TRANS-AFFIRMING VOICE LESSONS

Your voice is you. It reflects your experience and it supports your presentation in the world. But what happens when your voice feels out of alignment with how you understand yourself, how you sense your voice internally, or how you feel yourself perceived?

From an early age, we’re taught to associate certain vocal qualities and mannerisms with one or the other binary gender. These expectations are reinforced by traditional media and cultural archetypes: exaggerated and often limiting ideas of which voices go with which bodies, faces or even ideas. For those of us who are gender nonconforming, these assumptions can contribute to discomfort, dysphoria, or disconnection from our own voices.

In my studio, we expand the rule book around voice and presentation. We approach voice work as an opportunity for play and discovery. The voice can be a source of joy, a grounding force, and a site of personal empowerment. Using a combination of technical exercises, poetry and song, we explore vocal range, enunciation, placement and resonance. Students in my studio are invited to explore, experiment, and to reconnect with their voices on their own terms:.