Breakout Session
Let's Get Moving! - Body Mapping Activities for School and Studio
Saturday, July 9 • 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Presenters: MaryJean Allen, Melissa Malde and Kurt-Alexander Zeller
Introduced by: Kristine Hurst-Wajszczuk
Location: Chicago Ballroom ABC – 5th Floor
MaryJean Allen, Melissa Malde, and Kurt-Alexander Zeller will share practical Body Mapping activities that can be used in the school and studio. Based on the 3rd edition of What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body, the three co-authors will share fun and informative activities, with session participants moving, singing and collaborating on models they can incorporate into their own teaching as they enhance their knowledge of how the body moves in singing. Activities include practical ways to develop body awareness, find a balanced stance, breathe effectively, hone resonance, articulate clearly and gesture expressively. Allen, Malde and Zeller will circulate among session participants, helping them to correct and refine their body maps.
About MaryJean Allen
MaryJean Allen is co-author of What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body, and a licensed Body Mapping teacher. MaryJean is also a certified Alexander Technique teacher, with 1600 hours of training. She has taught voice nearly thirty years, and travels often to teach her unique Alexander Technique and Body Mapping Workshops at universities, young artist programs, and colleges through the US. Each summer she teaches voice, Body Mapping, and Alexander Technique at the Young Artist Program: The Up North Vocal Institute. Many of her students sing professionally, while others teach voice or choral music. MaryJean holds a Master of Music and Artist Diploma in vocal performance, with a minor in piano performance. Allen performed leading roles in opera and operetta throughout the US and was competitively selected to sing in two Art Song Festivals, coaching with Dalton Baldwin, Elly Ameling, Gerard Souzay, and others.
About Melissa Malde
Mezzo Soprano Melissa Malde has performed with organizations throughout the United States and abroad, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Radio Orchestra, Vancouver Opera, the Bangor Symphony, Kentucky Opera, the Cheyenne Symphony and the Colorado Music Festival. She holds degrees from Oberlin, Northwestern, CCM, and the Hochschule fur Musik in Munich. She teaches at the University on Northern Colorado and is licensed as an Andover Educator to teach Body Mapping. She is a co-author of What Every Singer Needs to Know about the Body and presents numerous workshops in the US and Canada on that subject. She is currently building a website devoted to art song in Hebrew. In her spare time she enjoys working in her organic garden, hiking and taking part in sprint triathlons.
About Kurt-Alexander Zeller
Kurt-Alexander Zeller began his performance career in his native Pacific Northwest at age eight. Since then, he has sung throughout the United States, winning acclaim as a singing actor in opera and music theatre. He has toured Austria in a Kurt Weill revue, sung weekly “operatic soap operas” on the streets of Portland, Oregon, under a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and performed two seasons with the Tony® Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He has been stage director for professional opera companies in Oregon and Georgia and for two dozen academic productions. Zeller holds degrees in Theatre and Music from Southern Methodist University and the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. He is Director of Opera and Vocal Studies at Clayton State University in suburban Atlanta, a licensed Andover Educator, and co-author of What Every Singer Needs to Know about the Body.
