The Synesthetic Voice

with Alessio Castellacci

>> The Synesthetic Voice is a vocal‐physical process which invites one to re-discover an intimate and empowered relationship with the primal voice and its profound sensitivity, through a series of somatic investigations on deep listening, embodied vocality, and musical instinct. Each session opens a space to connect with the pleasure of creating music with our breath, voice, mouth, body, and with our innate instinct for expression through sound. We combine these practices to create different forms of vocal improvisation whilst grounding within presence and awareness, expressing our vital creativity through sound and movement, and listening with the whole body at the same time we start to cultivate the art of living in the present moment. The overall trajectory of each session follows a designed progression from the functional aspects of voice and body (breath anatomy, elements of acoustics and phonetics) to the realm of improvised musical flow - the ‘music of the now’. 

The core practices of the Synesthetic Voice are:

> Deep listening: the meditative practice of receiving sound in its depths through the body, working beyond conventional definitions of perception.

> Somatic experiencing: experiencing one’s voice and body as an integrated whole, bringing to consciousness the physical-vibrational nature of one’s voice.

> Pulsing/tuning: working with spontaneous pulsations and melodies as a gateway to experiencing music in a playful, intimate and profound sense; finding the connection with one’s life source.

> Circle songs: organising emerging percussive-melodic impulses in a collective musical flow within improvised sound journeys.

Tactile Voice
We start by approaching our voice through touch: with hands-on work we bring our attention to the sensations arising from the mouth cavity, the waves of breath, the impulses to move, and the musical imagination that comes with these. We invite the experience of sound as molecular vibration, as a tactile input from-within-and-to the body. We look at the anatomy of key structures (diaphragm, larynx, mouth cavity) and experience the dancing dialogues that exist between them, enjoying moving through these areas in a sound-inclusive way. 

Pulsing | Tuning
From this state of soft embodiment, we look at elements of phonetics to explore the choreography of vowels and consonants production, tuning- in to the dance of the articulators (tongue, lips, teeth, palate) that we experience subconsciously in our daily life. Regressing to this micro-level of coordination, we tune our listening to the complex rhythms that are present in our speech, breath, movement, and learn how to harness these micro‐beats to create improvised percussive vocal music. We access the endless possibilities of pulsations, sound textures and melodies, organising them through real-time phrasing and instant compositions. 

Circle Songs
In the last part of the session we open the Circle Songs - improvised choral songs based on the repetition of simple vocal modules and collective rhythmical entrainment. This is a moment of celebration and togetherness, of witnessing together music taking shape through a circular process of repetition, layering, refinement, transformation, osmosis, friction, story telling, individuality and connectivity. Each Circle Song is a river which we float upon, following its flow all the way through to see where it leads us.

“We call for a shared space of trust, to nourish each other’s journey by letting our voices be heard, surrendering to what wants to be born in each moment.”

Alessio Castellacci

>> Alessio Castellacci is a performer, teacher and sound composer based in Berlin. He studied Developmental Psychology (BA at La Sapienza University - Italy) and Choreography (BA at Dance Maker/Artez – the Netherlands). After finishing his studies at the Artez in 2005, he was drawn to exploring the expressive possibilities of the human voice, and has since developed a pedagogical approach for voice & movement improvisation. Seminal experiences in his understanding of the voice-movement-mind integration have been his studies with the extended vocal techniques pioneer Meredith Monk; with Vocal Dance originator Patricia Bardi; with ethnomusicologist Mark Van Tongeren; and the ongoing study with sound healer Amit Carmeli.

After relocating in Berlin in 2007, he has collaborated with several artists as a dancer, vocal coach and sound composer, a.o. Maria F. Scaroni, Peter Pleyer, Dani Brown & Marta Navaridas, Morgan Nardi/Ludica, Piccoli Production, Eszter Gal, Jeremy Wade, Sasha Waltz Kinder Tanz Company/Gabriel Galindez Cruz, Tino Sehgal, Kareth Schaffer, Zwoisy Mears Clarke.

As a sound composer, Alessio has collaborated with (a.o.) choreographers Hyoung Min Kim (Berlin), for whom he created and performed live music for four productions ("Call Back" - 2007, "MoD" - 2009, "Guest" - 2010, "Ghost" - 2011) and Ru Chen (Berlin/Taiwan) for whom he has composed music for the shows "Hell´s Groove" (2014) and "A blue state of mind" as a commission from the Cloud Gate Company/Taiwan. 

Alessio has taught in different venues and festivals in Europe, a.o. Tanzhaus Zurich, Improspeckje Festival Zagreb, Altart Praha, Wasp Bucharest, Ials Rome, Kontakt Festival Budapest, Tanzfabrik Berlin, SMASH Berlin, NOW! Festival Berlin, Dans Centrum Syd Malmö, Proda Oslo, Skolen for Samtidsdans Oslo, Dance Atelier Reykjavik, K3 Hamburg, Hzt Berlin, Choreography BA Rejkyavik, Dance BA Copenhagen.  

From 2012 to 2017 he curated the educational platform SMASH, which is now continued under the name ROAR Berlin, a yearly program for movement art. In 2017 he initiated with choreographer Jule Flierl the performance series From Breath to Matter, in which different artists are invited to share work around the topic of vocal dance and its political implications. Alessio has an ongoing apprenticeship with sound healer Amit Carmeli (The Music School Of Life) whose work has had a profound impact on his relationship to voice, breath, and consciousness. In 2020 he has received the certification for the first level of the Estill Voice Technique (EFP - Estill Figure Proficiency).