"investigating the role of embodiment in practises of knowledge and memory, this chapter considers in particular the felt, somatic aspects of movement knowledge. I argue that thinking itself, including the way we access, organize, retrieve, and present information, is as much a matter of somatic understandings as of semiotic ones...Drawing on field research with dancers in the annual fiesta of Our Lady of Guadelupe in Tortugas, New Mexico, I review findings resulting from a somatic approach."
Sklar, 97
Philosopher Edward Casey distinguishes 'body memory' from 'memory of the body', the first working primarily through feelings in the body, the second through representations of the body as an object of awareness. For Casey, the first would properly be called remembering, the second, recollecting"
Sklar 98
"Kinestic sensations, much less their meanings, are rarely the focus of everyday awarenesss. As Marcel Mauss and, after him, Pierre Bourdieau, have pointed out, the bodily patterns we master are then enacted outside of conscious awareness."
Sklar 99
"Undertaken to refute Nazi notions about the correlation of race and gesture, Efron studies and compared the conversational gestures of two relatively homogenous and stable European communities..."
Sklar 104
"It was the affects and effects of the fiesta I wanted to understand, what it was to 'feel the Virgin's presence', as the people said, and what that presence meant to the fiesta."
Sklar 106
"Unlike the Protestants who killed or 'removed' the indigenous people they encountered in New England, the Spanish Catholics required Native labour and coveted, in the name of God, Indigenous souls...In El Paso del Norte they (the Pueblans that joined the Spanish after the Pueblo revolt of 1680)lived in mission communities among the larger Spanish and Meztizo, or mixed Spanish and indigenous mexican population"Sklar 107
Connections between embodied memory and dance
"Indeed, he (child psychologist Daniel Stern) acknowledges, they ('vitality effects', the complex qualities of kinetic energy inherent in all bodily activity) are equivalent to what Suzanne Langer calls the 'forms of feeling' embodied in dance....Until we attend to kinetic dynamics, the way vitality affects are organized in specific movement systems and actions, we lack a crucial dimension in understanding the meaningfulness of movent performance in and as social memory" Sklar 98-99
Dierdre Sklar, Qualities of Memory: Two Dances of the Tortugas Fiesta, New Mexico, 2006.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
more SOCAN
I guess what is bothering me is this...well, it would seem as though SOCAN is useful, I won't deny that... and for some musicians it is the difference between receiving or not receiving sizeable amounts of money...but for the majority of musicians it means getting a small cheque every once in a while.
I was a member of SOCAN back in the brief time I was trying to make a career of being a punk musician. Not that I got very far in my career, but for me SOCAN membership meant not getting any money at all, rather just a glossy magazine.
I now work in community and social services and unions are very active in this field. I don't think we would tolerate what most musicians have to put up with...we expect to get paid either hourly or on salary for the work we do. We don't just get paid if our clients like our work. And besides payment, there is the recognition that we are potentially putting ourselves in a very vulerable position, not unlike musicians.
Ah, well I am trying to make sense of what I am able to download and read about SOCAN. I cannot say I know very much as I was not a professional musician for very long. But I am wondering if there are some aspects of being a musician that SOCAN overlooks.
I was a member of SOCAN back in the brief time I was trying to make a career of being a punk musician. Not that I got very far in my career, but for me SOCAN membership meant not getting any money at all, rather just a glossy magazine.
I now work in community and social services and unions are very active in this field. I don't think we would tolerate what most musicians have to put up with...we expect to get paid either hourly or on salary for the work we do. We don't just get paid if our clients like our work. And besides payment, there is the recognition that we are potentially putting ourselves in a very vulerable position, not unlike musicians.
Ah, well I am trying to make sense of what I am able to download and read about SOCAN. I cannot say I know very much as I was not a professional musician for very long. But I am wondering if there are some aspects of being a musician that SOCAN overlooks.
Monday, August 25, 2008
SOCAN we?
From SOCAN Website, top bar, "About SOCAN"
"Overview...SOCAN is an organization that administers the communication and performing rights of virtually the world's entire repertoire of copyright-protected music, when it is used in Canada. We collect licence fees, then distribute the fees as royalties to our members and affiliated performing rights organizations (PROs) worldwide. We ensure that music creators and publishers get paid for the communication and public performance of their music in Canada. To do this, we collect fees from individuals, businesses and organizations that play music in public, broadcast it, or communicate it by telecommunication. We do what's right for music."
