sense of community and reliance. The stage direction of the opera by Everett McCorvey, along with Associate Stage Director Richard Gammon and Assistant Stage Director and Assistant Choreographer Peggy Stamps did not take many risks in changing or modernizing the staging, but it worked. It was simple and direct. It showed the Catfish Row community as they were.

The ensemble opened the show setting the tone and giving the audience a sense of the way of living in Catfish Row. There was music, dancing, and some division among the community. The two scaffolding sets on either side of the stage separated the men and women; the mens chorus on the stage left playing craps and the womens chorus on stage right scattered on the scaffolding doing a variety of household activities. This staging choice was carried throughout most of the opera.

As the story develops and Robbins is killed, the people of Catfish Row stand by each other for protection and comfort.

Grammy Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens sang the title role of Bess. Her unique voice with folk, blues, gospel, and classical influences served her well here and made for a memorable Bess. Giddens interpretation of the reprise of Summertime was outstanding. For the final glissando at the end of the piece, Giddens sang from a high B down to the B below middle C. This choice fit her voice and style perfectly and was executed seamlessly.

Giddens acted with devotion to her character and was diligent in creating a genuine connection with other characters, making all of Bess choices and experiences touching. She depicted Bess internal struggles in her relationships with Crown and Porgy and with happy dust in a convincing manner. She made these things evident through her visceral acting and her vocal expression. Each note she sang came across as if it was important and unique, creating a deep connection to her suffering.

Giddens portrayal of Bess paired well with Thomas Cannons Porgy. Cannon was fully committed to the character. This was evident through his physical representation of Porgys disability and the longing, sorrow and heartbreak in his voice and expression during Oh, Bess, Wheres My Bess? and Bess is Gone.

Baritone Michael Preacely sang the role of Crown with a rich, warm sound. He demonstrated a strong possession of Bess that meshed well with his co-stars characterization of the title role.

The supporting roles that stood out were Clara performed by soprano Indira Mahajan, Jake sung by baritone Sidney Outlaw, Sportin Life by tenor Robert Anthony Mack, Serena sung by soprano Angela Rene Simpson, and soprano Paisley Alexandria Williams short scene as Strawberry Woman.

Soprano Indira Mahajan sang the role of Clara. In the score, Summertime is marked Lullaby, with much expression. Mahajan followed this direction carefully. Her fluttery vibrato soared through the concert hall from the first notes of Summertime. This part of her singing stood out and was stunning. Her pianissimos were nicely controlled, but sadly most ending consonants were lost.

Outlaw commanded the stage in It Takes a Long Pull to Get There while not overpowering or upstaging the ensemble. His voice was so free and open, and full of spin. This control of his technique allowed for impeccable diction.

Robert Anthony Mack played a very fun and engaging Sportin Life. Macks playful version of It Aint Necessarily So had a fun jazz and classical mix that was delightful and fitting for the character. Also, his dancing and general ease of movement were excellent.

In My Mans Gone Now and Oh, Doctor Jesus Angela Rene Simpsons dark, warm, soulful tone added to her heartfelt performances.

Paisley Alexandira Williams spirited Strawberry Woman was cheerful and flawless. Her voice sailed to the high notes effortlessly. Her stage presence was captivating.

Awadgin Pratt conducted Greensboro Opera Orchestra with great care. He was engaged with the singer(s) and treated each piece with a level of individuality. This made for a united performance between the singers and orchestra.

That said, the full ensembles sound was never blended the mens voices continuously overpowered the womens. Mainly only the soprano one part of the womens was heard which created a lack of fullness in the ensembles sound. The only times there was a united sound between the choruses was when the womens chorus or the mens chorus was singing with a soloist.

For example in Claras Summertime, the added female voices supported her beautifully. This was also the case in It Takes a Long Pull to Get There, there was a nice blend between all voices. There was no discussion on the chorus, so theres no way of knowing if this was an intentional choice to vocally demonstrate the typical disunion between males and females during this era and the communities built between the sexes or if this was simply a stylistic choice. However, it still sounded off in the hall.

