Healthy body, healthy art

MCA will run a Spring Yoga Series. Photo Lyndon Marceau

As artists and arts workers, we credit so much of our creativity to our minds. But how much does our body and the way we move it influence our ideas, perceptions and creativity?

Damon Young, philosopher, runner and author of How to Think About Exercise argues that exercise has intellectual rewards and even the simple movement of walking can stimulate our ideas and develop our character.

‘In each case, exercise is not purely physical, as if we might carve off the flesh, leaving the spirit behind. And this is a crucial philosophical message: of wholeness. The human condition involves a continual to-and-fro between the body and the mind. In fact, the nouns make these aspects of self-esteem more divided than they are. Thinking is embodied, and acting is mindful,’  he argues,

Kate Cherry, Artistic Director, Black Swan State Theatre, credits swimming to helping her build the resilience and self-confidence essential for her successful career in the arts.

‘I think being a long distance swimmer helps. I have always been able to get in a pool, shut out all the white noise and swim for 50 laps. I was like that as a child. I know when I decide upon my course I can endure. I can simply go on and on and on.

‘People have always sped past me in a pool for the first 20 laps and then I watch them drop away.  I enjoy watching sprinters fly by me, but I love that sense of going on and on, meditating myself into a place where no-one can stop me, but me,’ said Cherry.