Robin Lamarr has been the only person of colour in a movement class. With this personal experience and her own desire to make mindful movement accessible, the movement educator and community activist had been thinking about how she could address the lack of representation in the movement community.
When she obtained a physical space for the studio she founded, Goodbodyfeel, she saw it as a good time to introduce a designated space for people of colour. The result was the first Movement Melanin Expression workshop on Feb. 24. The two-hour, three-part workshop was designed for individuals identifying as Black, Indigenous or people of colour.
“The intention is to create a space where folks who usually feel like they don't belong can feel belonging. And then, because it's an exclusive space, we can be open, raw, vulnerable and honest about what… we're feeling and why… [W]e can be super open about it without having to… defend ourselves against someone who might have white fragility for example,” said Lamarr.
The workshop was the result of a partnership with Hamilton-based visual alchemist and movement teacher-in-trainer, Stylo Starr. Starr joined the Goodbodyfeel Teacher Training last year when she met Lamarr and is almost finished her 200 hours of training.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuJTZiMhA1t/
Lamarr and Starr have collaborated on a similarly structured workshop before. Last summer, they ran a satellite workshop at the Art Gallery of Hamilton wherein Lamarr led a movement sequence followed by Starr leading a walking meditation involving collage material.
Similarly, Movement Melanin Expression began with Lamarr leading participants through her famed R&B Pilates movement sequence. The sequence starts slow and warms up the individual parts of the body before ending with an intense squat sequence wherein participants scream in order to release all their emotions.
After moving, a circle discussion took place. The discussion was intended to address how people of colour can take up space and reverse the lack of representation in the movement and wellness industry. Most importantly, the conversation was meant to be open and unrestrained. Starr hopes that the conversation acted as a catalyst for participants to discuss how they’re feeling with the people in their lives.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt52ZnahXBi/
The workshop ended with Starr’s collage workshop. As she did with the series at the art gallery, Starr led participants through a walking meditation, allowing them to find pieces that spoke to them and create something there. The creative portion of the workshop allowed participants to express and liberate themselves.
“I've seen firsthand how movement has helped my creation. It's just a way of accessing a part of your mindfulness that maybe sitting still might not do for many people… I think it's really important to mesh these worlds because it's often implied that they're so different but they're actually very similar. In creating sequences for classes, it's a collage of different movements and they might not always look the same,” Starr explaining.
Approaching creativity through the medium of collage is one of the many ways in which this workshop made itself accessible. Unlike other forms of art, collage is not very intimidating for the non-artist and allowed individuals to express themselves with lesser concern about artistic skill.
Like several other Goodbodyfeel classes, this workshop had a sliding scale in place to reduce the financial barrier for participants. The studio also has clean clothes for participants to use and provides mats and props. By removing these obstacles for participants, the studio is hoping that no one is priced out of accessing mindful movement.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Btn1Kk8BCUw/
“I've been practicing some form of mindful movement since 2000 and… it's been a really big part of my healing journey. And so since moving to Hamilton and starting this community, my aim is to have as many people as possible benefit and have access to the transformative effects of mindful movement.
Why does the movement community need to even address race and representation? Well, because it's incredibly beneficial to mental health and well-being and everybody deserves access to it,” Lamarr said.
At the end of the day, the most important part of Movement Melanin Expression was the formation of community through movement. Starr and Lamarr intend to continue the class so that people of colour can continue to take up space in the movement industry and discuss more ways to break down the barriers.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
If you haven’t seen the trailer for Amy yet, go watch it now. The recent documentary from director Asif Kapadia is a haunting sketch of the life of Amy Winehouse that revives her music for new fans, and gives former fans the second dose of Winehouse they had all been waiting for.
The film traces the artist’s rise and fall from her teenage beginnings as a jazz club frequenter, to her international fame with the Grammy Award-winning Back to Black, and finally to her tragic overdose at the age of 27.
With footage from home videos, television and radio interviews, and heartbreaking post-mortem interviews with her closest friends and relatives, the film gives an explicit glance into the tragic and not so uncommon life of a high-profile celebrity.
As a longtime Amy Winehouse fan, I was unsure of what to expect from the film. My interest in her was mostly confined to her music, and I knew little about her life aside from her public battle with addiction and her death five years ago.
