What it’s like to work with Polina, from Students
It is common in class, while working on presence, a monologue, or a scene, for Polina to give one student a suggestion and then to give the next one completely different directions. Polina responds to each student as they are in the moment, intuiting what will bring them to more awareness and humor, bringing them closer to acceptance and neutral readiness. Below you will find diverse descriptions by students who have volunteered to share their experiences.
Enjoy!
* If you are a former or current student, would you like to include your own experience learning under Polina? If so, please email polinaktraining@gmail.com !
“Polina carries a constant questioning about everything we think we dominate, passing her knowledge as if it is an infinite process of discovery, always renovated and aware. Klimovitskaya does with her students and actors what we should do with the audience: leaving everybody on the edge of their seats, waiting to know more, opening a crack of void in front of us, ready to be field with our fantasies and knowledge. Her way of communicating propagates the use of intuition and surprise, the importance of not-knowing, not giving up, and also of discovering kindness again, passion, happiness. There is no error, no right and wrong, only experiences, research and a personal process of work, unique and without censorship.”
- Sara Carinhas
“Since I began studying with her, everything changed, and continues to change as the years I studied with her are still alive in me and still teaching me, daily. She taught me to be the master of my own practice, to invent my own exercises. She taught me that there is a primitive, bodily truth that modern people can learn to access, and that can serve us on stage and on film. She taught me that acting is above all practical, and that what we watch is always the level of life below the text. She taught me to see when something is truthful, and to acknowledge how rarely it is truthful, and how fleeting truth is. She taught me to work until finding one, tiny, moment of truth, and cherish it, with humility and gratitude.”
— Alexandra Zelman-Doring
If Strasberg is about emotion, Adler imagination, Meisner instinct, Polina is intuition for me
She teaches that acting isn’t being interesting or being emotional, it is just being. She seeks the truth above all else. With her you will not follow any school of acting or training, you will instead learn a state of being. Her interpretations of theatre texts as a director are original and fresh. She is a master of thinking outside of the box. She is full of surprises and when she is watching, she is really watching you. A freeing, fun class full of discovery that will challenge you.
-Oriana Ng
“What strikes me most about working with Polina in a class or private coaching session is how present SHE is. Perhaps her greatest gifts as a teacher are her ability to truly sense, free from preconceptions, what an actor needs in a given moment and her understanding of acting not as a formulaic process but a dynamic one full of contradictions and individuality. She is a true artist and master teacher with an “old world” sensibility who has helped bring freshness and originality to my work.”
- Mitchel Kawash
“I have discovered how to think with my body and trust it, letting myself find the path for the character, opening space, being present, always being conscious not to interfere in the process. I love the way she confronts me. Since the first time, she has seen parts of me that I didn’t trust too much, but in her classes she gave me a green light and I let myself go. In Paris I had a wonderful experience after doing a monologue of Yelena (Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya) I felt the most wonderful human being. Something split, and I just became a whole human living having a whole experience.”
— Angeline Rodrigues
When I first joined Polina’s class, I was puzzled to see it didn’t have any of the classical theatre cliches in it I had come to expect. Polina worked with the actors so it wasn’t about fake voices or pushed energy, but through very subtle kinetic work helped them find the essence of the scene. It was the first time I’d ever seen that scene look like it was between two real people.
-Sam Gibbs
“Polina often lets me know that I am allowed to do nothing. No standard to reach, nothing to live up to; to just allow it all to kick in and discover the story and character anew again and again. She will also give a detailed direction, like what shape my hand is in or how it holds an object, and the small adjustment changes everything else in my current make-up. She works with me both on finding my humor and sensuality as much as fighting for something greater than myself, and in that work there’s really no work to acting, just living through each moment and connecting with essence that truly matters while also having the most fun.”
— Brooks Borden
“The day I met Polina, she told me, “You are sitting like that because you are not yet proud of your body.” Immediately my spine straightened. That interaction seems to describe everything about Polina’s approach. She could see clearly how a seemingly tiny thing – the way I was slouching in front of her – was evidence of a much deeper feeling, and she explained so directly and kindly that I understood it without being self-conscious. In working with her, my own awareness of my body and the way I hold it has deepened; from her I have learned how to learn, not just what to fix.”
- Anagha Putrevu
“Working with her has been focused on my individual state of being— my specific habits. Certain patterns of physical response, my tendency to retreat into what she’d call, “a romanticism you’re having with yourself,” or a quality of movement that dominates large portions of my life. Some of these habits are surely older than others, and addressing them can be tricky, but Polina is always present, watchful, and generous. ”
— Thomas Ryan
“Polina has taught me the joy of freeing myself from trying to control things. During one class exercise I suddenly found that I was able to let go of all the agendas I had been giving myself. The simple suggestion Polina gave me which was to run forward was enough. I did not need to force myself to react or imagine anything in particular. That just happened on it’s own. And instead of experiencing the weight of trying to execute an agenda or force something, I was able to allow myself to be surprised by whatever happened next. I think that’s one of the most important shifts.”
— Andrew Schwartz
“Most importantly I feel that Polina understands human behavior to such an extent that she understands how to produce the work in her students that reflects true, transformative, and effective artistic creativity. Her class is often a conducive environment to the exploration not only of acting but most importantly every day human life.”
— Piper Parks
“What Polina taught me, through her humor and compassion and wisdom, was to see what was in front of me without any preconceptions or judgements as to how I thought I should feel, but just be, or as she would say, "empty". By being empty, it was like seeing the world again like a child, as if I were really seeing instead of projecting what I should be seeing. Her Kinetic Mind work it is, for me, like rediscovering I have a body as strange as that may sound. I move my arm and yet I also am aware that something in me very subtle is moving it. I become a witness to this process instead of an executor of my mind alone.”
— Anthony Leung
“Working with her has both changed my approach to acting and brought new life into my work by teaching me to steer away from generic emotions and look more into specificity when transforming into a character. Every tailored class is always an exploration, whereby she encourages me to look at my work with awareness and curiosity instead of judgement. One of the many things she has taught me is to deepen my understanding of how a character is internally thinking while always finding the heart of any piece.”
— Allegra Venturi
“A thought that she passed down to me is “you can’t teach acting, you can only develop the actor.” The work always comes back to physical training specific to the actor’s needs. She trains each actor to be present in their body, in their environment, to their fellow actors, and to the rhythm and the needs of the play. She has encouraged me to be my own artist, to follow my own creative instinct, to nurture my own aesthetic sensibility, discipline, and connection to the craft. She has led me time and time again to live fully, freely, and creatively moment by moment.”
— Russell Norris
“With Polina’s teachings now I can understand basics of art itself, and it opens up for me a lot of opportunities and direction to keep evolving as a human being. I understand it as there is no right or wrong, that there can’t be one opinion about a certain thing because the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s something that I can’t predict and can only happen willingly by itself in the moment. It’s something that sometimes I can’t see but I can hear. It’s something that can’t be taught but can be discovered. Through her exercises, kinetic work , text analysis, the material she gave us, I could discover those things that can not be explained one way; you can only experience it.”
- Artem Grigorev
”Through training with Polina I was able to gain the courage to really discover who I am as an artist. She holds a safe environment so that you are free to explore and try new things. Polina helps guide you to embrace your own unique process while constantly reminding you to stay curious to new possibilities. One of the most valuable things I've learned from training with her is letting the moment dictate what you do next, instead of trying to dictate what the moment is.”
- Ramsden Madeus