• Judson Memorial Church (map)
  • 239 Thompson Street
  • New York, NY, 10012
  • United States

"Jon's techniques helped me to explore my emotional range connecting to my true self with my naked voice. It was shocking and liberating!" -RADA student

Synthesizing my training in Roy Hart/extended voice and the transcendent group song of the Grotowski Workcenter, I developed an approach called Inside Voice, allowing singers and non-singers alike to uncover the power and beauty of their full 5-octave range while developing a deep, emotive connection to their own unique sound. Through exercises that are as silly as they are revelatory, Inside Voice shows that the only limits on our voices are the ones we impose on them and that to work on the voice is to work on the self. You’ll learn to harness powerful, heartbreaking, visceral, fragile, and otherworldly sounds you never dreamed were inside you all the while dramatically extending your range, building your confidence, and strengthening the emotional links between you and your voice. 

After teaching Inside Voice in London the last few years, I’d like to bring the training home to NYC. Judson Memorial Chuch has generously offered their space to me for me for this exploration, so I pass the freedom onto both your wallets and your voices. 

Please email me at info[at]theatergym.com with any questions.

DETAILS:
Starting Saturday, January 30, 2016, 10am-1pm
Judson Memorial Church
FREE, Space is LIMITED
Facebooks RSVPs are nice and all, but you MUST register officially here to reserve your space: https://goo.gl/WeQeq7

ABOUT JON STANCATO:
Lauded as "ingenious" by the New York Times, Jon is Co-Artistic Director of Stolen Chair, the 4-time Drama Desk-nominated theatre company he founded with his partner, Kiran Rikhye, in 2002. He has directed 15 original works for Stolen Chair, including 2013's The Man Who Laughs, a live silent film for the stage, and last season's spoken-word opera, Potion: A Play in 3 Cocktails. As a freelance director, his work was recently seen in London in The Ecstasy and the Ecstasy, an original work he devised with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art's MA Theatre Lab where he is an instructor of extended voice, physical theatre, and devising. 

Jon brings his distinctive approach to physical theatre, blending the influences of Grotowski & Commedia dell'Arte, to over 1,000 students each year. In addition to his course at RADA, he has taught at Yale, Swarthmore, the European College of Liberal Arts (Berlin), Bard College, and Pace University, among others. 

He has trained with Joseph Chaikin, Thomas Richards & the Grotowski Workcenter, Anne Bogart & SITI Company, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Richard Armstrong, Antonio Fava, Chris Bayes, Roving Classical Commedia University, and the SF Mime Troupe, as well as in the techniques of Jacques Lecoq.

He also climbs rocks, plays bass guitar, reads tarot, and concocts cocktails and cuisine.

TESTIMONIALS FROM RADA STUDENTS:
"Jon's unique approach to discovering the voice has helped me to grow in a very short space of time from technically competent to something much more organic and sensitive. By exploring the extremities of my own voice, I have found sounds I never knew I was capable of making, but also the familiar sounds have become much easier, much more emotionally connected. Sometimes in the past, I think I have been so concerned about vocal safety that I have limited how I express myself, but Jon has taught me that I can make any sound safely by releasing tension and truthfully connecting the sound to a real desire to make the sound; revolutionary yet it should be so obvious!"

"Jon's vocal work helped me find surprising, wonderful sounds in parts of my voice I could not have discovered through imitation or effort. They not only presented a more imaginative range of spoken and sung sounds for the stage, but added a layer of depth to my own speaking voice."

"I just wanted to say that I absolutely love the voicework we did in the first week! It was so freeing and relaxing in an active way. I've always had real insecurities with my voice but how you worked with us was so encouraging (and fun!) that all doubt was easy to overcome."

"Through the work I have been able to reach new notes and discover sounds I didn't know were possible to make with the human voice. It is also the first time in all my training that the word "resonator" has gained a meaning for me!"