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Theresa Ruth Howard Dancer/Writer/Teacher Theresa Ruth Howard began her professional dance career with the Philadelphia Civic Ballet Company at the age of twelve. Later she joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem where she had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Africa. She has worked with choreographer Donald Byrd as a soloist in his staging of New York City Opera's Carmina Burana, his critically acclaimed Harlem Nutcracker, as well as the controversial domestic violence work The Beast. She was invited to be a guest artist with Complexions: A Concept in their 10th anniversary season. In 2004 she became a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance. As a writer Ms. Howard has contributed to Russell Simmons’ One World magazine (art), and The Source (social politics), as well as Pointe and Dance Magazine. While teaching in Italy for the International Dance Association she was asked to become a contributor for the premiere Italian dance magazine Expressions. Her engaging, no nonsense writing style caught the eye of both the readers of Dance Magazine and its Editor in Chief who not only made her a contributing editor and has collaborated with Ms. Howard in See and Say Web-reviews. Her articles about body image prompted her to develop a workshop for young adult (dancers and non-dancers) My Body My Image that addresses their perceptions both positive and negative about their bodies and endeavoring to bring them closer to a place of Acceptance and Appreciation. She recently launched a blog by the same name to reach a broader audience (mybodymyimage.com) As a teacher Ms. Howard has been an Artist in Residence at Hollins University in and New Haven University in addition to teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, Marymount, Shenandoah, and Radford Universities, and the historical American Dance Festival. As a result of her work at ADF Ms. Howard was invited to Sochi, Russia to adjudicate the arts competition Expectations of Europe and teach master classes, and in Burundi, Africa where she coached and taught the Burundi Dance Company. Currently she on faculty at The Ailey School but also extensively throughout Italy and Canada. Ms. Howard's belief in the development, and nurturing of children lead her to work with at risk youth. At the Jacob Riis Settlement House in Queensbridge New York, she founded S.I.S.T.A (Socially Intelligent Sisters Taking Action) a mentoring program for teen-age girls where she worked to empower them to become the creators of their destinies. In addition she developed a dance program, which lead to an exchange with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Through her teaching and travels Ms. Howard began to observe a universal disenchantment and disconnection in teenagers that disturbed her, thus she set out to address it. Combining her philosophies of life and teaching, with the skills she garnered through outreach programs with diverse communities, she developed the personal development workshop Principles of Engagement: Connecting Youth to the Infinite Possibilities Within which gives teens a set of workable tools to increase their levels of success at tasks, and goals not only in dance, and all aspect of their lives. Theresa Ruth Howard is certainly diverse and multifaceted as an artist, and is moved to both write and create work; however she sees every student she encounters as a work in progress, and the potential to change the world one person at a time. The only was to make this world a better place it to be better people in it!

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Is Photoshop Destroying America’s Body Image?

I have to say, I have to so a mental double take when I look at billboards and advertisements. I have already shared the head trip that the H&M bikini ad put me through! clearly it effects me here is what Dr. Vivan Diller had to say

Hosted by Huffington Post
by Vivian Diller, Ph.D. Psychologist, author of “Face It,” speaker on issues about beauty and aging.

Has Photoshop gone too far? Kate Winslet and Brad Pitt are among several public figures who think so and the American Medical Association (AMA) is now backing them up.

Winslet was one of the first to break ground when she took action against GQ magazine for digitally altering her body in its photographs — making her unrealistically thin. Pitt requested that there be no retouching on his W magazine cover, personally selecting, Chuck Close to shoot it, a photographer known for his extremely detailed portraits that expose skin flaws. While most people dream of magically removing their pounds and wrinkles — and some celebs demand it — more and more are seeing Photoshop as dangerous terrain.

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently announced it was taking a stand against image manipulation in advertising, stating that alterations made through processes like Photoshop can contribute to unrealistic body image expectations, eating disorders and other emotional problems. Surprisingly, professional and public reactions are mixed.

