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.

 

 

Please bring a yoga mat or comforter or blanket and a zafu or a cushion or two, since we will be sitting and lying on the floor. Dress in loose clothes and layers.