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.

Functional use of Breath and Voice

- Breathing Exercises
[1] Elemental Rhythm
[2] Active Breathing - Patricia Bardi
[3] Breathwork Masterclass - Jon Paul Crimi

-Functional Vocal Training by Cornelius L. Reid, a voice teacher, pedagogue, lecturer, and author of several books about the voice.

These sources constituted my starting point for this research. I discovered these websites with different types of breathing exercises which I incorporated in my daily practice, and I started reading about Functional Vocal Training. I got to know that breathing exercises are not only about relaxation but can also be for activation, for emotional release, and for healing through connections with the nervous system. As a side research, I also started attending an online course related to the Vagus Nerve which is about 'destress and regulation of body and emotions for optimal well-being' as well as an Emotional Balance Masterclass. These last two choices were like an appendix to my research because my injury was emotionally triggered so I felt that I needed to conduct a parallel inner research since stored emotions in the body and muscle tension are deeply connected. At the same time, reading Reid's Functional Vocal Training, I learned tools and tasks described in the article to work on functional breathing and use of vowels and spaces in the body to free the voice. The best way to sum up this article is as mentioned "It's all about organic response". It is being explained how the body is trying to guide the mind in a way to what feels right, the body responds naturally in the way we need but sometimes we don't allow this to happen due to the tendency to control it. But the main point is that if we start applying some basic healthy principles, the body can then be organised accordingly in a functional way without us controling or forcing anything. So it provides tasks to understand the affect of using different vowels in the voice, to open the throat, to understand and practice healthy transitions between head, chest, and mixed registrations, and about the relationship between emotions and interpratation. Here are a few quotes that describe the philosophy of this approach and, I believe, translate also in movement and life in general:

“Whenever a good equilibrium has been restored to the mechanism, the question of aesthetic beauty will vanish. Inner beauty is always present and ready to surface the moment functional relationships have been made right. Natural tonal beauty is the end result of vocal freedom, and never has to be made. To make it is to destroy it.”

"Quite clearly, contact with natural movement leads to sensual awareness and a breakdown of psychic defenses."

"Conscious control leads to stiff, mechanical singing."

"Healthy life energy starts at the core and moves toward an outer periphery. Unless the work of “unbinding” is core-directed, both physical and psychological potential will remain unfulﬁlled."

"Emotion in singing is not something that is projected, it is something that is awakened. Emotion awakened through free organic movement, guided by intelligence, reﬁned by sensitivity and taste, and directed with imagination and understanding is the essence of an effective interpretation."

(Reid, 1971)

VMI - Patricia Bardi

Patricia Bardi is a voice/dance artist, somatic practitioner, and founder of: --Voice Movement Integration (VMI) Somatic Practice

"An integrative somatic practice actively combining voice and movement with the deepening process of bodywork to stimulate and organize the body’s physical-perceptual-emotional awareness."

-Vital Movement Integration (VMI) Bodywork

"A gentle, precise hands-on holistic approach that employs sensitive touch, guided movement, breath and sound. VMI Bodywork addresses imbalances in the nervous system as it interacts with the neuromuscular, skeletal, organ and endocrine systems. This approach connects body, mind and emotions bringing a renewed sense of equilibrium and well being through the entire body."

VMI is a holistic approach involving self-exploration, developing self-awareness, and through an embodied experience that connects body, mind, emotion, aims to 'bring the whole self to the moment of expression'. An experience that is 'vivid, present, alive and illuminates a wellspring of self-knowledge and creativity with an aligned and healthy body fully connected to its inner sources'.

(Patricia Bardi, n.d.)

Theoretical Framework

Fitzmaurice Voicework and Movement

"Allowing tremoring to happen in FV is as important as allowing movement to happen in the choreography." (Schaub, 2016)

Schaub added Passive Sequensing and Improvisation in the FV method as a way to let go of structures that felt not needed anymore. (Schaub, 2016) This description of 'letting go' resonated in me since I felt the urge to reconsider my approach to training and personal practice after the injury in order to focus on more essential connections with my body and breathing to make my movement more functional and let achievements be a consequence of that instead of overtrying and not always paying attention to nuances due to the pressure of the moment; either this pressure was self-imposed or external. These and many others of my thoughts are being perfectly summed up in the phrase “Destructuring helped me develop a different sensitivity to my body, and a different bodily response to the use of breath.” (Schaub, 2016) Because it expresses my feeling and the process that made me reconsider my priorities while training and stop being insensitive to signals from my body, just for the shake of the normalized idea that “you need to keep going with whatever cost that carries”. An idea that even without being used verbally at all times, has formed the way a lot of dancers have been brought up with.

