This week on an all new episode of Arizona Illustrated returning to Earth.

Amazing experience is all waiting for you.

You can easily talk yourself out of opportunity in life.

Exploring the link between art and science.

Flying the neuroscience knowledge is a way to be impactful, more consistent performer.

A trip to an urban oasis in the middle of Tucson.

It's so beautiful and the birds are just amazing.

It's like a little sanctuary in the middle of the city.

Guys who live here and not in Tucson at all and a dance party that promotes exercise and community being in community with folks and doing something fun.

It's invaluable and it's really, really wonderful.

And I'm just really thankful for it.

Hello and welcome to Season nine of Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

You know, we've been working hard all summer and we have an exciting schedule of brand new stories to bring you this fall season.

We're coming to you from The Enchanted Hills trailhead off of 36th Street in southwest Tucson.

These beautiful 356 acres are maintained by Pima County, and it's an expansion of the larger Tucson Mountain Park.

There are seven miles of trails for non motorized visitors that lead to scenic views of the city and the natural landscapes.

The park also provides habitat for the native flora and fauna of the Sonoran Desert.

All of which seems to be coming to life during this active 2022 monsoon.

Now to the story of Dr. Sian Proctor a geoscientist educator, Afrofuturist artist, and most recently the first black female to pilot a spacecraft.

She led Space X as inspiration4 Mission, which was the first all civilian space mission.

And now that she's returned to Earth, she's inspiring the next generation of explorers through her art, poetry and speaking engagements.

We can see you coming down the ladder now.

I've been chasing space in some form my entire life because my dad was working at the NASA tracking station during the Apollo missions.

It's one small step for man.

I grew up with Neil Armstrong's autograph to my dad on his office wall and all of these NASA certificates.

So space was just around in our family.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Dr. Sian Proctor, and I'm a geoscientist explorer and analog astronaut, and I have dreamed about going to space my entire life.

All right.

Inspiration4 was announced and the first all civilian mission to orbit, and you could win a contest.

And I thought I could put myself out there as an artist, a poet, because during COVID, I started to do art space art.

So I put my art and poetry out there.

But then you had to create a 2 minute and 20 second twitter video and express why they should take you to space.

Science, technology, engineering and math.

Sending us out on the explorers path.

But don't forget the arts, the heartbeat of time.

Consider sending a poet who knows how to rhyme.

And I won.

And so that led me to becoming part of the crew.

I was the mission pilot for inspiration4, the first all civilian mission to orbit.

Last year, I became the first black female pilot of a spacecraft.

[Reflective Music] Hi.

Thank you for having me.

I'm Dr. Sian Proctor.

And last year, my life fundamentally changed when I got to go to space as part of the inspiration4 all civilian mission to orbit.

By the time you get to the, you know, the launch pad on that that special day, man I was ready, I had been well trained.

I felt confident, and I was just so happy to be a part of this experience.

And so I just remember being strapped in and I just remember getting counting down to, you know, ten, nine, you know, all the way down to three, two, And then just the thrust.

We're going.

This is awesome.

[Reflective Music] This view will never get old.

I feel so fortunate to be able to see this.

and to experience it, see it everywhere.

see everywhere And it sticks to everything.

Oh, just give me some of that hair so I can.

Amazing experiences are waiting for you.

You can easily talk yourself out of opportunity in life.

And when I get that voice inside my head, I think of my dad and what my dad would say.

And he would tell me, "Don't talk yourself out of opportunity."

"Let somebody else decide if you're qualified."

Every wizard knows you just say Wingardium Leviosa I think we have time for one more question.

[kids yelling] All right.

And the winner is going to be this one right here.

What was it like to be in no gravity?

Oh, great question.

Okay.

There's nothing like floating in space.

How many of you know the movie or in the TV show.

Peter Pan, Right?

So you know how like Peter and Wendy just simply lift up and they're suspended.

It's like that.

It's an amazing experience that I hope anybody who wants to go to space gets to, you know, have.

this is the paint set that I took with me.

