MODES OF MOVEMENT INTO TEFILLAH: part three / personalizing with Havdallah
By admin | February 19, 2009
Recently I completed a residency at Heritage Academy, a Jewish day school in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. I came to work at first with the Judaic staff on bringing movement into their curriculum. I ended up not only working with the staff, but also with the middle school students finding ways to embody (and thereby enhance and re-member) their tefillah, or prayer.
MODES OF MOVEMENT INTO TEFILLAH
Three distinct modes of how movement and text, in this case the text of tefillah, were used with the middle school with varying levels of success. The three are: wordplay, the essence, and personalizing question.
PERSONALIZING
Personalizing the prayer or text is another way for young people to understand meaning. (Especially middle school students!) Find a question about their lives that relates to the text, and they will very soon find meaning! And, then find movement that corresponds to that meaning. This may look mimetic at first, but with learning how to exaggerate movement by manipulating time, space, and quality, the movement will look more like a dance.
Lesson 3A:
Text/prayer: Havdallah
Population: Middle school day students
1. Read the full havdallah prayers in English and Hebrew.
2. Find a key question that relates to the theme of havdallah, such as, separation, or separation between something special, and something ordinary, or normal.
3. The question given to the students was: what do you feel and what do you do when you have to leave something or someone special? (Like leaving Shabbat, for instance…)
4. Answers were: hugs, waving, sadness, looking deep into someone’s eyes, and moving away quickly to not get too emotional.
5. Put the movement they created, or help them find movement for the emotions (e-motion!) they discovered and put it in an order that they like.
6. Recite the prayer while doing the movement, and then just do the movement to the humming (lalaing) of the Havdallah service. Do the movements in silence and see what that looks and feels like.
7. Talk about separation, and why it is helpful to create a ritual around separation. Why do we do havdallah? How does it make Shabbat, and how does it start the week? Talk about other separation rituals in Judaism.
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MODES OF MOVEMENT INTO TEFILLAH: part two / essence with Elohai N’shama
By admin | February 19, 2009
Recently I completed a residency at Heritage Academy, a Jewish day school in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. I came to work at first with the Judaic staff on bringing movement into their curriculum. I ended up not only working with the staff, but also with the middle school students finding ways to embody (and thereby enhance and re-member) their tefillah, or prayer.
MODES OF MOVEMENT INTO TEFILLAH
Three distinct modes of how movement and text, in this case the text of tefillah, were used with the middle school with varying levels of success. The three are: wordplay, the essence, and personalizing question.
ESSENCE
The essence, or essential metaphor of the text, is another way into the text where movement can be beneficial. In looking at a text, often an image comes to mind that is either described or alluded to in the text. This image, or metaphor, can be put into action with movement. The student then can really understand, or stand under, the meaning in new ways.
Lesson 2:
Mode: Essence
Text/Prayer: Elohai N’shama
Population: middle school students in Jewish day school
.
1. Read the Elohai N’shama prayer in Hebrew and in English
2. Discuss the meaning of neshama, and how it relates to neshima, spirit and breath
3. Relate it to the pasook from Bereshit (line from Genesis) in the creation story that talks about HaShem breathing spirit into man through man’s nostrils. Talk to the students about what we breathe in and what we breathe out. Discuss how what we breathe out also helps co-create or maintain life (trees), as well as what we breathe in.
4. Focus on the act of breath as an act of giving life spirit to oneself, and to the world, of being a co-creator.
5. The essence, or essential metaphor chosen here is one of the cycle of breath as a cycle of life, sustaining creation. The prayer also talks about HaShem taking our breath away in death, and eventually restoring souls to the dead.
6. Find, with the students, ways to make the metaphor physical.
a. This might start with something literal and possibly giggle-producing such as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (just enacting without doing for real or real touching).
b. This might move to cycles of life, making circles with arms while breathing and connecting the circular motion to another’s circular motion in the group, and end with either a full circle connected or turning away and disconnected in death, and then re-connected in eternal life…
c. The group may wish to enact a full life cycle, using breath to create the changes and transitions.
d. Allow creativity to flow: what is it to both give and receive breath or spirit? What is it to know our own very physical interdependence with the world around us? How can they create a physical metaphor from this?
e. This movement metaphor need not be slow or precious; speed it up, make it active, do it all in complete silence (a good way to focus the students) but keep it fun!
