Stand on one leg and challenge yourself!
Organise your body so that you are constantly throwing yourself out of balance!
You are standing on one leg, but you are also moving,
As if you are playing some kind of childhood game!

Are you falling?
How are you organising yourself?
What is your head doing, and what are your arms doing?

Quickly switch legs! Are you falling now?
What is your head doing now, and your arms and the other leg?
How is your body “saving” you from falling?

Close your eyes!!
Continue the game and map the organisation and reaction of your body!

Recorded by: Mia Štark

You are lying on soft, warm grass, looking at the sky.

You hear the murmur of people.

Birdsong.

You feel warmth.

With every exhale, the body releases its weight into the ground.

Letting go.

Your system is calming down, you are calming down.

You sink deeper and deeper into the ground on which you are lying.

That surface is your support,
And your body is safety and grounding.

Recorded by: Mia Štark

Take a large sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal.

Hold the piece of charcoal with both hands.

Draw lines strongly.

Your attention is on your fingers, on your palms.

Follow the movement of your wrist, elbow, shoulder.

Draw and remain aware of your entire arm.

Let the body organise itself according to the gesture.

Press the charcoal more lightly — release the pressure.

How are your arms and body organising themselves now?

Take as much time as you need in pause and silence.

What does your work look like?

Recorded by: Mia Štark

You are sitting in an armchair reading a book.

Your eyes fly across the letters, adding them up

And connecting them.

You turn the pages.

The page is rough, or smooth.

Thin or thick.

Glossy, coated or uncoated.

What is it like?

What is that book like?

Heavy or light?

Stop paying attention to the book and observe your hands, your palms holding it.

How are your fingers organised, your joints — many small joints.

How does the skin crease?

How does your wrist move?
—
Close your eyes — Remember — Draw

Recorded by: Mia Štark

Go outside and begin an adventure guided by your senses.

Hyper focus on sight —
What do you see that is new, how do you see it, from which position, near or far?

Hyper focus on smell —
What scents surround you, is your sense of smell overwhelmed? Where does your nose lead you?

Hyper focus on hearing —
Continue your adventure, let the sounds take over!
Where do they lead you, or do you stay in one place? Where are the sounds coming from?

Hyper focus on touch —
Fabric, air, other people, plants, animals? What is touching you, what are those textures, and where do they lead you next?
Is your attention on what is touching you or on what you are touching?

Finally, hyper focus on taste —
Do you want to bite into something, do you want to taste something, even just touch it with your tongue, open the buds on your tongue?
How often do we let our adventure of exploration be taken over by the sense of taste?

Recorded by: Mia Štark

You are sitting next to someone.

You are touching — shoulder to shoulder,
back to back
or palm to palm.

Close your eyes, breathe deeply.

Attention is on the meeting and the touch.

With every breath the body expands, with every exhale it contracts
again,
and again.

You are breathing together, warmth is created in the touch.

Shared calm, shared rest, shared breathing.

Just like cellular respiration.

Recorded by: Mia Štark

Pay attention to the walls surrounding you, to the space you are in.

What is within us can be found outside, and vice versa —
The walls of a room, the membrane of a cell, safety.

Shift your attention to your skin.

The large membrane that you see and clearly feel.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Go even deeper.

Imagine the cells and their membranes —
Safety and support.

Hold that thought within yourself and outside yourself, carry it into every space you enter.

Recorded by: Mia Štark

Whatever you are doing, stop!

Go outside.

Find a position in which you can feel the sun, wind, warmth, or coldness on the skin of your face.

Breathe in.

Imagine the air flowing and traveling through all the hollows of your skull.

It enters through the nasal cavities, travels into the nasal conchae,
First, second, third.

Allow the air to flow through.

Feel it beneath your eyes, deep within the skull.

Breathe in like that several times.

Recorded by: Mia Štark

Body-Mind Centering® morning classes

with Zrinka Šimičić, certified educator of somatic and developmental movement through BMC® and certified movement analyst – somatic practitioner through LBMS.