And it hasn't been, you know, disturbed.

This is actually the way it came back from space.

I consider myself an Afrofuturist artist.

And that's somebody who takes the themes around African heritage or African-American story, and it's set in the kind of futuristic way.

And so for me, I'm thinking about human spaceflight, where we're going as a society.

But when I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking about that from the lens of women of color, you know, people of color, and how are we going to be a part of that narrative?

Keep in mind for the bigger picture of large scale, you know, colonies and everything else that we'd love to see.

But the balance is something to keep in mind as well of the type of people that might be going because they have a means to go.

Are you guys enjoying the conference?

Yeah.

Yeah?

What was your favorite thing so far today?

People.

People.

You know, it's really exciting to be surrounded by the future generation and knowing that you are giving them not only inspiration and motivation, but also hope and a path where they can see themselves and they say, "Wow!

I want to do that."

Yeah, you're downloading the unistellar app so that you can see what We're united under one sky and by one ocean.

And when I think about the future of humanity and how solving for space solves for Earth, you know, I think about it in how do we, you know, get people excited about human space flight, but then how do we bring that back and teach them about how all of the things that we do out there makes us more sustainable here and why it's important.

[ Inspirational music ] As artists, we are constantly trying to get better at our art.

That's what we do.

And as musicians, we spend the bulk of our lives in the practice room by ourselves trying to play our instruments better and to make the music come alive.

Our brains are what enable us to do that.

From my perspective, if you don't understand how your brain works and how it learns optimally, you're going to waste a lot of time in the practice room.

There is something about music.

The physicality of playing is very appealing to me.

And that's part of what makes it challenging.

Both hands are constantly moving around.

Your brain has to physically change, which means reconstructing itself.

New neurons have to communicate, or neurons that were communicating before have to communicate in a kind of new way.

And that is the first step in getting better at something.

I'm Dr. Molly Gebrian I am the viola professor at the University of Arizona, and I also have a background in neuroscience.

I had sort of been doing this intersection between music and neuroscience, and I started to realize that what I was learning in my neuroscience and psychology classes about learning and memory in general were applicable to practicing.

You know, I would learn things about good study habits, for instance, and I would realize, wait a minute, I wonder if this applies to music.

One of the things I talk about a lot is the way in which we should schedule and order our practice in terms of taking strategic breaks, but also in terms of mixing things up.

It's what's known as interleaved or random practice.

I do a lot of talking about mental practice and the benefits of mental practice, and then also just sort of learning and memory in general.

How how do we learn things optimally?

How do we memorize things?

How do we commit things to memory?

One of the really unique things about me as a teacher is I combine these things and bring it to my students.

That's something that I would say no other teachers do in the way that I can because I have the science background.

Hey, Gabby, we're in here today.

I got a bigger room for us.

So we've talked about working memory before, right?

I'm sure we have.

Right.

So that's a place like you just have to rely on muscle memory.

(Gabby) Ok, yeah.

(Molly) How did that feel?

(Gabby) It felt okay.

(Molly) I mean, whenever you learn anything new, you're not very good at it at first, right?

You feel clumsy, you feel awkward.

It doesn't work very well.

For instruments, it doesn't sound very good.

And that's because the neurons in your brain aren't communicating well.

And so when we practice, we are creating new pathways.

And that was awesome.

That was awesome.

So, you know, you can play that.

Can we actually... Can you can we do those mental practicing?

Can you do 84 in your head first?

Mental practice in a nutshell for musicians is hearing and feeling inside your head without actually doing something everything you have to hear and feel when you play the instruments.

It works because when you mental practice, you're using the same parts of the brain as when you actually physically practice.

How'd that feel?

(Gabby) It feel good.

I got a little mixed up, but... (Molly) A tiny bit, But that, like, that was hands down the most solid I've heard that section.

Nice.

Applying the neuroscience knowledge is a way to be a better, more impactful, more consistent performer.

I have my first solo recital since before the pandemic.

