The video discusses the relationship between movement, posture, and voice. The speaker recalls how a mentor told her that she would never learn to dance until she learned to speak. She explores the connection between the perineal body and the development of the vocal mechanism. She questions why the pelvis is always tilted back and how this affects posture and voice. The speaker suggests that releasing the pelvic halves from the sacrum can lead to freedom in movement and voice. She encourages the audience to explore their own posture and voice and find their genuine neutral position.
Key Insights:
- Our natural voice is developed from a young age, and it is essential to uncover and embrace it.
- The perineal body, located in the center of the pelvic diaphragm, plays a crucial role in vocal development.
- The pelvis, with the perineal body as its center, is the origin of the vocal mechanism and the development of the face.
- Body posture affects voice projection, and holding back in the pelvic area can limit vocal expression.
- The pelvis should be in a neutral position, neither tucked under nor overly extended, to allow for freedom of movement and vocal empowerment.
- Exploring the weight and movement of the pelvic halves can help release tension and unlock vocal potential.
Transcript
Okay, so one of the things I could hardly hear anybody and I don’t think it was just my hearing. So part of it is how do we stand up and say our name where we’re really engaged with our own expression? Where did that come from? If a baby was in here, we’d hear them down the hall and we were all those babies, not crying, crying too, but giggling. And I just saw a baby this week and no problem to hear his expressions. It’s just, and then Erick saying to me, 50 years ago, Erick Hawkins, „Bonnie, you’re never gonna learn to dance until you learn to speak.“ He said the other way, „Until you learn to speak, you’ll never learn to dance.“ So a lot of dancers don’t speak, but it shows. And, anyway, it’s a meditation of mine now in a practice for a long time. So this morning, let’s look at how we find the power, how we empower our voice. So often in the standing and saying our name, people do it because I say, „Will you please stand and say your name?“ Okay, and I’m wondering about that in terms of my own self and this many, many years of looking to uncover this natural voice that I had as a baby. I cried if nothing else, and all the other babbling and, well, that’s one thing. Another thing that I think is related, it has to do with the perineal body. And everybody here has already explored the perineal body in the center of the pelvic diaphragm. And the reason that I feel that it has to do with the perineal body, here in the very center, this is here, that this is the site of the origin of the middle body or the mesoderm. And the mesoderm creates the muscles, the bones, the ligaments, the tendons, the blood itself, the kidneys, many things that we’ve explored in other days. But in that structure, the larynx is developed. The vocal mechanism itself comes from the center of our perineum. Its origin is in the center of the pelvis, what’s now the pelvis. We didn’t have a pelvis then, but the cells of that, the cells of the larynx, the vocal structure come up the lateral part. So they start here, but then they go up the lateral column to create the vocal structure from both sides. Also the face, these are limbs just like the, creates the arms and the legs and the vocal structure. So when we go to move our limbs, this is also a limb moving but they all came from the center of what is now our pelvic diaphragm. So our face is also a limb, and how often we just withdraw this part these limbs of our face and our vocal structure. We might be doing this big stuff out here, but holding back here. So I would really like us to explore how we empower our voice and our face. This masking and this shutting down that we don’t really need to do. It’s imposed on our natural structure. We don’t have to learn to speak. We have to learn how to let go of the inhibition of the speaking. So that’s one thing here. Another thing is, since I first saw a skeleton and then eventually began to study it, why is the pelvis always back? The sitz bones are always back and they’re all over the world. No matter which country I go to, the pelvis is like this. And I keep asking why? Did one person do it and everybody follow it? Or don’t you have that question? Like, why? Why isn’t the pelvis sitting? I mean, why would you, why would that be the base? I mean, yeah, maybe, but we don’t walk like that. We’re standing upright. And so this perineal body, the pelvis developed around the perineal body. It wasn’t pelvis first and then perineal body. So why isn’t it centered? Why is it like this? So, so, so, so, so, so. Hmm. Too many things are like this so what comes next? Anything can come next. That’s the issue. So people know not to walk like this. You might see a little first person walking, little baby, they’ll walk like that. But then hopefully, they’ll balance out. But not by being in baby chairs (chuckling) carried around all the time or being held. Somehow they’ve gotta get down there and feel this to come up to here. They’ve gotta find this, crawling and doing all kinds of things. You’re not gonna find it by being held. But besides that, so if I’m like this, can you see I’m a little bit like this. I’m this posture. If I go to sit down, I’m gonna be leaning forward. I don’t have to lean forward. What am I gonna do? What all the chairs tell us to do. We have here the chair. (audience laughing) (indistinct chatter) It’s true. I have rarely seen a chair that doesn’t put me in this posture, whether it’s a car or anything. It’s so frustrating. And you have to put something back here except for Galen’s chairs, working with chairs. So, I sit like this and then I stand up and I know that’s not comfortable. So what do I do? This. I bring my pelvis forward. Now I’m standing up. It makes sense. My head knows this is vertical, this follows. But now I’m kind of locked. I don’t have this same freedom. If I wanna extend my leg, I gotta do the whole pelvis and spine. I no longer just have a leg. I’m stuck. Everything’s stuck together. And it’s interesting even going around the different countries now, I see dancers, really incredible dancers, still stuck together here. Not only because of this, but because of this. Now it’s even more held together. So what is that doing to our voice? The more we do this, and then the quieter we get here. Is that possible that the actual physical training can diminish our voice? All right, so how do we get from here? We can’t do it on the skeleton because they rigidified it in this posture. How do we get from there to here? You just feel it. This is, it’s not gonna land that way. One way are all the different movement things that we’ve done from crawling or finding this power here where when most people bring their leg forward, they’re gonna twist the spine because of this locked pelvic spine area. Instead of the leg is free. And that the pelvic perineum is powerful. It’s not that I’m going backward and then I have to resist to go forward. Rather than that, the perineal body is already going forward. And the two pelvic halves, sorry, my strap, the two pelvic halves are free and articulating from the pubis rather than from the sacroiliac. It moves back here ‚cause they developed separately. They originated here together. But then these came out of the side, pelvis with the leg, and the sacrum with the head tail. So what does this have to do with the voice? It means freeing the leg. It’s not just the femur, it’s the whole pelvic half. And when I do that, I’m not changing my spine because this is locked together. So ah! Rather than ah. (everyone chuckles) (indistinct) So, I missed one point before it’s your turn. Here, I’m back in that posture. Here, I’m tucking. Here, I just, I’ll change my position so I don’t have my back here. I just released my pelvis into gravity. So I’m here and then I just go here. I just release the structure into gravity by not having them tied together, girdled at the sacrum. You can’t release it if you’ve got it girdled at the sacrum, you can’t release it. You have to release the pelvic halves away from the sacrum and feel them here. So now I’m back to here like the skeleton. Here I make my pelvis level muscularly, which now I’ve really locked it together. So if I do this, I’m gonna have to shift my spine rather than that I’m here and I release. Now I have freedom here of this pelvic half, separate from my spine. Then the perineal body is like, „Up-py, up-py, up-py, what’s your name? (everyone chuckling) What’s your name? Your lock. All right, now it’s your turn. And you know there’s not a formula. So whatever is whirling around in you, that’s the place to begin. And you say you don’t know but you brought something already. Start from the „I don’t know.“ Okay, find a place in the room and look for freeing by feeling the weight of your two pelvic halves and how the perineal body centers the pelvis. And I can’t say everything. You’ll say some of the things. I think that’s a good place to start, this half kneel standing, because you have more openness already. Even though I say do whatever you want. That’s hers. This might be a suggestion. And look for this kind of neutral skeletal thing. It is a neutral thing. And then how you might tighten it or how you might just find the way of the sitz bone so that it lands. Flip it, it’ll come back here, if you’re feeling the pelvic path. So you don’t want it tucked under and you don’t want it in that J shape. You don’t want stick it super back. – You wanna find where your real neutral is? Genuine? – Yeah. – So if I come here, maybe that’ll be, put your hands on me. Here’s the kinda neutral of the skeleton. See, put your hand my sitz bone and then it’s back a little bit. So if I sat here, I’d be forward. So I’m gonna have to go like that to be straight. Or I go like this, I pull it forward. – That’s too tight. – Right now, I’m stuck. If I can feel the weight of it, then I can move it. The weight of it. You know what? Everybody might want to take this. This is my first lesson with Andre Bernard. He had a, this is not real. I’m a real person. He had a human pelvis and he had me hold it like this. 1966. Now he said, I was sitting now he said, „Now feel your own.“ That was my lesson.
