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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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Habitat for YOUR Humanity

Fill your Tool Box! Build a better Sense of Self!

I have grouped all of the tools for your tool box here so you don’t have to search for them

What are Your Adjectives

Fill You Tool Box:
Stop the Intake of Information that Makes You Feel Bad


1) Stop the Intake–
You can barely open you eyes in the morning and not have someone trying to sell you something. The continuous ubiquity of marketing is impossible to escape, with product placement and soft subliminal plugs everywhere it’s not hard to know when you are being sold something, but discerning the “what” is often more difficult. The reality is- single products are not simply marketed- they are packaged; we are now being sold lifestyles. Like Island hopping cruises or European vacations. Buy this and you’ll look like that, and then this type of person will want to be with you while you drive this car to this house, and you will be beautiful, loved, well dressed and happy. It’s depressing and dangerous. The constant wanting never leaves room or time for one to be content. The desire to upgrade never has you appreciating what you have. Subsequently if you can’t afford it, or won’t ever look like it you end up feelings worthless and inadequate (or buying horribly telling bootleg knock offs).

Sometimes the best thing you can do is just stop. If fashion magazines are making you feel fat, ugly and style-less then why look at them? If lifestyle and gossip rags have you feeling like a loser don’t pick them up. Take a break – too much of the wrong stimuli can do major damage. This is one of the cases where what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Think about it, the point to all the marketing is to make you desirous of whatever the product or lifestyle is, it does not take into account that it may well be unobtainable or unrealistic for the masses- in fact it’s that very reality that it feeds on. If you are clueless you could well be “blues-less” sometimes in ignorance there really is bliss!

Where To Start:
Support the things that support you. Start looking for yourself in the world. T’ruth be told you may not find them. It’s important to note that just because you don’t see yourself does not mean that you are not valid and cease to exist in the real world- you just don’t in the land of make-believe. My rule is if you don’t see or acknowledge me, they why should I acknowledge you especially with my hard earned money. If I don’t exist in your world neither does my money. I’m not say you have to avoid fashion magazines for the rest of your life but just until you can learn how to not to let it affect you in bad way and put you in a negative space. It’s impossible to avoid it all but when you can- choose it not. Once you stop clouding your vision with things that give you the information that you are enough (thin, sexy, white, blonde) or too much (heavy, bland, dark) you might be able to, for the first time see what you truly are without the influence of certain media outlets. You might find out a truth that is quite powerful and empowering- you are fine, there is nothing wrong with you, you are not broken.

No one wants to feel like they are alone or the “only”. In order to see a version of your self in the world you might have to create patchwork Romare Bearden like collage of body parts and characteristic that relate to you. Society’s view is extremely narrow and purposefully exclusionary and we as individuals are far grander and much more broad and deep than its shallow sparse sketch. The key is to get that you are in control, you have the choice, but the key is that you have to utilize that power and control by consciously choosing, and not letting marketing strategies do it for you.

Second Tool: Mind Your Mental


2) Mind your Mental-
Your head can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Thoughts have power. Where you might not be able to bend a spoon with your thoughts you can make yourself depressed, or even sick with what you think. We have all heard the term perception creates reality well it’s true. The way you see yourself not only manifests physically but energetically as that is the vibe you give off to others. It’s a cycle you feel like crap you give off a crappy vibe and then people experience you as crappy. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Arrest the negative speak in your head like Americans Most Wanted! If the things we say to ourselves in our heads were said to us aloud by some else it would be seen as verbal abuse. We would never stand for it. Why should we let the person closet to us do it? Get out of that abusive relation ship with your mind. You can talk yourself into believing just about anything so stopping negative thought patterns before they take hold is paramount.

It’s not easy it- like everything else is a process and will take time but like anything else with practice you get better at it and mastery is possible with consistency.

Where to start:

The best place is at the beginning. Just start to observe when the negative thoughts fire-up, we all have our triggers learn yours so you can get the jump on yourself. Observe what the negative speak is about. With a little thought you might even be able to point where that idea slipped in. Was it something your mother or father said? A teacher? Friends? Or is it something you picked up from the images you take in everyday? (This will be more important is tool three) Don’t try to stop it so much at the start; you need to let it flow so you can get the Intel- so you can wipe it out. After you have a handle on your triggers, when it happens, why it happens and what the thought patterns are we are ready to take action.

