The use of voice and movement as a therapeutic and creative tool by ASPASIA MARMARITSAKI

In this practice-based research, I am exploring the co-existence and interaction of voice, breath, and movement in my practice for both healing-therapeutic and artistic-creative purposes. I consider it important because, as humans as well as practitioners, we use both of these tools that are components of our body to perform as a whole, and they have lots of mutual needs but also lots of ways that they inform each other either consciously or subconsciously. This idea started as a way to work on personal concerns but then inspired me to think of it as a methodology that could expand outwards. A set of tools that, after seeing how they can help me connect deeper with my body and improve on challenges I encounter, could apply to other people too; not only with the same or similar concerns, but in general other people who are interested in the organic use of the body, the therapeutic tools that we can create by extracting elements from within our body, and the re-formation of a healthy and respectful approach towards the use of our body which extends, consequently, to the re-finding of awareness and enjoyment while we practice. So, summing up, I am interested in exploring the ways in which voice and movement inform each other, the therapeutic benefits out of this process, and the feedback they can provide for each other in terms of their functional use. The choice of this topic is the result of realizations that my recent injury led me to as far as they way I am using my body is concerned. So, it seems to me like a way to reconnect with my body in a more sensitive and mindful way. I look at it as a natural medicine for my body, mind, soul, and practice. As a way to create a practice for recovery but also for prevention and at the same time a source of inspiration. Starting from the creation of a deeper connection within ourselves and a healthier approach towards our practice, I feel that this process results in more concentration, presence, enjoyment, and relief; elements that can make a significant difference in performance, choreographic process, training, practice, and education. Conscious breath, functional breath, breath that can facilitate the movement, movement that can facilitate the use of voice, and vice versa, are the parameters of the practice that are being explored through improvisational tasks. I am aiming at the development of a set of tasks from and for the practitioner, either this is the researcher or someone else who applies this method on themselves and the essential purpose is to discover what feels right for each body with no attachment to aesthetic parameters nor perfection of any kind. Background knowledge can be a support, but occurring knowledge during the practice is what I am mostly interested in.

Ideas behind tasks and underlined aims

Keeping the principles of the explored theories that felt more right in my own body, became food for thought, and felt like nourishing stimuli that left indelible marks, as Schaub also describes this sensation, on my body and way of thinking; I started forming a basic set of tasks for my practice representing my approach and focus points, creating a new methodology as combination of already existing ideas blended with my personal discoveries.

First of all, I aimaed at letting go of aesthetic expectations and specific results which is a core principle of both Fitzmaurice and the rest of the theories explored; remembering Fitzmaurice's phrase that owr bodies are not the same every day and the encouragment to start every time by tuning into the breath and release unecessary tension, as Schaub suggests. (Schaub, 2016)

I tried to maintain my focus to the important point of the process that Schaub mentions: to ‘allow oneself to do what the body is going to do and to feel whatever sensation may arise…the process of allowing the body to be present’ and the idea of ‘allowing the body to release into movement’ in order to find a more ‘receptive body’, (Schaub, 2016) Exploring this idea, I had to face the challenge of distinguishing the difference between available and passive body in which "Imaginary" Passive Sequencing was a major help and support.

Schaub, quoting Meier, says that ‘tremoring brings one back to an organic flow…the brain is following reflexive impulses rather than trying to follow conscious instructions…it is not trying to be right. It settles into an organic easy way of production.’

That’s is exactly what I have been keeping in mind and rediscovering now drawn by my injury and the attempt to reconnect with my body, emotions, thoughts, and inner self in general through this research and practice. I have been noticing an increasing need to re-find organic flow and trust the intuition of the body, to embrace the feelings of productive uncertainty that this and other situations involve, to liberate myself, reconsider, understand deeper, move my thoughts forward, and evolve. And I am grateful for those tools I learnt throughout this journey that allow me to do so.

...Experiments' Time...

Resulting Methodology

Here is the set of improvisation tasks inspired by previous experiences combined with the new stimuli I was exposed to during this research that I chose out of all my experiments to form my methodology-practice, with the aim to create a basis with an organic build up for everyone interested in this kind of experimentation. With the hope that it is a process which provides enough tools for each explorer to take this practice further on their own way, according to what feels right for each body:

1. Tuning into breath - Noticing my breath and Practicing breathing exercises guided by different practitioners

2. Applying pressure against the floor from different body parts and then releasing this pressure-tension - Task that is a way to start FV practice (Schaub, 2016) which I also encountered before as an advice from Jenny Roche to treat pain related to fascia and it has been quite relieving whenever I have used it.

3. Finding tremors in different positions by guiding the movement to those positions with as less muscle effort as possible, using imagination such as being a marionette and someone is pulling the strings that are connected to your feet etc while deeply breathing and welcoming soft vocalizations should they arise (Schaub, 2016)

4. Imagination and Passive sequencing - Task inspired by Schaub's process, translated into a solo exploration, so instead of having someone causing movement to my body through touch, I used either my own touch or imagining that I am receiving a movement caused by someone else's touch

5. "Move while exhaling, stop when inhaling and the opposite. Is one more helpful than the other? Why?" - task that I encountered before in improvisation classes with different teachers and through this research I revisited it from a new and more conscious perspective

6. Pre warm-up for voice introduction - Practicing the guided Somatic Vocal Toning Chakra Exercises by Ruth Ratliff - Task that connects vowels to chakra and helps find vibrations that the voice creates in the body.

7. "Repeat similar movement sequences with different vowel vocal improvisation and notice what changes" - task inspired by the article "Functional Vocal Training" by Cornelius L. Reid and The connection of vowels with different Chakra

8. "Leading with the voice and see what movement it brings and vice versa leading with movement and see what voice can it bring" - task created as an attempt to answer my occuring questions on how to approach the combination of voice and movement that also draws inspiration from Patricia Bardi's Active Breathing exercises that include vocalization. (see towards the end of her trailer video in the link)

9. "Bending forward to avoid tension in abdominals to extend breath duration while improvising with voice" - task by my voice teacher Aggeliki Toumpanaki that felt necessary as I was starting to use the voice more, in order to keep my breath functional and not allow tension to occur

10. "Sing in ‘branch’ positions to stay active in the body while using voice" - task by my voice teacher Aggeliki Toumpanaki that helped me to stay activated (but not tense as I am able to hear the tension in the voice as feedback) and keep supporting my voice through my body as I am getting tired.

11. "Work on Back bend focusing on being able to talk to make sure there is no compression of the neck" - task that occured from the combination of this correction about being able to talk during a back bend (a correction that I kept encountering throughout my training but is a personal challenge) and the realization that the use of the voice had been recommended to me before as feedback for the functional use of the body, so it fits precisely within this research. This task came as an idea as I was getting more familiar with the previous tasks and I was getting inspired to use this practice for other areas of improvement that I have been finding challenging throughout the years.

12. Contrast between movement and voice- Linking high pitch to grounded movement and the opposite. - This task also occured later in the process where use of voice was becoming more present and liberated, and it started happening while I was improvising as a memory of my body. Then I remembered that it was an advice from my voice teacher Anna Papagiannaki Divani, and I started observing its benefits and making it consciously part of my practice.

13. Cool Down by repeating the 6th task - Breathing and Connecting vowels to Chakra to feel even more calm by enjoying the vibrations and gather back to the use of single notes after the free improvisation as an opportunity to settle, relax, reflect on whatever arised during the practice and embrace it.

Documentation of my practice

Here are some extracts of the videos that I recorder while experimenting with the above tasks

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