Photo credit McMullen Images

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chiara Gorodesky . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chiara below.

Alright, Chiara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

This is a very beautiful question, which I never actually had the chance to consider before and put any thought into prior to Canvas Rebel asking me this.

It took me quite a while to mull this over and I am taken aback by how many acts of pure love and kindness I was met in life so far and truly realize only now just how lucky I have been so far.

There are so many stories I can tell, where I was met with exceptional kindness from family, friends and – quite often – random strangers whom I met in passing, that it was really difficult to figure out which one of them was the kindest.

Firstly, I concluded that selfless kindness must be the ultimate gift that any person or animal can lend to another living being. I purposefully include animals into this equasion, because I believe that humans can learn many valuable lessons from all species and at least I have.

Selfless love is an act of pure love and asks nothing in return. Like the lesson an old Herman Hesse poem talks about which I was obsessed with as a teenager. It is pure and good in simplest form and sets an example of the very best in anyone’s personality.

Having realized this, I think the kindest act(s) that an entire community carried out to support me was when I was very ill with a rare autoimmune disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) in 2020 just before the pandemic hit and my lungs and heart almost gave spending `15 days in hospital.

Life abruptly stopped in an instant when I was in severest pain within a few hours and then hospitalized and unable to care for my family and young children from one day to another. GBS is an illness that gradually destroys your nervous system and basically shreds your nerves into little pieces feeling like you are being hit by lighting from head to toe.

Within hours, my entire community got together as a group and started actively participating in the care of my family, all without me being aware if it while fighting to survive the pain.

Family, friends and new friends who were not even friends pre-illness helped with child transport, food and emotional support and so much more.

When I returned home from hospital our apartment was akin to a flower and card shop with good wishes.

That was humbling and life changing.

Photo credit Turtle Conservancy

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I know now that I am a dreamer and that I am proud of this. In the past, being a dreamer was sort of a “bad thing”, because it meant that you did not have realistic expectations in life and lived with your head high up in the clouds and not solidly on earth. I was born in Munich, Germany in 1976 and my parents moved there from Israel being immigrants themselves (from Poland and Germany via Greece, Malta and England) and so I was one of the very rare German jews post Holocaust.
My childhood was fabulous growing up in liberal and arty post war Germany, embracing jewish culture, expression and freedom. I am a proud German jew, turned English, turned American national who, ultimately is a citizen of the world.
I grew up not only respecting, but also admiring, diverse religions and cultures and that is something deep inside me that I am passing on to my children and in my work.
After recovering from GBS I was determined to help make a small difference to our most beautiful planet. Having experienced so much luck in the past and so much love and kindness from people around me, including strangers, I saw it as my duty to leave this world making an impact, however small and minute that may be.

My eternal love has always been to the performing arts, in particular ballet, as well as to the well being of children, nature and animals. My happiest of times were spent witnessing spectacular dance and music, cradling a baby or sitting under a big tree in the shade happily observing my four tortoises in England roaming the grounds.

After graduating from high school, I moved to London which was my home of choice for 18 years and where I qualified as a lawyer specializing in housing and property litigation and advocacy.

When my legal work day in London ended, I spent most nights either in adult professional ballet classes or watching The Royal Ballet in Covent Garden and I made many friends there along the way. My passion for ballet started wihen I was around 4 years old in Munich and took over completely when I was invited to join the prestigious committee of The Ballet Association as an adult supporting The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet. David Bain, now a close friend, is the BAs chairman saw me night after night at the ballet and invited me in as the youngest serving member at the time, which was a huge honour.

This was a turning point in my life, because I suddenly found myself surrounded by people who shared the same passion that I have deep inside, namely dance.

Over the years, I helped organize monthly events involving many of my idols from the ballet world and I also made close friends,

Another part of my life was always been dedicated to tortoises and the preservation and survival of this fascinating species. When I was four years old, my Grandmother bought me my first pet tortoise called Schmetterling (butterfly in German) and I was hooked ever since, not least because I belong to the generation of E.T.

