The Tasdance archives

The Tasdance archives

founded in 1981, Tasdance was Australia's first dance-in-education company, commissioned to take contemporary dance into schools, conducting workshops and performances and delivering on the key goal of arts funding - to create access to the arts.

more here

found via VAULT -

photo by Friedrich Seidenstücker, found via theshinxandthemilkyway

Alabama Chanin: vintage quilts, over-dyed in indigo with hand-sewn appliqués and embroidery details, They were part of the Alabama on Alabama installation at The Boiler Room at Heath Ceramics. 

They remind me of winter.

friday cartoon

barefoot dancing

(found here)

I can't remember where I found this image, but I love her and she's been sitting on my desktop for sometime...

Summer Holiday

I've gone in search of sunshine and stillness, back in a couple of weeks xx

Chinese Manchu porter carrying tray on head.
Found here.

Head Carrying

a very natural human movement...do you do it?

learning to swim...methods are always changing!

Movement is something that happens while you are getting something else accomplished...

These images made me giggle at first, but then they bought to mind a little something Katy Bowman had to say in this podcast for Liberated Body and now I think these vintage ladies were on to something....

"Remember you are an animal walking around in a zoo. Reflexively your body is always trying to conserve energy. The decision to shuck convenience has to be a choice. You are going to have to choose to get out of your couch and sit on the floor. You’re not really in a cage, you’ve put yourself in- there’s no lock, it’s habit. You can go outside whenever you want.

Movement is way easier to get in your life than exercise. Exercise takes time away from your family living. It takes a drive, a shower, a special outfit, equipment. It’s not as easy as. “I’m making breakfast anyway, I can make it on the floor? I’m walking on this path anyway, why don’t I just walk on the grass just 6 inches to the left? I’m going to the bathroom anyway, why not put my feet up on this squat platform?”

Because movement is not exercise, you have the potential to move all day long. I have no more time, I’m doing this podcast now so I could be sitting in front of my computer, or I could be standing and doing a calf stretch, and squatting a bit. Once you start thinking that way you can really move all day long even if you can’t go anywhere....

...The real difference between exercise and movement would be anytime you are doing movement for the purpose of reaping a health benefit, that’s exercise. While movement is something that happens while you are getting something else accomplished."

--Katy Bowman via Liberated Body.

Image found via LOVELY goldlionaz

(found here)

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Dive into 2015 with LOVE and take care of yourself, you are precious.

Don't fall for any of the 'New Year, New You' nonsense that the fitness industry is undoubtedly filling your inbox with right now. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty, it's a waste of your imagination. Use it instead to make sustainable change fueled by self-respect. Or stay the same : )

If you do like to use January as an opportunity to make changes then take the following into consideration... 

“...I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”

― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

(image: J.S. Johnston, Stereocard of woman diving in a standard swimsuit, (1892) 
via www.consumingcultures.net)

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah,  a Wonderful Winter Solstice, a Sumptuous Shabe Chelle, a Peaceful Pancha Ganapati and a Happy New Year!

Frances Wessels A Portrait of 89 Years from Jason Akira Somma on Vimeo.

(Image found here)

Vanda Scaravelli

'Do not kill the instinct of the body for the glory of the pose.’
-- Vanda Scaravelli

Vanda's book Awakening The Spine is one of the most thumbed through on my 'yoga shelf'. If you haven't got a copy then you are in luck because it was reprinted earlier this year. It's been revised by Vanda’s daughter based on extensive notes left by the author. Even if you have the first edition, it’s still worth having a look at this one to see how Vanda’s ideas subtly changed.

I am interested in Vanda's work as inspiration for experimentation, trusting in YOUR yoga and allowing this stuff to be a constant evolution

Beautiful.

Images from the book ‘Awakening the Spine’ (The final one is B.K.S. Iyengar with, or rather on,  Vanda Scaravelli,)