Perhaps you stop focusing on what’s you don’t like or not working and shift to forcing yourself to see what is. It may start off as the smallest thing like – I have strong fingernails, and then it will expand to you seeing the beauty of your hands, your arms and perhaps you might see that your shoulders aren’t half bad. Hey it might not fix everything thing but there is so much in this world that is out of our control including who we are born to, and what genes we get, the one thing we can get a handle on are the thoughts in our heads. If your head isn’t on our side does it matter who else is?

Become a friend to your mind- you can have a head that supports you and doesn’t tear you down. It takes time but since your head isn’t going anywhere you might as well learn how to live with it, use it, and have it working for you.

Third Tool: Get Clear

3) Get Clear (About What’s Real)-
Your mind does play tricks on you. Take Anorexics, their minds tell them that at a weight as low as 85 pounds they are fat. Your mind can make your eyes play tricks on you. It can magnify the minutest of flaws into a deformity. It can create an obsessive preoccupation out of a freckle, a mole, or a fleeting zit. Once you start to lasso your negative thoughts about yourself, you can start to look at yourself objectively. I’m not saying that you put on rose-colored glasses and pretend that everything is perfect, but just take the hyperbole out of the equation. Yes you might be noticing some fine lines around your eyes but they don’t make you the crypt keeper. It’s important to get clear about what you really look like so that when you get to Tool 4 (Get Proactive) you are working on real things. To get a better perspective about where you really stand, start to take careful not note of the way people view you- what are the things they say about you- what are your adjectives? This could be a good clue. True- people lie but if ten people have the same view of you, then chances are that’s an accurate assessment.
There are a few things that make this tool a sort of Swiss army knife of tools. The first is the fact that in order to gather the views of others on you, it takes you out of your head. My yoga instructor says “Your head is like a bad neighborhood that you want to stay out of” and at times it’s true. The second is, by creating the opportunity to weigh what you are saying and feeling about yourself against what others are saying and see either how close- or far apart those two ideas are helps you gain perspective and balance. It will help you determine how off (or on track) you are. The third is that when you begin to actively listen to what people say- good things about you- or maybe just things that you hadn’t thought of about yourself, it will help you to “learn to hear” – and take compliments. Often we treat compliments like insults deflecting them with the skill of a gladiator. In order gather this information you might actually have to let a few compliments land- and be absorbed- and possibly take root.
Once you have stopped the negativity coming from the outside, you might well be able to hear and process some of the more balanced, accurate feedback the outside has to offer. These can be the seeds that once owned at take root will begin to re-shape your perspective and image of yourself.

Fourth Tool: Get Proactive


4) Get Proactive-
A problem stays a problem if you just sit around talking about it. Once you stop ingesting things (information) that makes you feel bad, and stop beating yourself up from the inside out, and gotten clear sited about who and what you truly are you can start to work on the things that can be changed. Not everything can be, your genes are your genes and your bones are your bones. If you are short you have to live with that (or live in a pump) Structurally you are what you are, for the most part your shape can be -redefined but your proportions are more than likely what they are i.e. if you are pear shaped you are pear shaped now you can be a smaller more toned pear but you can’t be a zucchini. Commit to making some choices and changes that are going to get you closer to being the best possible you you can be. It may not ever be what you want but knowing that you have done all you can to get to where you are is empowering and who knows perhaps at point that may just become good enough.


Where to Start:
Don’t want to be in shape- get in shape, take one step at a time make sensible, achievable goals don’t set yourself up to fail. If you have never seen the inside of a gym don’t make the declaration that you are going to start going to the gym 6 days a week. Slow and steady wins the race, and we are talking about a lifestyle change, from the inside out. If you know what you need to be doing stop BS and be about it- you’ll feel better in the long run. Sometimes our genes or hormones deal us things like crooked teeth, acne, and facial hair, things that can be embarrassing and debilitating. Things like dental work, and dermatology can cost a pretty penny especially if you have no health insurance but there are some economical ways of getting those things done (we will be talking about that more in Guilty but Forgivable Pleasures).

And for the record I am not ruling out “Procedures” wink wink. If getting your smile lines filled, an eyebrow lift or breast augmentation will really help get you to a better place with yourself- who am I or anyone else to judge? But know that the procedure is not a supplement for doing the work. If you don’t do the internal work, you may have a smooth forehead, ample décolletage, or a flat tummy and still feel the same way about yourself.

Your toolbox should help you get in touch with and take control of how you feel from the inside, recalibrate it and have it translate to what you and others see on the outside. It is empowering to know that you have the capability to create the best you that you can be. It will take work but if you acquire and learn how use all the of tool you can build a better body image for yourself.

