by Lavinia Plonka | May 23, 2013 | The Creative Body
You are everything And everything is you The Stylistics A few years back, I went to the “Bodies” exhibit in New York. Some clever entrepreneur had used a proprietary freeze drying method to preserve cadavers in various postures; playing golf,...
by Lavinia Plonka | May 15, 2013 | The Creative Body |
I saw this cartoon on the internet the other day. When I reposted it, it created a mini-storm of conflict between those who questioned our standard beliefs about prehistoric life spans, and those who felt early humans were punished for their carnivorous...
by Lavinia Plonka | Apr 30, 2013 | The Creative Body
If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want Moshe Feldenkrais I was in my late 30’s, at the height of my performing career, but my body felt like I was ready for the junk...
by Lavinia Plonka | Apr 23, 2013 | The Creative Body
When I was growing up, sometimes my sister and I would have laughing fits. It might have been triggered by my father “torturing” us with his smelly feet, or tickling us till we begged for relief. Sometimes it was the result of our own comedic efforts:...
by Lavinia Plonka | Apr 15, 2013 | The Creative Body |
There’s a lot of talk these days about going back to our roots…way back. Nutritionists are urging us to the “paleo” diet, based on our ancestors’ omnivorous appetites. Other studies suggest that the hunter/gatherer “feast or...
by Lavinia Plonka | Apr 7, 2013 | The Creative Body
Have you ever been in the middle of a conflict where someone says, “Oh come on, just let it go.” Your fists are clenched, steam is coming out of your ears, you can almost feel the top of your head about to explode and someone is telling you to just let it...
by Lavinia Plonka | Mar 20, 2013 | The Creative Body
The wind was howling, the snow lay on the ground. I tried to imagine my garden. How did I ever do it? Dig, fertilize, plant, lug the wheelbarrow. The concept felt almost alien, even as February melted into March and I saw pansies starting to dot people’s yards. Then...
by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 27, 2013 | The Creative Body
When I was young, my mother always managed to spin any event into a negative, a complaint or a tragedy. Once I accused her of living with a half-empty glass. She retorted, “My glass is not half empty, it’s completely empty.” Of course, she was Russian. But perception...
by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 19, 2013 | The Creative Body
When I was a little girl, there was a local TV show called The Sandy Becker Show. Sandy played a lot of different characters, and seemed to have a wonderful time. One of his characters was called The Big Professor. My mother always ran in to watch the Big Professor,...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jan 28, 2013 | Body Language, The Creative Body |
I went to a performance the other night of a talented clown who billed himself as a “certified lunatic”. He expertly performed all kinds of schtick, much of which I’d seen before. I smiled and admired his skill, but didn’t really laugh much. Then he went out...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jan 10, 2013 | The Creative Body
We have super powers. We’ve just forgotten. Somewhere over the course of the last couple of centuries, we’ve narrowed our definition of sensory awareness to five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling. But what about proprioception: knowing where...
by Lavinia Plonka | Dec 15, 2012 | The Creative Body |
The other day in my Awareness Through Movement® class, I saw that some people were having difficulty with a particular movement. “Don’t strain,” I suggested. “Instead, take a moment and imagine the movement.” One of the students started...
