A 12th Way to Body Blog

2007-06-11T10:21:00.001-07:00

Just dance.

Put on music, go outside or lock your bedroom door, move however you feel like moving. Record yourself for up to 1 minute, then follow instruction #2 in "Ways You Can Interact" in the right column on this page.

11 Thoughts to Body Blog With

2007-06-09T06:07:00.000-07:00

1. How do you feel right now? Is there something specific on your mind? Transfer that thought into a feeling, and let that feeling enter into your legs, arms, torso, fingers, and/or face. When you feel the impulse begin to move.

2. Most Body Blogs are 15-60 seconds. Go with your first instinct and let it out with as much conviction as you can. If it’s just one movement, keep repeating it until you find your physical message.

3. Respond to something in the news that really got to you. When you read it, did you feel it in you gut, cheeks, toes? Did your muscles tense or relax? Try to return to that feeling and communicate it through movement.

Today’s headlines from BBC News online:

Bush holds first talks with Pope
US President George W Bush has had his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Iraq condemns Turkish 'shelling'
Iraq has made an official protest to Turkey, accusing it of shelling Kurdish areas in northern Iraq this week.

Australia storm death toll rises
At least five people have been killed by heavy storms that are continuing to lash eastern Australia, officials say.

Shuttle heads for space station
Space shuttle Atlantis has launched from the US Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first mission of 2007.

Paris Hilton is sent back to jail
Celebrity heiress Paris Hilton has been taken screaming from a Los Angeles court after being told to return to jail to serve out her sentence.

Israel 'tests' Syria peace aims
Israel's government has sent secret messages to Syria about the possibility of renewing peace negotiations, the deputy prime minister has confirmed.

Cathedral row over computer game
The Church of England is considering legal action against entertainment firm Sony for featuring Manchester Cathedral in a violent computer game.

G8 leaders reach $60bn Aids deal
G8 leaders meeting in Germany have vowed to deliver on pledges to Africa, and agreed a $60bn (£30bn) package for fighting Aids, malaria and TB.

4. Meditate for five minutes or as long as you need. Once you’ve cleared your mind, what’s left? Listen to your body and let it speak.

5. If there was one message you wanted to deliver to the world what would it be? Are words sufficient? Usually not. How would you deliver that message with movement as your mode of communication?

6. Physical movement is a great mental release. Use your Body Blog as a mental release.

7. Respond to your favorite quote or passage or choose one of the following. When you read or recall the words, the thought, the message, the meaning, how it shapes who you are, where do you feel that in your body? What other thoughts and feelings does it lead to? How would those thoughts and feelings move? Share it with a bigger audience.

“Dance alone seems to me to need a real space.”
-Stephane Mallarme, French Poet and Critic

“Dance is like a poem uninscribed, or untraced. And dance is also like a dance without a dance, a dance undanced…Dance is a metaphor for thought precisely inasmuch as it indicates, by means of the body, that a thought in the form of its eventual surge, is subtracted from every preexistence of knowledge.”
-Alain Badiou, Prominent French Philosopher

“I just want real reactions. I want people to laugh from the gut, be sad from the gut-or get angry from the gut. “
-Andy Kaufman, Comedian

“He who will one day teach men to fly will have moved all boundary-stones; all boundary-stones will themselves fly into the air to him, he will baptize the earth anew—as the ‘weight-less’.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher

“I once spent a year in Philadelphia. I think it was on a Sunday.”
-W.C. Fields, American Juggler, Comedian, Actor

“I/ cannot say. I cannot say/ more than how.”
-William Carlos Williams, Poet
Quoted from Paterson

“It’s not on the one it’s not the mambo it’s a feeling a heartbeat.”
- said by Johnny in the movie Dirty Dancing

"I feel the function of the modern artist is precisely to shatter all taboos and that where the subject of the art work causes the most pain, that is where the artist is contributing the most to civilization."
-Camille Paglia, Social Critic, Intellectual, Author, Teacher
Quoted from Vamps and Tramps

“The participant's perspectives are clouded while the bystander's views are clear.”
-Chinese Proverb

8. Look around you. See your surroundings as a frame for your moving body or as movement itself. Describe that experience through your own movement.

9. Listen to your body. Is there a body part or area that feels more open or blocked? Work through that area with movement, small or large, whatever it takes, and try to take it to a better place. Use your Body Blog to share that progression with others.

10. Have a conversation with the camera, but do it with movement language. Or pretend that the camera is someone you need to talk to. Push yourself to move beyond typical gestures. Engage your entire body in the dialogue.

11. Exaggerate yourself. Do you have a characteristic movement trait? A heavy footed walk, a grimace, a certain way you swing your arms, enter a room, or sit down in a char? Take what you know about yourself and exaggerate it until it requires your entire body’s participation.

Body Blog: Info

A 12th Way to Body Blog

11 Thoughts to Body Blog With