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Shedding Trappings…


I recently found this article on the Huffington Post about Singer Eryrkah Badu, it talks about why ten years ago she shed the large head wraps that had become synonymous with her image here is what she said when speaking a reporter from Essence.com:

‘...she visited Cuba to get a Santeria reading, clad in “this white head wrap and this white long dress and all of my jewelry, because it was part of me. It was who I was.” She waited alongside a man with dirty nails, smoking a cigarette and swigging beer.

I finally went in for my reading and there was this beautiful older woman who had on a yellow long dress and short haircut. She was very pretty. She started walking around me and speaking to me in Spanish. I assumed she was the priest who was going to give me my reading.

When the guy with the beard and dirty nails came in, I told the interpreter, “I kind of wanted it to be private.” She goes, “Oh no, he’s the Priest.”

I never wore the head wrap again. I realized it wasn’t necessary anymore, because after all that man was from a long line of healers and he didn’t have to look like one. He was born with it. No matter what he did or what he said, no one could take that away from him. That’s when I was freed and began to evolve. I began to focus on being more in here than out there.

I find this interesting on many levels. The first has to do with Badu’s garb itself. She blew up in the mid-90’s when there was a resurgence of the idea of “Black is Beautiful” and Embrace my African Roots was in full effect. Black men and women ( I say this because it was not only African but West Indian Americans and a mixture of anything else you can image) were shaving their heads, twisting locks, wearing cowerie shells and indigenous garb from where ever their roots or hearts tied them. Personally I thought this was an era when Black people looked their best (in my lifetime) there was a naturalness and ease to the beauty and confidence that they were exuding, it didn’t matter if your hair was an afro, twists, braids, locks, or relaxed… I might add that this was a time before the Yaki Silky extensions and front lace wigs were ubiquitous (not saying that there is anything wrong with that but we can all agree that it is not the most natural look out there) women had extension and weaves for sure, but the idea was that you weren’t supposed to know- you had to look closely for a track, or a change in texture between what was hers and what she bought.

It was a magical time in New York for people of color, we were in Vogue again, and we were feeling ourselves wonderful and beautiful, and the music was a reflection of what was going on, Erykah Badu, had her wrap and Maxwell his Afro and it was all good. The only (slight) downside was, that in our community your hair and style was perceived by some as political position, an outward indicator of whether you were “down” or not. That to me was the one annoying part, because my hair has never a reflected my politics or belief system. The head wrap was a prevalent accessory for women of color in the 90’s (just to clarify I am talking about my experience of what was happening in New York) That “Afrocentric” look came out of Brooklyn Flatbush, a West Indian, African, Black Artist Bohemian Mecca at the time. I lived Harlem and rock every look from a double strand twist, to a large afro or head wrap and when ever someone asked me where I lived they always though I must be from Brooklyn. Erykah lived in Brooklyn and studied under a woman named Queen Afua who was spiritualist and holistic healer known for her cleanses and colonics. Queen dressed in traditional African garb wore and Ankh in the middle of her forehead suspended from her widow’s peak, and was a strict vegan. I became acquainted with Queen at the 10 street Russian Bathes where back in the day Women’s day was all day Wednesdays, Queen would come their with the groups she ushered through their fasts to steam.
When Badu first came out I loved the idea of her but the coded messages in her music that referred to the 5 percent Nation was a bit of a turnoff, mainly because I have experienced the practices to be separatist, but the movement which blossomed out of the Nation of Islam has at it’s root, at it’s heart if you will, the desire to infuse Black people with pride, and self love. So it stands to reason that when Black people started emanating this beauty, power and strength from within themselves and the community, that a sect like the 5 Percent Nation should see a resurgence as well. It was everywhere, the philosophies are all through the work of Wu Tang Clan music as well. But I digress a bit what I was getting at was that when Erykah Badu hit the scene in her head wrap that kept getting bigger and bigger at a point I thought it was overkill, like she was trying to hard to sell it- not the look but what was supposed to be the spiritual belief behind it. So when I hear her say now, the thing that made let go of the head wrap and other trappings was that she realized that it was about being it, not wearing it I am moved. I suppose that, her sub rosa feeling of playing dress up was really what I was reacting to when she first came out I just felt that it was a show more than an authentic way of being.

