Lessac Kinesensics offers a holistic approach to integrating voice and body for performers, enhancing authentic expression, seamless transitions between singing and speaking, and overall creative confidence. Actors, singers, educators, speech-language pathologists - and more - report transformative experiences in Lessac training programs.
The Lessac Training and Research Institute is pleased to announce that its 2023 U.S. Intensive is taking place in-person at Hendrix College in Conway, AR from June 11-July 7 with a new format. Modeling its structure after the recent South Africa Lessac Intensive which took place in Pretoria in January, our U.S. Intensive will offer tiered options enabling participants flexibility to join for 1-Week, 2-Weeks or the full 4-Week experience. Each week will build upon the previous week’s explorations, culminating in advanced work for self and performance contexts.
The Lessac Training and Research Institute is pleased to announce that its 2023 U.S. Intensive is taking place in-person at Hendrix College in Conway, AR from June 11-July 7 with a new format. Modeling its structure after the recent South Africa Lessac Intensive which took place in Pretoria in January, our U.S. Intensive will offer tiered options enabling participants flexibility to join for 1-Week, 2-Weeks or the full 4-Week experience. Each week will build upon the previous week’s explorations, culminating in advanced work for self and performance contexts.
Announcing the remote conference schedule with recorded sessions for time zone variations! We are offering flexile pay rates to fit your budget and access to recorded sessions to fit your schedule! Can’t make it for the entire live conference? No problem! Come when you can, pay what you can. What are you waiting for?
The Lessac Training and Research Institute is pleased to announce that its U.S. Summer Intensive workshop is scheduled to be back in-person next summer on the campus of DePauw University, and will be led by Master Teacher Crystal Robbins from Los Angeles, CA and Certified Trainer Morné Steyn from Cape Town, South Africa.
One thing that differentiates Covid from other viruses is that it attacks your system in totality. For me, the leading symptom changed every minute. One moment I experienced blinding migraines, then disorientation and confusion, then coughing so hard that I threw up, and more. I could not get a handle on which symptoms would be attacking my system next, and so I could not feel any sense of consistent peace. I am extremely fortunate that while I visited the ER twice, I was never kept overnight nor experienced anything more extreme.
However, total isolation for a week and a half, plus caring for myself were some of the most challenging experiences I ever lived through. Kinesensics kept my sanity intact.
Perhaps this is really what the holidays are all about. There’s often a kind of anticipatory joy in the air during this time of year that puts a spring in the step and makes people more generous toward one another. Maybe someone lets you go first in a check-out line at the store, or a patient and cheery driver stops to allow you to pull out into a busy street. Inter-Involvement Energy is what happens when this sort of desire to do good for others meets your personal interactions.
Near the end of a Town Hall meeting on the Black Lives Matter movement and how the LTRI trainers will change their pedagogy to be more inclusive, diverse, and equitable, Monica Angrand stopped my breath for a moment. She shared in her US Southern dialect how the Lessac work was healing her from trauma she experienced as a biracial person living in the American South. Moreover, she continues to heal her trauma now that she lives in South Africa.
“It’s time to talk about these things. I’m definitely outside of the outside. There’s gotta be someone else who might benefit from [our conversation] as well.”
Buoyancy Energy is in our muscle memory—it’s that set of familiar sensations you feel when floating: a weightless, effortless ease. You can feel it in a body of water, after a great massage, walking in mist or a lovely snowfall, or perhaps you’ve had the experience of receiving wonderful news that causes you to feel like you’re floating on air. When buoyant, your body feels relaxed and oxygen-charged, so that your movements are smooth, easy, and fluid.
By Kathleen Dunn-Muzingo
Actor and Lessac Student Priyank Thakkar
After teaching online during a pandemic, witnessing the brutal murder of George Floyd via shared media, through the burgeoning and painful awakening of my white privilege, I feel lost and inept. Lately, I have been drawing inspiration from Arthur Lessac’s holistic body training where he addresses the inner environment versus outer environment in his book: Body Wisdom, the Use and Training of the Human Body. I find the Lessac Body Voice concepts guide my everchanging world of personal awareness of injustice, equality, and diversity with my students. I want to extend a virtual hug to the Lessac Master Teachers and LTRI members for their time and support these past few months. So, in gratitude I share one of my class explorations in Lessac Body Voice work.
As I claim my personal creative space at home, I discover that negotiating space outside myself symbolizes how my students are influenced by outer environments of hate, brutality, judgment, self-deprecation, environmental pollutants, and COVID-19, all which suffocate our inner environment where creativity and voice are born.
To see myself in my students’ eyes, I remind myself what it was like growing up (a victim of school bullying) and how it was difficult to negotiate my power and my space. So, I start with telling my personal story about negotiating personal space and finding my voice. I invite others to do the same if they wish, acknowledging that my experiences pale when compared to the injustices of systemic racism and outward violence.