One eating disorder specialist, Carrie Arnold, reacted with “show me the evidence.” In her piece, “What’s Photoshop Got to Do With It,” she quotes the AMA as saying “a large body of literature” exists linking media exposure to eating disorders, but after Arnold did her research, she found little scientific evidence to support the statement. The studies AMA cited just don’t connect Photoshop to diagnosable eating disorders, as spelled out by the DSM-IV. She writes, “We don’t think ads for disinfectant somehow promote OCD. We also don’t think that those Bluetooth headsets promote schizophrenia because it looks like you’re talking to yourself.” Condemning Photohop may make for a good media story, but Arnold questions its validity.

In a post here entitled “Photoshop Isn’t Evil,” Elizabeth Perle wrote that her “knee jerk reaction to hearing this news was a long, exaggerated eye roll.” The AMA’s statement against Photoshop, she believes is “too little too late,” adding it “frankly might make it worse for models, actresses, singers and other performers, for whom the pressures to alter their bodies will only be heightened.”

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Designer Nicola Formichetti says “That was the last time I worked with fat people” was a misquote….

Tuesday the newly named creative director of Mugler Designer Nicola Formichetti was quoted in W magazine as saying:

One shoot, which involved dressing a rock band, was particularly unfortunate. “I was only used to dressing models and skinny kids,” he recalled. “And I turned up and it was, like, three fat guys. I just left. That was the last time I tried to work with fat people. I think one of them was Ali G’s brother. It was so ghetto.”

Now he is saying that his words were twisted and he was misquoted by the fashion rag. If in fact he did say this it would be in direct contradiction to the philosophy and mantra of his one of his largest clients, as he is the creative designer for “Born this Way” Lady Gaga.

After the article came out and plus sized models and I am assuming many “fat” people were offended he took to his social networking outlets to “clear up” the matter. The self proclaimed “Gemini,” he said—“I’m a two-faced bitch!” had this to say on his offcical Facebook page:


The text says “I know I should just leave it…but I hate when writers write whatever they want “I don’t work with fat people” why would someone say such a thing!?

I don’t know you tell US. Ok Here’s the thing I don’t know if he said it or not, but I can image those words floating uncensored out of a designers mouth it has happened before, whether slightly in jest or in totally candidness. I can also image that the concept of being “Misquoted” being WTF did I say PR damage control. Either way we should all learn to watch our words.

Dance Studio, Uncategorized

Lynne Greenberg Interview Part 2


Little did I know but Lynne was a dancer! as a teenager she studied intensely but felt that her body was not right (her feet and hips) we talk about her perceptions of herself then and post accident. She talks about her relationship to our 3 principles of the body Acceptance, Appreciation and Respect. Clearly she as a very intimate understanding of what those three things mean. Listen and learn…I did.

for more information on Lynne Greenberg and The body Broken click here

Dance Studio, Uncategorized

Meet Body Hero Author Lynne Greenberg- The Body Broken

I can not express how excited and honored I was to be able to sit with Body Hero Lynne Greenberg to discuss some of the reasons why I chose her for our Body Hero of the week, and let me tell you it was so much more than I could have asked for. There is such a grace and elegance about her, and her ready smile and sense of humor are delightful. When asked to recount what happened that fateful day she literally fell of a cliff she simply tells the story, when asked how, so calmly she can speak of it her answer embodies the all of the life lessons the accident has taught her. She is such an endearing, authentic person I only wish that you could have been sitting with us so that you could see and feel what she is saying. In this first section we talk about the metaphor of falling that she so eloquently uses in The Body Broken a Memoir to describe her actual fall during the car crash and her descent into a world of pain…

Guilty (but forgivable) Pleasures

Plastic Surgeon on Call for Prince Williams Polo Match!

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It must be nice. I will tell you the t’ruth there are days when I wish I could have a glam squad and plastic surgeon on speed dial to spackle me back together, this is truly how the other half (or fourth) lives!!!

