Training in voice work begins with the cultivation of deep physical awareness. Specific attention will be given to how the body—bones, muscles, breath, and nervous system – relates to healthy vocal production and vocal freedom. Examine how it feels to stand on your feet. Learn about how you live in your body, how you relate to your head and neck and shoulders. Discover how this affects your use of voice and influences healthy vocal spontaneity and expressiveness. Develop curiosity about these sensations and the circumstances and habits that affect them. Work through specific exercises to develop a Level 1 vocal and creative warm up sequence that will become your ongoing practice. Through your warm up become used to the process of checking in: recognizing and allowing the physical/emotional moment you are in and the circumstances that attend it, experiencing the moment, and working from it. Develop a relationship with the habitual patterns that influence how you engage with yourself–your skeletal and muscular structures, autonomic nervous system, your breath and your voice. Develop spontaneity, learning what it feels like to give in to a physical experience. With curiosity, explore and experience rigidity in the body through the release of tension, breathing, and spontaneous truthful sound. Learn the basic anatomy that supports breathing, sound making, and articulation in speech. Throughout Level 1 you are asked to discover your own process and be with others in theirs, so together the group develops a sense of what it means to be heard, seen and understood. This class employs the destructuring and restructuring processes of Fitzmaurice Voicework® devised by Catherine Fitzmaurice. Be advised that this Level requires time to master, and most actors will need a two- or three- term investment at Level 1 to develop awareness and become confident in these practices. All else in voice and speech work will build on this foundation.

• Learn more about the instructor.
• Registration Prerequisite: Open to all.

Training in voice work begins with the cultivation of deep physical awareness. Specific attention will be given to how the body—bones, muscles, breath, and nervous system – relates to healthy vocal production and vocal freedom. Examine how it feels to stand on your feet. Learn about how you live in your body, how you relate to your head and neck and shoulders. Discover how this affects your use of voice and influences healthy vocal spontaneity and expressiveness. Develop curiosity about these sensations and the circumstances and habits that affect them. Work through specific exercises to develop a Level 1 vocal and creative warm up sequence that will become your ongoing practice. Through your warm up become used to the process of checking in: recognizing and allowing the physical/emotional moment you are in and the circumstances that attend it, experiencing the moment, and working from it. Develop a relationship with the habitual patterns that influence how you engage with yourself–your skeletal and muscular structures, autonomic nervous system, your breath and your voice. Develop spontaneity, learning what it feels like to give in to a physical experience. With curiosity, explore and experience rigidity in the body through the release of tension, breathing, and spontaneous truthful sound. Learn the basic anatomy that supports breathing, sound making, and articulation in speech. Throughout Level 1 you are asked to discover your own process and be with others in theirs, so together the group develops a sense of what it means to be heard, seen and understood. This class employs the destructuring and restructuring processes of Fitzmaurice Voicework® devised by Catherine Fitzmaurice. Be advised that this Level requires time to master, and most actors will need a two- or three- term investment at Level 1 to develop awareness and become confident in these practices. All else in voice and speech work will build on this foundation.

• Learn more about the instructor.
• Registration Prerequisite: Open to all.

This class employs the destructuring and restructuring processes of Fitzmaurice Voicework® devised by Catherine Fitzmaurice. An ongoing practice class for performers who have gained an embodied understanding of the fundamental principles of Fitzmaurice Voicework addressed in Level 1, and are seeking to develop a personal practice, apply these practices more deeply, and explore applications to rehearsal and performance. This class functions as a workout, giving you the opportunity to build synthesis with the different aspects of your acting work, and also to address specific individual problems and challenges arising from your efforts in performance and rehearsal, further exploring skills and incorporating speech, text, and movement. Working from your growing visceral and kinesthetic bodily awareness, you will continue working through your vocal and creative warm up, taking greater ownership of your practice. You are guided to work with greater ease, spontaneity, and intention, and with a deeper sense of truth. You will work with imagery, directed sound, and movement to communicate with intention. You will examine how intention relates to release and to the support of your voice, as you bring your vocal work to the effort to communicate and the desire to be heard. Learn what intention includes vocally, in terms of inner life and moment-to-moment work. Discover greater resonance and vibrancy, as you become aware of the space around you and consider the need to be heard in any circumstance, with any piece of text. Deepen your release of the jaw and neck and the body overall. Incorporate the expressive powers of articulation, sound, and resonance. You are guided to develop your own vocal practice and challenged to keep venturing beyond your comfort zone. You will explore texts and circumstances with an ever more complex sense of the layering of language, sound, form, and meaning. Participants are encouraged to bring to class a specific play or text, or specific aspects of your work that require integration, that you are working on. This includes body-based needs such as vocal alignment, physical variations to a character’s circumstances, and other needs that can be addressed through voice and movement work. You are encouraged to bring in all of your actor’s background preparatory work such as: text analysis, objectives, and circumstances of the character and of the play over-all. You are also asked to bring in specific questions and observations, relating to healthy vocal and physical expressivity, that arise as you practice and work.

• Learn more about the instructor.
• Prerequisite: Open to Speaking Voice Level 2 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement.

Training in voice work begins with the cultivation of deep physical awareness. Specific attention will be given to how the body—bones, muscles, breath, and nervous system – relates to healthy vocal production and vocal freedom. Examine how it feels to stand on your feet. Learn about how you live in your body, how you relate to your head and neck and shoulders. Discover how this affects your use of voice and influences healthy vocal spontaneity and expressiveness. Develop curiosity about these sensations and the circumstances and habits that affect them. Work through specific exercises to develop a Level 1 vocal and creative warm up sequence that will become your ongoing practice. Through your warm up become used to the process of checking in: recognizing and allowing the physical/emotional moment you are in and the circumstances that attend it, experiencing the moment, and working from it. Develop a relationship with the habitual patterns that influence how you engage with yourself–your skeletal and muscular structures, autonomic nervous system, your breath and your voice. Develop spontaneity, learning what it feels like to give in to a physical experience. With curiosity, explore and experience rigidity in the body through the release of tension, breathing, and spontaneous truthful sound. Learn the basic anatomy that supports breathing, sound making, and articulation in speech. Throughout Level 1 you are asked to discover your own process and be with others in theirs, so together the group develops a sense of what it means to be heard, seen and understood. This class employs the destructuring and restructuring processes of Fitzmaurice Voicework® devised by Catherine Fitzmaurice. Be advised that this Level requires time to master, and most actors will need a two- or three- term investment at Level 1 to develop awareness and become confident in these practices. All else in voice and speech work will build on this foundation.

• Learn more about the instructor.
• Registration Prerequisite: Open to all.