The July 11 jam session was extremely energetic - impressive for a hot July afternoon!
We had several jammers offer games and exercises and it was refreshing to try some utterly new things. (The photo above is from a leader/follower game led by company member Katy Rubin).
I think the surprise of the day, though, was group song.
Jammer Anna gave us what many considered a horrifying assignment: fake sing opera. It might sound bizarre but it was a wonderful release and left everyone with smiling in a sort of surprised and dazed way. It was an effective way to use a more full voice, to invoke resonance and to get out of our heads about singing.
Being given permission to sound a little silly or to not sing “well” - the emphasis was on the power of your voice, not your ability to sing the right words or hit all the notes correctly - was something, I think, that many of us don’t do. We are so trained to think that only people with an incredible capacity for singing - tone, resonance, interpretation, vibrato, voice control, etc. - should sing. However, this is very limiting in the sense that using song can be beneficial in many ways as a training mechanism, among other things.
This exercise evolved into singing rounds - three groups singing “Row Your Boat.” We started with a simple song but in our feedback session afterward we discussed ways to build on group song in the jam sessions. It will definitely be something we’ll be experimenting with in the near future.
