The Prosodic Body
2010-2011 Swing Space Resident, 125 Maiden Lane, 9th Floor
Prosody is the sound of language—the expressive, musical aspect of language as distinct from the literal meaning of the words. Intonation, pause, cadence, and pitch are examples of prosodic elements. Through prosody, what words can't say is part of what words are (the unsaid, implied, tacit, suggested, evoked). The Prosodic Body constantly collaborates with practitioners from a wide-array of disciplines, notably: composers, linguists, actors, psychoacousticians, poets, neurologists, voice instructors, integrative doctors, bodyworkers, cognitive scientists, dancers, molecular biologists. The Prosodic Body is educative—organizing conferences, classes, workshops, lectures, interviews, demonstrations, expositions. Venues of the Prosodic Body include: Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Danspace Project, Center of Performance Research, Segue Foundation Poetry Reading Series, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, the Lab Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel, Movement Research at Jusdson Church, Dixon Place, Poetry Center at SFSU, California Institute of Integral Studies, Nonsite Collective, SUNY Buffalo.
The Swing Space residency will be used for two purposes——designing and developing the Prosody Building (comprised of 8 core functions: anechoic darkroom; reconfigurable performance space; sound science lab; bodywork area; re-English office; archive; community education and assembly; medicinal tea garden) and for organizing The Commons (a group focusing on direct actions toward common good; and the construction of an exhibition about the history of the commons, the privatization movement, and the subsequent immiseration of almost everyone today).
Visit www.prosodicbody.org/ for more information.
