Azriel interviewed by Yuko Maskay about body-sensing (originally posted Apr 23, 2011)

Yuko decided to create videos of some of the people she met in Chiang Mai who fascinated her.

We take a walk through an agricultural project at Chiang Mai University. I introduce Somatic Experiencing and body sensing, and show (as we look at some local farmers) how different cultures carry their bodies differently.

Eyes of Jerusalem - video art (2006)

Jewish, Muslim, Christian, elderly, young, religious, secular.... I went to seek out the eyes of the diverse peoples living in the Holy City. Created in 2006 in the midst of my first explorations of the role of eyes in Arabic culture and discovering how different cultures have different experiences of the body.

"You Are An Animal" presentation: The opening story

"The Conversation" with Deepak Chopra, Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai and Azriel Cohen (official promo video)

"The Conversation": Deepak Chopra at HomeBase (Promo Excerpt) from Betterdays Media on Vimeo.

"The Conversation" with Deepak Chopra, Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai and Azriel Cohen (unofficial video)

A special program for the winter solstice in December 2010 at at Deepak Chopra's new center -Deepak Homebase, in New York City. It was a great honor to share this stage and an evening I will always remember. It feels somehow even more significant now that Wangari has passed away. My conversation with her was a tremendous affirmation of my contention that modern society's disconnection from the body and collective trauma are a root cause of the environmental crisis.

Painting Live @ The Leading Edge NYC Launch

November 2010. I was commissioned to create a massive (12 ft x 6 ft) painting in a style simliar to the Jazz in B&W series. Created live in response to people at a party, instead of in response to live musicians. It was to be created from start to finish in the presence of the people at the party. I had 2 assistants fill in the black lines once I laid them down. It took 4 hours to complete.This 45 second time lapse video was shot by my ipod which was mounted on the wall.

Body sensing and biofeedback

An interview with Howard Dieno, a U.K. trained Osteopathic Practitioner and Naturopath in Victoria, BC in Canada who attended one of my body sensing workshops. He speaks about his experiences with body sensing, and demonstrates a new biofeedback system developed by Ron Punett to measure states of embodied presence by monitoring the heart and breathing.

VLOG #2: Realizing we are animals

In a cafe in Pai, a rural village Thailand that is very popular among travelers. A conversation with Australian biologist Dr. Clive Marks, an Australian biologist, sharing his belief that the fundamental environmental problem is that we don't realize that we are animals.

Introducing my video blog

Introducing my video blog. They will be small pieces of conversations with people be on the topic of learning to sense our bodies as animals do, and how it can change our lives.

Amongst the ancient ruins of Sukkothai in Thailand, a conversation with author and former deputy mayor of Sofia, Bulgaria Irina Papancheva about how body sensing can help people who stutter www.stutterisa.org