Roy hart voice work: the human voice | 15 - 19 Sep 2027 | EWC

In this residential workshop we explore the link between the voice and movement.
We will do physical exercises to prepare the body for singing and finding the dynamic sources of sounds.
We research the development of the unique vocal potential of each participant.
The work involves attentive listening to oneself and to others. This requires concentration and the capacity to identify with the other person's efforts. In this way we support each other's progress, both during individual and group work.

Each participant will get a 45-minute MasterClass during the workshop. This is the spine of the voice work where the participant meets her/his own voice.

About Ulrik and his work

Ulrik’s work is built up around the respect for each person’s expression.
There is a clear focus on the already existing connection between voice and movement.
His listening and observation of the participants, the relationship to time which each is confronted with, and his soft determination are highly appreciated by the students.
We all have to find the sources of creativity within ourselves – not from others. Each person is unique and the deepest master of oneself.
The work is mostly including some physical and vocal warm-up, improvisation classes, but the spin of the work is the master class where the student works solo with Ulrik in the presence of
the rest of the group.
To create a respectful and safe atmosphere to work in which gives strength and trust in oneself.
Concepts like good/bad, right/wrong, beautiful/ugly etc. gets turned around and looked upon and understood in a different way.
The greatest appreciation of his work is his unconditional respect and belief in all people.
Physical movement helps to liberate the voice by giving inspiration to move to somewhere, awakens the imagination and helps us to physical feel who we are and what we want to ‘say’ rather than to try and understand ourselves intellectually.

THE ROY HART THEATRE is an international company based in France which has actively engaged for more than sixty years in methodical, continuous research of the human voice. This research is premised on the original idea that each voice has access to “The Human Voice“ which contains all possible vocal expressions of man and woman, deep and light, high and low, beauty and beast. The result is complex and not easily defined: it is a singing technique; it is a therapeutic work to activate, express and discipline the totality of being; it is an instrument for unveiling and exploring psychological realities; it is the harnessing of these possibilities for theatre or for daily life.     

UNDERSTANDING, GROWTH AND ARTISTIC SENSIBILITY cannot simply be given to a student by a teacher. The aim of the teacher is to search for the strongest links between the voice and the singer, to begin the slow process of reconnecting with the deep body sources of each voice. Thus in our classes we begin by discovering the voice as it is. Starting from where they are, the professional singer and the most hesitate beginner each have somewhere to go.
Voice work has two directions: externally, in communicating with others. And internally, in awakening the singer's imagination. There is no formula since each voice is unique. Students are invited to sing. To follow their voices, to move. To explore their imagination and to awaken different centres of energy. By entering a pre-verbal world, they rediscover the sources of language through contacting the pleasure of pure sound and the full resonances of their body. Both the emotional content of a sound and the passage from pure sound to articulate language are analysed and investigated.

AS AN EDUCATIVE PRINCIPLE, we do not force pupils into areas that they are not willing or ready to enter. While the teacher leads the pupil through accompaniment and encouragement, it is often the pupil who decides whether or not to break through a particular barrier. The teacher listens for opportunities to tap into the student's vitality and get it to emerge through the voice. Techniques can include yawing, panting, shouting, sighing and a whole range of sounds from breath to loud or from clear well-defined sounds to multiphonics. As trust between teacher and student grows, the limits of the voice of height can be extended. Each teacher in The Roy Hart Theatre is also a pupil and knows intimately what is being asked of the class participants.     
During a workshop, the voice is explored in such a way as to contact sources of energy hidden deep in the body and to develop the self-discipline to harness this energy. For some, this can mean to attack the note with full energy, for others to work very gently. Exploration and extension of the voice's range are linked to the body's tensions, strengths and weaknesses. For example, a sound's authenticity often depends on bodily relaxation while the capacity to draw upon energy often requires giving the body an intense physical workout. Our voice training is often quite physical, ranging from stretching, relaxation and body alignment work, to high-energy movement and dance. We train students to be able to relax their bodies and draw upon their energy sources at will.     

THIS BIOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION can involve a re-education of the personality through the voice. What someone feels the first time they make sound can be like their looking in a mirror and not recognizing their own face; the sounds are often unfamiliar to them. One needs a taste for discovery and the courage to take risks.     
Our workshops also involve attentive listening to others in the class. This requires concentration and the capacity to identify with the other person's efforts. In this way students catalyse and support each other's progress during both individual and group work.   

 THE ROY HART THEATRE has no predetermined method. Theatre means to us the disciplined expression of the forces, which compose the psychic being in an artistic form. Each lesson is a new point of departure in the realm of expression, evolving from previous achievement. Because of the intimate connection between sounds and the psyche, our work has psychological as well as artistic implications. As one does the work, one discovers influences, energies, memories or ideas that are constricting and repressing one's voice and has opportunities to free one's voice from those influences. This can be both the most important and the most difficult work, for the fear of life in human beings is at least as great as the fear of death. Although this process and some of our methods may seem similar to certain psychological therapies, our focus remains primarily artistic.     

THE IMMEDIATE PRACTICAL RESULTS of this work are a stronger less restricted voice and contact with greater sources of imagination and means of expression. Musicality in the form of good pitch, reliable intervals, smooth registration and greater breath volume can be discovered or increased. As frontiers are broken, the singer experiences the universality of music within, finding voices of other worlds, other countries, sounds which evoke nature, animals, and machines. In short, The Human Voice.

Language?
English

My personnel experience with Ulrik:

I experienced Ulrik's 5-day 2025 Voice Workshop to be very intense and deeply transformative. It created a great desire in me for a sequel. Experiencing a sense of respectful safety, in all its aspects, calms the nervous system, allowing internal barriers to spontaneously disappear and allowing the deeper work to unfold without exerting any pressure whatsoever. The real deal, fully in line with the latest scientific knowledge of the nervous system. A fantastic experience for me, and I believe for all the participants as well. With gratitude, Christiaan D.V

Workshop venue: la ferme du Bois-le-Comte

La ferme du Bois-le-Comte is an eco-friendly  venue for groups in the South of Belgium (close to the French border and at a 20-minute walk from the famous abbey of Orval). Superb position in the midst of nature. All meals are plant-based.

Questions?

Contact us, we will be happy to help you.