Fitzmaurice Voicework

Body tremors.

Pardon?

In a Fitzmaurice Voicework class on Sunday, I participated in voluntarily-induced body tremors.

What?!

Right, and I'm not sure if I can explain. But I'll try.

My friend Sam and I decided to take a class together at Piven Theatre Workshop, a decades-old, somewhat well-known training program for all ages. Sam had taken a Piven class before and quite enjoyed it; she thought I would, too. Interested in something unique, I suggested Fitzmaurice Voicework, a special voice-developing workshop that's on the program just for this Fall session.

This class is certainly unlike any other I've joined.

But we'll get to that; it didn't start out so unexpected. The class lasts six weeks, and the first meeting was spent in socked feet, sitting in a circle and sharing, then playing trust games and moving dramatically with our eyes closed. All that's part of what I imagine when I hear the words 'acting class.' Predictable, amusing!

Of course, the Voicework class was sure to be a bit different, and appeared more and more dynamic as our compact, gray-haired, eloquent-and-cheeky British instructor, Roger Smart, let on to his background in Eastern philosophy and movement, facets of the brain and movement of energy. Still, Roger gave no discernible indication of what was to come later – at least, not what would come physically.


***

Sam and I both missed the second class, so when we arrived at class 3 on a brilliantly sunny fall morning, mats and pillows under arms, we'd not a clue what to expect.

After a slow start (literally, we warmed up with a mindful space-feeling 10-minute walk across a 22-foot room), Roger directed the class to stretch in a few comfortable positions. Then we broke into work. In the middle of a classic dorsal stretch, on our backs, right knee up and torso twisted to allow the left leg over – we were told to look for our 'tremor.'

Perhaps you expected this, even if I didn't: a tremor is a shake in your body. It names what happens to your muscles when they're not quite stretched out completely in an exercise, at an active point just before flexing on the bend/flex scale. Your muscles can't quite hold their place, and they shake a bit (or sometimes a lot).

All my exercising life, I'd been under the impression that such shakes were signs of weakness in body movement, clues to what muscles should or could be strengthened. In gymnastics practice years ago, we young gymnasts sometimes shook while deeply stretching, but really only at the beginning of the season. By the end, we were strong and very flexible.

So, it was not intuitive for me that finding and holding this tremor in a series of positions was our goal for the last two hours of our three-hour class. We got into a series of fairly difficult positions, each suspended somewhere between relaxation and exercise, looked for the tremor and attempted to draw the shake up from each muscle to our chest and breath. We were to relax, allow for chaotic breathing and 'soft and fuzzy sounds' or loud vowel sounds to escape our mouths, and feel free to...feel free.

Eventually, tremoring this way is supposed to allow deep, strained emotions out of your depths, so you feel free to speak with a full voice and to emote sincerely. We were told that signs of breakthrough include, but aren't limited to, sudden sobs, intense laughter, near-involuntary speaking, simple realizations.

Early on, one woman started to wail, then laugh out loud. She did this multiple times during the class, and after the meeting, exclaimed that she'd been looking for this release for some time. Another student burst out into sobs during one exercise.

The rest of the class shook it out, and will continue working, with open minds, toward our own versions of breakthroughs.

Meanwhile, if you happen to look in on our classroom, we might be a practicing crew of closed-eyed 'spazzes,' most shaking without form, some breathing as if in rapture, a few letting out wailed 'O's.

O, my. Three classes, three weeks left. We'll see what happens.