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Françoise Walot trained as an actor at Liège Conservatoire, Belgium, and as a voice coach with Kristin Linklater in the USA. Since then, she has performed and directed in Belgium, taught voice and acting in different institutions in the UK - Central School of Speech and Drama, LAMDA - and led numerous voice workshops in England, Poland and Greece. She regularly works with poets and explores the emotional and artistic implications of how voice work can support them to speak their own work in public. She is currently translating into French Kristin Linklater’s book "Freeing the Natural Voice".

TO TRUST THE JOURNEY - Speaking Voice

Weekend voice masterclass led by Françoise Walot (Designated Linklater Teacher) assisted by Joanna Kurzyńska (Designated Linklater Teacher)

4-6 April 2025 - The Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, POLAND

SHEDULE:

4 April 2025 – Friday

5pm-8pm

5 April 2025 – Saturday

10am-1pm and 3pm-6pm

6 April 2025 – Sunday

10am-1pm and 3pm-6pm

In this workshop, we will explore the connections between impulses and breath, thoughts, images and the act of speaking. Each day, we will warmup the voice thoroughly following the Linklater progression of exercises covering physical awareness and release, resonance, vocal range and clarity. We will work physically on the structure of the texts, exploring the connections between breathing, thinking and speaking. We will forage vertically into texts discovering how imagery impacts voice and speech.

The work is collective with many occasions to work in pairs and an invitation to individual coaching using different physical exercises to help restore the voice and the speaking of text to the whole body.

WHEN: 4-6.04.2025

WHERE: The Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, POLAND

FEE: 285 eur / 1199 pln

LEADER: Francoise Walot (Designated Linklater Teacher)

Limited spots!

"It is what you say and why you say it that matters, not how you say it", a voice and text workshop to explore the intrinsic connections between voice and speech using Linklater's voice and text approaches and beyond.

We, actors, have consciously and unconsciously in mind how we want to speak text, how it will "sound" and for that, how we will modulate our voices for certain effects and how some of the words we will emphasise will ring and clarify what we say. We also think of the character and their characteristics: the way they would use language; rhythm, pitch: their prosody. These are processes that happen from the moment we read the piece we have to or want to learn by heart, these are normal processes. We want to control how we speak.

Nevertheless, the ability to create and re-create a speech in rehearsal and when performing for an audience demands more than that if we want to connect to a deeper experience as performers and if we trust that we can achieve results maybe livelier for us, maybe more surprising for the audience. So what is it that we need to practice to engage in a more profound, less thought-of connection with the words we say on stage? Can we trust that our breath and bodies know more than what our mind and our thoughts think they know? Can we trust we can restore the control of how we speak to our breath and our emotions, to our living imagination?

PREPARATION

Please, bring a monologue from a Shakespeare play or from a Greek tragedy and bring with you a couple of paper copies of the text. To fully benefit from the workshop, learn your lines by heart. Make sure you know who you are in the play, who you speak to and why. Make sure you understand every word you say.

Workshop will be led by Francoise Walot (Designated Linklater Teacher) and assisted by Joanna Kurzyńska (Designated Linklater Teacher).

Language: English with translation to polish (if needed).

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WHEN: 24-25.05.2025

WHERE: The Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, POLAND

FEE: 200 eur / 800 pln

LEADER: Joanna Kurzyńska (Designated Linklater Teacher)

Limited spots!

“Sigh - Sing” is a rich and profound meeting with the human voice, during which we learn how to combine methodological experiences with practical liberation of the voice in song, text and improvisation. Joanna Kurzyńska (Designated Linklater Teacher) will lead the participants and their voices towards better understanding, awareness and vibrance. Drawing from the work of her masters, including Kristin Linklater, the leader wants to give the voice its due freedom and liberty, permission for honest expression. The work will include individual lines of each participant, as well as group experience. Each person will have the opportunity to open their own path of working with the voice, and as a group, we will be able to experience the power of support provided by mutual sharing of the voice and meeting in it through polyphonic song, conversation, breath, movement, silence.

SIGH - SING

Weekendowe workshop led by Joanna Kurzyńska (Designated Linklater Teacher)

24-25 May 2025 - The Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, POLAND

“And then, all of a sudden, that song begins to sing us.

That ancient song sings me;

I don’t know anymore if I am finding that song or if I am that song”

“From the Theatre Company to Art as Vehicle” Jerzy Grotowski

"Sigh - Sing" is based on the method "Freeing the Natural Voice" by Kristin Linklater and practices derived from the work of theatre groups operating in the ethos of performer training (understanding the term "performer" as "doer/person who is doing"). This makes the workshop a very useful direction for professional actors, singers, people associated with broadly understood work on the stage, interested in their further professional development.

Shedule:

Saturday 24.05.2025 - 10am-1pm and 3pm-6pm

Sunday 25.05.2025 - 10am-1pm and 3pm-6pm

Work elements:

- physical training stimulating body-head-voice communication - voice warm-ups with elements of Kristin Linklater’s “Freeing the Natural Voice” method - combining Linklater’s main idea with a sung voice

– How can a sigh turn into a song?;

- resonators – work with basic resonators and their importance in using the voice;

- “harmony of common singing” – a common meeting in the richness of traditional polyphonic songs;

- Free vocal improvisation as a way to remove blockages

The work will be a physical exercise, and the participants will interact with each other, both vocally and physically.