It matters little where we come from or how we got there, the most important part is that we arrive. I am so
happy that she has arrived, at her Self. It is an important lesson that sometimes the “trappings” are props, a means to an authentic end. Whether it’s clothing, hair styles, cars, homes or partners, getting to the t’ruth of one’s self is the objective. It is my belief that the essence of every individual is inherently beautiful, worthy, and just, the trappings and wrappings are just a way we as those individuals come to understand and subsequently own that birthright…

*The 5 Percent Nation a religious sect that “sees the world population divided into three groups: 85% of the people are blind to the knowledge of themselves and God, while 10% of the people know the truth but teach a lie for their personal gain; seen as part of this 10% are religious leaders that teach that God is an incorporeal being (hence the term “mystery God”). The 10% can also include the governments and corporations of the world that deceive and mislead the majority of the world through most of the available media outlets. The remaining 5% are the “poor righteous teachers” — those who do not subscribe to the teachings of the 10% as they know and teach that God is the BlackMan of Asia. Asia refers to the whole planet Earth, or Pangaea.” Wikipedia

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Creating Body Image: When Parents are the Problem

A month or so ago we endured Britney Campbell the mother who told Lara Spencer that she injected her 8 year old daughter with Botox for her wrinkles. When it first aired I think the whole world was incredulous, out raged and in disbelief. As it turned out, our disbelief was well in order as it was in fact a scheme to gain notoriety. Where most of us were at first relieved our minds quickly went to questioning “What woman, what mother coaches her daughter to participate in such a scheme?” After the truth was uncovered, the idea of injections didn’t seem so bad when we were faced with the idea that a child was in the care of a person who had no compunction as to enroll a 8 year old child in such and outlandish hoax. At least the injections could be stopped, but the mental damage done to that impressionable child’s concepts of morals and values is harder to mend.

There seems to be a rash of questionable parenting choices of late, I would be remiss if I did not mention Sarah Burge the woman known as the “Human Barbie” who gave her daughter Poppy a voucher for breast augmentation surgery as a birthday present. The child was turning seven, (just a year shy of needing Botox).


$10,000 as birthday present. I have to say when I read this unfortunately I was not surprised, after all she is a women who has made it her mission to look like a plastic, unrealistic anatomically amplified doll could you really expect anything less? This was sad but understandable. It has always astounded me that one needs a license to drive but any anyone so long as physically capable can bear, and raise children. When I was a child if I was behaving badly my mother would ask “Why are you acting like you were raised by wolves?” Well upon hearing some of this stories I can only wonder if some of these children would be better of in the wild. There are some very loving and nurturing wolves who take their job of teaching their young to fend for themselves quite seriously.

The latest news to hit the circuit is the story that Suri Cruise, yes the daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes , is a teeny tiny Imelda Marcos, due to the fact that she has a shoe collection that is worth at least $150,000. SHE IS FIVE YEARS OLD! reports say that Suri is “a massive fan of Marc Jacobs and she’s had several shoes custom-made, so if they didn’t come with a heel, Katie had them redesigned for Suri. She commissioned a pair of Louboutins for her a while back!”

Tell me who does that? Who allows a child of 5 wear heels on a daily basis? who actually ORDERS shoes MADE with a HEEL for a FIVE YEAR OLD? Where it is not injecting your child with Botox or implanting the idea of implants in her head it is creating an idea and concept of beauty, of woman, of what it is to be a woman. I have seen many pictures of Suri Cruise in her kitten heels, I have seen her inappropriately dressed for the weather carrying various things like blankets and dolls, and penis shaped Gummie treats, ( Ok Katie explained that one… sort of) but I have never seen her carrying a book. Not to say that she doesn’t have them, or that she doesn’t love them but I am not hearing how Katie Holmes if ordering first editions for her daughter. Just sayin’
And another thing What does a 5 year old know of Marc Jacobs, she should be fan of Dora the Explorer. Who is the parent here? Wolves, I tell you wolves may just be the answer, because we are surely going to the dogs.

The article continues:
They added that Suri is insistent in her fashion choices, turning to tears if she doesn’t get her way.

‘Even when she’s going to play dates or walking on the beach, she cries if Katie reaches for anything but a little pair of sandals with some sort of heel.’
Really?

It seems to me that some the issues we are talking about here stem from a warped sense of beauty, femininity and the trappings of luxury. Yes I say luxury because the edicts of beauty of late have been reformed by what money can buy. No longer is the concept of natural beauty lauded. Where natural beauty is acknowledged and rewarded, in the new millennium, the real modern beauty embodies the aesthetic of Bionic Woman. She is a made woman with a beauty that has been bought. It is somewhat required as an upgrade of sorts. Through augmentation, tailoring, tapering, filling, plumping, reducing, and defining, you can buy the “look” you desire, or the “look” of the moment. If your physical re-sculpting doesn’t do the trick then you can always wear your beauty, with the right shoes, bag, and drag you can, by proxy of your vestments be considered a “beauty” and granted monikers like “Fashionista” and in time graduate to “Fashion Icon”. These are important titles as they have the magical power as liberators, they free the women branded from bearing the cross of having to be “beautiful”, or talented, and even wait for it…thin!