While her music has clear reference to her struggles with mental illness, broken relationships and drug use, a clear portrait of her experiences has never before been available to the public. This glimpse into her life gives a new meaning to her lyrics that makes her music even more powerful than it was to begin with.
Amy Winehouse grew up in London, England, where she started her career as a jazz singer. She lived in a middle-class home with a set of friends that would stick around until her last days. Her story does not sound uncommon or tragic when first told, but as she aged, fell into depression, became reliant on drugs and alcohol, and lived a life exploited by the public, a great talent grew smaller.
A powerful aspect of the movie is its ability to couple Winehouse’s experiences with the corresponding music she wrote in those moments. The film will go into detail about a part of her life, such as the on-again off-again relationship with her eventual husband Blake, and follow the scene with a live recording of the song reflecting this time in her life. The documentary does a beautiful job at highlighting lyrics with elegant script up against record studio footage and scribbled poetry in notebooks.
One of the most tragic parts of the film comes when hearing from her parents. They both noticed her depressive behavior, but shrugged it off as a passing phase as opposed to addressing it. Her mother was made aware of her daughter’s lifelong struggle with Bulimia when she was a teenager, but didn’t see anything wrong with the behavior until much later in her life. Her father acknowledges that his absence from home and the affair that kept him away from his family led to her early substance abuse, yet he never made an effort to get her help until it was too late.
Seeing how the people closest to her reacted to her struggles was devastating. It all made her death seem inevetable rather than preventable.
It would have been nice to see more about her early musical influences rather than just elements of her personal life, but the film does touch upon her young love of jazz and its influence on her first recordings.
Previous fans as well as those unfamiliar with her music and story can enjoy the film. It is a well-made documentary that does a lot with found footage and conveys a tragic yet compelling story that any music fan would appreciate.
A year after the release of her EP Sail Out and a series of successful features and guest appearances, Jhené Aiko is back to woo us with her sweet voice on her first full studio album Souled Out. While the album suffers from some of the bumps and bruises of her past works, the singer proves that her formula of calming melodies and breezy production still leaves the listener satisfied.
For those unfamiliar, Aiko has had a strong year musically, and it shows. She demonstrated how valuable she can be on other artists’ songs, working with Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino, while proving her ability to stand on her own with songs like “The Worst”. In that time it seems she gained the confidence needed to “sail out” towards an album that relies less on the talents of featured artists, and more on her own abilities.
The result is certainly mixed. On one hand, Aiko’s greatest strength is her voice, or more specifically, using her smooth voice to her advantage in terms of production. While she may not boast the range of Adele or Beyoncé, Aiko possesses an effortless breezy tone that sets her apart from the crowd of other RnB female vocalists. As such, Aiko makes sure to include tracks that pair well with her sound; ethereal and synths, clean guitars, and reverb heavy drums all play a part in constructing Souled Out’s aquatic sound.
Unfortunately, these qualities can also have the unfortunate drawback of simply boring the listener. When Aiko fails to mix up the rhythms in her melodies, the songs tend to blend together, leaving little impression to those tuning in. Many tracks across the album simply sound too similar to each other, leaving an album filled with a bit too much filler. For those who weren’t a fan of her past work - whether it’s her solo tracks or features - it is likely you will find the same flaws in Souled Out.
Still, when Aiko succeeds it’s hard to ignore. Songs like “W.A.Y.S” showcase Aiko at her strongest. Pulling the listener up and down, “W.A.Y.S” is a prime example of her ability to convey raw emotion almost effortlessly, and is easily the best track on the album. This emotion only becomes stronger thanks to the high quality production of veterans Thundercat and Clams Casino. “W.A.Y.S”, an abbreviation for “why aren’t you smiling” a kind of catch phrase of her late brother, deals with loss and the chaotic nature of life without holding back. Because of this, it is easy to get wrapped up in the emotional whirlwind that Souled Out offers. This same energy exists in “Eternal Sunshine” and “Promises” leaving the second half of the album the highlight of the project.
In the end, Souled Out isn’t perfect. The songs at times blend together, lacking distinction, but Aiko’s ability to translate her emotions so effectively into her music makes it worth the price of admission.
