Julianna Bloodgood
Embodied Voice Practices
BIOGRAPHY
Julianna Bloodgood, is a vocalist, multidisciplinary theatre maker, somatic practitioner and teacher. From 2009 - 2018 she worked with award winning and critically acclaimed Polish theatre company Song of the Goat Theatre (Teatr Pieśń Kozła) becoming a principal performer. She is a resident artist with Ireland’s Bru Theatre, New York based Theater MITU and Slovakian company Honey and Dust. Julianna is the co-founder of The Great Globe Foundation, a non-profit organization which utilizes the power of creativity to inspire and empower the individual voice and to help build bridges between people and communities.
Through this organization she co-founded and led the Dadaab Theatre Project, a youth based theatre initiative in Dadaab, Kenya, the world’s largest refugee camp. Julianna’s work includes anthropological performance research and she has traveled extensively in search of different cultural perspectives on the body, voice and the ritual of performance. Her research with the body and voice has led to an in-depth and ongoing development of this connection which she calls Embodied Voice Practices. Julianna has a particular interest and research in the vocal practice of lamentation, giving shape and voice to our pain, which has become a through line in all of her work. She performs, teaches and researches globally.
Embodied Voice Practices
Embodied Voice Practices is an embodied approach to vocal training which utilizes somatic practices and vocal technique to bring about the awareness, awakening and activation of an authentic voice that is open and free, expressive and capable of communicating emotional truth. Embodied Voice Practices awakens a deep sense of listening and responsiveness to the impulses that arise within our body. This awareness can be brought into all forms of communication through the integration of words, sounding, song, rhythm, relationships and imagination. Full body, full breath, full emotion, full potential.
Embodied Voice Practices can be experienced as an in-depth exploration of voice as experienced through the body and the space around us. The body is our gateway to all creative sources, and from the body we begin our investigation of voice, sounding, song, text and musicality through a dynamic exploration of the origins of sound. We deepen the body- voice connection and explore how we physically experience sound. Through a flow of movement and breath we can awaken sound vibrations within the body -resonating the bones and tissues- creating a visceral understanding of the voice and enliven new possibilities for song, text, vocal improvisation and all communication.
BACKGROUND
Embodied Voice Practices was developed as a process of self healing. I am a trained singer, actress, dancer and movement practitioner. In my professional career I came up against serious psychosomatic blocks that prevented me from vocalizing during high pressure and highly emotional contexts as a performer. I was never taught any techniques to release these blocks and allow my voice to flow freely and so I pushed my voice during performances and was at risk for vocal damage.
So, I began a long journey of discovery, rehabilitation and development of a process that gathered aspects of psychology, strong vocal technique from many vocal disciplines and somatic trauma release. I was able to heal and release my vocal blocks through years of self research and practice through hundreds of performances. Now I lead others through the process and techniques I’ve gathered and developed. Embodied Voice Practices is a dynamic and deep journey of processing resulting in a liberated voice, body and psyche. Students report feeling a sense of relief, joy and freedom through this work, and a sense of returning to their authentic power.
WORKSHOP
Embodied Voice Practices: Foundations and Beyond
This workshop will focus on foundational principles which
utilize somatic practices and Embodied Voice techniques to
bring about the awareness, awakening and activation of our authentic
voice. This work is focused around breath understanding and practice,
as well as Release Work, a practice dedicated to the release of sound and emotions through physical sensations. Through a flow of movement and breath we will awaken sound vibrations within the body -resonating the bones and tissues- creating a visceral understanding of the voice and the origins of sound. We will then focus on more advanced and creative explorations of the voice including resonators, extended vocal techniques with practical musical examples, exploration of text and song as well as vocal improvisation.This practice enlivens new possibilities for song, text, vocal improvisation and all of communication.
WORKSHOP
Voice of Release
The Voice of Release is a special approach to vocalizing which focusing on the act of giving voice to one's emotions is a transformative process and something that we collectively lack in our contemporary structures. Vocal lament has been found present in every traditional culture on the planet, and has served as a platform for community support and healing for millennia. Part of our unique human experience is that we are able to give shape and substance to our feelings through art; transmuting our inner experiences of pain, grief and mourning into something that can be shared, witnessed, supported and released. It is a natural process. Through shared and held space, witness and support of community and the powerful act of vocalizing, our feelings can become a thing of beauty that we can transform and release. A three day workshop exploring our personal vocal expression of emotions. The first days we will begin to activate our voices and bodies, attuning ourselves to a gentle process of releasing breath, sound and emotion. We will then cycle through different creative processing and vocal release techniques and Julianna will lead guided practices of creating personal songs that are supported by the group. We will also explore technical aspects of the voice to awaken new paths of creative vocal expression. We will conclude the process with creative and physical integration, beginning and ending our process with lightness and joy.
WORKSHOP
Musicality of the Body
An in-depth exploration of the relationship between body, voice, text and music- ensemble, partner and self.
Through a physical approach to performance training, we seek to reveal an honest and authentic body whereby revealing the performer’s inner life and enlivening the entire creative process. Every aspect of the work creates a deep sense of listening and responsiveness to the impulses that arise within one’s own body and from the collective ensemble. We will deepen the body-voice connection and explore how sound is derived and physically experienced. That through a flow of movement and breath we can awaken sound vibrations within the body resonating the bones and tissues creating a visceral understanding of the voice and awakening new possibilities for song, text and vocal improvisation.
This workshop contributes to the actor’s technique, dance, singing disciplines, musical and physical theatre by awakening a sense of internal and external rhythm, working with physical impulse, spatial awareness and focus. Each exercise will deepen the body’s connection to impulses and stimulus and gradually interconnect all aspects of the craft. The manifestation of the work is dynamic, contemplative and entirely musical.
Polyphonic Body: The Radiant Storyteller
For performance professionals and advanced students,
this workshop offers a unique opportunity to examine how
the body, voice, imagination and ensemble can be utilized to find
new sources of creativity. We all have within us hundreds of voices,
characters, and possibilities of creative manifestation. The Polyphonic Body, is allowing
all the elements of the performer’s inner life, vocal possibilities and physical expression to be channeled in a harmonious and contrapuntal way. This workshop is designed to open and integrate all aspects of the performer. Each exercise and experience will cultivate presence, reveal a voice and body that is open and free, expressive and capable of communicating emotional truth thus bringing to bear our most authentic, vulnerable and creatively powerful state; the path to become a radiant storyteller.
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP
Structure
Workshops can be 1 to 5 days in length according to the needs of the students and organization. Each session is considered to be an intensive and immersive experience requesting full attendance and participation.
TESTIMONIAL
“Julianna, through an elaborate work and research she has been doing for years, has developed a method to reach these places in our body and retrieve the hidden. By voice liberation, she creates sound keys that can unlock the doors of the heart. And this happens so softly and joyfully and with so much support. In Julianna’sworkshop you find the power of your voice and with it, the power of your heart.
Julianna loves what she is doing and she knows her subject very well. She creates a safe joyful space of expression, where someone can trust and let go and feel like home. And the results are astounding. I feel lucky and thankful for having participated in this workshop, for having met Julianna and her magic."
Georgia, Athens, Greece 2022
CONTACT
Email: julianna.bloodgood@gmail.com
Website: https://www.juliannabloodgood.com/
Instagram: @embodied_voice_practice
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmbodiedVoice