David Gere, Ph.D., is director of the UCLA Art & Global Health Center and is a professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, where he teaches courses in arts activism. In 2004, Gere founded MAKE ART/STOP AIDS, an international network of artists intervening in the AIDS epidemic, and since 2007 has co-directed Through Positive Eyes, an internationally recognized participatory photography project created by people living with HIV and AIDS. Gere's How to Make Dances in an Epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of AIDS (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004) received the award for outstanding publication from the Congress on Research in Dance. The book was also nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and received a special citation from the Society of Dance History Scholars and the De la Torre Bueno Prize. Gere studied music, dance, and Tamil in Madurai, South India, on an Oberlin Shansi Fellowship 1980-82 and, in 2004, lived in Bangalore, India, on a research grant from the Fulbright Association, studying the ways in which artists are working in India to stop the AIDS epidemic. He now travels frequently between Los Angeles and project sites in New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Johannesburg, Zomba (Malawi), Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro, creating, supporting, and theorizing experimental projects with funding from the Ford Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), among other grants.
About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)