7. Perform the movement metaphor or metaphors while reciting the prayer.
8. Use the recording of some of the beautiful melodies that have been created for this prayer…
9. Ask the students in what ways did they understand the prayer better, or in what ways did they find the connection between breath and life.
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MODES OF MOVEMENT INTO TEFILLAH: part one / wordplay with Asher Yatzar
By admin | February 19, 2009
Recently I completed a residency at Heritage Academy, a Jewish day school in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. I first came to work only with the Judaic staff on bringing movement into their curriculum. I ended up not only working with the staff, but also with the middle school students finding ways to embody (and thereby enhance and re-member) their tefillah, or prayer.
MODES OF MOVEMENT INTO TEFILLAH
Three distinct modes of how movement and text, in this case the text of tefillah, were used with the middle school with varying levels of success. The three are: wordplay, the essence, and personalizing question. These are modes I have worked with in any situation using text and movement.
With the Asher Yatzar prayer, the one Jews say after going to the bathroom… yes, way… we used wordplay.
Wordplay
Wordplay is quite simple and literal. Find, or have the students find, key words in the text. These could be action words, (verbs), descriptors (adjectives), or just the main words that are repeated or have import in the context of the text. Using just these words, make either hand gestures (if students are sitting down), or body shapes, or even movements that describe these words. The students can do this in pairs, solo, or in small groups. Or, as we did in Asher Yatzar, we started as soloists, moved to pairs, and then worked with the whole group. Once the gestures or movements are made, then perform the movements while saying, singing, or having someone in the group say or sing the prayer.
Lesson 1A:
Mode: Wordplay
Text/Prayer: Asher Yatzar
Players: middle school students in Jewish day school
The Asher Yatzar prayer is one of Judaism’s most basic, literally. It is said every time one uses the toilet, right after washing the hands and leaving the bathroom. It is basic in that it deals with an act that is so basic, and is said in gratitude to HaShem for first making us in such wisdom, making us perfectly so that if one opening was closed, or a closing was opened, and they shouldn’t be, we wouldn’t be able to stand before HaShem in gratitude. Or to stand at all.
There were a few students in this class that didn’t know the prayer, or when or why it was said. The lesson plan was, and can be, the following:
1. Explain the prayer.
a. Write down various organs they couldn’t live without. (heart, brain, etc.)
b. Write down actions that if they didn’t do, they wouldn’t survive. (eat, sleep, go to the bathroom…)
2. Look at the prayer and choose most important words for the class.
3. This class chose openings and cavities, and blocks or closings.
4. Make a gesture with just your hands that shows both an opening and a closing at the same time.
5. Now choose a partner, and make a gesture with your arms and hands together that shows both an opening and closing at the same time.
6. Now see if the whole group can make a shape that is both and opening and closing.
7. Rehearse all three shapes and transitions from one to the other.
8. Recite the prayer, as a group, while first doing the solo, then duets, then the group. Recite the prayer first in English, then in Hebrew.
9. Decide as a group which gesture will be performed where in the prayer, which works as a solo, as a duet, as the group gesture? This may change the order: perhaps students want to start off as a group, and then become soloists, to signify standing alone before HaShem, or they might find key words that the gestures align with, such as Haloolim Haloolim with the duet gesture, to show how many of the cavities or openings are possible…
10. Decide as a group what the final pose should be. Perhaps it is whatever pose was the third one, or perhaps all stand Laamod lefanecha, standing before HaShem, and the rest of the prayer is recited standing still.
11. Ask the students if they understood the prayer in a different way.
a. Some of the Heritage students did not know the prayer, so they said they had learned a lot.
b. Some were more conscious of the meaning of the prayer, as normally they are taught it in Hebrew, and are focused on the words more than the meaning.
Some had stories to share about illness and being grateful when an illness is over: this has direct correlation to the Asher Yatzar prayer.
