Next Level Performing Arts

Are you a conductor, singer, orchestral musician, pianist, actor, or dancer?

 Would you like to

• fine-tune the expressive potential of your body?
• resolve technical challenges?
• recover from, or prevent, performance and rehearsal-related injuries?

The Feldenkrais Method? of Somatic Education is a valuable tool for anyone who wants to improve the quality of their daily actions. It is a dynamic process for learning, self-discovery, and transformation.

For performing artists who rely on their bodies to be their primary instrument for self-expression, awareness is essential for progress to higher levels of skill and mastery. The mark of the true artist is constant striving to improve, no matter what level of fame or accomplishment has been achieved. The Feldenkrais Method offers a means of improvement that refreshes and renews the artist, rather than being yet another source of stress, burnout, and exhaustion.

Whether through group Awareness Through Movement? classes, or private Functional Integration? lessons, each allows you to focus on HOW, exactly, you do WHAT you do.

In a playful, non-competitive, exploratory setting, you’ll develop the ability to perceive and respond to subtle differences in breath, muscle tone, and body alignment that are essential elements of peak performance.

As you grow in your ability to make fine distinctions, to make creative choices, and to transform your intentions into actions, your performances will be more spontaneous, more alive, and more compelling.

MaryBeth Davison Smith, MM, is the founder and director of the Feldenkrais? Center of Houston. She holds degrees in Music Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and in Vocal Performance from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She taught voice, vocal pedagogy, vocal literature, and directed musical theatre and opera productions at the university level for over ten years. She is a performer, conductor, pianist, and stage director who has used the Feldenkrais Method to recover from her own health, mobility, and musical challenges, and to improve the performance of countless singers, pianists, string and wind players, conductors, actors, and dancers.

She says,"I find the Feldenkrais Method to be a revolutionary way to access peak performances from each artist as a "whole person." Rather than forcing conformity to a rigid idea of "right" or "wrong," the Method develops a sense of safety and confidence in performance by allowing the exploration of many artistic and technical choices. The person can then integrate the breakthroughs in technical efficiency, sustainability, emotion, and movement based on what works best. The artist/performer/student can be trusted to determine what is best for them."

Prepare to take your performances to the next level!

Contact MaryBeth to schedule lessons, workshops, residencies, or semester courses.