Ultimately, this production of Gershwins Porgy and Bess was quite enjoyable. All of the music, acting, staging, and design elements were carried out in a pleasing way. The strong sense of community throughout the opera was uplifting.

The rest is here:

Greensboro Opera Review: Porgy and Bess - OperaWire

The year was 1832, and beneath an immense, cloud-filled sky, William Cullen Bryant guided his horse through rippling grasslands as he looked upon a land seemingly shaped by God. A former lawyer, an editor, and a poet, Bryant was visiting his brothers, homesteaders who had set out for the Illinois frontier from Massachusetts two years before.

He found himself stunned into rapture. After riding through the prairies encircling vastness, he wrote of an empty countryside whose majesty could only have come from a higher power:

Man hath no power in all this glorious work: /The hand that built the firmament hath heaved /And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes /With herbage, planted them with island groves, /And hedged them round with forests.

But Bryants reading of the prairie could not have been more wrong.

The treeless expanse that the poet saw had been shaped explicitly by humankind: For centuries, the regions Native peoples had set low-intensity fires to these grasslands, mimicking the effects of lightning, to encourage game to graze on the new growth that followed. The species growing on these lands, fire-adapted and free of arboreal shade, were there because of humanity.

This misconceptionthat North Americas landscapes were essentially untouched before European arrivalactually fits into a much larger story. Geographer William Denevan labeled it the pristine myth, the belief that all of nature was once a sparsely populated wilderness, where humans had little or no influence. Many Europeans and Euro-Americans imagined the landscapes of the Americas as prime examples of such natural spaces.

I loathe that word pristine. There have been no pristine systems on this planet for thousands of years, says Kawika Winter, an Indigenous biocultural ecologist at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa. Humans and nature can co-exist, and both can thrive.

Traditional Indigenous practices such as controlled burning have helped to shape the Great Plains in North America. Dukas/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

For example, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in April, a team of researchers from over a dozen institutions reported that humans have been reshaping at least three-quarters of the planets land for as long as 12,000 years. In fact, they found, many landscapes with high biodiversity considered to be wild today are more strongly linked to past human land use than to contemporary practices that emphasize leaving land untouched. This insight contradicts the idea that humans can only have a neutral or negative effect on the landscape.

Anthropologists and other scholars have critiqued the idea of pristine wilderness for over half a century. Today new findings are driving a second wave of research into how humans have shaped the planet, propelled by increasingly powerful scientific techniques, as well as the compounding crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. The conclusions have added to ongoing debates in the conservation worldthough not without controversy. In particular, many discussions hinge on whether Indigenous and preindustrial approaches to the natural world could contribute to a more sustainable future, if applied more widely.

Thanks to todays environmental challenges, these debates have also reached the public sphere. Spencer Greening, a member of the Gitgaat First Nation and a graduate student studying Indigenous resource management and archaeology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, believes this attention could have a positive effect. Often, Greening explains, science and research are tools used to extract profit from nature.

As a society, if we were to flip the script and say: Instead of putting our resources into excess profit, we need to put our resources into saving the planet, Greening says. That shift is going to be huge.

The myth of pristine wilderness has deep roots. Some draw the line all the way back to 1095, when Pope Urban II purportedly introduced the concept of terra nullius: the idea that any non-Christian land is a blank slate for the taking. The link between this phrase and Pope Urban may be apocryphal; nonetheless, over the centuries, waves of European colonization rode on the back of this sentiment. For example, in the 17th and 18th centuries, English writers expounded on the idea that if Indigenous peoples did not fully occupy, or sufficiently cultivate, land, they had no title to it. These concepts formed the basis of British colonization, including their justification for ruling Australia and dispossessing Aboriginal peoples of their lands.

