1. Discover and Integrate the Pelvic Floor with your Singing Self with Deborah Bowes

The pelvic floor does not work in isolation, but is integrated with breathing, full body movements, and of course, singing. In this workshop, the focus will be to develop awareness and use of the pelvic floor as a coordinated system of muscles. There will be Awareness Through Movement exercises involving the whole body in sitting, standing and lying down. You can notice immediate improvement in breathing and abdominal control, and apply that to your singing.

2. The Sympathetic Skull: Improving Vocal Function by Optimizing Vocal Resonance with Robert Sussuma

What is vocal resonance? What is resonating… space or bone, or a combination? How much of our body can resonate with sound at any given moment? Is resonance passive or active? In this class, Robert will guide you through a series of sound and movement explorations that will prepare the vocal system in general - waking up our sense of the vocal tract - as well as open new ways of thinking about and working with vocal resonance.

3. Turning Air into Sounds with Richard Corbeil

Just as we need to crawl before we walk or run, there is a chronological hierarchy of functions inherent to the use of our voice, as well as their link to speaking or singing.

In this workshop, Richard will guide you through an introductory lesson based on the developmental process of vocalization, exploring the reciprocal relationships between movement and sound prior to speaking and singing.

4. The Impulse to Sing with Karen Clark

Karen’s class explores how our voice grows from an impulse— an utterance — to a fully formed sustained tone. If you’ve ever been surprised by a vocal sound you’ve made unintentionally, for instance, a mouse sighting (EEEK!) or, you stub your toe (OOOUCH!) you have an idea of the range of vocal expression that is yours already. Let’s clarify what happens in these moments and see if we can turn it into conscious intention— fueled by the imagination— and learn better how you organize yourself to speak or sing.

5. Beyond Hearing: Listening with your Whole Body with Drew Minter

In this class we will open with Taoist breathing and chakra sounding practices, followed by a Feldenkrais lesson focused on opening the body up through extending our breath awareness. We will also sing a song together and use breakout rooms to extend our hearing with Deep Listening exercises developed by Pauline Oliveros and myself.

6. Creating Engaging Rehearsals and Practice Sessions with Stephen Paparo

In this final workshop, Stephen will draw from the Feldenkrais principles and lessons presented in this series and demonstrate how to apply them in the context of choral rehearsals and individual practice sessions. We will sing together and experience how structured exploration provides opportunities for everyone to make their own technical and musical discoveries.