L.A. NOW

Southern California — this just in

Royal visit: Prince William, the polo match and the plastic surgeon [Updated]

July 6, 2011 |  7:01 am
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http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2011/06/12/article-1307912491829-0C879B8A00000578-137739_466x310.jpg

Prince William has a plastic surgeon reserved for his upcoming visit to Southern California — but, no, he’s not getting any work done.

Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Toby Mayer will be on standby at the charity polo match Prince William will participate in Saturday afternoon at the Santa Barbara Polo Club. Mayer’s job? Making sure that if the Duke gets hurt he’s quickly taken care of.

Mayer, a polo player himself, said he was pleased that Buckingham Palace had asked him to help. “I’m very happy,” he said.

“But I’ve been doing this for 30-some years, so I’ve sewn up the great and the near-great.” Should an injury happen, Mayer said, it would most likely be a laceration — a stray ball or mallet can often swipe a player in the face.

The doctor continues:

Mayer said he wasn’t worried about potentially treating William.

“My practice is a celebrity practice, so I’ve done face lifts and more complex things on very, very famous people who earn their living in front of a camera,” Mayer said. “So that doesn’t make me nervous.”

The 30-plus-year polo player paused. “Hitting a penalty shot at the end of the game makes me nervous,” he joked.

Prince William and his wife, Catherine, are scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Friday, and will stay until Sunday evening.

 

 

 

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Chronic Pain and Body Image- Body Hero Lynne Greenberg

As a work my way through Lynne Greenberg’s The Body Broken I can’t help trying to put myself in her position. She describes with great detail (and little emotion – which helps- believe me) some of the painful procedures she endured in an effort to quell her pain without result. We are talking about NUMEROUS injections in her SPINE! I can’t fathom an epidural during child birth!!! But to have a needle plunged into your spine like weekly with no anesthesia? The thought makes my teeth itch. I swear I couldn’t do it, but then I think, Lynne probably never in a million years thought that she would be able to endure all that she has, physically, emotionally and spiritually until she had to. This is why the human spirit is so amazing!

For years I have had a chronic pain in my hip (nothing I am sure that can compare to Lynne’s pain but it’s real to me). Sometimes after rehearsal and now after teaching I count my steps (literally) until I can collapse on the couch. Often people will ask me “Are you limping?” I brush it off by saying that I always limp,  and to a certain extent I do- or I have. It’s amazing to me that I have (almost without thought) learned to live the pain that is  a combination of age and injury. What gets me though (in my head) is not the pain, but the look of my limping, when I catch a glimpse of reflection in the ubiquitous glass fronts of the buildings in New York and see that my torso is pitched forward to compensate for my inability to let my right leg extend fully behind me it rattles me. I think that I look old, frail, decrepit. It’s ego.  When I see myself this way I immediately try to straighten up (increasing the pain) in an effort to look—unbroken.

When I first learned of The Body Broken I had no idea that on a level it would be telling a part of my own story, and giving me the strength and tools to travel my own journey. A huge thanks to body hero Lynne Greenberg!

A true Body Hero…

 

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Tom Ford talks China, Beauty and says Americans are FAT!

 

Well I have to say we are some big folks, and in the last decade we have gotten bigger. Not to be a size-ist as a cue to country we are getting larger due to poor dietary habits, we have awful diets. The thing that bothers me most is that I see so many over weight  children. Poor diet is just a part of it, in this technological age we move less. I bet if there was a study done, we would see that where our waistlines have expanded, our thumbs (from texting and video games) have gotten quite slim!(but we will get to that later. The Huffington Post talked to Tom Ford about his new line and other things and here is an excerpt:

Time Out Hong Kong caught up with Tom Fordto discuss his upcoming film (he mainly kept mum), pressures of the fashion industry and losing perspective (he now flies “on some commercial planes”) and the industry’s obsession with China.

Writer Kawai Wong asked Ford about his decision to cast top Asian models Liu Wen and Du Juan in his spring/summer presentation, to which Ford responded, “Well, both of them I don’t know very well personally, so I chose them for pure physical beauty. Women with strong character. With strong look.” And when pressed further by Wong — “Do you think people regard these Chinese women as beautiful because of their perceived Western features?” — Ford remarked:

No. I think, and don’t take this the wrong way, all of your questions have a very odd racist slant, because you have grown up here. And don’t take that the wrong way; it’s not a negative thing at all. Honestly, growing up in America and Europe, I don’t think as racially as the questions you are asking.[…]

But I was talking about the Western perceptions of beauty in the Asian face. The yardstick that people measure or judge beauty…

[Interjecting again] I find a lot of different women beautiful. Some women, you know…I hate Jewish girls having their noses done. […] I see beauty, or maybe less beauty. But within every race there are very beautiful examples.

Personally I thought it was a valid question and where Ford’s answer seems copacetic It sounds a bit like avoiding the question especially when Asians, and people of color in general are underrepresented in the fashion industry, and when they are present they do tend to have a more Eurocentric look. so…

Writer Kawai Wong asked Ford another interesting question for Time out Hon Kong

Recently Vogue used a full Asian cast for a shoot. Givenchy also introduced a full Asian cast for their haute couture show. Do you think it’s interesting to see what designers and editors really think about Asian models?
Asia has become a more important market and the 21st century is the Chinese century I think. Chinese Vogue is the number two Vogue in the world now. So [from] a business standpoint it’s only logical. Maybe people who didn’t get it before [slams the sofa with his hand] are getting it now, and they are thinking we’re selling to a country and we need to appeal to their aesthetic of beauty. I think that I’ve actually always understood a reason for diversity in everything I’ve ever done.

 

On whether his line will fit everybody:

Well, I have to say if we have to talk about things like this, Americans are too fat. And in London they are starting to get fat too. So I have to say that if we have to talk about race system and nationalism, I find it refreshing that everyone [who is] Chinese is slim. The only thing we changed [at Gucci] was the width of the nose bridge on eyeglasses because it won’t fit an Asian nose if it’s made for someone’s nose like mine.

I have to say that I think that Tom Ford is a fine specimen of a man but he has always come off a bit pompous  and aloof to me. I would have liked to have heard what he really felt about some of thee questions Kawai Wong posited.

Clearly I did not believe his answers to be, let’s say “complete” but these are the questions that we the consumers who don’t see ourselves in the pages of these magazines and on runways want answers to.

read the rest here

In Your Words, Uncategorized

6 ways I feel good about myself- Makeda Roney

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Our Summer intern 16year old Makeda Roney shares 6 ways she make herself feel better. I love this and I think that everyone should make their own.

Once again I was surfing the web, searching different things like loving your body and I came across a site that talked about “6 easy ways to feel good about yourself ”. I found it very interesting because on my last posts I touched on the topic of loving yourself and your body the way it is. On the site their advice was a bit cliché but good, like exercising and doing things that you are good at to make yourself feel good. It gave me the idea to write my own ideas of 6 ways I that I  make myself feel good  based my experiences. So here is my version of 6 ways to feel good about yourself.

 

1.     When you wake up first thing in the morning, think positive thoughts about yourself.

This is pretty cliche, but it thinking positively really brings a whole new perspective, and helps to start your day off wonderfully. I used to wake up each morning and start off my day thinking negatively about my body and my weight because either I ate too much or I did not exercise enough the day before. To get a second opinion about my self, I would go look in the mirror and if I looked like I gained weight compared to the day before, then I would not feel good about my image and my day would be ruined. I ended up having many bad days from this constant morning assessment about my body and my image and I got tired of it  and I wanted to change it. So, I tried thinking positive thoughts, rather than negative ones about myself each morning and it turned my world around. For some reason, when I thought positively about myself each morning as I woke up, I would feel great and sometimes, I didn’t even have to look in the mirror for a second opinion about my image. I started having more good days than bad days each week and it made me a happier person.

