Transforming the Shadow

by

Giving Voice

Conference and Annual Meeting

International Association for
Voice Movement Therapy

October 18-22, 2006

Hosted by
The Norma G. Canner Foundation
Oak Bluffs, MA, USA
VMTUSA Email
508 693-7610

WORKSHOPS

Melanie Harrold, Singer/Songwriter, VMTR, has been singing professionally, writing and performing her own compositions since she was nineteen, touring Europe, the British Isles and America, as a solo artist and in bands, crossing as many genres of song and tinstrumentation as she has frontiers. She has worked with the innovative South African Theatre Group, pioneered by Tessa Marwick, The Prospect Theatre Company, and in Repertory as a singer/actor. She trained in, and taught VMT with Paul Newham, and is now completing the Chiron psychotherapeutic training and supervisory period to qualify as a United Kingdom Certified Psychotherapist. For the past twelve years, she has been researching the psychology of the embodied voice through her work with VMT and her training in Body Psychotherapy, while maintaining her London practice, leading choirs and workshops, and teaching internationally.

In this workshop, Melanie spoke of her experiences and thoughts about the vocal timbres and how they are expressed through the singing body. Demonstrating through her own voice and body, and with participants, how the timbres correspond physically to the chakra points, she emphasized how important it is for VMT practitioners to be able to be in the primary chakra of rootedness in order to stay in the vocal, physical, emotional and psychological flow without dissociating or backing off from what the client is presenting as he or she attempts to change and grow. Melanie described change as "what happens when conflicting energies start to catalyse the split between who we have become in order to adapt to our circumstances and who, in essence, we really are. Without grounding, we lose the ability to hold. The timbres in relation to the chakras are in service to developing a sense of letting it all pour from us, clearly manifesting something in the present moment which allows us to stay in the flow."

Christine Isherwood, B.A. Hons., Dip. Assertiveness Training, Singer/Songwriter, VMTR, is Co-Director of the Foundation Training on Martha's Vineyard. Prior to her own training in VMT and her subsequent apprenticeship to founder Paul Newham, she wrote and performed in political musicals, toured the UK and Europe with theatre groups and bands, and worked for ten years with homeless people in Central London, after which time she became a counsellor, group facilitator and day centre worker for the mental health organization MIND. She has taught on Voice Movement Therapy trainings in London, England and in Boston, USA, and now teaches full-time on the Foundation Training, supervises practitioners and leads workshops. For the past eleven years, she has committed herself to an intense exploration of VMT and to training new practitioners, while continuing to experiment vocally and to write. Her current band is Salt Doll.

Christine commenced her work by saying, "In the fairytale, the girl has her hands cut off by her father but chooses to go out and make her way in the world, regardless. Often we feel that we have been rendered handless or helpless by events in our lives and our work is to reclaim those parts of ourselves that have been severed. This story resonated so strongly with me because I understood through my own process that the descent is not one but many, and each time we dare to venture into a descent, new levels are revealed and our routes to wholeness enhanced. For me, VMT is a process of sending my voice down into the musculature, both physical and metaphorical, to call up our stories."After reading the tale aloud, she sent participants on a journey in voice, breath and movement to find out what part or parts of the story resonated for them She then invited another descent to explore in timbral work a few words or phrases of each individual's journey, later asking "When wandering out into the woods to sing, what part of you is singing and what part being sung?" She concluded by asking everyone to put their separate explorations together to improvise a story, for "We are always working on ourselves first and that's what we have to share. It's our stories that make this work come alive.”

Tracy Starreveld, of London, England, is a Provisional Voice Movement Therapy Practitioner currently working in an elementary school in Northern Vermont with children experiencing developmental and language delays. She is also teaching their teachers and other professionals at the school about VMT, both in their classes and sessions and in a weekly adult group which she conducts. She is, in addition, an accomplished pianist and performer.

Tracy presented a performance and workshop composed of diverse creative and therapeutic elements -including song, poetry, character, audience interaction and animation of stuffed toys, as well as excerpts from personal experience and work with practice clients - woven together in a semi-improvised structure to explore the question, "How do we, as therapists and teachers, deal with difficult emotions in our clients and students, while still strggling with unresolved feelings in ourselves?" In this way, she illustrated how she uses VMT principles and practices with both children and adults to help them improve communication and social interaction through voice and movement.

Bonnie McCubbin, VMTR, BMusic Education in Violin, Masters of Music in Vocal Performance and Kripalu Yoga and Kripalu DansKinetics Instructor, has taught music for over thirty years and founded a theater improvisation ensemble. She lives in Goshen, NY where she directs a high school concert choir, teaches yoga and gives private lessons in violin, piano, flute and voice. A recent composition, Nature's Wonder, was selected for a college peformance in November.

Bonnie presented a workshop based on Kripalu Yoga and Danskinetics in combination with the use of the VMT vocal timbres of flute, clarinet and saxophone and the concept of spherical space. Guiding participants to move in and out of yoga postures, or asanas, with a feeling of moving in that space in a slow and relaxed but focused manner, she applied this sense of ease to her use of clarinet and sax when making traditional yogic sounds from the solar plexus and belly. The participatory part of her workshop was followed by a performance. Through the use of an original script, music, costumes, and multiple characters with their own poetry and choreography (some of which were conceived on her VMT training in 1997), she illustrated how the various stages of her life have come together in this time of freedom through the integration of these disciplines and other events in her life. As her performance opened, the main character, Clara, had just awakened and was writing in her dream journal. Sensing that each character from the the dream might represent some part of herself, she found that, as she wrote, each one came alive.