All Articles by truth

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!

853 Articles

Uncategorized

The Big Business of Big Butts

February 28, 2011 truth

Sir Mix A-Lot’s notorious ode to women with a little more junk in the trunk not only help propel him from Seattle’s underground hip-hop scene to superstar status, but it also put the national spotlight on a part of the body that has long been ignored—the booty.

It used to be that a slim physique was considered the standard of beauty. As such, women would go to extreme measures, such as anorexia and bulimia, to look like Kate Moss. However, Sir Mix A-Lot, along with a host of other black and brown rappers who have penned numerous tributes to women with big butts, helped to usher in a new standard of beauty—one based around a much healthier and fuller derriere.

The days of slim, waif models have been replaced by the “Sista” with the thick curves. But not just any curves, we’re talking about curves in all the “right” places, such as in the breasts, thighs and of course, the behind. This new appreciation for a different type of femininity seems to fit nicely into the changing aesthetic of the country; since the late 80s through 90s, everyone seems to be living in excess and embracing the mantra of “the bigger, the better.”
continue

In the News on the Web, Uncategorized

The Chemicals In Your Cosmetics

February 28, 2011 truth

Could the desire to look better, be hazardous to your health, what is in that stuff that we put around our eyes, on our cheeks and lips?

By Estelle Hayes

Sodium lauryl sulfate is an effective degreaser used to clean oil stains from the floor of my mechanic’s repair shop; what’s it doing in my toothpaste and my daughter’s bubble bath? And, why is the long-known carcinogen nitrosamine, banned in Canada and the European Union, still a common ingredient in my mascara, concealer, sunless tanning lotion and baby shampoo?

The simple answer is that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still doesn’t bother to regulate anything it dismisses as cosmetics — any products used topically — despite the growing science showing how easily poisons and pollutants can be absorbed through the skin. Since the 1930s, the only thing the FDA regulates is the accuracy of the labeling on cosmetics.

As long as manufacturers list in gory detail the witches’ brew of industrial chemicals, heavy metals, and toxic substances they blend into your eye cream or face wash, they are free to dump whatever they want into your epidermis.

As consumers, we are left to defend ourselves armed only with unintelligible ingredient labels and confusing news reports about what parts per billion of something can cause cancer or Alzheimer’s. Americans are taking their bodies on a magical mystery tour full of chemicals and heavy metal toxins by way of basic grooming habits.
continue

Uncategorized

Advancing Eating Disorders as a Public Health Concern

February 28, 2011 truth

By Jane Shure
Psychotherapist, Author, Speaker

These days most people know someone in their family or community who has been impacted by an eating disorder. In the United States alone, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle with anorexia or bulimia. Approximately 15 million more are struggling with binge eating disorder.

Research shows that genetic factors create vulnerabilities for some individuals, placing them at risk for responding to cultural pressures and triggering behaviors such as dieting and obsessive exercise. Every eating disorder signifies a host of psychological and medical problems that can be exceptionally costly, not only economically, but also in terms of physical, emotional, spiritual and social suffering.

continue

Uncategorized

Helen (Mirren) is a Hottie

February 28, 2011 truth

I have no idea how she does it. She looks fantastic and hella sexy. This is what 50, 60 plus can look like.
I love that her face looks like– her face, if she has had some injectables they have been done tastefully, she looks like a woman her age who looks great! but don’t think she has had anything really. Her body is just off the hook!! Clearly she has takes great care of herself and has great genes it shows. Ladies take care of your skin and your health and aging is something you can do with out worrying about it. This is a woman of a certain age who is carefree! love it!

Uncategorized

Jennifer Hudon is Da BOMBDIGGIDY!

February 28, 2011 truth

What a body what an image! BAM!

‘nough said!!!

Uncategorized

Penelope Cruz Bardem’s post bady body!!

February 28, 2011 truth 2 Comments

AMAZING!
She looks great.

what happens during and after pregnancy is so personal, I just hope that all the women who have had babies and have difficulty losing the extra weight don’t feel bad because it takes them more time. The most important thing is not to be in bikini shape by summer, or looking hot and gaining MILF statues it’s your health and the health of your baby. It’s not a contest, it’s life, and the giving of life!!!

That having been said if you can pop one out and 2 months later throw on a gown and look like that, hey girl I ain’t mad atcha, well maybe a little bit.

Uncategorized

See Progress: The Wisdom of Appreciating What’s Improving

February 27, 2011 truth

The ability to see what is improving and being able to appreciate it (no matter how small the progress) is vital to reshaping our beliefs and perceptions of ourselves our bodies and the world at large. Although the revelations that promote or are the catalyst for change can happen over night the changes whether mental or physical almost never do. Learning to be patient and look for the signs of change can help us wait out the full outcome.

ByRick Hanson, Ph.D.
Neuropsychologist, Author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom

The practice: See progress.

Why?

There are always things that are getting worse. For example, over the past year, you probably know someone who has become unemployed, ill or both, and there’s more carbon in the atmosphere inexorably heating up the planet.

But if you don’t recognize what’s improving in your own life, then you feel stagnant, or declining. This breeds what researchers call “learned helplessness” — a dangerously slippery slope: in the original experiments on dogs, whose motivational neural systems are like our own in important ways, it was very easy to train them in helplessness but very, very hard to teach them later that they could actually walk a few steps to escape from painful electric shock.

If you don’t recognize what’s getting better in the people around you, then you’ll continue to feel disappointed — and they’ll continue to feel criticized, not seen, and “why bother.”

