I ran across the Catalog of Body Movements in the unsorted stacks in the library today. It was bound in five cardboard crates, wrapped in duct tape. It's a collection of thumb drives, diagrams, illustrations, stereoscopic images, a zoetrope, reel to reel tape, filmstrips, a highly accurate laser distance meter, some bells, a strobe light, and a number of other apparently miscellaneous items. It was compiled by @Nick Gleason, who seems to have disappeared. I am seeking anyone else who was involved in this project and can help assemble the data.

yeah i was a volunteer at some of the catalog of body movement practices or shows or whatever. @Nick Gleason recorded them all does this mean i get some kind of royalties or something?

mostly it was me and a bunch of other people in the black box all doing stuff in unison like opening doors for each other or pretending to vacuum or sweep or sit and be on a computer. we would do it over and over again. he played weird sounds and lights and stuff and after an hour or so it would get kind of freaky. sometimes i swear it's like we all ended up in the same dream, in kind of a moonlit night in an ancient subdivision in san francisco or something. i made out there once in a basement, but when the lights came up there we were, pretending to sweep floors on an empty stage.

Step brush ball change, step crush ball change, step brush ball change ball change ball change.

A flyer found in the collection:

--------------------------------------

Come See
THE CATALOG OF BODY MOVEMENTS

Performed on stage in the Black Box

Watch as the complexes of daily life are demonstrated for your amusement.

Reenacted!
Profusely annotated!
Deconstructed!

SEE the sawing lady
SEE the sweeping man
SEE the resting gentleman
SEE the couple passing through the door

EXAMINE THE RHYTHM OF LIFE
A demonstration of social science at work.

Thursday at 8




Note: Flicker vertigo warning.

Who's excited for the Freaky Dancing Contest? It's at the Halloween party, so we still have time to prepare, and I wondered if the Body Movement Club was participating, @Terrahoot? I see you guys walking around campus with your elbows out and your hands doing weird shapes and your knees all chickened out and thought you had some sweet moves. Are you accepting members? Because me and some of the other new students like @Erudeity and @Espiritismo and @Laura Camila would love to "bring it." Also @Sarah201220 and @DiegoDeLarge from the Green Cat Club too I'm sure.

The Catalog of Body Movements Players are accepting new members, @Michaela Lowenstein, and you'd be welcome to join, along with your friends @Erudeity, @Espiritismo, @Laura Camila, @Sarah201220, @DiegoDeLarge, and whoever else would be interested.

But keep in mind that Body Movement at this level is serious work. We have long, sweaty rehearsals that can be grueling, as we may practice a seemingly simple movement -- like a quarter turn, or a hair flick -- for hours at a time. It is the only way the full potential of the Movements is unlocked.

We meet tonight in the Black Box at 9. And absolutely, we have a very strong chance of winning the Freaky Dancing Contest. In fact, I don't see how we can lose. This is powerful stuff.

Doing the Catalog of Body Movements at the Halloween dance was not what I expected. Now I have some combination of Repetitive Strain Injury and PTSD.

It was fun at first. Like line dancing! Have you ever done that? Or Square Dancing at Dark 4-H mixes in elementary school. You get into a groove when everybody's doing it and you get swept up in something bigger than yourself and it's effortless and you just go with the flow?

We were doing 11b, The Upright Vacuum, and then the caller changed it to 92e, Opening the Window, which we did for awhile and then it was 46c, Putting Dishes in the Dishwasher. We were all in sync and it was feeling really good. Then the caller called 14d, Opening the Door.

We transitioned smoothly into our pairs. "After you!" "Why thank you." "No problem!" It's in four, with the silent beat following the "No Problem!" which gives you a moment to reset before starting again. And we did it again. And again, and again, finding that "magic in the moment" like @Terrahoot says.

That's when the Dapper One erupted from the floor. Some people screamed, but it was all planned, right? Except it was quickly clear something had gone wrong. They could tell. @Big Jim and all the chaperone teachers. Something wasn't right.

They told us to stop, but we couldn't stop. We kept on opening the door. And holding the door, until the Dapper One was REALLY here--not just some holographic reflection. "After you!" "Why thank you." "No problem!" It laughed at us before it walked away into the night.

Eventually Doctor Ankh from the infirmary was able to stop us from endlessly looping 14d, Opening the Door, but she kept us under observation till today.

I sure hope they find it. The Dapper One, that is. Is it really @Fullphantomblaze? And if it is, what then?

I can't go into any room with a door now without counting backward from 100 and controlling my breathing. I'm a wreck.

shuffle ball change, shuffle HOP step

shuffle HOP step FLAP step
shuffle HOP flap FLAP step

shuffle HOP shuffle step FLAP
step

shuffle step SHUFFLE BALL CHANGE BALL CHANGE hop FLAP shuffle step

DANCE CLASS


Dance was not as I had expected. I was hoping for the standard ballet, contemporary, jazz, acrobatic dance styles. But today it was odd. It was like we had all started levitating. Not like with silks, but I was at least 5 ft off the ground. I want to say I'm creeped out, but I'm not. I feel like i fit in here.

Ever since the night of the arrival of the Dapper Skeleton, @Terrahoot has kind of lost it. And the accident with the Reality Machine afterwords sure didn't help. Practicing the same movement over and over again--like opening and closing the refrigerator, or stepping onto a bus--had a certain "crazy artist" charm to it before. But now there's a different tone to @Terrahoot's obsession. He's so focused he won't speak, and he's gone without bathing or changing his clothes for almost two weeks.

We lost most of our members following the incidents, but there's a core group of us left who are still studying the Catalog of Body Movements. Maybe it's an inherently dangerous work. First its creator, @Nick Gleason, disappeared, and now it's broken @Terrahoot's mind. The rest of us continue to unpack the catalog from its boxes, looking at the filmstrips and the stereoscopic images and playing the records, but instead of practicing the individual movements, we watch for them in the wild. It's true that every moment you make is in the catalog, and when you see us in the hallways or the cafeteria furiously tapping on our tablets, we're keeping track of what all of you are doing. Using Labanotation, we're mapping the movements of the entire student body, including faculty. Perhaps there's something in the larger patterns that will tell us something.