The connection between beauty-luxury/money is important to recognized because on a level it eradicates the luck of the draw factor of the gene pool, you can be the child of two homely people, and even be homely yourself but if you parents are two people of stature or means then you have the possibility of being considered a “great” beauty. Where genes made beauty an inheritance in the souped up hyper-linked society we live in you can go from obscurity to international infamy in days, be branded within months and be a millionaire inside of a year and be elevated on the beauty scale almost immediately. The way it works and the speed with which it works is mind blowing. The adage “Dress for the job you want not the job you have” applies here. If you you look like a stripper porn star that Charlie Sheen might crown Goddess, you’re half way there…

The thing about this link between beauty and luxury/money is that it is truly American, because you only have to create the illusion of wealth,it matters little if it is real. To have the trappings, to create the “look” of luxury, therein beauty is often enough to make people feel better about their actual circumstances. It sounds like the root of our financial crisis to me… Fake it until you make it or break it which ever comes first!

So Suri and her ridiculous shoe collection, (and the fact that we know about it) and the mother who wants to be famous so much that she would coerce her eight year old daughter to go on national television and lie about worrying about having wrinkles and being injected with botox (in hopes of what? getting a reality show?) to the “human barbie” who gives her “Skipper” daughter breasts in a box as a pre-pre teen birthday gift (that just reminded me of the Skipper doll I had that when you rotated her arm she grew breasts- I digress)) it’s all about the look of things. Clearly Tom and Katie have the obscene amount of money to afford such trifle but for most of the people who are trying to “keep up with the Jones” they can’t afford it (and t’uth be told neither can the Jones) The larger issue is that it starts the cycle that begins with I am not enough, I need x, y, or z to be better or feel better. It creates a superficial relationship to Self by only addressing the external, by putting the emphasis on looks, and what one wears. In a way having body image issues it is a natural by product of living in our society and bombarded by the media and it’s commercialized images of the body, albeit those issues used to be something that evolved and developed as we did, generally picking up speed and power in junior high, high school. But to have parents who somehow aid in creating these ideas in the heads of vulnerable, impressionable young girls as young as 8,7, and 5… well this is unconscionable. The t’ruth is that sooner or later we are going to end up with body image issues, but when parents start giving them to children as if they are gifts, we are better off being suckled by wolves.

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Dance Studio, Donnish Delights

Respect In Retrospect- Catherine Cabeen

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It is my pleasure to present to you Seattle based dancer/choreographer Catherine Cabeen’s first contribution to My Body My Image. I have long been a fan of her dancing and just recently upon seeing her choreography at Joyce SoHo I was once again won over. However it was my interview with her prior to her performances that moved me to ask her to contribute to the blog. I was awed by her submission, the candor and courage with which she shares her body experience is powerful, insightful and thought provoking. Sometimes the most simple and obvious of truths are the hardest to articulate but Catherine has a way in her writing (much like in her dancing and choreography) of telling her story with clarity and force. It is my honor to welcome her into the forum!!!

Respect In Retrospect-
by Catherine Cabeen

A few weeks ago, I spoke with forthright Theresa Ruth Howard about the body. In particular we discussed the large female body and how being called “too big” affects young female dancers. It was a stimulating conversation and one that left me pondering how drastically our perceptions of our bodies change during our lifetime.

I am absolutely a dancer who can attest to the damage done by eating disorders. My late teens and 20s were rife with in- and out- patient clinics for anorexia and bulimia. I was kicked out of college so that the school couldn’t be held liable for the impending heart attack they saw coming in my obsessive self-starvation. After leaving college I went to a professional training program for dance, which celebrated my emaciation with a scholarship. At 5’10’ and 105 lbs I was terrifying my family, but getting roles in the student ensemble. Needless to say, this was confusing. The dance world’s celebration of unhealthy aesthetics made the road to health long and professionally treacherous. As I fought to understand the balance between eating and fitness, and to develop an understanding of the simultaneous interconnectivity and separation of dance and life, I also had to weigh my own physical survival against professional success. However, when I think about the issue of body image in relation to size now, I find myself furious. I am sad that thousands of young people have been physically and emotionally hurt by our culture’s obsession with thinness and the dance world’s perverse amplification of that aesthetic. But far overpowering my sorrow is anger, because our getting hurt was SUCH A WASTE OF TIME!!!