This was a project that was supposed to happen in 2020, so it's been a long time coming.

I'm really excited about it.

I'm going to be playing three late romantic era cello sonatas that were written by women composers.

(Pianist) This is happening no matter what, right?

(Molly) Yeah.

This program is tiring.

Okay.

We're ready?

My overriding goal in life is to share my knowledge of learning and memory with musicians, to allow musicians to practice and perform the way they want to.

The skills that I try to teach my students, they apply to everything in life.

The way you get better at an instrument, the way you manage your time so you make sure you that you're practicing in.

The way you break down a very difficult piece into small, manageable goals.

All of those things apply to all of life, and learning and growing can be frustrating, right?

It doesn't feel good all the time, but that is the feeling of learning.

That's one of the biggest things is not to fear that feeling and not to run away from that feeling, but to stay with that feeling.

Just doing different this time.

Yeah, I took a little more time the first time that I don't normally do that.

Can we do it again?

Yes.

This area is a great example of what undisturbed Sonoran Desert is like, but it's incredible to see what happens if you just add a little water.

We visited the Sweetwater Wetlands, which seem like a world away, but it's really only about six miles north of where I'm standing now.

And there you're going to see cattails and willows and cottonwoods flourishing around big ponds that are fed by the city's reclaimed water system.

So the Sweetwater Wetlands were actually constructed in 1997.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality wanted Tucson Water to come up with an environmentally friendly way to treat our process backwash water at the reclaimed plant.

My experience with the wetlands occurred when I began working for Tucson Water.

I was a hydrologist.

I loved the idea of it providing treatment for the utility for a water that could be reused and stored back in the aquifer, but at the same time creating this incredible nature preserve.

It's just a very cool place to be.

Once it was built in 1997, we have had it open through daylight hours for the public to enjoy.

I like that it's just something quite different than any other place that you visit in town, especially.

Yeah.

And any place you can find water.

Yeah.

That's what I love about this place is it still brings a bit of a respite from.

From the desert heat.

Do you feel that breeze?

That's beautiful.

Just looking at that, that grass swaying in the wind is gorgeous.

I'd say we come here about two times a week, mostly in the morning to walk around.

It's so beautiful and the birds are just amazing.

It's like a little sanctuary in the middle of the city.

Yeah, it feels like you're not in Tucson at all.

It feels like you're in a totally different place.

And the sound like you're like, even when you're walking in, you can hear the traffic.

And once you get in there, all you hear is the birds.

[birds chirping] So the sweet water wetland kind of mimics how the Santa Cruz originally looked as it was flowing through the city of Tucson over the millennia.

So a lot of the vegetation you see here is common to those riparian habitats.

All the species that you do see here at the Sweetwater Wetlands are native to this part of the desert.

I've seen Bobcat here a couple times.

I've seen rattlesnakes.

And I think the best one was when she just was walking down the trail, you saw her coming.

So she was within five feet and she just walked right on by.

I don't even think she looked at me.

She just did not care.

As soon as it was created and as soon as we added water to this feature.

back in 1997, life took off in the form of plants, but also in the form of migrating birds.

The birds that fly throughout North America and in regionally here started to find this location.

When you have that migration periods, especially in the spring and the fall or after monsoons, then you're getting a lot of different species coming through here.

So the migratory birds, they know where the good places are and they know here is a really great place to stopover.

This has quickly become a unique spot with the Audubon Society and it's not uncommon to see people here from around the world who are interested in birding because you can see hundreds of different species of birds in this very small 22 acre park.

From Buffalo, New York.

I was looking for someplace to do some birding.

Found this place.

It's beautiful.

See some wildlife and hopefully some good shots and good video.

The Wetlands was the base for inspiring these other riparian creations that Tucson Water has started in recent years.

By putting water back into the Santa Cruz, we're bringing these riparian habitats back to life throughout the region.

For many people, they don't know the Sweetwater wetlands exist.

And this is in the heart of Tucson.