Having made every single mistake caring for a pet tortoise one possibly could and NOT keeping her the way she needed to be kept and so ultimately died, I vowed to learn what animal conservation of an endangered species means and how to do more.

When I moved to NYC in 2013, I immediately volunteered for the organization I am now working for and am closely affiliated in my heart: Turtle Conservancy (TC).

TC was founded by one of the most amazing people I ever met, Eric Goode, A selfless, unique man who changes the world for the causes he believes in. The TC team is truly exceptional and each and every person affiliated with the organization believes in making the world a better place and starting with saving almost extinct animals involving as many people as possible in its mission.

The turning point in my life was May 2022 when I was invited to attend Turtle Conservancy’s board meeting at Ted Turner’s Ranch in New Mexico. Our task was to rewild a certain species of tortoises called the Bolson Tortoise, that had been extinct in that area for over 10,000 years. And I was one of the lucky humans to release a young tortoise into the wild, the feeling of which is hard to be matched in terms of satisfaction and joy.

Shortly after, I woke up one Tuesday morning to realize that there is no one single non-profit organization that is solely dedicated to bringing environmental conservation awareness through dance. Think Sir David Attenborough’s “Our Planet’ documentary on Netflix. And I asked myself, why not? The arts have always been inspired by nature and vice versa. Is this not the obvious way to make a difference: show an audience a beautiful ballet that will ignite their hearts to do go and get involved in conservation!

I searched far and wide and spoke to many knowledgeable friends in dance around the world, be it dance critics, dancers or impresarios, and was taken aback to realize that there was not one dedicated organization at highest level of artistry to solely promit this important cause.

At this point I must stress that my conservation colleagues who work for the UN and other leading organizations tell me that we are actually running very short of time. Humankind has between 5-15 years to make drastic changes, if we do not want planet earth to look very different in not too distant future compared to what it is like now.

So: time is of the essence. And I founded Vildwerk Foundation, Inc in September 2022 with a board of directors of four and an exceptional advisory board or over 30 leaders in the. fields of their respective expertise.

Our mission is to raise urgent environmental and nature conservation awareness through the performing arts, mainly dance.

vildwerk. will have its inaugural season on 15 and 16 October 2024 in NYC presenting works by leading international choreographers, including Christopher Wheeldon, Joshua Beamish, Gianna Reisen, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Briana Reed, Arleen Sugano and Mara Galeazzi addressing urgent themes of nature that concern us all.

Our audience will walk away feeling inspired to take action to make this planet a better place and engage with conservation organizations which will tell them how to do just that.

vildwerk. is cutting out all political stance and focuses on what matters most, the survival of us on planet earth in peace and harmony with nature and all living things respecting all life equally.

We are a movement that is here to say. We will present works of performing art year after year to as many as possible addressing what matters most: the preservation of planet earth.

Photo credit Rob Woodcox

Photo credit: Jason Ashwood; Dancer : Mara Galeazzi

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The main lesson I learn was probably after the pandemic and is that I have to live in the. now.

Now is all that we have and that allows us to take care of how our future unfolds. It is a very strong awakening, because I mostly lived in nostalgic past and uncertain future.

Living in the now was the force that lead me to found vildwerk,, set up a board within one summer and call world leaders to a gala dinner in May 2022 founding the movement.

Photo credit: Opera Life Dancer: Fernando Montano

Photo Credit Jason Ashwood; Dancer Mara Galeazzi

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Yes!

I learnt that artists support one another no matter what. It is quite different to the corporate or competitive legal worl where nobody refers a client to you. In the arts, everyone works generously together and supports one another for the greater good.

Doing good is the. key to success and entire communities will support you for a great cause at any time.

So my advice to anyone with a good idea is: ask people for help. They will and you will not be disappointed. But grow a tough skin and be prepared for populations not to support you. That is a great way of filtering out the good from the bad in your life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vildwerk.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vildwerk/
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/vildwerk
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vildwerk-foundation-inc/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/vildwerk
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-zcmaqYKJY