As we all find ourselves temporarily living a very different life in lockdown we must remember the importance and power of the breath. Remember we can use the technique in our every day life to help centre us in these challenging times. Please visit our resources page for some practical guidance on using the technique at home.
Tongues is an experimental film directed by visual/digital artist Màiri Lafferty and supported by a Morton Award from the Royal Scottish Academy. It is about glossolalia or speaking in tongues and is based on Lafferty’s childhood experience of the Pentecostal movement in the US and Scotland. It was filmed at Basic Mountain, Edinburgh in June 2019 and documented by Holly Yeomen in her text Polyphonic Representation.
Tongues comprises four workshopped Acts designed to create a secular environment to practice glossolalia led by Ros Steen, accredited teacher of NGVW, and Layla Brown, a classically trained singer specialising in improvisation. The band of artists Fallopé & the Tubes – Sarah Messenger, Ruby Pester, Nadia Rossi, Rachel Walker, Catherine Weir, & guest Rosslyn Oman – participate in these Acts whereby Steen and Brown use radical pedagogical vocal techniques, including Nadine George Voice Work with its roots in the pioneering research of Alfred Wolfsohn, to enable the group to release ‘their authentic, magnetically haunting sound, a voice relation of Wolfsohn’s dying souls’. [Holly Yeoman.] Text spoken was drawn from A.L.Kennedy’s essay Proof of Life ( published in ‘On Writing’, Jonatahn Cape 2013) as well as vocal deconstructions of the participants names.
Before filming, Màiri experienced Nadine George Voice Work in a lesson with Ros to understand the work from her own embodiment of it. In an e mail subsequently she wrote the session
has transformed the film itself – originally fundamentally visual – into something far more performative…. it is the process of the film that is the most important thing…how can I create the best space for it? How can I create a safe and generous space for a group of women to engage with their own energy – to begin to understand its force and power, and harness it to vocalise something that they otherwise cannot articulate?’
Both film and Yeoman’s text are currently available here :
Through his experience of NGVW and his own applied methods Laurent explores the power of vocal work in the coaching context.
Download full thesis HERE
‘I’ve written before about the stirring voice work of Nadine George. My introduction to the work last year has turned out not to be an isolated encounter but the beginning of an exploration that I suspect I might pursue for some time. Most recently, I joined a two-day workshop in Glasgow with a group of people with varying levels of experience in the method – from decades to none.’
To download this fascinating piece in full click HERE
NGVW advocate Michaela Raisova publishes article on her experiences at Nadine’s two week workshop in London in 2018 in a publication released by the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague:
https://namu.cz/arteacta-2-2018
This summer saw the Centre for Voice in Performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland host the first annual Nadine George Voice Work® teachers seminar. With teachers joining from all over Europe to share ideas and practice a wonderful day was had by all!
Join Nadine as she returns to the Roy Hart International Arts Center in Malérargues where her incredible journey with the voice began. From the 20th – 25th August 2019 Nadine will be delivering a five day workshop at the Center on the Voice and Shakespearean monologues of Richard III.
Click here to find out more and visit the Roy Hart International Arts Center website
On Wednesday 8th June,2019, the writer A.L.Kennedy and Ros Steen were both invited to give a joint presentation to members of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin about the connection between NGVW and writing. A short contextual introduction by Ros was followed by a practical demonstration. Kennedy, who had written four new pieces for the occasion each one linked to one of the Four Qualities, spoke each piece before and after working on her voice with Ros. She also spoke from a personal point of view about the voice work. A lively question and answer session followed and the whole evening was recorded for the Akademie’s archives. The event was also attended by accredited teacher Margareta Unné (Teta). While in Berlin, Teta and Ros paid a visit to do some research into Alfred Wolfsohn’s archive which is held by the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
‘One of the most stirring encounters that I experienced this year was a one-hour lesson with Nadine George on discovering your voice.’
Click here to read Martin’s fascinating first encounter with Nadine
Nadine travels to Tokyo with accredited teacher Laurent Courtin to provide an NGVW workshop to the Japanese Directors Association on the voice and Shakespearean text. An exciting move for the work into East Asia.
