"Body Language" was created in response to a task entitled "a history of 'this' space," a task that allows students to communicate to an audience of their choosing something about who they were, what they did, valued, etc. at a particular point in their college careers.
The creator of "Body Language" was a senior dance major enrolled in my fyc course and she felt strongly about (and so wanted to underscore for others) the importance of remaining cognizant of the ways our bodies are communicating all the time.
The footage used for this piece was taken during a group presentation session that took place on Fat Tuesday (part of the reason why some bodies are wearing beaded necklaces and why the room was decorated as it was). Two versions of "Body Language" were turned in to me. One (that which appears here) was silent, the other featured an audio component but the sound was intentionally engineered to be difficult to hear. What's more the soundtrack was looped or run backward. This was also done with a mind toward not allowing what was said in class that day take attention away from what the bodies of people enrolled in the course were saying/feeling/doing that day.
As a side note: "Body Language" was taken up and remediated the following semester by another senior dance major enrolled in the course (for a more in-depth treatment of this remediation see “‘I’ll be the Sun’: From Reported Speech to Semiotic Remediation Practices.” Text and Talk 26.6 [2006]: 733-766).
The creator of the new "live and revised" version of "Body Language"--while greatly admiring the aesthetics of the piece and deeply appreciating the work it meant to do--felt strongly that the message of "Body Language" may have been lost on viewers who didn't understand dance and/or the intricacies of the body. To this end, the second dance major decided to videotape a session of the class, and then contacted nine other dance majors (none of whom were enrolled in the course) to help out with the performance. One the day her history was due, the student had the dancers visit class and they performed a live interpretation of the videotaped class. Unfortunately, that footage (of the original class session as well as the in-class performance) has been lost. That said, I gotta say it was one of the most amazing things I've witnessed.
click image to view "Body Language"