“Supporting movement with conscious use of breath, use deep breath for greater use and ease of the body’s flexibility and range” (Schaub, 2016)

I related completely with this thought of Schaub as well as the feeling she describes that 'connecting breath and thought to each movement formed a new way of working in my body'.

Moreover, Schaub, comparing her experience to a breakthrough she had during a music session, she says “I had to release the control of the knowing when the next musical entrance was, and remain present in this unknowing state while playing.” Which, as she agrees, is also applicable to the body and it is allowing space to constantly question which of the things we are used to engage with within a process are still serving us or make us their servants, leading to either unhealthy sensations or the feeling of being stuck, in my opinion.

So, Carly Schaub formed a method in which she combined FV with movement improvisation while assisting the movement by using Passive Sequencing as a means to ‘transcend self-inhibiting habits’ because she was feeling that her re-occuring movement patterns were representing her tendency to reproduce others’ movements that she was used to through her training instead of allowing herself to really explore without preplanning. Finding tremors was her starting point to let them evolve into larger movements that she was less in control of, which led to a new way of thinking and functioning. This way, she discovered new sensations, allowed the body to be present in the experience and, combined with Passive Sequencing, she explored a state of letting go, and welcoming whatever occurs without forcing anything. She describes Passive Sequencing as a task in pairs where one is causing movement to the other and the other receives it and maybe later organically responds to it more but maintaining an available body. As she says “This created a chain reaction to continue moving” and allowed space for new movement vocabulary to occur. Her approach was focused on “allowing more room for breathing by relaxing the muscles” and then let tremors occur as a starting point of movement “from a place of allowance and not force”. She also used a prestructuring task, which can also be part of the FV method, where dancers that were finding it challenging to deal with the tremors and their continuation into movement without it feeling forced, they could allow their movement be informed by others: ‘observing and amplifying (and later reacting to) the movement they could sense coming from their partner’. As she explains, “This experiential sensation from observing previously experienced movement has scientific validity in the mirror neuron effect or kinesthetic empathy. 'The phenomenon of mirror neurons occur when we see in a human body movement that we experience vicariously in our nerves and muscles; the movement evokes associations we would have had if the original movement had been ours.' " This was one of the most productive and effective task for movement material creation in her choreographic process and it was a very formative aspect for her work along with the idea of ‘let unity go and allow the dance to be itself’ and ‘allowing from the chaos of the tremoring, clear movement trajectories to emerge’.

She concludes that the state of being was more important than expecting anything else but presence since each dancer goes through their own unique journey within the process, which is something that resonates in me and expresses precisely my way of thinking as an evolving choreographic director. As she adds, ‘The effect of FV on the each dancer’s movement and approach to movement improvisation each took a separate arc. These different arcs were the basis of the choreographic piece.”

To sum up, both FV principles and the ones added by Schaub for the purposes of her research, as instructions but also as ideology and philosophy, are structuring the main axes of my research. Then, I also looked at theories of Somatics and Voice-and-Movement Therapy.

Fitzmaurice Voicework

Fitzmaurice Voicework (FV) is a ‘comprehensive approach to vocal training primarily geared towards actors and singers’ that has also been explored through the lense of movement by Carly Schaub. In FV there is no right or wrong and there are no expectations for intentional results. FV is consisted of Destructuring, Prestructuring, and Restructuring. It is focusing on releasing the body to shimmers or tremors to get rid of unnecessary tension, and go beyond familiar and habitual patterns, through moving towards a ‘deep exploration into the autonomic nervous system functions and spontaneous, organic impulses where tremoring-visible as shaking in the body- is a part of the destructuringprocess’ (Fitzmaurice, 1996, as cited in Schaub, 2016). Restructuring works on managing and using the breath as support for the voice; “is not only the introduction of the intercostal and abdominal breath management into the act of speaking, but is also the harmonizing of that pattern with the individual’s physical and/or emotional needs for oxygen moment to moment” Its purpose is to "give the actor control over the timing and the variety of delivery choices [including] pitch, rate, volume, and tone. This control also allows [for] approximate repeatability without loss of either spontaneity or connection to impulse” . (Fitzmaurice, 1996, as cited in Schaub, 2016).

