User:Taoconnell/Fitzmaurice voicework

Fitzmaurice Voicework® is a comprehensive approach to voice training that can include, as needed, work on breathing, resonance, speech, dialects, impromptu speaking, text, singing, and voice with movement. While the training is specific, it is also compatible with other approaches.

Fitzmaurice Voicework® is taught at Yale School of Drama, Harvard University/American Repertory Theatre's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, the University of California-Irvine, in studios for New York University's undergraduate drama program, and numerous other institutions and theatres in the United States and abroad. Aspects of this work have also been incorporated by clinicians into the rehabilitation of injured or dysfunctional voices, and are used in the corporate and professional worlds as aids to effective speaking.

Fitzmaurice Voicework® explores the dynamics between body, breath, voice, the imagination, language, and presence. It encourages vibrant voices that communicate intention and feeling without excess effort.

The work brings together physical experience and mental focus. Destructuring, the first phase, promotes awareness of the body, spontaneous and free breathing, and vocal expressivity, through Tremorwork® and sometimes also hands-on interventions. Restructuring, the second phase, encourages economy of effort while speaking or performing, using modified bel canto techniques and Catherine's "focus line". The resulting freedom and focus allow for a wide range of vocal expression without strain.

There are many practical benefits to improved vocal functioning. And, since breath and voice lie at the intersection of the material and the non-material, this work can also assist in creative, intellectual, and spiritual growth.

There are now more than one hundred and twenty-five certified teachers of this work, mainly in the United States, but now also in permanent residence in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, and Central America, some in universities and conservatories, others offering workshops, classes, and private instruction. For contact and other information on these teachers and on our teacher certification program, see Teachers/Locations and Calendar.

ABOUT THE WORK

OVERVIEW:

Fitzmaurice Voicework® is a comprehensive approach to voice training that can include, as needed, work on breathing, resonance, speech, dialects, impromptu speaking, text, singing, and voice with movement. While the training is specific, it is also compatible with other approaches.

Fitzmaurice Voicework® is taught at Yale School of Drama, Harvard University/American Repertory Theatre's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, the University of California-Irvine, in studios for New York University's undergraduate drama program, and numerous other institutions and theatres in the United States and abroad. Aspects of this work have also been incorporated by clinicians into the rehabilitation of injured or dysfunctional voices, and are used in the corporate and professional worlds as aids to effective speaking.

Fitzmaurice Voicework® explores the dynamics between body, breath, voice, the imagination, language, and presence. It encourages vibrant voices that communicate intention and feeling without excess effort.

The work brings together physical experience and mental focus. Destructuring, the first phase, promotes awareness of the body, spontaneous and free breathing, and vocal expressivity, through Tremorwork® and sometimes also hands-on interventions. Restructuring, the second phase, encourages economy of effort while speaking or performing, using modified bel canto techniques and Catherine's "focus line". The resulting freedom and focus allow for a wide range of vocal expression without strain.

There are many practical benefits to improved vocal functioning. And, since breath and voice lie at the intersection of the material and the non-material, this work can also assist in creative, intellectual, and spiritual growth.

There are now more than one hundred and twenty-five certified teachers of this work, mainly in the United States, but now also in permanent residence in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, and Central America, some in universities and conservatories, others offering workshops, classes, and private instruction. For contact and other information on these teachers and on our teacher certification program, see Teachers/Locations and Calendar.

MAIN FEATURES:

Physicality: we develop awareness of patterns of vocal effort through a series of gentle and/or rigorous exercises, accessing the body's own healing systems for deep release.

Breath: we explore the central role that breathing plays in both vocal production and the inspired imagination that expresses itself verbally, encouraging whole body oxygenation without forcing the breath.

Vocal Quality: we cultivate the ability to accurately communicate our thoughts and feelings while meeting the demands of text, space, and the immediate moment, through both spontaneity and choice.

Practical Results: we reduce strain in the voice, increase vocal range and expressivity, make speech easy and clear, and communicate intention more effectively, allowing creativity to flow.

