Apr 3
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New LifeSong Class starting April 9
LifeSong is exercise for the voice that opens you up — physically, emotionally, spiritually — to more fully express the genuine, authentic, multi-faceted you. Classes are limited to eight people. As the course requires a high level of commitment, participants are admitted only following an interview with the instructor.
The next class will begin Monday, April 9, 2012 and run for 10 weeks. It is held from 7 pm to 10 pm.
For more information, visit http://voiceemergent.com/lifesong/.
Chant: Mode, Mantra and Meditation
Wednesdays from 7 pm to 9 pm, beginning January 18, a series of eight chant workshops offers an opportunity to experience the profoundly centering and grounding influence of meditative chant through chants drawn from many traditions — Buddhist, Hindu, Aboriginal, Jewish, Christian, Sufi, Pagan, etc.
Although the first class is over, there is still time to join this exploration of the deeply centring and calming effect of mantras and longer chants drawn from a variety of traditions of both the East and West.
If you’d like to join the class, just show up at St Luke’s Church in Chinatown (760 Somerset West at Bell) before 7 pm. The fee for this series is $150.
Festival of Light at Christmastime
Wednesday, December 21 at 7:30 pm
760 Somerset Street West (at Bell)
(St. Luke’s Church)
Please join us for a festival of word and song–traditional readings from the Bible, woven together with light-related words from science, other spiritual traditions, aboriginal lore and the sparkling music of Christmas. Lift your own voice in the magical sound-space of St Luke’s as our choir of emergent voices and the magnificent pipe organ lead us in much loved carols. After it’s over we continue the celebration downstairs in the church hall with hot mulled apple juice, ginger snaps and festive fellowship with friends. Admission is by donation; give what you wish.
Speaking as Singing: Vocal Variety for Speakers
This piece by Barclay McMillan was dapted from an article written for The Inside Edge, an e-monthly of Ottawa Advanced Toastmasters, May 2005.
“If our speaking is to elicit from listeners the response our words deserve, our voices need to be intimately responsive to that neuro-muscular source of passion, pain, pleasure, joy, sadness, concern, hope, inspiration–the list of emotional colours is endless–that gives rise to our words”
Just a few weeks ago, as I was beginning to mull over what I might say in the article on voice I had promised to write for The Inside Edge, I came across an interview in the Ottawa Citizen with the renowned Canadian choreographer and dancer Margie Gillis who was coming to perform at the National Arts Centre. “For years I couldn’t articulate what I do,” says Gillis whose extraordinary ability to touch people’s souls with her dancing is celebrated the world over, “but now I know it is the neuro-muscular system. Everything-emotions, politics, spirituality-has a physical response. What happens in the body is this emotion turns into electricity and touches the muscles. It’s moving to internal landscapes. I choreograph from that place.”
Victim No More – A Life Song
Barclay McMillan in Conversation with LifeSong Graduate, Bernice Logan
Edited by Andrea Prazmowski
…something about choosing to say or sing my story in different ways made it a story of beauty. You know it’s not something that needs to be stuffed under a carpet… It’s this life’s story, and it can be celebrated. It’s a victory story, and one that helped me to see the victory. Of my life. Since LifeSong I’ve been living very differently. Remarkably differently!
— Bernice, LifeSong participant
Change of life — transformation – we find over and over again in the experiences of LifeSong. The changes differ in degree and in kind, but show themselves in the context of healing — changed perception, integration, restored confidence, augmented skill, renewed energy, creativity, joy.