Such thinking led many European colonists to ignore the influence of Indigenous peoples they encountered. As University of Maryland, Baltimore County, ecologist Erle Ellis, a lead author on the PNAS study, puts it, Within the pristine myth, these people dont have agency, and thats pretty important to the whole concept of that myth. Once you start thinking of these people as actors and as shaping nature, it means that anything you do to them changes nature.

The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the late 18th century and then spread to other parts of Europe and to the U.S., radically shifted conceptions of humans and the natural world. New jobs in industry moved populations away from rural areas and into cities. Meanwhile, factories created rapid economic growth that commodified natural resources, leading to pollution and resource depletion.

British colonists in Australia in the 18th century encountered landscapes that had been cultivated by Aboriginal peoples in ways they did not fully understand. Felix Cesare/Getty Images

In reaction, thinkers in both Europe and the U.S. began to romanticize the concept of wilderness as untouched by humanity and its destructive influence. Writers and artists, such as Henry David Thoreau and George Catlin, depicted American landscapes either without humans or featuring Indigenous communities who had minimal to no impact on their environment.

As Denevan pointed out in his formative paper on the pristine myth, people in the United States in the mid-18th and 19th centuries, in particular, were observing a landscape in which Indigenous communities had been dramatically depopulated. Colonization brought genocide, ethnic cleansing, and pathogens to the Americas. Though estimates vary, one study determined that Indigenous peoples in the Americas lost at least 65 percent and as much as 90 percent of their populations by around 1600. To some European and Euro-American explorers and pioneers in the United States, certain spaces truly appeared to be people-free wilderness.

In the years since, Western societies have tended to tell just two stories about healthy, species-rich ecosystems. In one, humans are destroyers, fated to overharvest resources and tip nature into chaos. In the other, Indigenous peoples receive from the land and change little in return.

But there was always evidence running counter to these narratives. In Australia, for example, colonists viewed the landscape with puzzlement, describing it as looking cultivated, like a park found on one of Britains private estates. At the same time, some colonists disparaged Aboriginal fire management, likely without realizing that this practice had nurtured the environment they encountered.

Learn more, from our archives: How Early Humans Shaped the World With Fire

Similarly, prior to colonization, intentional Indigenous burning practices shaped the prairies that Bryant rode through in 1832. By amplifying a natural cycle, intentional fires stimulated plant growth and kept colonizing tree species at bay, boosting diversity and allowing expanses of fire-adapted grasses to thrive.

On both North American coasts, tribes used fire to encourage the growth of food trees, like nut-bearing oak and chestnut, which created the wide-open forests that dazzled Europeans when they arrived. Today a direct line can be drawn from the loss of cultural burning practices in Australia and the American West to the wildfires that, exacerbated by climate change, have scorched both regions in recent years.

Around the world, human influence is visible in wilderness nearly everywhere. Even the vast Amazon rainforestwhat many non-Native people may see as the premier example of unpeopled wildernessbears enduring evidence of human intervention.

In a 2017 study, researchers found that tree species with food and cultural value, like the Brazil nut and cocoa tree, were hyperdominant across the Amazon Basin: about five times more common than they would expect from chance alone. These trees were often found far from their native range and were most abundant around archaeological sites that predated the 16th century, suggesting that humans shaped the makeup of the forest visible today.

In addition, satellite imagery combined with ground surveys has revealed the traces of bustling civilizations in parts of the Amazon. Though scientists once believed the Amazon Basin held as few as 12 million people, more recent models that factor in the particular soils created by human occupation suggest at least 810 million people could have lived in the region.

Ellis explains that studies debunking the pristine myth began with research in the Americas, but havent stopped there. It just kept spreading, he said. People kept looking, they would ask, Is there a human influence in these places? And you find it.

The PNAS study Ellis co-authored, for example, underscores how global these patterns are. For that analysis, he and his colleagues integrated data from geographical, archaeological, and conservation science with the most up-to-date computer model available to map human populations and land use.

The model spit out maps of Earth categorized by anthrome, that is, patterns in the ways humans have interacted with and altered ecosystems. By 10,000 B.C., their results suggest, there was relatively little wild, uninhabited land left in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, or the Caribbean. At most, only 17 percent of Earths lands showed no evidence of human habitation or use, a number the authors believe is likely an overestimate.