Vocal Rehabilitation: we can help to resolve many functional vocal difficulties.

WHO IS FITZMAURICE VOICEWORK FOR?

Fitzmaurice Voicework® originated as a means to teach actors effective vocal technique, but it has helped people in a wide variety of professions. The approach is for people who want to learn about and improve their voices for performance, business, personal growth, and fun. It can also help those with ineffective, injured, or otherwise problematic voices.

Our techniques have benefited actors in theatre, film, and television; singers; teachers of voice, singing, and acting; directors; TV announcers and hosts; lawyers, clergy, professors, politicians, business executives; medical professionals, speech pathologists, therapists, healers; movement specialists, and dancers.

HOW DID FITZMAURICE VOICEWORK ORIGINATE?

The work began in the explorations and teaching of Catherine Fitzmaurice. She began acting in theatre when she was three. From age ten to seventeen, she studied voice, speech, verse-speaking, and acting with Barbara Bunch, who was also Cicely Berry's earliest teacher. Catherine then attended for three years the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England, where she was a scholarship holder and prize winner, and where she continued her study of classical voice training techniques with Cicely Berry and others. While a student there, Catherine won the prestigious English Festival of Spoken Poetry, sponsored by Edith Sitwell and T. S. Eliot. She began teaching Voice, Verse-speaking, and Prose reading at the Central School in 1965.

As a teacher, Catherine found some of her students were incapable of being sufficiently vocally expressive. She saw the primary problem as inhibition caused by tension, particularly around the breathing, and in exploring ways to reduce this she discovered the work of Wilhelm Reich. She began to adapt some of his work for voice training and incorporated it into her classes. Since then, she has continued to study body-based disciplines and energy work (yoga, shiatsu, meditation, healing techniques, etc.). She has adapted and combined them with her classical training to form Fitzmaurice Voicework.

Now based in New York City, Catherine has taught all over the world, and has held teaching and consulting appointments at the Central School of Speech and Drama, the Juilliard School's Drama Division, Yale School of Drama, New York University, Harvard University, the Moscow Art Theatre, the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, the Guthrie Theatre, Lincoln Center, and many others. She has also presented her work internationally at major medical and theatre conferences.

For a more thorough account of the development of this work, see "Breathing is Meaning," in Articles. For a more complete list of influences on the work, see Links. For more information on how you can learn about this work, see Calendar and Teachers/Locations.

FITZMAURICE VOICEWORK is a Registered Trademark owned by Catherine Fitzmaurice.

Catherine Fitzmaurice teaches voice and text in workshops and to private clients in New York City and Los Angeles, as well as around the United States and internationally. She has taught voice and text at Yale School of Drama, Harvard/A.R.T./MXAT, the Juilliard School's Drama Division, NYU's Graduate Acting program, A.C.T., UCLA, USC, New York's Actors Center, London University's Goldsmiths College, and the Central School of Speech and Drama, as well as in numerous workshops and seminars, and at theatre and medical conference for voice professionals as well as consciousness conferences.

Catherine has been invited to lecture and conduct workshops for theatre and medical colleagues at international theatres, actor training establishments, universities, and conferences at: the Roy Hart Center in France; the Theatre Noise conference at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London; the Performance Breath conference at RADA in London (keynote speaker); the Purnati Arts Centre in Bali; Pantheatre in Paris France; the Moscow Art Theatre; the International Slavic University in Moscow; the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski in Italy; 7th Voice Symposium of the Australian Voice Association (keynote speaker); 1st Congreso de Voz in Chile; 2nd Pan-European Voice Conference (PEVOC ll) in Germany; 6th Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI) in Israel; 1st International Conference on Consciousnesss, Theatre, Literature, and the Arts in Wales; also as Chancellor's Distinguished Lecturer in Drama at the University of California-Irvine; at Sundance Theatre Lab, Esalen Institute, and Naropa University; numerous times at several colleges, universities, and actor training programs, and several times at ATHE, VASTA, and the Care of the Professional Voice Symposium of the Voice Foundation. Her Teacher Certification Program is offered in New York City and Los Angeles every two years.

