Opening of the voice

Through breathing, movement and physical touch, we allow the voice to reinhabit the body and to open up: to find greater freedom.

Following a series of exercises,

-We warm up the body so it can welcome and support the voice

-We combine voice with movement, so as to free the breathing, to soften up the unnecessary muscular tensions, and allow the sound to come out with greater ease

-We connect the voice with the support of the breath, and we explore its range, it’s volumes, its different colours, its qualities. With observation we become aware of where the sound is located in the body each time, how it’s produced, where it resonates, which regions it vibrates, and we discover ways towards the different possibilities.

Then we approach the expressivity of the voice: We enter in “journeys” of improvisation, individually and with the support of a partner, with movement and physical touch as our main tools. We work and we sound simultaneously in the space, and we let our voice lead the way.

We listen and follow our voice, as it shows us where it needs to go, where it finds rest, where it dives beyond its usual limits..

Circles of Polyphonic Improvisation

How can several people tune into each other, so as to create a common song in the moment?

We gain consciousness as a group, as an organism that can travel from soundscape to soundscape and transform, while preserving its coherence and balance in between its different parts.

Through exercises, games, and “conditions” for improvisation, we cultivate some basic tools:

-The drone notes (ison, isokratima), and their various possibilities, such as creating different types of chords on them

-The creation of soundscapes with the gradual addition of repeatable musical phrases

-The moment of the solo: the improvisation of one voice, while the group creates a strong basis for that voice to step upon and fly. Likewise for a duet or a trio.

Then we enter in an improvisation that brings all the structural elements together. We cultivate the ability to listen, to feel what the moment needs and dive creatively into it.

The music instinct exists in everyone, we awake it, we nurture it and let it create.

The workshop is open to everyone who wants to work on the reltionship with their voice and has a love for music, irrespective of their experience or knowledge.

Anna Luna Louvari studied contemporary dance (preparatory year in the State School of Dance, 1st BA year in Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance) and then, searching for studies that combined both movement and voice exploration, she moved towards theatre and graduated from Dilos Theatre School.
While there, she was drawn to physical theatre and started training with teachers such as Rosa Prodromou, Julianna Bloodgood, Rafal Habel, Alexandra Kazazou and more.

Continuing this work, the liberation of the voice through movement became her emphasis, so she trained with teachers of the Roy Hart Centre such as Ulrik Barfod, Edda Hegg, Walli Hoffinger and more. She then completed a one year course at the Centre, and continued to attend trainings there on a frequent basis.

She fell in love with singing as a member of choirs and later also trained individually with Dinah Stieringer and Evangelia Karakatsani.

She has worked in theatre and with children (play based teaching of foreign languages and musical – movement play in groups), as well as in other fields.

The workshop is a combination of the different approaches she has trained in throughout the years and discoveries from her own practice, brought together by the need to share the magic that happens when one connects to their own voice beyond its usual limits and to the power of many different voices uniting harmonically acapella, into the song of the moment.