"When the autonomic movements of the “destructured” muscles of respiration are less inhibited it becomes easy to “Restructure” by introducing the traditional European breathing techniques taught to actors. The rib Swing and abdominal support actions are, in fact, what an uninhibited body does during speaking." (Fitzmaurice, 1996, as cited in Schaub, 2016)

The part of vocalization in FV ‘can help the body resonate’ as she describes; it is encouraged to be embraced and welcomed if it arises but not necessary, and it can be a sequence of words without logic sense, pre-learned phrases, stories that come to mind, or just sounds as a result of the exhalation. Schaub encouraged the dancers to ‘let the breath be the next thought’ and use their ‘ newly restructured breath to allow movement and vocal sounds arise’. (Schaub, 2016)

Catherine Fitzmaurice was looking for an approach that doesn’t abandon the idea of technique due to its difficulties, but reduces the tension more effectively than Alexander Technique or Voice Work that she experienced while training; so that breathing can become ‘effortless and therefore economical, limber, and effective’ as she has stated. Her philosophy, as Schaub mentions, sums up in the phrase ‘the breath is the thought’. The Fitzmaurice Voicework positions and practice also carry influences from her interests in yoga and shiatsu, as well as Reichian bodywork that uses ‘breath through touch’ to access the nervous system and release muscular tension, the ‘dammed energy resulting in involuntary spasm’. In FV, a spasm is referred to as a tremor, which is a ‘naturally occurring reflex in the body, an autonomic nervous system reaction’ that looks like but differs from intentional shaking; it happens also when we experience intense emotions, cold, tiredness, injuries, etc. (Schaub, 2016)

Voice Movement Therapy

Voice Movement Therapy (VMT), is an idea developed by Paul Newham based on and influenced by the therapeutic voicework of Alfred Wolfsohn, the theatre work of Roy Hart and Grotowski, Wilhelm Reich's psycotherapeutic bodywork, the acoustical analysis of otolaryngologist Dr Paul Moses, and C. G. Jung's psychological work. It is considered the 'first in-depth Expressive Therapy' incorporating the use of voice as the main element and it has both creative and therapeutic character. It is a self-research journey through moving and singing. It involves improvisation, massage techniques 'specifically designed to aid in the free expression of vocal sound', and it is based on three axis: artistic, therapeutic, and acoustic-anatomical-physiological. (Brownell, 2018)

It is using active imagination, looking at both physical and psycological aspects, aiming at the organic relationship between voice, breath and body movement.

'An exploration of how the components of the voice and related movement patterns reflect different aspects of ourselves and our life stories and can be used to effect change and growth.' (Brownell, 2018)

"The human voice reflects both physical and psychic states and has the ability to convey cognitive meaning and affective expression simultaneously. It is our primary instrument of communication for both ideas and feelings and can move us with words and beyond words. It is the only instrument wherein player and played upon are contained within the same organic form and therefore can achieve its fullest expression when firmly grounded in the body. It has two main channels of communication: the words we say – the symbols we use to convey our cognitive message; and the way we say them – the tones and qualities of voice which express the affective or feeling message underlying what we speak or sing." (Brownell, 2018)

In practice:

Starting from the belief that the 'quality of the voice's sound on different vowels carries significant information about the psyche', a session starts with the therapist analyzing the 'breathing pattern, muscle tone and the emotional quality and pitch of the sound' of the client. Then the therapist 'massages and manipulates the client's body encouraging them to animate and amplify the essence of the sound' and during the process, a 'mirror and respond' task supported by use of imagination is generated initiated from the therapist to help the client develop some variety of sounds. Going on, the client is developing a 'voicedance' which is an expression of her inner self through sound and movement. The point where voice finds a boundary or struggle is the point where psycological work is needed. (Newham, 1994)