"What We Do... As a collective for the performing rights of our members - the creators and publishers of music - we make sure they get paid for the public performance and communication to the public of their music. We do that by collecting licence fees, as set by the Copyright Board of Canada, from anyone playing or broadcasting live or recorded music."
"Who We Serve...We serve our members, the Canadian creators and publishers of music, and the members of international affiliated performing rights organizations. We act on their behalf to collect licence fees from users and then distribute these fees to our members and affiliates in the form of royalties.
We also serve our customers – the venue operators, broadcasters, promoters, and others who authorize or perform the music in their establishments or at their events. Through their association with SOCAN, our customers enjoy the benefit of accessing the world's repertoire of copyright-protected music through a single central entity."
I am going to be reading and writing more about this I think...
"Overview...SOCAN is an organization that administers the communication and performing rights of virtually the world's entire repertoire of copyright-protected music, when it is used in Canada. We collect licence fees, then distribute the fees as royalties to our members and affiliated performing rights organizations (PROs) worldwide. We ensure that music creators and publishers get paid for the communication and public performance of their music in Canada. To do this, we collect fees from individuals, businesses and organizations that play music in public, broadcast it, or communicate it by telecommunication. We do what's right for music."
"What We Do... As a collective for the performing rights of our members - the creators and publishers of music - we make sure they get paid for the public performance and communication to the public of their music. We do that by collecting licence fees, as set by the Copyright Board of Canada, from anyone playing or broadcasting live or recorded music."
"Who We Serve...We serve our members, the Canadian creators and publishers of music, and the members of international affiliated performing rights organizations. We act on their behalf to collect licence fees from users and then distribute these fees to our members and affiliates in the form of royalties.
We also serve our customers – the venue operators, broadcasters, promoters, and others who authorize or perform the music in their establishments or at their events. Through their association with SOCAN, our customers enjoy the benefit of accessing the world's repertoire of copyright-protected music through a single central entity."
I am going to be reading and writing more about this I think...
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
parkdale CHC
I will be examining the Parkdale Community Health Centre, particularly with regard to its art programs. I will be looking at the potential strengths and weaknesses as well as examining the histories and meanings of both the Parkdale Neighbourhood and the Community Healthcare system. I will be positing the notion that art plays a vital role in healthcare and is particularly appropriate in the Parkdale community.
The Parkdale Community Healthcare Centre is one satellite of the Community Health Centre system. CHCs are located throughout Ontario to provide health-related services in ways that meet the needs of the communities in which they are located. The Parkdale CHC provides Parkdale with "responsive, accessible, and innovative services to address primary healthcare needs." (see Parkdale CHC website) "Primary healthcare needs" in this instance refers not just to physical health, or more specifically, treatment of physical diseases, but also"biological, socio-cultural, psychological, and environmental aspects..." within people's "respective socio-economic realities." As such Parkdale CHC's programming includes not only anonymous HIV testing, needle exchanges, and infant hearing screening clinics (although it does include those as well) but also an English Conversation Circle (for those new to the language) a Queer Parents' group, and, of course, lots of art programs.
Is art a component of primary healthcare? Jan Cohen-Cruz says, "Art can put people in touch with their desire...Art has the capacity for reflection and exploration of what one individual or group wants." (Cohen-Cruz, 2002)" Most people recognize that there is a psychological component to health. Some see a division between physicial health and psychological health while others are of the belief that mind and body are not entirely separate. In that context, art would certainly be an important component of primary healthcare needs because of its vital role in the health of the individuals who produce it and those around who are affected by it. Art can express emotions that are difficult to express explicitly. Trinh T. Minh-Ha says, "To write is to communicate, express, witness, impose, instruct, redeem, or save- at any rate to send out an unambiguous message...Obscurity is an imposition on the reader. True, but beware when you cross railroad tracks for one train may hide another train...To write "clearly," one must incessantly prune, eliminate, forbid, purge, purify..."(Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Woman Native Other, pp16-17)
Why did I decide to focus on the Parkdale CHC? I am interested in the concept of CHCs. They are a province-wide phenomenon with different regional sites offering programs to meet the needs of their respective communities. CHCs can serve as comfortable and non-judgemental places where people from all walks of life can go to get various needs met. In some communities they also serve a community hub where people can meet and lots of different community programming takes place. As an aspiring Community Arts Practitioner I am supportive of any organization that recoginzes the complex and multifaceted aspects of health promotion. Mind and body cannot be completely separate and nor can individuals from their communities.