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Biology and Dance in a High School Class: Embodying the Body
By admin | December 25, 2008
Teachers: Jeanne Powers, Biology Teacher at PVPACHS, and Jodi Falk, Dance Director at PVPACHS
Authors: Jodi Falk and Jeanne Powers
October, 2008
Jeanne Powers, Biology teacher at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and Jodi Falk, Director of Dance at PVPACHS, created and implemented a short series of classes that used physical movement exercises to help teach some basic principles of the workings of human cells. This idea grew from wanting to integrate the performing art of dance into the academic discipline of biology; the result was an integrated class, informed discussion, and essays by the students on the nature of equilibrium, not only in the cells, but also in their lives and on the planet.
It has been well documented that engaging the kinesthetic intelligence of children in primary and elementary education is a powerful tool for learning many subjects in the academic curriculum (Gilbert, Jensen, Overby, Pica, Griss, and Zakkai). However, there is very little written about this for high school age children, and whether this kind of intelligence is still a meaningful vehicle for gaining understanding. This class does not prove nor disprove the possibility that it is meaningful; however, it does serve to ask the question and bring up this possibility in educational discourse.
Ms. Powers’ wanted to help solidify her students’ understanding of the ways material can move in and out of a semi-permeable cell membrane. Along with this is the notion of equilibrium, or how a cell balances its materials inside and outside of the cell membrane. The specific topics she wanted to cover were: DIFFUSION, ACTIVE TRANSPORT with channels, ENDOCYTOSIS and EXOCYTOSIS.
DIFFUSION occurs when there are particles on either side of a cell membrane and the particles are not equal on both sides. The particles want to move to equilibrium where the concentration can be the same on both sides of the cell membrane. The particles will move only from high concentration to low concentration because no energy is used during diffusion.
In ACTIVE TRANSPORT, energy is used with the help of pathways or channels inside the cell membrane. This energy, called ATP, helps to “carry” the material across the cell membrane. Because there is energy, the particles can move against the concentration gradient from low to high.
ENDOCYTOSIS is the ability for a cell to engulf a particle by changing its own shape and bringing it into the cell. EXOCYTOSIS is the opposite, it is the ability for the cell to release material to the outside of the cell. Both processes involve the cell changing its form to move the particle or material along.
Ms. Falk decided to do at least one movement exercise for each of the four processes. For diffusion, Ms. Falk named the process before describing the movement activity; for the others, Ms. Falk had the students move and create and then decipher which process they were embodying. Discussions followed each exercise.
Handshake warm-up
For diffusion, Ms. Falk first led a warm-up where each student shook the hand of another student (this can be done with scarves or gloves on if touching skin is not permitted or practiced) and then another, always keeping one hand connected. The “game” is to only have one hand, in other words to not be without a hand, or to not be with two hands. This exercise can reveal some social cues: if someone is too quick to let go of a hand, or highly concerned with another who doesn’t have a hand. In any case, the idea here is to get used to moving and seeing how movement can be looked at as a metaphor for processes not directly involved in the exercise. Diffusion is partly depicted in this activity by very little use of energy to move from one person, or cell, to another.
Bumper car jam
A more detailed movement game for diffusion followed the handshake warm-up. Students were asked to connect arm-in-arm two or three across. When Ms. Falk said “go”, the students were asked to run across the room, and, if they were three across, they were to drop one person onto a two across team, so that the greater number would “diffuse” to a lower number, and equilibrium would be reached. At least, it would be reached for a moment. Then, of course, the two across team would now be a three across, and would need to repeat the dropping off action. This drop-off and pick-up action continued until Ms. Falk said “stop”. The obvious short-lived nature of equilibrium was truly seen in this exercise. This point became the basis for essays that the students wrote later in the unit.
“Me” game
Without explaining that the next exercise was about active transport, Ms. Falk placed a line of blue tape across the floor. On one side of the tape, she mentioned that it was the “in”side or “cool” group, and the other side, the “out”side or not as cool group. This led to a fun discussion about which side was better. Ms. Falk then asked that if people wanted to go from the “out” to the “in” group, they needed to lean back towards the “in” group, yell out “ME” and the people in the “in” group line up in two lines across from and near to each other, like a channel, and catch the person who said “ME”, carry them, and bring them into their side. This “transfer” of a person happens with a good deal of energy used to pick up and carry, as well as coordinate with each other. This energy represented the much needed ATP for active transport. When there are too many people in the “in” group, (like too much real estate development on the shore), people from that group do the same to move to the “out” group.
