Vibrant Channel Breathwork™

Developed by Kate Clarke, MFA

COMING SOON! VIBRANT CHANNEL BREATHWORK: A SOMATIC ACTOR TRAINING TOOLKIT Textbook and Video Series for Actors and Teachers

Please enjoy (below) a short audio sample of a Vibrant Channel preparation/warmup.

This audio class is designed to help you release habitual tension, ground yourself in your body and connect with your breath. We will do some guided meditation, imaging work, and gentle yoga stretches where we will add sound, and tremoring on sound.  Sounding on a physical tremor helps you to release tension, increase blood flow and create a focused, calm mind. Your tremor might be large or small, or so subtle, you don’t even feel it.  Whatever it is, is specific for you—and you will get the benefit just as long as you engage with the stretches and the sounding.

For this sequence, you will need a yoga mat, and some space on the floor to spread out. If you have a zafu or meditation cushion that is also nice to have, but you don’t need one.

Hope you enjoy.

About Vibrant Channel Breathwork™

Vibrant Channel Breathwork™ combines several modalities of physical and vocal actor training, into a new form that offers the actor a way of working that is embodied, focused, specific, and connected to source.  This technique effectively blends the actors impulse and emotional instrument with their intellect and understanding of character.  The result is the creation of work that is spontaneous, released, and supported.   

In developing this work, I experimented over time, using elements from Catherine Fitzmaurice’s de-structuring progression, Faye Simpson’s Lucid Body work, partner studies from Open Source Forms/Skinner Releasing Technique (Joan Skinner and Stephanie Skura), and the traditional tools of the Stanislavski system (objectives, actions and tactics) in conjunction with one another. In the technique, the actor is trained to turn up the “volume” on their own physical and emotional experience (ie: sensation in the body), checking in at seven energetic centers which run along the spine, from the perineum to just above the skull.  Students work with strategies to “unkink the hose”, so that the breath has access to the engagement of the transvers-us abdominus muscle group which supports healthy vocal production. They start with their own experience, and then work to move into the character’s experience by using breath support and function in a technical way to work in conjunction with the given circumstances of a character.

Each of the seven physio-energetic centers along the “vibrant channel”contain qualities that may be the experience of a character at any moment of the play that an actor can use technique to tap into at any time.  The actor’s need to speak in role is connected to the depth of the breath, and the part of the transvers-us muscle that needs to engage in order to support sound energy commensurate with the stakes of the character in the moment.  The emotional life of the character is also at play here, and sending breath/shape and form to these physical spaces can create a believable and embodied performance that is almost effortless when the actor is willing/able to let go of tightening in the jaw and the diaphragm area .

Support Systems of the Human Voice:

In the Vibrant Channel training, students start with a released, energized body, with optimal blood flow, and freedom of breath through the de-structuring sequence of FVW, and through partner alignment Skinner Releasing work. While working with text and character, I am particularly interested in the connections between physio-energetic points, and have been working with the theory that there is a special connection between the energy centers that exists every two physio-energetic centers along the torso, as drawn by the spine.  For example, a character who is inhabiting energy of the sacral center (nurturing, mothering, or over sexualized behavior) also resonates particularly with the energy of the throat center(communication, lying, bending the truth in order to placate, take care of someone, or get what they want sexually), two centers up.

The technical key to the work lies in engagement with breath support aligning with a character’s urgency or need to speak.  The transvers-us muscle is the deepest of the abdominal muscles.  It runs from under the pubic bone to attach near the diaphragm.  This is the muscle of rib swing in the inhale and exhale, and also, the muscle of healthy vocal support.  Because it covers the first three physio-energetic points, it is key to the breath training I teach with this work.  The actor can make the choice, depending on the stakes of the character they are playing, to breathe and support sound from the genitals, the low abdomen, or the diaphragm (centers #1-3, which all cover parts of the transvers-us). If, for example, a character is working with root centered engagement (the highest stakes, fight or flight, basic human needs threatened), the actor needs more breath support and volume, and should breathe into the lowest areas of the torso, supporting from the lowest part of the vibrant channel with the part of the transvers-us that attaches at the root of the torso. But if the character is all intellect, and not being particularly threatened, they might not need as much breath in that moment, and could breathe and support into the diaphragm area, for supported but lesser volume. 

Benefits of the work:

Vibrant Channel Breathwork allows the actor to get out of their head, and into their body with action that is purely technical, but that hooks directly into the actors’ imagination, humanity, emotional instrument, and physical presence.  Actors are given clear permission to “go there” when a character has the biggest need to speak, and a safe way in to accomplish the connection.

Fitzmaurice Voicework® De-Structuring Progression:

To engage with V.C.B., you will want to start out with as much access to your own breath and impulses as possible, and to do that you need to find ways to release tension in your body and nervous system. I have recorded Catherine Fitzmaurice’s De-structuring/tremoring sequence, and invite you to connect with these instructional videos as a way to prepare for the work. Below the instructional videos is a 33 minute full de-structuring class.