Why did I choose the Parkdale CHC instead of any other CHC in the province of Ontario? Parkdale is a neighbourhood in Toronto that I am familiar with and also one with a history that interests me. Initially a desirable Western suburb of Toronto, Parkdale has seen many changes over the years. After World War Two, an expressway was constructed that separated the residential part of the neighbourhood from the lake and its beachside component. Also, the Queen St. Mental Health Centre (now a site of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) is located just east of Parkdale. In the nineteen-seventies the Mental Health system began to move from an isolated and institutionally-based model of care to a more community-based approach. This drastically affected the neighbourhoods surrounding the Mental Health Centre, of which Parkdale was one. The stigma surrounding the Mental Health industry meant that Parkdale was no longer a desirable neighbourhood. The property values dropped and the area was accessible to people whose incomes were low for many reasons. New Canadians, substance users, and Mental Health system consumers resided together, sharing nothing except their marginalization. In recent years Parkdale has become gentrified. The large Victorian houses that once made it desirable are now desirable again. However this will not erase layers and layers of history that tells a story of marginalization. This makes art all the more appropriate in Parkdale because as Minh-Ha and Cohen Cruz posit, art has an important place in the telling of alternate histories and marginalized realities.
One potential pitfall of a Community Art Program at the Parkdale CHC? Since the word "health" is present in the organization's title, there is always the issue of different interpretations of "health." Some practitioners in various elements of the healthcare system possess a limited notion of what "health" is and believe that any work done in the healthcare system must have the aim of eventually getting people to reform to this notion. At one time, homosexuality was viewed as a Mental Illness, for example. Perhaps there are many other aspects of human experience that are now cast with the same shadow but will not be forever. It is my belief that community art programs should aim to allow all members of a community to express themselves as they are. I recall a lecture from last semester where a community artist by the name of Sau-Wai Tai distinguished herself from an "art therapist" in fact by saying that the latter works from a framework of making people "well" whereas community artists work more towards personal expression and actualization. I think it is important, whenever undertaking a project aimed to "help" people, that one is constantly making sure they are not just furthering the stigma that contributes to the marginalization and isolation. I have been heartened to see the diversity of programs offered through the Parkdale CHC which indicates a diversity of acceptance rather than a being "well" model.
Essentially, I chose to focus on the Parkdale CHC because, as a Community Health Centre located in Parkdale, it helps to tell this story of marginalization, of the possible coherence of a seemingly incoherent community, of alternative histories, and of a more holistic model of health.
References
Cohen-Cruz, Jan. An Introduction to Community Art and Activism. Community Arts Network Reading Room, 2002.
http://www.aohc.org
http://dev.metastrategies.com/PCHC/news/show.cfm?news_id=12
http://www.torontoneighbourhoods.net
Tai, Sau-Wai. Lecture. 2007.
Trinh T. Minh-Ha. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.
The Parkdale Community Healthcare Centre is one satellite of the Community Health Centre system. CHCs are located throughout Ontario to provide health-related services in ways that meet the needs of the communities in which they are located. The Parkdale CHC provides Parkdale with "responsive, accessible, and innovative services to address primary healthcare needs." (see Parkdale CHC website) "Primary healthcare needs" in this instance refers not just to physical health, or more specifically, treatment of physical diseases, but also"biological, socio-cultural, psychological, and environmental aspects..." within people's "respective socio-economic realities." As such Parkdale CHC's programming includes not only anonymous HIV testing, needle exchanges, and infant hearing screening clinics (although it does include those as well) but also an English Conversation Circle (for those new to the language) a Queer Parents' group, and, of course, lots of art programs.
