Kristin Linklater (1936-2020) inspirational teacher of voice practice and Shakespearean performance, was born in Edinburgh and trained at LAMDA.  After distinguished international career at the Tisch School of Arts, Emerson College, the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre and finally as Professor of Theatre Arts at Columbia University, Kristin LInklater returned to Orkney in 2013.  There, she established the Linklater Voice Centre: https://www.linklatervoice.com/linklater-voice/who-is-kristin-linklater.

Her two books –Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Voice and Language (1976) and Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice: The Actor’s Guide to Talking the Text (1992) have become seminal works for actors.

“Everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing, through a two- to four-octave natural pitch range, whatever gamut of emotion, complexity of mood and subtlety of thought he or she experiences,” she wrote in Freeing the Natural Voice.  She taught that speaking was not merely the translation of ideas into word, but that it involved the entire body. The ultimate goal, she wrote, was that “the person is heard, not the person’s voice.”

In this lecture, we will share a demonstration of this work by exploring what it means to free the voice: can it mean freeing the person?

This event is free and open to the public. You don’t have to be a member but it is essential to book to let us know if you will be coming in person. 

Join us in person at:

Dean Street Room

54 Dean St

This is next door to St. Anne’s Church, 55 Dean St. London W1D 6AF

Nearest tube: Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square or Tottenham Court Road.

The speaker: Françoise Walot is an actor, director, voice teacher and vocal coach. She was born in Belgium. She moved to the UK in 2010. She is a Designated Linklater Teacher, having completed Kristin Linklater’s ‘Freeing the Natural Voice’ teacher training program in 1993. She currently works at LAMDA. She also works regularly with poets and leads workshops in the UK and abroad to train actors and voice teachers.