The Body as a Creative Tool

The Body as a Creative Tool: I’ve been a volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club for just over eight months. As I’ve worked with and gotten to know some of the at-risk and high-risk youth, I’ve begun to recognize that they often use their bodies as a form of expression. This translates into hairstyles, hair colors, tattoos, piercings, clothing, scars, body language, etc.

• For example: I have one youth in mind who dyes their hair frequently, and their hair color tends to coincide with their mood or their current concerns. It is a small detail, but I notice that when their hair is a bright color, they may have had a really positive week. Similarly, when they dye their hair a dark color, they may have had a negative week. Using your body as a creative and imaginative tool provides a new medium of expression, “even though these same mental operations might be too difficult if the same children were to simply try to think about or discuss them” (Bacigalupa 363).
• Social Construction: as discussed in Week 1, our society expects a level of creativity and imagination from children. As these children become youth, or adults, that creativity and active imagination is expected to be put to rest. I think imaginative expression through outward appearances tend to be an avenue chosen by youth.
• In her Ted Talk, Charlotte Reznick describes teen emotions as having strengths and colours, exemplified in the youth I described above.

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The Body as a Creative Tool

TED Talk