Cell Volleyball
Two groups of students get into a circle holding hands, facing outward. These two circles make two teams, and these teams play a game with a large physioball. The ball is thrown from one team, without anyone in the team using his or her hands. The opposite team catches the ball, also without using hands, and passes the ball through the group, which means the circle changes its forms a little, and then shoots it to the other team. Points are won if the group can catch the ball, and if the group can pass the ball through the group, keeping their hands connected to each other. As different groups got better at catching and passing, they also seemed to help their opponents get better at it.
Discussion and feedback:
Much of the discussion centered around how much teamwork was needed for most of these processes. Ms. Powers described that indeed teamwork was a central part of the workings of our cells in our bodies. Students also commented on how the cells need to communicate with each other, and when there weren’t enough helpers in the Active Transport game, others needed to come in and help. Ms. Powers explained that this happened inside the cells as well; sometimes extra proteins were called on to aid the transport process. The discussions of each game helped to clarify further the cellular processes inside each of our bodies.
Student responses:
Students were then asked how doing the movement games may have helped them reinforce their learning the material of the biology class. They were also given the option of saying if it didn’t help them at all. Where there were a few students for whom this was not a helpful method, many comments centered around the following statements:
“This class reinforced what we learned in the biology class.”
“I got to see it in action; this helped me know it.”
“This class brought it full circle; I learned it, I read it, and now I did it.”
“This class made me realize I knew it more than I thought I did.”
“It made more sense to me because of how it feels. It’s not just memorizing.”
“I learned it because I am it.”
“I’m not going to lie – I thought you would make us choreograph the cytoplasm. I wasn’t looking forward to this class. But, I had fun and I really learned something.”
Stability and Instability Essays:
In the following week, Ms. Powers focused the class on the aspect of equilibrium. If cells are constantly looking for equilibrium, are we? Do we find it? Would we like it if we did?
Ms. Powers states: “In class, we brainstormed about the stabilities and instabilities of both themselves and the world. They were to write about these stabilities and instabilities and think about what the world would be like if everything were stable (at equilibrium). Then their final task was to write about how stability and instability in the world was similar to the instabilities and stabilities (equilibrium) in cells.
I believe that the majority of them made the connection from what we did with Jodi (Ms. Falk) and the in class brainstorming. The movement exercise with Jodi allowed many of them to make the connections that they had not made from just the in-class work.”
Excerpts from Stability Papers:
Student A:
“Nothing can ever become truly stable. It’s almost like saying something is perfect, nothing is ever perfect. Life can’t ever be perfect or stable because everything can be improved upon, no matter what. It’s a good thing that nothing is stable, because if everything was, there wouldn’t be anything to look forward to or work towards. If the world did magically become stable, I feel like everything would soon become extremely bland and boring. There wouldn’t be anything to change. All people learn from their experiences and their mistakes, and if the whole world became stable, there wouldn’t be anything to learn from.
We need instability to thrive. We need to feel something different all the time, we need to encounter new problems and find a way to work through them. All this just makes us stronger people and allows us to know how to approach new things in the future. I wouldn’t have much to do with my time if the world was stable. I really have no idea what I would do because it’s just so unrealistic. I can’t imagine a stable life, a stable world.
These questions relate to the stability and equilibrium in cells. Cells are extremely hectic, and are not very orderly. It relates to how life is; nothing is ever perfect, and there is always something going on. Nothing stays the same; the chemistry of the cell is constantly changing and evolving. Just like life.”
Student B:
“I think that it is impossible for the world to become stable if we are also stable. Because when the human population is stable that means that all of us are using the world’s resources, and most of us do not give back to the world, most just take. But if there were no humans the world would thrive, it would be a forest rather than a slowly increasing industrial world.”
