Tag Archives: Creative Expression
Embodiment….What this is really about: Public Space
An important step in personal empowerment and creative growth lies in recognizing one’s own indisputable rights to this thing we call “Public Space.” Just as women have as much right to walk safely down the street as men, so-called “non-artists” have as much right to public expression, creativity, and sharing as those who call themselves “artists.” 
How often do we hear, “I can’t dance because I’m not a dancer” or “I look silly when I do {insert name of creative activity}” as excuses for not showing up expressively?
The good news is, when it comes to “art” and “beauty”, there is really no such thing as either. These things are arbitrary concepts we as a society make up continuously, so saying that becoming either one is a prerequisite to making oneself visible, is just as arbitrary.
What the heck is an artist anyway?
In a society in which everyone is sectioned off to exist beneath the fancy hats we call “skill sets”, based on a certain number hours spent on a very specific activity, some hats are expected to be “seen” while others aren’t. The title “artist” offers a strange permission-to-public-expression to those who claim it. But this imaginary invitation is just as made up as the word that offers it, so the line between those that claim the permission or title and those that don’t is just as imaginary.
Public expression and creativity is the right of everyone who is alive, and recognizing one’s own right to full voice and full posture in public space can be a profoundly empowering realization.
Embody yourself fully, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, every single day.
On Movement
When people think of dance they usually think of a certain structure, of choreography, of a time and a place and a ‘look’ that society has assigned to this thing we call ‘art.’ We are conditioned to think of it in this one narrow way, the way we are conditioned with anything else, internalizing our own society’s painfully specific representation of that which is movement.
When it comes to physical gesture and embodiment, we begin to think that any deviation from this ‘look’ is ‘ugly’ or ‘ungraceful.’ I’m ungraceful, we say, I can’t dance. However, that benchmark structure against which we are comparing our own physical gesture was created by somebody, in his or her body through movement that felt subjectively good. And just like an outfit might fit one person, you trying to adapt what worked for somebody else is like trying to wear a stolen outfit. It may work for your body, it may not. And whether is does or not doesn’t really matter.
I think that healing and empowerment through movement can come through through a dismissal of these arbitrary benchmarks and structures, this idea of falling out from under your brain and just moving. Moving the way your body wants to move and express itself without the rigid mindful skeleton of what looks good or what someone else told you to do, or what you’ve learned is ‘graceful’ or ‘attractive.’ Every single body is different. The body can create its own gesture of healing when given freedom of movement expression.
investigating reality 