Now that I have sat with friends who have lost legs and breasts to cancer, now that my friends young and older have gone before their time, now that my own body has experienced injuries so severe that I’ve had to relearn how to walk several times, to hate the body because of what it looks like seems like an obscene luxury. This collection of flesh and blood that we move through and conduct with spirit and desire, is not a burden, it is a gift, and a gift that we are given only briefly. To be able to dance is a freedom that we can enjoy for a short time in our life while we are “temporarily able-bodied.” How is it that in a life so precious and fragile, we have convinced so many young girls to be so obsessed about their looks? This obsession is nurtured to become so all consuming that many young women don’t have time or energy to dedicate to work they could be doing to feed their spirits, let alone to help their communities and environments improve. Our world currently needs creative solutions to chronic problems, but creativity takes energy. If, in order to fit into a size 2, youth don’t literally feed their minds, our culture will stagnate in its attenuated numbness. We need to encourage each other to focus our energy on using what we are, rather than judging what we are. Otherwise we will continue to fetishize the surface of things and, in doing so, miss the brief opportunity we have in this lifetime to experience our own vitality.

In addition to revealing the fact that our bodies are a temporary gift, not a messy cage, life has provided me with several opportunities in the last decade to understand the incredible value of physical resources. I lost my job and home in the recent economic crisis, and not long after, I began to have trouble affording food. ACTUALLY not having enough to eat has revealed dieting in particular, to be a first world solution to a first world problem. A great deal of the planet is desperately fighting to find enough to eat. In this world with dwindling natural resources, how dare we lament the temptation in our swollen supermarkets?

In America in 2011, we don’t so much live in a time of plenty, as one of unconscious insulation. Mega-stores and super-markets, bursting with growth hormones and genetically modified, pre-packaged “engineered nutrition,” have masked the on-going environmental devastation that our cultural obsession with instant gratification is causing. By producing and shipping food products in ways that deny human rights or environmental protection, America is masking its own poverty. Imported, out of season, greenhouse crops and super-sized “foods” are illusions of wealth that are in fact creating new diseases of overindulgence. The diet industry banks on the confusion that has been induced by culturally celebrating quantity over quality in American food products. In this self/culturally-imposed struggle, we lose track of the innovative work of redistribution of wealth that we could be doing to make the world a better place. Perceiving the human body as a celebrated sense organ connects us to other human life, as well as the life of the planet. Acknowledging this interconnectivity, and the responsibility it implies, exposes the real cost and luxury of the foods we eat.

Though Eating Disorders gave me a temporary respite from being called “too big,” I was still “too tall,” “too loose,” “too emotional…” There didn’t seem to be any escape for being too something in the dance world. Now having studied dance history I know that being “too” anything is actually always what catapults choreographers into the history books. Though we might get jobs in the field for looking like someone else, the movers and the shakers in the field do so because they don’t fit into the status quo, or the costume that’s already on the hanger. Modern dance is a history of idiosyncrasy and rebellion, a celebration of self-representation in defiance of being culturally silenced. This revolution takes calories.

I was incredibly fortunate to be introduced to yoga in the depths of my self inflicted struggles with my body weight, and it remains an anchor in my understanding of balance and wellness. On my road to recovery a yoga teacher said something to me that has always stayed with me, “Your body is the channel for your spirit.” She said, “And if you don’t take care of the channel, your spirit won’t be able to do what its meant to do in this lifetime.”

May we all find ways to support our own spirits and, by living in love with our bodies, give others permission to do the same.

Read my Review of Cathrine Cabeen and Company

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The 10 Commandments Of Realistic Beauty

I love these and many of them fit into the philosophy of My Body My Image!
Hosted by Huffington Post

By Robert Tornambe, M.D. NYC Plastic Surgeon and author of “The Beauty Quotient Formula”

What is realistic beauty? It is an alternative — and far more appropriate — interpretation of beauty, differing from society’s mainstream, shallow, airbrushed definition. Realistic beauty is a healthy and satisfying concept regarding the way you look and feel.

The concept involves the understanding that true beauty emanates from a combination of physical and mental qualities, working together to create the best version of you. It is all about changing for the better, learning to recognize and analyze your good points and understanding how they perpetuate your own, personal beauty. It involves regaining your sense of self so that you can effortlessly radiate confidence, competence, contentment and charisma. Every one of us possesses realistic beauty.

