Fitzmaurice Voicework
Event Type:
WorkshopSunday, March 21, 2010 9:30am - 1:00pm
This class will be repeated on April 18 and May 16
Suggested donation $45 for each session, no one turned away for lack of funds
Fitzmaurice Voicework® was
developed by theatre practitioner and healer Catherine Fitzmaurice
originally to enable actors, singers, and anyone who uses their voice
in a public forum, to discover their authentic voice. While the work
is now taught in theatre training programs across the US, and is
beginning to establish itself in Europe, Fitzmaurice Voicework's roots
in the work of Wilhelm Reich, Bioenergetics, yoga and shiatsu massage,
mean that it is now also being used as an approach to healing for
non-performers. Whether the work is training or healing depends on
your intent and your focus.
The work is based
on the belief that our emotional/personal histories are stored in our
musculature as habitual patterns of muscular tension. Reich called
these patterns of tension, 'armoring', for they do indeed armor us
against the world. At one point in our lives this protection was
valuable to us, but many people continue to hold onto these patterns
of tension that bind the body and constrain the breath to the point
that what once protected us, now becomes a major impediment to our
capacity to feel and express a full range of emotions, allow intimacy,
or find the full resonant and emotionally connected and expressive
voice that is our birthright.
For actors and
singers the work also facilitates a vivid and creative engagement with
the text, particularly useful when working with heightened language.
In releasing patterns of muscular tension in the body Fitzmaurice Voicework also
facilitates free and expressive movement. For non-performers
discovering the deeply connected voice that is within us all is a
powerful and freeing experience in and of itself.
Workshop leader
Roger Smart has directed extensively in North America and taught at conservatory and university training programs in the UK and USA. Originally educated in England, he has trained with Catherine Fitzmaurice and is a Certified Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®. Roger has taught with Catherine Fitzmaurice on a number of workshops; taught a five-day workshop at Giving Voice 2008 at the Centre for Performance Research in Wales; and as a guest artist at the London Academy of Dramatic Art and the Insitut del Teatre in Barcelona. Roger’s training and practice also includes a number of somatic disciplines including Contact Improv, Suzuki training, Viewpoints, and T'ai Chi. He is also trained in Shiatsu and Reiki.Contact Email:
joan@LifeForceArts.org