Student C:
“So, I think that the world and the people in it basically work on the same principle on which the cells do when they form equilibrium or balance out. Cells even out to create balance, or some kind of harmony, and that is for the most part how human life works. Just like the cells.”
Student D:
“What is stable in about the world: there is really not much that is stable about the world. However, I can honestly say that the socioeconomic diversity of our world is stable. It’s not really a good thing to have this kind of diversity, because is means that there will be poor people; those who get less than their share of the world’s resources.”
Student E:
“The world is loaded with stability, though it’s sometimes hard to identify because of the instability masking it.”
Student F:
“Cells are constantly searching for equilibrium, much like people are.”
Student G:
“Let’s go with that – the world becoming stable. Would life become pointless if it did become stable? Is the point in life to try and “equalize” who we are and all around us? How I think of stability in our world is peace. Once we have stability, we’ll have peace. I just think it’d be kind of hippy-esque, almost. Playing music, singing, laughing, joking, dancing . . . “
Student H:
“Stability and equilibrium in cells is very similar to the stability and instability of the world around us. Cells have to work very hard to achieve stability, and when they do, the stability changes rapidly. This is like the world, because the stability in the world is also changing rapidly.”
Student H:
“I don’t think we could be stable even if we tried, although I do think one of the faults of the human race is the inability to accept instability.”
Student I:
“All of these questions I have answered in this paper relate to the stability and equilibrium in a cell, because cells are hardly ever stable. It is incredibly difficult for cells to be stable, because they are constantly changing. This relates to the real world, because everything around you in the world is also constantly changing, whether you notice it or not.”
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Morning Prayers in Movement: a Jewish Yoga Class
By admin | September 3, 2008
There are wonderful resources from Rabbis and other learned people in the Jewish tradition that speak to spirituality of the body (Nachman, Finkel, Michaelson) and the holiness of movement (Michaelson, Bloomfield, Nachman and students). There is an emerging field of Jewish yoga and creative dance (Bloomfield, Klotz, courses at Elat Chayyim, the dance program at the religious women’s college Orot in Elkana, Israel). And, there is still a gap between those ideas, which prove a more movement-filled Jewish origin (dancing after crossing the Red Sea, David dancing wildly by the Ark, the daily shuckling by minyans across the continents and centuries, Psalms which uphold dancing as a glorification of the One), and … reality.
The other weekend I taught a four-day course at Elat Chayyim on Embodied Relationships, relationship to oneself, to others, to prayer, and to G-d. Embodied prayer was the first idea I had for the course and I focused on that in many of the sessions. As per usual at Elat Chayyim, the spiritual wing of the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Falls Village, CT, there were many inspiring teachers and leaders of heart awakening and love-filled Shabbat services. Shabbat morning, Amichai Lau-Lavie, Executive and Artistic director of Storahtelling, led a rousing Dvor Torah which included Bnai Mitzvah teenagers and their parents. In the beginning of the services, Amichai said something quite simple that complemented my Jewish yoga practice and helped uplift my Shabbat teaching that day.
Simply put, the morning services, and the morning in general, as we wake, start with Thank You. We say Modeh/Modah Ani upon waking, which is one big Thank You for keeping me alive and waking me up, and go on to the morning prayers which say Thank You for opening eyes, mine and others, for straightening the bent, my body and others, for guiding my steps, etc. The prayers can be seen as an analogy for all humanity but also for getting me out of bed and just, well, thanks.
Then, after the grateful blessings, we say “Wow”. All the Songs of Praise follow, the “wow” of the wonder of it all, and of G-d. Isn’t that amazing? We say thank you BEFORE we say wow. We don’t say, wow, thank you. We say thank you, wow. It’s not so new age after all to have the “attitude of gratitude” and then magically we have the eyes to really see, to really receive the wonders that exist, that we “have”.
So, what does this have to do with Jewish Yoga? I use this map, this framework already handed down to Jews for thousands of years, to thematically and literally order the class. First, is thank you. Even if we are tired, cranky, or have the early morning body stiffness. We say thank you. We actually speak our thanks as we begin our class. We become aware of our bodies, sitting on our cushions or mats, and as we stretch and moan we also say thank you for the arms to stretch, for the breath that runs through us, for straightening our bent bodies and even for the pain we experience, since the pain will lead us to our own relief of pain if we learn how to listen.
