(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
Each week we bring you stories about the people
and issues in our state.
This week, a sport so popular, it's bringing Olympic level
competition to Wisconsin.
Find out who owns the majority of forested land in our state
and what's being done with it.
And a renowned dancer whose extreme drive
has propelled her to success and through personal tragedy.
Plus rare photos of Frank Lloyd Wright's Tally Essent.
Photos discovered just a few weeks ago on eBay.
That's tonight in Wisconsin.
- Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the
people of Alliance Energy who bring safe, reliable, and
environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods,
and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliance Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
(upbeat music)
- Olympic guys are focused on Wisconsin this month.
The 2006 US Olympic men's and women's curling teams
are being selected during eight days of competition
in McFarlane, just outside Madison.
Wisconsin is king when it comes to curling
with the most curling clubs in the country.
Frederica Freiberg takes a closer look
at this ancient sport by visiting the curling-esque
County in Wisconsin.
- Whether at a Olympic level, Peewee or senior
curling is catching.
- Oh, it's such a great game.
It's a finest winter sport.
Team sport there is.
Any age could curl it from six, seven years old
up to 95.
- Like the Portage Clubs, Forest Mosley.
At 95, he's still competing, still keen on curling
and he'd have to be.
- Strategy is 100% of it.
- In fact, curling is often called Chesson Ice
because it takes critical thinking and multiple moves
to get the rocks to land in the big score zone
in the middle of the ring.
Curling has a long and enduring history.
It started 500 years ago on frozen ponds in Europe.
The Scots formalized and developed the modern game
and as they moved across the sea to America,
curling came along.
It landed in Wisconsin in the early 1800s
and Milwaukee boasts the oldest, continuously operating
curling club in the US, founded in 1845.
- Well, this is the picture of the old Portage Club
that was on the canal that goes through town here.
- By 1850, the city of Portage swept into the game.
It's earliest sheets of ice along the frozen Portage Canal.
Today, that city's modern curling club
is one of five in Columbia County,
making it the Curlingness County in the state.
- The Scottish Heritage and the number of Scots
that settled in this area was a predominant factor
in the growth of it.
- And this is a picture of some of the old time curlers.
- Except for replacing the old barn broom
with a modern brush, not a lot has changed over the years.
The reason it's called curling is because
when the lead-off player throws the rock,
it either curls right on the ice or curls left.
The rock or stone is 42 pounds of smooth granite.
There are eight of them for each four-person team.
The object is to get the rocks closest
to the center of the circle to score points.
The brush or room is swept in front of the rock
to help it go further and straighter.
- Oh, I got outside, Bob.
- While curlers are serious competitors,
they are also seriously collegial.
- We don't need referees, we don't need people looking
and see if you break the rule.
It's a gentleman's game.
You go on the ice, you shake hands with your opponent,
shake hands when you come off, and there's never an
argument over anything.
And socializing, eating and drinking are
built into the sport.
Every curling club has a claw broom
for post-game food and drink.
- It's great, it really is.
You're just talking to all these people.
And no matter where you go, if you're in trouble,
call a curler and nobody will be right there for you.
- And the love of the game passes
from generation to generation.
- I curled my father and my grandpa.
- Use the intern there.
Take about a foot of ice.
- LG Noble, a two-time national champion
and curling Hall of Famer, can't help but give tips
to his grandson.
17-year-old Chris Noble is the captain
of the Point at High School team in Columbia County.
Passing the curling torch keeps it lit.
And while Chris Noble has curling in his blood,
he did his own outreach, rounding up schoolmates
who never played the game and helping them make the team.
- I definitely feel it's growing.
- Not exponentially, but little by little,
I think it's growing on people.
- That's saying a lot in a place where curling
is already king.
- Oh.
- Next week, our curling coverage continues
as Art Hackett follows some Wisconsin curlers
as they compete in the National Olympic Trials.
For more information on curling and the Olympic competition,
check out our website at www.wpt.org/inwisconsin.
Just about anywhere you go in Wisconsin,
you can easily find a forest.
That's because Wisconsin has 16 million forested acres.
The government owns much of that land,
so does the timber industry.
But by far, the largest amount of forested acres
in Wisconsin is privately owned.