The model also suggests that by 10,000 B.C., 77 percent of current key biodiversity areasthe rainforests and woodlands, grasslands, reefs, and marshes that today are refugia for important specieswere located in cultured anthromes, where small human populations intensively used less than 20 percent of the land.

Further, this approach suggests that, around 1500, this connection between human cultivation and biodiversity started to fall apart. This shift coincides with the period in which European colonization kicked off in earnest.

If many wild places are actually a product of human intervention, what does that mean for conserving such spaces?

The myth of pristine wilderness has long influenced discussions of protecting and preserving nature. The assumption that human activity is harmful or at best neutral for the environment is prominent within conservation and shapes environmental policy.

This thinking informs public opposition to Indigenous management, and has led to laws that bar Indigenous peoples from living and hunting within national parks and other forms of protected land. (See, for example, the Blackfeet Nation in Glacier National Park.) Such rules largely ignore the varied ways that humans can interact with nature.

Learn more, from our archives: Stop Calling the Aleutians Pristine

Yet in October 2021, scholars based in Australia and Germany published their examination of case studies from around the world that showed displacing Indigenous people for the sake of wilderness has negatively impacted landscapes. Among the examples, the researchers highlighted traditional swidden farming, in which farmers let their plots lie fallow to regenerate for a few years after cultivation, in the uplands of tropical Asia and New Guinea. Though some critics have framed this method as incompatible with conservation, research suggests this agricultural approach can increase biodiversity and make forests more resilient to climate change.

Not everyone believes that widespread adoption of preindustrial or Indigenous practices would offer a universal solution for managing natures resources, however. Among the critiques is the observation that humans have unquestionably contributed to extinctions throughout history, at many different scales. (That said, humanitys role in past extinctions is complex and controversialas archaeologists studying the disappearance of mammoths, mastodons, and giant sloths can attest.)

Another point of contention is whether traditional and Indigenous management practices are truly sustainable for local species, or simply sustainable because they are being used to support relatively small human populations. Given the size of the Homo sapiens population globally today, perhaps it is not realistic to imagine that people can be trusted to preserve nature if some of it isnt set aside.

In Hawaiis Heeia National Estuarine Research Reserve, ecologists and nonprofits are revitalizing the area by applying Indigenous land management approaches that emphasize a reciprocal relationship with the natural world. Kelii Kotubetey

Ellis notes that many of these arguments are motivated by fears that debunking wilderness will lead to a free-for-all, giving people license to denude nature at will. But he believes this debate misses the more fundamental point: A recognition that cultural beliefs, rather than scientific fact, have shaped the entire wilderness concept.

Culture, Ellis adds, is flexible: You simply cant say what a human society can do.

For instance, in Hawaii, Winter is training people to rethink what ecologists term ecosystem services, the resourcesincluding food, fuel, and shelterthat environments provide humans. As manager of the Heeia National Estuarine Research Reserve, he works with nonprofits that are revitalizing Hawaiis traditional moku system of land management, in which humans care for the land holistically on small communities called ahupuaa.

Whether planting seeds, gathering food from the forest, restoring a fishpond, or harvesting from the sea, the mindset of people in the ahupuaa is one of interdependence: that their actions in one place affect all the others in their moku and that the lands health is essential to the communitys healthand vice versa.

If we define ecosystem services through an Indigenous lens, it looks like this reciprocal relationship, Winter says. The overarching theme is to give before you take.

Greening takes a similar position. As part of his doctoral thesis, he is examining how natural resource management plans could be rewritten to include humans as a member of a relationship with the land and its resources. You have these boundaries of how youre supposed to harvest them and live with them, he said. Thats what the Western world has lost with industrialization: that we are a part of this ecosystem.

Follow this link:

How Conservation Invented the Pristine Wilderness - SAPIENS - SAPIENS