Julianna Bloodgood
“Diaphragmatic Breathing Series, Part 3”
Embodied Voice Practices, developed by Julianna Bloodgood, is an embodied approach to vocal training which utilises somatic practices and vocal technique to bring about the awareness, awakening and activation of an authentic voice. This is an in-depth and ongoing development brought about by the desire to more fully understand the connection between the body and voice.
Through this work, we seek to create a voice that is open and free, expressive and capable of communicating emotional truth while awakening a deep sense of listening and responsiveness to the impulses that arise within our body. This awareness can be brought into musicality through the integration of sound, song, rhythm, relationships and imagination. Full body, full breath, full emotion, full potential.
As we reached the one year mark of this global pandemic, I decided to create a small series of lessons that anyone can access at any time during these months of no contact. I felt an acute need to be able to offer my knowledge and contact people through teaching. We need to reach each other now more than ever and the way to begin any journey (especially a journey that involves voice) is through the breath. This is a series about breath. In each of these five mini lessons I talk about the most fundamental and basic force of a free voice which is, of course, breath! As the great vocal teacher Kristin Linklater said, “The voice cannot work to its true potential if its basic energy is not breath. As long as breath is not free the voice will depend on compensating strength in the throat and mouth muscles.” But having a free breath is not only for vocalists, and voice seekers. This is also our fundamental life force and something that most people don’t have clear contact with. Each lesson is devoted to understanding and accessing our diaphragmatic breath. I explain the mechanism of diaphragmatic breathing and it’s importance for our lives as well as give simple and effective exercises to free up this process and help you access your natural breath.
Part 3
In this video we’ll explore opening the back and the sides to help access and deepen our diaphragmatic breath. We’ll also do a bit more sounding to help increase the release and awareness of our diaphragm.
Julianna Bloodgood
Photo: Karol Jarek
Julianna Bloodgood is a multidisciplinary theatre creator and performer. She worked with the award winning and critically acclaimed Polish theatre company Song of the Goat Theatre from 2009-2018. She was an integral part of the development, devising, premiers of performances which have won international theatre awards and toured throughout the world. In Poland Julianna was also a founding member of the pedagogical and performance research company Odra Ensemble. Julianna is a resident artist with New York based Theater MITU, and collaborates with Slovakian theatre company Honey and Dust.
In 2019, Julianna was awarded a scholarship from the Poish Ministry of Culture for her artistic research and was one of ten European independent theatre makers chosen to participate in Creative Europe’s Make A Move project.
Julianna is the co-founder of The Dadaab Theater Project, a youth based theater project in Dadaab, Kenya, formerly the world’s largest refugee camp and is a founding member and co-artistic director of The Great Globe Foundation, a non-profit organization utilizing the power of creativity to inspire and empower the individual voice and to help build bridges between people and communities.
Julianna graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with high honors and holds an MA in Acting, a BFA in Dramatic Performance from the College Conservatory of Music, Department of Acting, University of Cincinnati; and is a graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, California. Julianna regularly teaches workshops and masterclasses internationally.
https://www.juliannabloodgood.com
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