I think they'll be amazed at what the city has here.

While it's beautiful out here in the desert, hiking and biking and even going to the gym, it's not for everyone.

So for our next story, we visited a dance studio called Floor Polish for their weekly class Cardio Party-O.

It's less about making the right moves and more about having fun and being part of a community.

(Marina) Always from day one I wanted it to be like very accessible and flexible for people and never wanted to feel like you're forcing people to do something that they don't want to do.

Like it's not really a workout to increase your fitness at all.

All right , let's go!

[Hip Hop music] (Sarah) When I was growing up, it was really hard to look in the mirror when I was moving and when I was dancing.

And now I'm able to sort of stare myself down.

(Anna) This is my number one number one self-care class.

I work as a somatic therapist, and so a lot of my work is really being with people with trauma.

And it's such a good way to come just back into myself.

(Brianna) I struggle with depression.

And so I really felt I needed some movement in my body and then some sort of routine in order to... Yeah.

Just feel better here and then also here.

(Joe) I didn't grow up dancing at all.

First few years was, like, extra bumpy, you know?

But then I learn the choreography enough that then learn how to express myself and have fun through a different form of art.

[hip hop music ends] (Marina) I started taking Zumba classes, got really into it, and was encouraged by that instructor to teach.

So I became a group fitness instructor.

Within a few months, I was like, I want to start my own class.

I had experience like playing music, being in bands.

I was familiar with that, like, let's rent a warehouse or let's run a practice space and teach something a little bit weird, a little bit alternative.

So I started Cardio Party-O where I started out with just putting a bunch of music that I like and making up my own choreography.

[dance music] (Sarah) But the beauty of Cardio Party-O is Marina has created a very safe space for anyone who wants to try and learn how to dance.

(Anna) We'll walk around the room in ways that I feel like it makes it seem possible to walk around the world that way sometimes too.

(Brianna) The ability to move through the heaviness that I do struggle with.

The routine and the consistency helps helps keep that all, all together.

[dance music ends] (Joe) Some of the early days, we would do like flash mobs, some dance performances with the Tucson Libertine League burlesque performance troupe.

And it's hard to describe, like, how fun and uplifting and hopeful those those kind of events are for me.

But I think for everyone that's attending them to.

(Marina) The dance troupe, which has been called High Polish Floor Show, is kind of a group that can change all the time.

And I've never done one alone.

I always have one friend or two or eight, and now this is my pot of available people that come to my class usually.

And I'm like, Who wants to be in the next one, you know?

And now they are like, Wow, awesome dancers.

[dance music] [audience cheers] (Anna) It was so good.

It felt like it's really been a place to move all of the intensity of the last couple of years.

Sometimes you get to be really sassy or really dramatic.

(Brianna) Being in community with folks and doing something fun, it's invaluable and it's really, really wonderful and I'm just really thankful for it.

(Sarah) You walk in this class and you feel a certain way and you walk out and you feel a different way.

(Marina) You're making me choked up.

It's easy for me to give myself a lot during class because it's just having that generous exchange of just like, friendship.

And I'm grateful that people come.

A lot of the people who came to my class have described it as like feeling like a really safe space.

And I defend that actually very fiercely.

Like, that's what we're aiming for here.

(Joe) I guess in a way, it's like a form of therapy for me.

No matter what's happened that day, it kind of helps me work through it, right?

Sort of like afterwards I feel like, kind of, like, cleansed.

And just happy, you know, and tired [laughs] and sweaty.

[Hip hop music continues] (Marina) There's actually a lot going on here, and it's not all coming from me at all.

There are people doing amazing stuff in town and this place works for a lot of people.

[Hip hop music ends] [group applauds] Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a brand new story you'll see here on season nine of Arizona.

Illustrated A lot of our Oodham people, our Oodham youth don't know our traditional ways.

But this moment, we're reviving it.

We're living it, we're breathing it.

We're living in this process.

Thank you for joining us of our brand new season of Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara, and we'll see you next week.