Is art a component of primary healthcare? Jan Cohen-Cruz says, "Art can put people in touch with their desire...Art has the capacity for reflection and exploration of what one individual or group wants." (Cohen-Cruz, 2002)" Most people recognize that there is a psychological component to health. Some see a division between physicial health and psychological health while others are of the belief that mind and body are not entirely separate. In that context, art would certainly be an important component of primary healthcare needs because of its vital role in the health of the individuals who produce it and those around who are affected by it. Art can express emotions that are difficult to express explicitly. Trinh T. Minh-Ha says, "To write is to communicate, express, witness, impose, instruct, redeem, or save- at any rate to send out an unambiguous message...Obscurity is an imposition on the reader. True, but beware when you cross railroad tracks for one train may hide another train...To write "clearly," one must incessantly prune, eliminate, forbid, purge, purify..."(Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Woman Native Other, pp16-17)
Why did I decide to focus on the Parkdale CHC? I am interested in the concept of CHCs. They are a province-wide phenomenon with different regional sites offering programs to meet the needs of their respective communities. CHCs can serve as comfortable and non-judgemental places where people from all walks of life can go to get various needs met. In some communities they also serve a community hub where people can meet and lots of different community programming takes place. As an aspiring Community Arts Practitioner I am supportive of any organization that recoginzes the complex and multifaceted aspects of health promotion. Mind and body cannot be completely separate and nor can individuals from their communities.
Why did I choose the Parkdale CHC instead of any other CHC in the province of Ontario? Parkdale is a neighbourhood in Toronto that I am familiar with and also one with a history that interests me. Initially a desirable Western suburb of Toronto, Parkdale has seen many changes over the years. After World War Two, an expressway was constructed that separated the residential part of the neighbourhood from the lake and its beachside component. Also, the Queen St. Mental Health Centre (now a site of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) is located just east of Parkdale. In the nineteen-seventies the Mental Health system began to move from an isolated and institutionally-based model of care to a more community-based approach. This drastically affected the neighbourhoods surrounding the Mental Health Centre, of which Parkdale was one. The stigma surrounding the Mental Health industry meant that Parkdale was no longer a desirable neighbourhood. The property values dropped and the area was accessible to people whose incomes were low for many reasons. New Canadians, substance users, and Mental Health system consumers resided together, sharing nothing except their marginalization. In recent years Parkdale has become gentrified. The large Victorian houses that once made it desirable are now desirable again. However this will not erase layers and layers of history that tells a story of marginalization. This makes art all the more appropriate in Parkdale because as Minh-Ha and Cohen Cruz posit, art has an important place in the telling of alternate histories and marginalized realities.
One potential pitfall of a Community Art Program at the Parkdale CHC? Since the word "health" is present in the organization's title, there is always the issue of different interpretations of "health." Some practitioners in various elements of the healthcare system possess a limited notion of what "health" is and believe that any work done in the healthcare system must have the aim of eventually getting people to reform to this notion. At one time, homosexuality was viewed as a Mental Illness, for example. Perhaps there are many other aspects of human experience that are now cast with the same shadow but will not be forever. It is my belief that community art programs should aim to allow all members of a community to express themselves as they are. I recall a lecture from last semester where a community artist by the name of Sau-Wai Tai distinguished herself from an "art therapist" in fact by saying that the latter works from a framework of making people "well" whereas community artists work more towards personal expression and actualization. I think it is important, whenever undertaking a project aimed to "help" people, that one is constantly making sure they are not just furthering the stigma that contributes to the marginalization and isolation. I have been heartened to see the diversity of programs offered through the Parkdale CHC which indicates a diversity of acceptance rather than a being "well" model.
Essentially, I chose to focus on the Parkdale CHC because, as a Community Health Centre located in Parkdale, it helps to tell this story of marginalization, of the possible coherence of a seemingly incoherent community, of alternative histories, and of a more holistic model of health.
References
Cohen-Cruz, Jan. An Introduction to Community Art and Activism. Community Arts Network Reading Room, 2002.
http://www.aohc.org
http://dev.metastrategies.com/PCHC/news/show.cfm?news_id=12
http://www.torontoneighbourhoods.net
Tai, Sau-Wai. Lecture. 2007.
Trinh T. Minh-Ha. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.
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