The 10 commandments listed below can serve as a realistic foundation or attitude towards
achieving satisfying and realistic beauty.


Faye Dunaway once said “the best thing for beauty is just being happy.” You could be the most gorgeous woman in the world, but if you’re down on yourself you will not look wonderful. Owning your beauty means that you accept and recognize the beautiful traits that you already possess. It also means that you build upon that foundation by enhancing and maximizing your best features. This allows you to be confident in your own skin.

for the other 9 jump!

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Vogue Italia’s Franca Sozzani speaks more on the +sized Cover!

I tell you the more I learn about her the more I love her here is some of what she said to New York Magazine

Historically you haven’t featured many plus-size models in the magazine. Why are you doing this now?
I’m doing it now because I did this petition against the pro-anorexia websites, and this petition in a way is going up every day, because now 9,000 signed the petition, and most of them, the people anyway in the comments, they say, “Yes, you are doing this petition, but you only use skinny girls on the runway, in the magazines, so what do you want to teach us?” So I said, I will show you, I will use beautiful women — curvy. And so we did it because they all say Italian Vogue would never do it.

But why haven’t you — and the rest of the fashion industry, for that matter — featured women who were plus-size with any regularity at all over the past couple of decades?
It was skinny, skinny, skinny, and more skinny for so long. Even though plus-size girls are much more visible now than they had been, skinny models unquestionably dominate the casting circuit.
Because I think it’s a mentality. Let’s say, for example in the eighties, beauty was very sporty, very healthy, and we arrived at the supermodels: They had hips and butts, and they were really women, and that started this long wave of teenagers whose bodies are still not shaped, most of them. And immediately they thought the skinnier you are, the more beautiful. All in fashion are victims — the media, even myself, even the runways — of the beauty of the moment.

The new issue makes me think of the all-black issue you did a couple of years ago, which created a lot of talk about the lack of racial diversity in fashion.
With the black girls now it was two years ago that this happened, and I see on the runway more and more black girls and more and more beautiful black girls. This kind of provocation makes a change; it could not affect everybody, that’s for sure. But I don’t want it to change the world. I only would like that instead of skinny girls, that they should have real women — like the moment of the supermodels. Cindy Crawford was an amazing woman, Naomi is so beautiful — so why should we not just see younger girls but adults? [Teenagers] look so unreal in a way sometimes, you know?

Have you shot anymore plus-size models since shooting the June issue?
Not yet, but we will.

Do you think plus-size models will ever get the same work and at the same rate as straight-size models?
No, I don’t think so, because for the moment — and we never know, you know? — but for the moment I don’t think we’ll see the same proportion [of plus-size models as straight-size models]. Just like we don’t see the same proportion of white and black girls. They use curvy models sometimes, like a provocation, but it is just to show something different, which I don’t like honestly. I loved for example Prada, the winter before last she used three or four girls which were curvy girls. So not everybody will embrace that, I don’t think so. But I think in a way we will stop to think, do you really want to go on with all these skinny girls? If this is the only question that comes up, for me [the issue] will be a big success.

For full interview click here

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Allegra Versace Talks about her Body Issues and Battling Anorexia


Allegra Versace is the niece of Gianni Versace and the daughter of Donatella. Upon her uncle’s murder she was bequeathed half of the business. Unfortunately the public attention took it’s toll in her, and she began to show signs of having an eating disorder. Photos surfaced of her looking painfully skeletal.

Here is what she had to say about it:
Via Huffington Post


Allegra Versace, daughter of Donatella and niece of the late Gianni, recently sat down with Italy’s La Repubblica to discuss what she’s been up to these days. The 25-year-old, who inherited 50 percent of the Versace fashion empire when she turned 18, has been dabbling in the design world, spending more and more time in the studio.

And what about making a name for herself in fashion, when she already has the last name Versace? Allegra told Natalia Aspesi:

Definitely, I still prefer the anonymity. I’ve spent some time working with a non-Italian designer, I’ve been helping him organize fashion shows, the advertising, also helping with the creative part. But the great part about this work is that I am no one! They pay me, also, of course, for now not enough to live without worries, but I think you can get used to everything, if you feel free, if you are yourself and not what others want you to be, if you don’t see a photographer around every corner, if you do not bury yourself in cruel gossip that does so much harm.