Then, as we move more into the first postures of the class, we say “Wow.” Wow, we can stretch that much more, wow, we can balance in that lunge, wow, we can be like a cat or dog, and wow, we can stand.
Then, as in the service of our tradition, after the wow, is the most important prayer of Judaism. It is said that if you cannot study Torah on any given day, then at least you must say this prayer, in the morning, and in the evening. This is the Shema. The most important prayer of a highly verbal (people of the Book) tradition, a tradition of arguing and wrestling and questioning, is the prayer that tells us to listen. Listen, O Israel, the Lord is Our G-d, the Lord is One. This is what Jews brought to the world, monotheism, and to truly hear this, and live by the example of its teaching, is supposedly the life’s work of all Jews.
The Shema in the body is a wonderous practice. I have developed a whole morning tradition just on this practice alone. When do you actually listen to your body? What are the results when you do, and when you don’t? At this point in the yoga class, we are standing, and we begin to listen. What does my body need now? Right now? And now? The repeated question is always answered if you let the body speak, and release from your mind making the choice. I don’t believe that the body and mind are separate, but I do believe that in our 21st century western culture we have created a separation that often is detrimental to the body. Rumi, a poet mystic of a much earlier century, agrees: “If you start doing something against your health, your [body] intelligence will eventually scold you.” The question of what my body needs now, not what my mind thinks it needs, can lead to surprising results. When we “think” we are tired, we think that our response will be to lie down. Often if we really hear our bodies, our “tiredness” is our body’s way of asking for attention, and when we give it, our fatigue may give way to joyous opening or soft soothing swaying. Surprise is what happens; we allow ourselves to go into the unknown. And, isn’t that where G-d is?
This practice is like a known practice in the dance world, Authentic Movement ™. However, we don’t always use a partner as witness, and I bring in questions and images at times into the practice to work with. However, it is interesting that the last letter, ayin, of the Hebrew word shema, the first word in the shema, and the last letter, daled, in the Hebrew word echad, the last word in the shema, spell ed, which means witness. We witness our own silence, our own listening, and our own G-d.
After the Shema is the Amidah, which literally means standing. We stand to bless G-d, and then hear our thoughts alone, our own connection to the Divine. And, we listen. The Shema practice can bring such great insights that I often bring these two parts of the service together as one on the mat. And in the Amidah, we finally get to, except on Shabbat when all is perfect and we don’t need anything, ask G-d for what we want. That is also perfect; we listen, and then ask, instead of asking, then listening. Just as we say thank you before saying wow, we assert our connection to G-d through listening, and then ask for what we or loved ones, or the world at large, needs.
On certain mornings, the Amidah is followed by study. We study the words of the Torah. Here, if there is a theme for the class that is based on the parsha shavua, or another text, we work with that text in movement and in words. For instance, with parsha Toledot, we may work with partner counterbalance movements and perhaps a bit of contact improvisation to look at the relationship between Jacob and Esau. We might find the warrior poses in yoga correspond to one of the brothers, while the child’s pose corresponds to the other. Which one corresponds to which is a question of interpretation, and everyone on the mat is encouraged to find their own interpretation based on their movement discovery.
Finally, at the end of a Jewish prayer service we say Kaddish. This is the prayer that is said for anyone who has died recently, or for an anniversary of someone’s death. Some people say it for those who didn’t have anyone to say it for them, such as those who died in the Shoah, the Holocaust. Interestingly enough, at the end of a yoga class, we do savasana, the corpse pose. We practice dying. In both traditions the body knowledge of death is honored and given a place. It is notable that the Kaddish doesn’t speak of death, but is more praise for G-d. I recently heard a beautiful teaching that the words of praise are actually the words of those souls for whom we are saying Kaddish, rising to their Creator.
The above is a general outline of what my version of a Jewish yoga class is like. The movement to combine these two traditions is relatively new, considering the age of the traditions, and the field is open and growing. What is your experience?
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