If you don’t see the positive trends in our world over the past several decades — such as the end of the Cold War, improved medical care and access to information, and a growing middle class in many third world countries — then you’ll get swallowed up by all the bad news, and give up trying to make this world better.

It’s not that you’re supposed to look through rose-colored glasses. The point is to see life as it is — including the ways it’s improving.

How?

Dance Studio, The T'ruth in Print, Uncategorized

An Open Letter to My Body

February 27, 2011 truth 4 Comments

Dear Body,
Where do I start? I could begin with the reality that despite everything, good, bad, thick or thin, you have always been there. Though I am sure that if you had a choice you would have left years ago, and after some of the things I have said and done to you, I would not have blamed you. For a long time I behaved like a spoilt, ungrateful brat, living with a sense of entitlement, and expectation that at times was unrealistic or disproportionate to the effort and work that I was putting into the situation. I was not compassionate in regards to the hard work and effort that you continually expelled to make my life possible. On your behalf I have to say that you have never let me down. I may have let myself down in not doing all that was required to have, or to be what I wanted, but you stalwartly plugged along handling every, and any task I set before you.

I write to you today to apologize for, and to explain (though I am sure that you already know, as you are the more authentic and intuitive part of us) what I have put you through. I make no excuses, I take the responsibility for the physical, emotional and spiritual pain I have caused you throughout our years together. I could blame it on youth or outside influences and that would be true, but then again you already know that because you have been there through it all. However I feel that would be a cop out. I am here to take responsibility for my actions and non- actions. I am no longer a child, I am a freethinking, independent woman, and I am doing my work. This you also know as you have been there as I have matured and grown into a greater understanding and appreciation of myself, and for you as a form. When I think back to the times when I cursed you, did not talk to you, could not bare to look at you, the times when I was ashamed of you and more ashamed to be seen in you I am sadden. For that I am sorry. Though harsh words got us here, I know that there are no words that can be uttered or written that can undo the damage that has been done. They stay like welted brands on the parchment of our soul, to be carried with us, all the days of our life. I only hope you can forgive me.

Where I should have been awed by your majesty and perfection in the constant rigors of the involuntary actions you perform: heart-beating, respiration, blinking, the sensory factors you house and manage, not to mention mastication, defecation, and all the other “ations” on top of all of that I actually asked you to turn-out, plié, jump, pirouette, and battement, and without complaint, and for the most part a great deal of alacrity you did it! I could feel that dance was a joy to you; it felt good to move through space with the music, with a sense of mastery and physical understanding. It was in those moments that we were both at our best. The feeling of a grande jeté, the sensation of turning (though it was always unnerving to me) was wondrous, there is nothing in the world that feels as divine and delicious as a beautiful adagio. When we danced we felt beautiful, and complete, that is until I looked in the mirror and the image reflected did not resemble the feeling of beauty I felt in my soul, and because there was no one else, nothing else to blame, I took it out on you. My thighs were too thick, my butt too big, my feet not good enough, I was not pretty, or I did not look like her (whomever she was). Suddenly almost without warning the spirit that just moments ago had taken glorious flight was now grounded in the corner, cowering beneath the mental verbal lashing I unleashed.

My Body, my Body, because you are resilient and much more compassionate then I could ever be, with incomprehensible grace and dignity you rose, undefeated and determined to be better, you took the floor again, and again and again. Whether it was an effort to prove that I was wrong about us, the desire to show me my own beauty, or just the only way you knew how to keep us alive, you consistently reached for those fleeting moments of joy and abandon through movement, even though you knew that in the end you would undoubtedly pay for your effort. Yes I know that I was not alone in this process but let me finish… I was, I am your keeper. I should have protected you, honored you and respected you more or enough to, when possible shield or sooth you from outward attacks, and I most certainly should not have joined in on the bullying.

Seldom have I thanked you. Seldom have I acknowledged that you were consistent and trustworthy. Instead of praising you for your strength and power I chastised you for looking too strong, it never occurred to me that I was rarely sick or injured because of your strength. I let others tell me things about you, I believed the horrible things they said and instead of coming to your defense, I bought into their beliefs and made them my own.

Oh I wish that you had a voice, one independent of my own, perhaps then I would have known more quickly what tyranny I was forcing you to live under. Instead you, like a child worked harder for my acceptance, to please me, to be better, to be what I wanted to be. Never did you suspect that it was a fruitless endeavor for there would never be any pleasing me, because the problem was not with you as my Body, the problem was in my head. The problem was me.

So I now beg forgiveness from you publicly, I feel that this is fitting as I publicly defamed, disparaged, degraded and like Judas betrayed you. If you could find it in your heart to accept my apology I would ask that we (as much as possible) wipe the slate clean and begin anew. I will promise to take care of you, honor you, accept, appreciate, respect and support you going forward. I know there is a lot of water under the bridge, I thoroughly expect there to be some things that may be forgiven but cannot be forgotten, and some damage is irreparable this I understand, but I am asking if we can try again. I would not blame you if you did not trust my words but you know the integrity of my intention. I cannot promise perfection, but I can promise my sincere effort. I will assuredly make more mistakes but I vow to be better. I know that it is a lot to contemplate, take your time think it over and let me know. I will be here when you want to talk. I am telling you that from this day forward I am listening, for I now realize that you do have a voice, I am that voice, I speak for you and you for me. I want you to be heard, and I want to hear.