Speaking of, Allegra was constantly the topic of cruel gossip, growing up for some time in the U.S. where she was studying, but also treating her much-talked-about anorexia. She said:

“I call this my period of absence, I was lost in other thoughts and couldn’t confront reality, with my eyes shielded from everything. Above all, I wanted one thing — to be no one, to not be recognized, not be hunted down. I studied theater, and it pleased me greatly to play parts in little independent films that perhaps no one went to see. For example, I really loved ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’ Still, anywhere I went, I was Versace. I couldn’t escape, and it did me harm. I hated Los Angeles. However I did have beautiful moments. For example, when I was in New York, Rupert Everett played in Noel Coward’s ‘Blithe Spirit,’ and I, behind the scenes, acted invisibly as a dresser.”

What I find interesting is that she talks about the “period of absence” it’s as if she wanted to render herself invisible and managed to reduce her body to almost nothing as if she was physically trying to disappear. I feel for her, as she never asked for the attention but inherited it (literally and figurative­ly). I hope that she finds the balance that she is looking for inside and outside- and learns how to manage how the attention makes her feel because unfortunat­ely it isn’t going any where. I respect that she is learning the ropes in the industry even though she really doesn’t have to. It show a respect for the craft!

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Who is the woman behind that Italian Vogue Cover- and what’s her agenda…

Wanna know what it is?
Apparently it is a part of a campaign to end Anorexia. Isn’t THAT something!

Well Franca Sozzani the editor of Italian Vogue has been on a crusade against websites that promote anorexia, even going as far as to collect signatures to shut such websites down. Putting not one but three full sized women on the cover of the premier fashion magazine is just another way Sozzani is not only bringing attention to the subject but also celebrates the fact that real woman have curves. She says ‘Curvy women are back in all their splendour.

‘The exuberance of a body with rounded lines is much more alluring and sexy.’ She is also taking heed from the feedback from readers who have been asking to see more realistic images in the pages of the magazine. They want to see a reflection of themselves as fabulous and fashionable. Sozzani admits a truth that few in the fashion industry are willing to talk about let alone own “Fashion has always been blamed as one of the culprits of anorexia, and our commitment is the proof that fashion is ready to get on the frontline and struggle against the disorder.” hence she has vowed that this sort of thing- seeing plus sized women on the cover and in editorial layouts will not be a gimmick but will be seen more often.

Brava to her, and why shouldn’t that be? if this is what the majority of women look like, if real women are the consumers then why should their image not be the form marketed to as the “desired” aesthetic, why should their curves not be glamourized, and celebrated. Why should the desire to be fashionable by reading magazines end up making them feel inadequate because they do not see themselves. Instead they end up feeling that they are too big, thick, chubby, or chunky to be sexy alluring and sophisticated? It is senseless especially when that pin up curvy, zaftig bombshell body with ample booty and breast it really what men like?

Andhere is the thing that perplexes me the most, why is it that Anna Wintour The Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue won’t take a stand like this. She is arguably the most powerful woman in fashion, all she would have to do is endorse the idea of models having a bit more meat on their bones and the designers, photographers, and other fashion magazines would like lemming follow behind the idea, but she hasn’t. I have always wondered about what it is in a women that can see the type of damage the “desired aesthetic” does to both the young girls who want to be models, and the women who read the magazines to be”educated” as to what they are supposed to aspire to and never lifts a finger or utters a word against it, or even deigns to address it openly.


Franca Sozzani is officially my heroine of the day!!!

for more jump

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Vogue Italia’s +sized Cover Girl Candice Huffine talks

Candice Huffine is one of the three full figured graces causing a stir with their Italian Vogue cover. She chatted with Ford Model Management to talk about the long overdue cover!

Huffine says:
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction. Just to prove a point — it’s what we’ve been trying to say all this time. We’re in this business just like everyone else. And yes, you know, we’re selling jeans and t-shirts…that’s the job…we’re doing everything, but if you want to see an amazing editorial, we can do that too. We’re not just catalogue girls. We’re not doing an online magazine or saying our piece here and there. We can really be in the forefront of fashion. And we want to show you that. And people are enjoying seeing it! They’re like ‘Oh, thank you, finally.’ So what was the hold up?”

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Transgendered Model Lea T Walks In Swimwear Show

Do you remember Lea T from the Oprah show clip below? Well she was strutting her stuff on the runway Brazil’s Fashion Rio week last week! She is amazing! Werk!

Being Transgendered is like the ultimate Body Image crisis. To feel one way in your mind- no more accurately to be of one gender in your mind and yet to occupy the contrasting gender in one’s body must be emotionally, physically, and spiritually painful. I thought that Lea was wonderfully honest and informative to those who don’t understand what being Transgendered is. I thought is was the epitome of what we talk about on this site. And I was very moved.

here it the Oprah Clip!