body positivity for dance educators
How do we shift the tragedy that strives towards aesthetic impossibilities, irresponsible athleticisms and cruel cultural inheritances which have nothing to do with a moving body's merit?
How do we teach the value of life, the honour of all bodies?
Dance educators, moving artists, body philosophers, does it not start with us... Continue and evolve with us? Does it not start with guiding the bodies we teach, through example, respect, compassion and love for the first, most sacred space in which they dance? Empowerment of the bodies we engage with into BodyHonourâ„¢? And demonstrating that BodyHonourâ„¢ by not tugging at their weight, seeming 'inflexibility', and Goddess-given DNA, and refusing to teach through methods which insult the learner and recurringly instill fear and neglect?
How can we address the body issues of the world if we can't help to safely unlayer the very bodies in front of us daily? When will we stop this separatism that fuels disembodiment and violence of self, which feeds the plaguing lie of 'otherness'?
When will we stop perpetuating (b)othering the body, regarding the life that occupies a 'perfect body' as more valuable than that which resides in the 'othered' one?
---
Image taken from Draw Down Books, http://www.draw-down.com/
