Wounded healer

The International School for Human Voice

Similarly, in the course of her workshops, she shares with the participants only those issues, which are personally connected to her life experience. The fundamental issue is the painful relationship with her mother. It is at the same time a universal issue, just like her assumption, that every person carries within some traumatizing experiences with his mother, that he’d rather not remember. During the workshop, a participant is invited to share such experience with the others. He/she is invited to talk about it and make it public in front of everybody with the help of the song Joj, mamo. The others answer by singing the chorus of this song, and thus support him/her, give him/her back the energy of their voices. Direct emotional participation of all at the point of “coming out” of one of them takes place via singing voices in a song. This creates a strong atmosphere of mutual sharing and there is no space for self – pity. The voice has to sing the tones in full power and through them communicate with the others – no hiding in the corner. Personal secret is published, tabu of publicly honoring the mother is broken, a totally new social situation is created, a new connection between the individual and the community. A strong emotional consonance and harmony, supported by common singing of the same song, is created.

This is the basis of one of Ida’s utopian attempts to create the model of a different world, a world, where individual feelings are shared and appreciated by the others without analysis and rejection. A true expressed emotion is considered to be the purest and only reality. It represents unraveling of the richness and intensity of life, it is the flowing life itself. What makes the value of pain less than the value of love? What’s wrong with sadness? We all have a mother and this basic relationship – the umbilical cord – is marked with joy as well as with wound.

The singing person feels that he doesn’t have to hide. He is accepted in what he feels, as naturally as the power of the song is accepted. The missing motherly embrace is exchanged for the embrace of the song which is sung. The workshop participant therefore goes through a similar transformation process, that Ida went through in her life. Open wound flows out into a song, which heals it.

For many participants one hour of this kind of work turns the imprinted model of what is considered right upside down several times. It is not a case of mass hysteria. What we are witnessing here is momentary channeling of the energy of emotions into the form of a song, which certainly can be regarded a creative act. In this atmosphere the participant of course does not stop to perceive that he sings. However, this kind of singing is very different from the conventional ideas of what it means to sing – here the person gives out himself via the song and discovers himself through it at the same time.

Grotowski, at the last stage of his research in Pondere, concentrated his work on archaic songs of the Afro-Caribbean area, in cooperation with Thomas Richards at the Action project. He notes at the epilogue to the film, in which the “Downstairs Action” is recorded, that it is not necessary to try and understand the ancient lyrics of the songs, which the actors sing in this project. The songs themselves, without understanding their lyrics, represent a language we all understand spontaneously. We could say that in the old songs this reformer “discovered” for the theater an important channel of direct communication, without having to decipher any meanings. I got to know Ida at the time when she intentionally refused to present to her workshop participants the lyrics of the songs and publish their content. As if she also had a similar need to free the person from speculations and reasoning, which we nowadays so often use to find our ways in today’s reality. And the same longing for purity, authenticity and genuineness of emotional expression. That is also connected to the ability to listen to and follow one’s inner voice. However, this is often done at variance with what is expected and wanted of us in today’s world.

Darkness and silence

The workshops of the International School for Human Voice under the leadership of Ida Kelarová are the place where people get back to spontaneous perception and communication via emotion.

It is expressed most essentially in the situation, when the participants wear a blind over their eyes for 48 hours and at the same time they do not speak. This way they go through the usual plan of work, starting with the morning walk, through breathing exercises, physical training, work with the voice and singing. This way they eat, this way they go to bed. What happens, when a man does not use the most easily accessible forms of communication? What is left for one, when he is in darkness? The touch of another person, singing voice, the smell of food, rhythm, cord, emotion. And concentration on what goes on inside him. And how does he perceive himself and others when he opens his eyes again?

Such an experiment requires demanding organization and non-stop caring for each individual participant. If the person should concentrate during the entire workshop mainly on what he/she feels, it is necessary to adapt the environment accordingly. The lecturer of this kind of workshop has to be constantly interested in what goes on inside the person, not only during his/her singing performance. The responsibility is great and requires from the lecturer to be a good psychologist, highly intelligent and constantly “on the guard”.

As regard this, Ida takes good care of every detail. From eating to daily planning, everything has to take place in sensitive atmosphere. The participants find out what is going to happen only very shortly before the particular action takes place. This is intentional. Thus they go through each new experience unprejudiced and vulnerable, so to speak. A person becomes more fragile, gradually he/she throws away the armor, ceases to defend against the emotions – whether it be his/her own or those of another. What happens inside him/her is most sensitively recorded by his/her voice, the changes of it.

This non-traditional method would rather be predestined for laboratory work, done behind closed doors. It is a paradox that those workshops are open for everyone, regardless of age or experience. The basis conviction of Ida Kelarová is, that everybody can sing and in “each of us there is great power and singing from the heart releases it” (I.K.).

For her these are not just words. She realizes this conviction through her everyday life and work.