Liz Kerner reports there are many reasons
people invest in forested land and many land management
styles to choose from.
- What comes to mind when you think of a forest?
A place for a peaceful stroll?
Or the source of wood products and jobs?
Perhaps you think of it as a home for animals and plants?
Whatever image comes to mind, what goes on in our woods
affects everyone in Wisconsin.
Consider the economic impact alone.
According to the Department of Natural Resources,
forest products generate a total of $20 billion a year
in Wisconsin.
Tachon another $5.5 billion for forest-based tourism
and recreation.
Trees cover 16 million acres in Wisconsin
and private owners control almost 60% of that land.
Owners like Dale and Fay Lightfuss.
They bought a large farmstead in Wapaka County
almost 50 years ago and planted the fields
in Pine, a lot of Pine.
- While we planted about 250,000 trees under property.
- And it takes about 20 to 25 years to get the first harvest.
- Growing healthy trees might seem as easy
as falling off a log, but over time
questions do come up.
For answers, the Lightfuss has joined
one of the many educational organizations in the state.
The Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association.
They also became members of the American Tree Farm System.
They must be doing something right.
They've been repeatedly named one of Wisconsin's
outstanding tree farmers.
- You want to thin it out enough so that the good trees
continue to grow in diameter, not just in height.
- They're growing good grounds.
They're still pointing.
They're still reaching for the sky.
And you take out the trees that are spinly,
the double tops, the ones that are too close together.
- You can see the large fork on that tree
causing it to be a high-risk tree for splitting.
- In the late 90s, the Lightfuss is enrolled
in the Managed Forest Law, a state program
that reduces their property taxes.
As part of the program, their local DNR Forester
helped them create a management plan.
The plan includes a timetable for cutting their trees.
- But I guess we got probably about three, four years
after we'd come here and do a thinning on this.
- A quarter of a million people own private woods
in Wisconsin, but only about 30,000 participate
in this tax relief program.
Although in recent years, property tax increases
have doubled the number of applicants.
We got 150 square feet base there, so.
- I think the biggest concern is the length of time
that you have to sign up.
It's a 25-hour-50-year contract.
And many people have a hard time planning
that far ahead into the future.
And there are some significant penalties
if you pull out before the end of that time.
So it takes a commitment.
You really do have to be interested in the long term.
- Nice day for walk out here anyway.
- Yes.
- The lightfaces now enjoy the rewards
of their long-term commitment.
They built a home in their woods and moved there
when Dale retired.
- Today, we think of a trees as a supplement
to the income that we have.
To do something we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.
It's an income which is a wonderful plus right now,
but it was not an income that we ever depended on.
- Owners like Dale and Fei Lightface
buy hundreds of acres of land in the country
and then plant trees.
- You need to know what that bird is.
- Others like Dale Anderson and Lynn Goese
buy only a few acres just for the freedom
to walk in their own woods.
- It's fun to walk around in the woods.
It just, it just, it just smells good.
It's just fun to be outside.
- And to know that it's your own little piece of heaven
that's really neat.
- Basically, I do amateur wildlife photography,
mostly of birds.
And I've probably, I've probably got over 125
different birds and a lot of different animals too.
So that's a particular interest to me
to draw some more wildlife in.
- A few birch trees poke up through the brush
on the Anderson Goese property.
They brought in a machine planter
to fill in the open strip on the edge.
Because they were new to the neighborhood,
they signed up with Wisconsin family forests.
- And the main mission is to tie woodland owners
to their communities and have a community-based
approach to taking care of your woods.
- Because I think neighbors, they don't know each other
as well as they used to.
People move around a lot more and I think by having
a common thread, then people, I mean, you
go up to a woodland owner and you may have an
immediate contact.
You've planted trees, you've done things.
It's just a contact and it's connecting to the lands.
- Actually, it is because we are from town
and when we came out here as, you know,
you're quite spread out from each other.
So you don't meet a lot of people,
especially if you're busy.
- Events like field days bring neighbors together.
- Hello, welcome to our field day.
- Very good day, good.
- At the field day, everyone learns a little
and gets their hands dirty.
- We open up the slide with a tree spludged.
This is ideal weather for plant trees.
It's cloudy, it's wet, the roots one dry out
and you bring it back up to the same height
that the grill on is.