 

2.     When you look in the mirror, try to thing positively about your reflection.

Like I said before, when I look in the mirror I automatically judge myself negatively wishing the mirror would show a different reflection, one that is pleasing to me. I would wish I was thinner or had more muscle tone. I would wish my hair was different or had cheek dimples. Being a dancer, I am always standing and dancing in front of the mirror, so I am constantly judging myself, no matter what, and most of the time those judgments would be negative, affecting my dancing poorly and made me self conscious about my body as well as my dancing. When I started taking Bikram yoga (which is also done in front of mirrors), one of my teachers, Adam, would always tell us things in class like “Find something in the mirror that you loved about yourself” or “When you look at yourself in the mirror though out the class, think good thoughts about your image” and that changed my perceptive on how I felt about my image when I looked in the mirror, not only in Bikram yoga, but also in dance class and everyday life. I started to link my image more and more and accept my body for how it is and I found myself being less self-conscious about my body, my image and my dancing.

3.     When you eat, don’t just eat things that taste good, but also eat things that make you feel good.

Stressing yourself out about the foods you eat is not such a great idea because it won’t help to make you feel good. Although, trying to fit some fresh foods into your diet, might help. It does for me! When I eat only cooked foods and don’t eat any fresh foods, I get really drowsy fast, my energy through out the day goes down and when I am sluggish I am more prone to  injuries. So I make sure that I have at least one meal (out of my three meals) that consists of fresh foods and then I feel great. It helps me to have more energy throughout the day, and I get really good sleep therefore I am not so drowsy all the time.

 

4.     Don’t compare yourself to anybody

Everybody is different, unique and beautiful in his or her own way and comparing yourself to other people doesn’t do you any good. It makes you feel bad about yourself. Being a dancer, I am constantly comparing myself to others, wishing I had their feet or their legs or their extension. Its overwhelming for me after a while because I work so hard to try and make my body or my dancing look like another persons, and it never fully succeeds because we are two different people with two different bodies. I have to realize that and just appreciate myself and what I have (body wise). I can still reach my goals, but I have to work with what I have and not feel depressed because my body doesn’t look like another persons.

 

5.     Find hobbies that make you feel good.

Finding hobbies that makes me feel good about myself takes my mind off of things, like my body and my image. The brain is one part of your body that is constantly used and sometimes it needs its rest. I like to go to yoga, to go swimming, listen to music, cook and read. (Dancing is not a hobby of mine, it is my future career, although dancing is another activity that really takes my mind off of things and makes me feel good, but I when I am training I still have to be critical of myself) After doing my hobbies, my brain feels rejuvenated and I can think a lot clearer. It feels good to have a clear mind every once in a while.

6.     Drink lots of water

Along with eating good foods, drinking water consistently is very important because it cleanses the body. During the summer, the only thing I tend to drink is water and all through out summer my body looks and feels good. Drinking water consistently makes me feel good because I am hydrated,  internally I it cleanses my insides,  and externally I don’t get blemishes all over my skin and my body so I look better plus I feel more healthy.

 

Those six points are my personal 6 feel good “dos” that I found out from my own experiences of trying to find ways to feel good about myself. I exercise those six points everyday and they help me tremendously with my self-consciousness. I feel great about myself more and more each day. But just because it works for me doesn’t mean it will work for everybody, so I hope that my 6 points are really helpful to some of you, they help me. It’s just something to think about

MR

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Tyra Banks in an Bikini

Where it might not be her Sports Illustrated body of old, what she’s working with at 38 years old ain’t nothing to sneeze at. I think she looks fantastic! We have all witnessed her weight fluctuations over the years and everyone remembers when she told the people who were calling her fat to “Kiss her FAT ass” on her show, but it looks like she has come to a good comfortable weight for herself. Realistically (even though she is on television) she is not on the runway anymore so there is no real reason for her to maintain that stick thin stature.