Catherine has been voice, speech, text, and dialect coach and consultant for award-winning directors Frank Galati, Mark Lamos, JoAnne Akalaitis, Des McAnuff, Michael Langham, Stan Wojewodski, Robert Wilson, and Ivo van Hove, at such venues as A.C.T, La Jolla Playhouse, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, Stratford/Canada, Hartford Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Center Stage, Shakespeare Theatre, Arena Stage, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, New York Shakespeare Festival, and New York Theatre Workshop. She coached Haing Ngor's Academy Award-winning performance in The Killing Fields. Catherine has acted for Robert Wilson as Goneril in Lear at Metromedia Studios in Los Angeles, on the national tour of Whose Life is it Anyway? with Brian Bedford, as a member of the company at A.C.T. for three years, and many other venues.

Catherine's article, "Breathing is Meaning," describing the origins and methods of her approach to voice training, is published by Applause Books in THE VOCAL VISION, ed. Marian Hampton, New York, 1997; her article, "Zeami Breathing," is published in the Internet Journal, "Consciousness, Literature, and the Arts," Vol. 1, #1, March 2000, in "The Voice and Speech Review," Vol. #1, August 2000, and by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in PERFORMING CONSCIOUSNESS, ed. Per Brask and Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe, Newcastle, 2009; and her article, "Structured Breathing," is published in the VASTA Newsletter, Spring 2003,Vol. 17, #1.

Catherine holds an MA (Theatre Studies) and BA (English Literature) from the University of Michigan; is a Graduate of Central School of Speech and Drama, London, England (3-year program); holds a Certificate from the International Phonetics Association; and holds Certificates of completion from several bodywork and healing energy trainings. Catherine is also a certified Somatic Therapist.

Morgan, Michael, “Constructing The Holistic Actor: Fitzmaurice Work, Actor Voice Training.” Saarbrücken, Deutschland: VDM Verlag, 2008.

American Theatre Magazine, January 2010.

Fitzmaurice, Catherine. "Structured Breathing" in VASTA Newsletter, Spring 2003, Vol. 17, #1. "Breathing is Meaning" in THE VOCAL VISION, ed. Dr. Marian Hampton. New York: Applause Books, 1997. pp. 247 - 252.

The following two translations are currently available:

"La Respiración es Significado", Spanish translation of "Breathing is Meaning", translated by Mariela Aragon Chiari. "Breathing is Meaning", Russian translation.

"Zeami Breathing" in Internet Journal Consciousness, Literature and the Arts Vol. 1, #1, March 2000; reprinted in The Voice and Speech Review, Vol.1, #1, premier issue. August 2000, and in PERFORMING CONSCIOUSNESS, eds. Per Brask and Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.

"Common Speaking Voice Problems: Case Studies with Optional Solutions" - with Lucille Rubin (moderator), Ruth Epstein, Catherine Fitzmaurice, Pamela Harvey, and Bonnie Raphael. Transcript of panel appearance at the Voice Foundation Symposium 1990, in The Journal of Voice, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1991. pp. 321 -327.

Interview with Eugene Douglas: a 2004 interview with Catherine Fitzmaurice by Eugene Douglas, in e-magazine Acting Now, Issue #2. BY FITZMAURICE VOICEWORK TEACHERS:

Barnes, Michael J. and Smith, Bruce R.: "A Report on the January 1995 Fitzmaurice Workshop" in VASTA Newsletter, Spring/Summer 1995, Vol. 9, #2.

Barnes, Michael J.: MFA Thesis on Fitzmaurice Voicework. Blaise, Cynthia: "A Fitzmaurice Workshop Experience" in VASTA Newsletter, Fall 1999, Vol. 13, #3. www.vasta.org/newsletter/99/fall05.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_School_of_Speech_and_Drama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeami_Motokiyo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Theatre_%28Washington,_D.C.%29