"The point is not that the vocal patterns reveal underlying psycological patterns, but that the vocal patterns are psycological patterns because the only adequate terms we have to describe the voice are psycological." (Newham, 1994)

"The heart of VMT is, I believe, the achievement of the embodied voice and its container is the song. The voice is the medium; movement grounds it in the body; and it is pursued within the crucible of a consistent therapeutic relationship." (Brownell, 2018)

As Brownwell explains, both in the evolution of humanity and as an individual is growing up, the first form of communication is vocal gestures that, to be interpreted, focus on the projected emotion. Later, these sonik movements become linked to 'written symbols'. But this emotion, is 'an essential ingredient which we seek to recapture through the act, and art, of song - a process by which the song becomes the vehicle for both the expression and the containment of issues and affects, thoughts and emotions'. (Brownell, 2018)

In VMT, as in others previously mentioned forms of therapy, the dominant belief is the necessity to embody the voice through a 'holistic engagement of body, mind and soul'. (Brownell, 2018)

"The more we can connect our vocal output to our physical selves – the more flexible, durable, versatile and responsive we can make it to life as we experience it – the more we can ground ourselves in the reality of our whole being". (Brownell, 2018)

Schaub describes a transformative experience during her training with her teacher Bill Evans:

"Evans encouraged students to avoid operating by “placing and bracing” which

means, avoid placing yourself in physical shapes that you know and then bracing yourself

in those known shapes to accomplish a movement task. He encouraged me to instead

replace “place and brace” with “yield and push.” In his words, “yielding establishes an

active give-and-take relationship with gravity, and a readiness to move. Pushing sends

energy from the earth along open pathways of flow through the joint centers to the body’s

core” (Evans, 2012). Catherine Fitzmaurice’s use of “intentional breath,” is similar. In

FV the “thought or the musical phrase is the breath” (Fitzmaurice, 2014, lecture). Evans

similarly said that by “allowing breath to happen freely” assists in “claiming power

without sacrificing fluidity. When stabilizing ourselves by connecting to gravity and

mobilizing ourselves by breathing fully and releasing unnecessary tension, we become

integrated, and adaptable” (Evans, 2012). "

Bruun (2021) expresses her understanding of somatic in FV as 'the integration of body, mind, psyche and the significance of the individual voice' which as she adds has been inspired by mentors of Psycology and Somatic Psycology. (Barratt, 2010, as cited in Bruun, 2021)

"The consideration of one’s intuitive somatic awareness while voicing is crucial for voice studies."

"..Whereby chaos is both consciously and unconsciously created as a learning modality toward fuller self-knowledge in the service of broader creativity”

(Morgan, 2012, as cited in Bruun, 2021)

"The understanding of chaos as source for self-knowledge"

(Bruun, 2021)

Somatics

Somatic work is often referred to as bodywork, body therapies, hands-on work, body-mind integration, etc. (Eddy, 1991, as cited in Eddy, 2022)

'Somatic awareness allows a person to glean wisdom from within' (Hanna, 1986, as cited in Eddy, 2022).

“Living organisms are somas: that is they are integral and ordered process of embodied elements which cannot be separated either from their evolved past or their adaptive future. A soma is any individual embodiment of a process, which endures and adapts through time, and it remains a soma as long as it lives. The moment that it dies it ceases to be a soma and becomes a body….At the center of the field of somatics is the soma–an integral and individual process which governs its own existence as long as it has existence. (Hanna, 1976, as cited in Eddy, 2022)

SOMATIC VOICEWORK™ THE LOVETRI METHOD

A healthy sound is a free sound, and vice versa."

The theory of this educational singing method shares principals with Functional Vocal Training such as the body's tendency to go towards whatever feels right, as well as ideas we encounter in Ftzmaurice Voicework theory that are based on body awareness and respect intuition, individuality, and make connections between healthy practice and general well-being. In brief, some of the most important principles are:

The awakening of blocked areas in the body to liberate sensations and emotions and make them available, and enhance awareness
The focus on authenticity in singing and personality of each individual and the building of trust an aknowledgment of intuition about what is right for each voice and body
The trust that 'the body has its own wisdom and always goes toward health whenever possible'

(Somatic VoiceworkTM The LoVetri Method Teachers’ Association, n.d.)

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