DAY ONE—OUTER ENVIRONMENT VERSUS INNER ENVIRONMENT: Exploration One
Kathleen Dunn-Muzingo (right) works with student actor Ky Snider (left)
Working with the outer environment and looking around their rooms, large or small, I encourage their eyes to land on something they appreciate or want more of—could be more sunlight, or a photo of a loved one, a stuffed animal, unique to them. I ask them to spend time in appreciation with that object or presence. I invite them to notice how they feel inside, physically. What are the sensations of appreciation or pleasure? That of lightness—of calm—of noticing breath. Students are encouraged to explore the connection between the outer object and their breath. Perhaps one will notice that the breath has slowed, while others may become aware of physical tensions releasing and softening the face. Giving space to the sensing-feeling process and discovering how the outer environment can influence one’s inner environment is the first step in awareness of outer environmental influencers and their impact on our health and our breath. We discuss some of those outer-environmental influences that stifle breath, but also acknowledge that through exploration we have a choice of the quality of breath within ourselves. We can cultivate our own centered breath and physical presence. I ask some to share their objects and this becomes their favorite thing to do. As we finish, I drop in little seeds of awareness in appreciating our breathing after having done this exploration, perhaps noting new areas and spaces in the body that seem to have released or opened. For next class, we are encouraged to bring something we love to smell or taste. We will spend time with these objects or foods, exploring the path an embodied breath takes through pleasure smelling and experiencing that pleasurable sigh of relief afterwards which becomes a template for one’s free responsive breath.
CREATING THE FREEDOM WITHIN YOUR SPACE: Exploration Two
Now that we are mindful of our breath, we go on a journey in discovering the various levels the body moves through space during one’s daily life. First, they find a space where they can lie down, and they are encouraged to take time to move their computers to the level where they can be seen. Once on the floor, we stay there, allowing the breath to flow into the body and out as the waves of the ocean, a cool breeze, or just silent awareness of the natural movement of breath in and out, without manipulating. Then the students are guided to move slowly into the fallen leaf, then into a crouch, and then travel up the spine to standing. Moment to moment guiding, which is not detailed here, is what is taking place as I see each student via Zoom.
In each dynamic level from lying down to crouched to floating up the spine, we are negotiating our space, allowing breath awareness to move our backs and our sides, allowing that breath to buoyantly float us up through our spine. Our spine is our strength. Here the students explore this journey on their own from floor to standing. This can be the first step in finding their space, their right to take up space, to feel a centered confidence, and an ease of one’s own breath. In the many intensives with Arthur, I fondly remember him saying “So as we breathe, so as we stand, and vice versa,” and standing in our space is a matter of being seen and allowing ourselves to take in a full, rightful, deeply-supported breath that allows our voices to be heard.
We wrap with a discussion and students note the power in awareness of physical sensations that support health, well being, and self worth. The work still reaches through the internet.
Kathleen Dunn-Muzingo is a Lessac Certified Trainer and Associate Professor of Performance and Voice & Movement Studies at the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts
The Executive Committee members (President—Daisy Folsom, President Elect—Kellynn Meeks, Past President—Steve Housley and Managing Director—Sean Turner) cherish collaboration. We are a team. We send you well wishes and exhilarating news.
The Lessac Training and Research Institute is pleased to announce the faculty for this year’s Lessac Summer Intensive Workshop: Master Teacher Crystal Robbins from Santa Monica, CA and Master Teacher Marth Munro from South Africa. These gifted instructors will bring decades of experience and training to this workshop, which will be held in a retreat-like setting at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN, from June 21-July 17, 2020.
Deb Kinghorn is a Master Teacher of Lessac Kinesensics, and Professor in the Theatre and Dance Department at the University of New Hampshire. She worked closely with Arthur Lessac over several decades, and most especially during his final years, when she co-authored, Essential Lessac, with him. She teaches Lessac work internationally and stays active as an actor, director, and voice and dialect coach. (Read more)
I have always been an avid runner, since my early 20s. But in recent years, I have been investigating other workout options to keep me fit as the proverbial fiddle. It is a known fact that as we age, running long distances can certainly contribute to shin splints, ankle and knee problems, hip issues etc., simply because of the impact that running has on the body. So I have been searching for a way to continue the cardiovascular and toning benefits given by running without the negative impact (pardon the pun). Enter race walking…. (Read more)
Potency is a high-voltage muscle stretch (like the yawning cat) that vitalizes the body with a sense of robustness and strength. It relaxes as it empowers, creating optimal efficiency in the body-mind. Next, you might instinctively begin to stretch throughout your body, much like the full body movement a cat indulges in when it wakes up from sleep. (Read more)
In August 2019, Lea Baker completed a 3-week intensive workshop with the Lessac Institute for Training and Research, at Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art. During the training, Lea, a vocal music instructor and master choral director, was struck with the many ways that Lessac work can be applied to the art of singing. (Read more)
The Lessac Membership drive begins in November, and as the Institute continues to grow, so too do our offerings to members and our overall membership base. In the past year alone, membership has nearly doubled—due in part to an increase in new Practitioners—resulting in a greater ability to get the work out into worldwide communities supporting both training programs and our workshop trainers. (Read more)
Our readers are cordially invited to attend the 2020 Lessac Training and Research Institute ® International Conference, which will be held January 9-11, 2020, at Kent State University in Ohio. The conference is for anyone interested in improving the quality of their voice and body communications, and the work can be applied to any life endeavor. (Read more)