And you just, just push them tight.
That's it, you planted a tree.
- Yay!
- And are they mostly pines or are there
some hardwoods in there too?
- I got all pined today.
I got a few Tamrac I brought along.
- Okay.
- I got the way the white screws in the Norway pined today.
- Yeah, well, blue screws, plant.
- Yay!
(laughing)
- Are these trees getting, need some white...
- What systems is fragile as they appear?
- No, they're not.
- You can be pretty rough with them.
- They're rather rough.
- As long as you don't break them.
- Yeah.
- The field they we had was about managing your forest,
knowing what to cut and when to cut it,
to make a nice, healthy woods.
That's probably the most important thing
as far as I'm concerned, is a healthy, healthy forest.
- Anderson and Goese enrich their woodlands
and get to know their neighbors during the field day.
And even though they don't own enough land
to make much money from future lumber sales,
they're committed to planting trees.
Their main motivation is enjoying their woods today.
Whether woodland owners take on less than 10 acres
or more than a thousand, their land management
decisions have the economic and ecological potential
to affect us all.
- A post-grip to that report, Governor Doyle's banal
budget includes cutting more than one third of
the DNR forestry staff who provide assistance to
private woodland owners.
The budget moves funding for these positions
to what's called alternative delivery systems.
According to the DNR, that translates to more partnerships
between the DNR and private foresters.
The DNR's concern is that there aren't enough foresters
to meet demand and private woodland owners
that might not get the assistance they
need in the future.
We'd like to hear your ideas about budget issues
you'd like us to look into.
You can contact us by email at inwasconson@wpt.org
or you can call us at 1-800-253-1158.
(upbeat music)
- We move now from the natural beauty of the state's woodlands
to the beauty of the human form.
Leachow Ping is a UW-Madison dance professor
who has earned national recognition for her creative
and energetic, extreme move style.
I had the opportunity to talk with Leachow Ping
about her distinctive dance moves
and an experience one night that changed everything.
(upbeat music)
- I just love to move.
I love to move and it's that obsession with movement,
I think that has fueled my drive.
She was a rising star in international dance circles
known for her tremendous physicality, risk-taking,
what became known as Leachow Ping's extreme moves
but then came an extreme twist of fate.
- Well, it shook me to my core.
It was something that dancing was something
that I wanted to do for most of my life.
- Leachow Ping was born in 1963 in San Francisco,
a middle child of Jin Nung and Kim Harley
who had emigrated from China.
As a young girl, Leach excelled in gymnastics,
a passion she shared with her father.
She especially loved the floor exercise
with its graceful leaps and elements of dance.
- She was the kind of student every teacher wants.
- Ruth Solomon was Leese Dance Professor
at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
- Not only could I count on her to encapsulate my movement
or anything I created, but where I'd needed feedback
from the dancers, she would come up with some great ideas
and they were usually in the aesthetic
that I was working with on a particular piece.
To the back.
- Oh, where I'm?
- I'll leave it down.
Good control.
Control. So there's no weight
in those knees.
- People say, "I will you train Chao Ping first
for years because she came, had never studied dance before."
And I say, "Anybody could have trained Chao Ping."
Like her legendary leaps, Leese Professional Career exploded.
The New York Times called her work "Momentus" in Genius.
There was a fellowship at the Kennedy Center,
the formation of her own company, Le Chao Ping Dance,
nearly 60 works produced and choreographed.
But on a snowy January night in 1999, everything changed.
A near fatal accident left Leigh with a mangled leg
and shattered foot.
There were fears she would never walk, much less dance.
- It really rocked me and it made me wonder
what I would ever do again, you know,
if I was going to be alive.
- Solomon, who has written extensively on dance injuries,
was shocked at the catastrophic nature of Leese injuries.
- We have the repetitive, what we call microtromatic injuries,
so that the bodies wear and tear, the repetition,
all takes its toll on the bodies.
Yes, meniscal tears, yes, stress fractures.
But the kind of injury that Chao Ping had,
which meant reattaching all those tendons,
the result was so traumatic.
We don't have those kinds of injuries in dance.
Thank God.
There have been nine surgeries, countless
hours of physical therapy.
Then, in 2001, Leigh returned to the stage.