On Wednesdays from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. at the Zagreb Dance Center (Ilica 10) and are open to everyone, regardless of previous experience.

Body-Mind Centering® is an integrative approach to movement based on an experiential model of psychophysical learning about different body systems, their anatomy and physiology, as well as developmental movement. Its goal is to connect factual knowledge with personal experience. The BMC® approach begins with awareness of cellular and sub-cellular structures, tissues, and organs as a pathway toward activation and outward action with greater support and more choices. The founder of this approach is Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.

The price for a single class is €15, and for a full month €45.
A 20% discount is available for unemployed persons and members of UPUH and PULS (discounted price: €12 for a single class, €36 for a monthly pass).
Two free places are available for people facing physical, economic, or other difficulties.

For additional information and registration: somahut.mmk@gmail.com

Body-Mind Centering ®  /BMC ® are registered service mark of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, used with permission

September 13 – December 13, 2025
Zagreb: Šestine Local Committee, Ribnjak Youth Center, Zagreb Dance Center

The autumn cycle of SomaHut gatherings begins on September 13 with a series of three study sessions led by Mia Štark, a dance and visual artist and trainee in the licensed School for Body-Mind Centering® program. The study sessions will take place on Saturdays, September 13, 20, and 27, from 11 AM to 1 PM at the Šestine Local Committee, Šestinski trg 10. The core of these study sessions is formed around questions and inspiration emerging from the educational program, connected with developing awareness of deep, often forgotten layers of the body and movement.

Participation is open to everyone, with a recommended donation according to individual possibilities. Due to organizational reasons, interested participants are kindly asked to register at: somahut.mmk@gmail.com.

In October, a workshop with guest artist Gabriel Hensche will follow, along with his lecture presenting the project how to love many in many ways.
Registrations: somahut.mmk@gmail.com

In November, we are expecting an intensive workshop weekend with Eszter Gal, dance artist, choreographer, educator, certified teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique, with more than 25 years of experience in the practice and teaching of contact improvisation*. The workshop will take place in collaboration with the Zagreb Dance Center.
*more information coming soon

Also beginning in November and continuing in December is a workshop cycle led by Ana Jelušić, dance artist and Feldenkrais practitioner. This series of workshops is based on the Feldenkrais Method® and will take place on Saturdays, November 15 and 29, and December 6, from 11 AM to 2 PM, at the Šestine Local Committee, Šestinski trg 10.

The autumn cycle concludes with the Annual SomaHut Meeting on December 13, 2025, also held at the Šestine Local Committee.

Schedule:
September 13, 11 AM – 1 PM / Šestine Local Committee / Mia Štark: somatic session cycle Where Does Bodily Experience Begin
September 20, 11 AM – 1 PM / Šestine Local Committee / Mia Štark: somatic session cycle Where Does Bodily Experience Begin
September 27, 11 AM – 1 PM / Šestine Local Committee / Mia Štark: somatic session cycle Where Does Bodily Experience Begin
October 4, 5 PM – 8 PM / Ribnjak Youth Center / Gabriel Hensche: how to love many in many ways, workshop and lecture
November 15, 11 AM – 2 PM / Šestine Local Committee / Ana Jelušić: Feldenkrais Method® workshop cycle
November 22 and 23 / Zagreb Dance Center / Eszter Gal – contact improvisation and somatic practice workshop
November 29, 11 AM – 2 PM / Šestine Local Committee / Ana Jelušić: Feldenkrais Method® workshop
December 6, 11 AM – 2 PM / Šestine Local Committee / Ana Jelušić: Feldenkrais Method® workshop
December 13 / Annual SomaHut Meeting

The SomaHut program is co-financed by the City of Zagreb, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, and the European Union through the Erasmus+ programme.
It is organized in collaboration with the following partners: Šestine Local Committee, Voćarska Local Committee, Kontejner – Bureau of Contemporary Art Praxis, Zagreb Dance Center, Ribnjak Youth Center, Wiener Tanzwochen – ImPulsTanz, and Milvus Artistic Research Center (MARC).