Eleven-year-old Melanie Kwierant moves to the center of the studio, a little reluctant to show off her black belt karate skills. But as she begins, her pre-teen shyness fades away. She kicks. Punches. Maneuvers a graceful turn. She’s calm and confident. When finished, she’s slightly out of breath. She bows to the small crowd that has gathered and sits down.
Posts tagged #Summer 2016 Features
Grasslands
I learned firsthand that grasslands can dance when I was sixteen or seventeen. Sure, I had heard as much, and probably had read it, too. Yet growing up in Southern California, such things seemed mysterious and distant, evocative of vast plains and wagon trains. I was hiking with Lee in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. We had puffed our way up the Chumash Trail, a dusty climb without switchbacks from the sea into the coastal hills.
The Human Body— A Symphony in Sharps and Flats Getting to Know Dr. Diane Babalas, Chiropractor and Healer
Overheard:
—I don’t want to go to the reception. I hate these things.
—Leave early.
—But I don’t know these people!
—Just go up to the first interesting person you see and ask, “How’s your back?”
Dance Meditation Technique: Dance Your Way to Self-Realization
On an unusually warm Sunday in January, people are milling around inside Detroit’s archaic Scarab Club (the sign out front notes, “The scarab, an Egyptian symbol of rebirth…”). True to the venue’s name, a tribe of Dance Meditation Technique (DanceMT) practitioners, as participants are called, has been showing up every Sunday for a chance to be reborn with more vibrancy and vitality.
A Family Art Exhibition ~ Three Sisters and Their Mom
Wanetta Jones is a firecracker. At eighty-seven years old, her voice floats and delves octaves with stories of herself and her three daughters, all of whom are artists. Sitting in her Ann Arbor condo surrounded by her oil paintings, she explains the way she encouraged her three girls to become artists: “I said, you kids have to pick out art. I’m not going to have my children grow up just using one side of their brains.”
Yoga: A Practice to Enhance Relationship
When people say, “I’m in relationship,” they usually are referring to a relationship with another person — perhaps a friend, an intimate other, or even a business partner. Most people would agree quality relationships of all kinds matter and have real value. So, have you considered how you relate to yourself? As a yoga teacher, this has become a curious question I often ask myself.
Acupuncturist Pokes Holes in My Fears (Our Intrepid Reporter Braves Needles in her Face and Reaps Unexpected Benefits from her Visit to Dr. Julie TwoMoon)
I’m lying on a padded table in a quiet, restful room, but I can’t quite relax. I look up at the woman standing over me. “The needles... are you going to, you know, put them in my face?” The woman is Dr. Julie TwoMoon, a naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist based in Plymouth. She gives a confident nod. “You’ll hardly feel it,” she says.
Ari Axelrod: A Life Transformed A Young Actor’s Journey Back to the Stage After Discovering He Needed Brain Surgery
Ari Axelrod is 22 years old and nearing graduation from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University, near St. Louis. Axelrod is tall, with short brown hair, and a quick and wide smile. He also has a three-inch long, half-inch wide surgical scar at the base of his skull. (More about that later.) His voice is vibrant and well-modulated, and his conversation is enthusiastic, dramatic, and intensely engaged, just what you might expect of a budding musical theatre actor.