- What I was forced to do afterwards was
to draw on my dancers.
Draw on them physically for their, you know,
their abilities, draw on them emotionally,
draw on them as artists.
So it actually helped me grow as a choreographer,
because I became much more visual in the
sense that I worked.
I became much more spatially aware.
I became more architecturally aware about the way that,
I wanted to my choreography to inhabit space,
to activate space.
We turned to other people to be inspired by them,
to be pushed by them, to be challenged.
And so I am pushing them to work towards their limits
and to question their own senses of what they
think that they can do.
So oftentimes, they may feel uncomfortable.
You know, that seems to scary, that's too
hard, that's, you know, I don't, I don't know,
strong enough, something.
But they find out later that they can do, they can go there.
[Music]
And Lee herself is going to new places, like television,
a place much different than the stage.
And it's very intimate and, and of course, you can do
things with video or film that you can't do on stage.
I mean, you can, you know, just seeing the speed of
the feathers falling down, you know, they're floating
down quite slowly.
So even that kind of thing, you know, is, is wonderful.
You can really enlarge the moment, you know,
enlarge the moment and also bring the
audience into the moment in a different way
than you can on stage.
And you can direct the audience's eye,
even more powerfully, I think, than you can on stage.
And sometimes the artist directs her own eye inward,
as she did in residues, a piece that aired on
Wisconsin Public Television.
Oh boy, I made that after the accident sometime.
And I was interested in investigating the relationship
between these two people.
And two people who are pretty intimate.
And one that maybe is not necessarily just loving.
So there's some different colorations, I think, of that
relationship in that piece.
Again, investigating a kind of physical, gymnastic,
acrobatic kind of, of partnering with lifts
and things like that.
And at the same time, finding, finding different ways
that these two bodies can be intertwined in
the spaces, you know, that are left around
them or between them.
Lee's artistic vision is shaping the next generation of dancers.
As an associate professor of dance at UW-Madison,
she's teaching the extreme moves that have become her signature.
They know that I'm really there to help guide them.
And as their guide, I can just take them on
these different journeys and show them some
possibilities and hope that they'll take the opportunity.
And I, you know, like my dancers, I try to inspire
them and push them.
As she has pushed herself.
In part, I mean, to be perfectly honest,
it's something that I struggle with.
It's something that I oscillate
between feeling, you know, very blessed to
have had the opportunity to grow from this
and learn from this.
But on the other hand, I, you know, sad and
angry about the loss that, for me, of my dancing in
the way that I had been dancing.
So it's something that I don't feel absolute
about in one direction.
I think that it's something that I can embrace more
readily at some times.
And then other times I sit in my grief.
I knew what she was going through.
I've written papers on the psychological aspects
of dance injuries.
Chao Ping's unique in that many people would not have come back
to full out dance and choreography after
that kind of an injury.
They would have maybe gone to yoga, one of
the somatic practices in order to continually
be involved in movement.
But she chose to come back as a dancer, performer,
and a choreographer.
And I think that determination that that
strength inside of her, that comes from some
psychological place that I'm almost not familiar with.
That's unique.
That is very special.
Lisa, as the accident, has given her a greater
sense of community.
She no longer sees herself in isolation.
Also, I feel like I am more interested in celebrating
humanity in my work.
So I'm more interested in not just the struggles of
the individual in our world, but also just celebrating
how all these individuals are doing that together.
That's our program for this week.
We leave you tonight with a different kind of video
postcard, pictures of pictures.
Late last month, officials at the Wisconsin
Historical Society learned that rare photos of Frank
Lloyd Wright's original house in Spring Green
were for sale on eBay.
The house is called Taliesin I.
Few photos exist because most went up in flames when
the house burned in 1914.
When the photos were discovered, a fast
fundraising effort began.
Three weeks and $22,000 later, the Historical Society
won the online auction.
Tonight, a look at the photos that are on display
at the State Capitol.
Thanks for joining us.
Good night.
[MUSIC]
Very, very few images of Taliesin I were made.
It stood for only two and a half years and then was burned.
[MUSIC]
This is the Rosetta Stone for looking at Wright's
development as an architect for himself, an architect
will lavish more attention on buildings for himself
than he does on buildings for other people.
[MUSIC]