This intensive weekend workshop called Freeing the Natural Voice According to Kristin Linklater: The Touch of Sound is a workshop of the Voice In Progress Studio designed for anyone who wants to learn the Linklater Voice Method but cannot attend regular sessions or wants to deepen their awareness of the method. The workshop will progress in a strictly step-by-step fashion as designed by Kristin Linklater. It will not be an interpretation of her work but a faithful transfer of knowledge. Guided by Joanna Kurzyńska participants will progress through the first part of the progression of exercises described in the book Freeing the Natural Voice, and will be able to discover changes occurring in their voices as they work with text.
The Freeing the Natural Voice approach leads from the physical awareness of the body to the awareness of breathing, the experience of sound in the body, the loosening of tensions in the throat, jaw, tongue and soft palate, the deepening of the resonance of chest and face resonators with the support of natural breathing energy, exploring the full vocal range. It also helps rebuild a close link between the voice and emotional impulses beyond the control of the mind.
The workshop is intended for anyone who wants to deepen or renew their awareness of and contact with their voice, mostly actors, singers, dancers, voice teachers and anyone who is required to use their voice in their daily work (including school and university teachers, doctors, therapists, politicians and business people).
IMPORTANT: You do not need to have any vocal skills or musical experience to join the workshop.
Kristin Linklater (1936–2020) was on of the world’s most famous voice trainers. Her work, Freeing the Natural Voice, has become highly renowned among teachers and practitioners in the US and Europe over the past fifty years. It has been used in many theatre and film productions and incorporated into numerous school and university curricula. Linklater’s unique approach to working with the voice involves a strong role of imagination in the process of creating a voice, which ‒ using precise relaxation exercises that help clear the resonating spaces and strengthen the voice ‒ helps reduce habitual tensions preventing the voice from expressing itself without inhibition. Chiming in with idea of Iris Warren, a teacher at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, who used to say, ‘I want to hear you, not your voice’, Linklater’s method delves into the source of the human voice that takes form and makes sound even before it leaves the body. The training described in the book Freeing the Natural Voice helps find and renew a personal bond with your voice.
The work sessions will be led by Joanna Kurzyńska, an actress, singer, multi-instrumentalist and experienced teacher. A long-term participant of Kristin Linklater’s workshops and courses at the Kristin Linklater Voice Centre in Orkney, Scotland, Joanna Kurzyńska wants to share her experiences and deepen her research on the Linklater method in regular voice sessions held as part of the work of the Voice In Progress Studio. Joanna Kurzyńska is currently taking a teacher training course leading to an official title of Designated Linklater Teacher.