Truth be told one of the reasons she changed her career was because after puberty, when she started to get her curves she was told that she had to lose weight and instead of starving herself, she worked with her genes and became a Victoria Secret model (although these days they look a bit hungry) and a bathing suit model. I think that sends a great message to models, there is a space for you without starving yourself to be a size 0. I also appreciate the fact that often on America’s Next Top Model she supports the models that are not “plus sized” but just fuller when other panelist speak disparagingly about there bodies. Kudos to you m’ lady, work that bikini body, ALL of IT!

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Body Hero Lynne Greenberg’s The Body Broken (Excerpt)


Excerpt: Chapter 1
A Wilderness of Sweets

A wilderness of sweets . . . Wild above rule or art; enormous bliss.

-John Milton, from Paradise Lost

I live on Garden Place in Brooklyn Heights, New York. A sleepy idyll, forgotten in the crazy speed and riot of New York City, it rests outside of time and outside of the cacophony. Only one block in length, the street is made up of single-family town houses and brownstones. Someone usually has to die for a house to go on sale here. Tree branches overhang the street, flowering pink puffballs of cherry blossom in springtime. They create canopies over the children, who are permitted to play ball in the street without supervision. On warm evenings, they gather for capture the flag, skateboarding, and manhunt, screaming “Car!” and racing to get out of the way of the occasional interruption. Everyone on the block dutifully shovels the snow within hours of a blizzard, puts out the trash only on designated garbage days, and responsibly accepts FedEx packages for the neighbors. People’s window boxes change seasonally and predictably: mums in fall, evergreens in winter, daffodils in spring, geraniums in summer. If a baby wails late at night, a family goes on vacation, or a child gets into Harvard, the neighbors are the first to know. The street whispers safety, stability, understated affluence. There should be no failures on Garden Place or bankruptcies or terrors or tragedies. We like to play dress-up at nightmare only. Every Halloween, the block becomes the center of such a maelstrom. It takes off its apron and goes all dark and wild-but only for the night. Unlike people in other parts of the neighborhood, we wait to begin decorating our houses late that afternoon, as if to emphasize that misrule and mayhem, evil and chaos, only occur for one night here and will be exorcised by morning.

In a flurry of activity, we make over the street with only a few hours to spare. The ornamentation is not elaborate; most of the decorations were purchased a decade before and still retain a bit of dust from having been hauled out of the basement. Glow-in-the-dark skeletons hang in effigy out of second-story windows, clumsily carved pumpkins line the stoops, and cobwebs festoon the gates and trees. The homemade, somewhat tattered props suit our block: they shroud it, offering just the right sprinkling of decay and spook to transform the carefully maintained prettiness of our street.

At five o’clock sharp, street traffic is prohibited, and we officially open our doors. Lugging baskets filled with candy outside, every family on the block settles on the front stairs, adults with cocktails, children with macaroni and cheese. My family-my husband, Eric, and two children, Benjamin, thirteen, and Lilly, ten-always invites a crew of extended family and friends to join us. My only rule is that everyone who comes over that night should wear a costume. My love for my family rises exponentially every year as I see them struggle to comply with this rule. My usually elegant brother-in-law Nick permits us to swathe him in purple velvet swashbuckler attire. My mother-in-law, Maria, unrecognizably silly, giggles in a clown costume, while my refined sister Jeanne gets funky in seventies rainbow-colored Afro and platform shoes, and my brother- in-law David raps in a blue polyester tuxedo and bling. My children’s costumes, long discussed, carefully conceived, have evolved in response to their growing maturity: Tinker Bell transformed into a teenage rock star; a dalmatian devolved into Dracula. I tend to like wearing small touches only, usually accessories that somehow hint at my mood that year: a black pointy witch’s hat, crown, Mardi Gras mask, fairy wings.
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