Wholphin

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Liner Notes:

I am an obsessive pattern seeker, perpetually torturing myself by searching for meaning in the mundane. So when I was a choreographer, and human movement was the stuff of my days, I’d always observe people’s posture and gesture, trying to parse the meaning behind them.

I had the notion of creating a dictionary of the archetypes of human gesture, breaking down and categorizing the meaning of personal motion and geometry. For example, there would be a section on head conjugation. The words “hit” and “hid” vary only slightly in construction and sound, but vary greatly in meaning. Likewise the suggested body language of head position varies greatly with only the slightest change of inclination, rotation, and forward/back displacement. I was interested in cataloging this postural grammar (but not interested enough to actually do it).

Time passed. Civilizations rose and fell. I became a filmmaker and eventually revisited dance with a suite of Chaplinesque films called Modern Daydreams, made in collaboration with Portland-based dance company BodyVox (www.bodyvox.com). BodyVox later commissioned me to make a new film for them and this idea of a body language dictionary burbled up from the idea archives. At first I thought I’d merely treat it in essay form but then decided that that would be too similar to my film Elevator World which also dealt with human movement, in this case, inter- rather than intra-personal the spatial politics of elevator riding. So I decided to use the instructional language video form which was a natural for the subject matter.

Though I’ve made them into jokes, I believe all of the interpretations of body language in this film are essentially true.

See the whole film (and many others) at www.mitchellrose.com

Biography:

Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Mitchell Rose was a New York-based performance artist and choreographer specializing in comedic work. Places of performance included the Spoleto Festivals in the U.S. and Italy, Joseph Papp’s New York Dance Festival at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, and touring throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Eventually he was drawn more to visual media and chose to become a filmmaker, entering The American Film Institute as a Directing Fellow. Since A.F.I., his films have won 48 film festival awards and are screened around the world on television and in locations as diverse as the Getty Museum and the CBS JumboVision in Times Square.

The New York Times has called him “A rare and wonderful talent … Woody Allen, with more than a dash of Abbie Hoffman thrown in.” The Washington Post has described his work as “in the tradition of Chaplin, Keaton, and Tati — funny and sad and more than the sum of both.”

One Response to “Excerpt: Learn to Speak Body”

• nfpendleton
  August 26th, 2008

  I think I had this set of tapes when I was younger. If nothing else, it really helps you brush up on your armpit sweat staining techniques.

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