The Sounding Body: Vibration and Creation

This workshop is for humans who want to practice singing and embodied vocal improvisation as a path to being more joyful, empowered and free. Our attention is our most precious asset. How can we use mindfulness to attend deeply to the energies flowing through our bodies, our minds, and the space around us in each moment? How can we cultivate spontaneity and practice letting go? What can we yield, creatively, in the realm of solo or ensemble singing, either improvised or prepared, when we first attend carefully to these aspects of our attention and inner life?

With hands-on demonstrations and touch from the instructor and assistant, we will learn vocal warm ups and exercises that help to simultaneously release, differentiate, and tone the muscles and joints specifically related to the singing organism. Next, we will examine how energies and emotions move through space and through our bodies, animating our impulses and providing us with inspiration for sound-making. We will practice mindfulness and Deep Listening as a way to tone our ability to concentrate and to hear. We will investigate the idea of the “gesture,” the internal motivating energy that lies behind the external music or sound that we create. We will practice releasing our inhibitions by improvising wordless pieces for moving voices. For those who take the full series, there will be an option of working with Marisa towards sharing a short, improvised vocal solo. If interested, participants will also be invited to work on a specific song or piece of music (contact Marisa ahead of time to discuss).

This class will meet you October 23, 30 and November 13.

Pricing structure for Sounding Body Workshop series:

$180 for entire Wednesday series
$65 per three-week Wednesday night series with one artist
$30 for single Wednesday class drop-in
$40 for Saturday session with one artist