Through collective learning modules and individual coaching
you are invited into a caring environment that focuses on you and your unique needs.
From there the body/voice/mind work begins in serious play and wonder. Practices are designed to:
explore bold directions
build confidence
discover your range
amplify presence
habituate specificity
Voice
Unearth your home voice and let the away voice fly. Find range that emanates from the authentic and unique source within you.
Movement
Movement is heath. If it moves you will feel your potential.
Performance
In a moment under pressure what you practice will become your power.
Creation
Explore voice, movement and text to share your unique wonder with the world.
-Steven Rimke, Speech and Voice Coach
Learning Modules
Self contained modules address specific aspects of voice/body/performance and writing by teaching a series of experiences open to those of any career and can be individualized or taught collectively.
Timing and commitment are flexible.
Voice Module : Home and Away
Your Voice Expanded
In-Person or Remote
Individual and collective learning
4 Weeks: 8 hours
Unearth your "home" voice and let the "away" voice fly. Your "Home" voice connects your authentic and unique source and the cares you pursue to an "away" voice that resonates a range that is responsive and compelling to your listeners.
Experience the expanse of your authentic voice.
Your authentic voice is naturally accessed through a "home" resonance. By grounding breath, embodying image and opening resonators you will learn to expand your voice from your authentic home into a greater range of compelling vocal action.
The work is set over a four week period of collective and individual learning:
1) collective introduction session
2) an individual coaching session
3) two recordings that encourage practice
4) a final collective gathering
Writing Module: Somatic Writing
You could write a song about some kind of emotional problem you are having, but it would not be a good song, in my eyes, until it went through a period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity. Without that moment of clarity to contribute to the song, it's just complaining.
-Joni Mitchell
In-Person, Remote or combination
Individual or collective learning
1 week: 12 hours
Times are flexible
(i.e. starting online on Monday and meeting for a weekend)
Gerry’s teaching helps participants transform authentic and autobiographical material into provocative and distinctive performance or literary forms. His unique physical and vocal approach to writing, (refined and developed through performed practice) draws from source, to build a range of artistry that is integral to the writer/performer, the audience and the work itself.
Participants build skill in creation, development, objective editing, refinement and performance practices that ultimately develop work that illuminates and resonates with audiences.
The Somatic Writing Module inspires a means to uncover an authentic sourced voice that opens the writer/creator to a full range of imagination. Through autobiographical writing, the participants find out more about their writing voice and then learn to angle their attention to find moments that compel and move the listener. They then have opportunity to test those moments with others as they learn to voice the tenor and texture of their writing.
Over two decades, that began with a ten-year period at SUNY Buffalo State, Gerry has taught performers and literary artists to exchange, share expertise and be inspired by engaging in a cross-pollinating solo show creation process. Developed through university institutions, independent workshops for participants throughout Canada, the US and abroad, and through his own inter-arts performance creation
The work awakens the writer in us all and sources and develops the written word through performance practice. (For instance, the writer in the actor/dancer and the actor/dancer in the writer). Experiments begin with physical/vocal openings to source writing. The writing is then evolved and refined through a process of sharing and response towards the text’s performance.
WHAT'S AHEAD
ABOUT TO...BEING SOMATIC WRITING PRACTICE
WEDNESDAY MORNING PRACTICE
July 9, 16, 23, 30, 2025
10:00-12:00 EST
Transform Your Writing Through Movement & Presence
Let's Keep it Going!
An Invitation:
Over a number of years a poet, a psychotherapist, an architect and a dance therapist would join Gerry in his garden for a Wednesday morning movement meditation experience. The conversations, writing, art, moving and thought that came out of their shared mornings was steeped in new and inspiring learning. There was something about a weekly commitment in the ease of the summer.
We invite you to join our community of About to ..Being writers in a meditative writing and sharing practice that gives voice to our divergent meanings. Inspired by the nature that surrounds each of us we slip into the rhythm of new community.
Unlock the hidden dimensions of your creative voice in this somatic writing practice where performance art meets the written word. It seems a vital time to gather in a supportive community and share our stories. Connect with writers, public speakers, storytellers, performers and interdisciplinary artists through discovering and developing your individual voice.
Through a taste of body/voice writing practice honed from a life-long dedication to the art of performance, this full-body explorative method conceived and led by acclaimed teacher, performer and choreographer/writer Gerry Trentham (he/they) will help you unlock and revitalize the writer/creator hiding beneath your skin, the one you have been meaning to be.
Experience writing from somatic practice. Move beyond the desk and discover how your body's wisdom can unleash powerful new narratives. This isn't just another writing workshop – it's an embodied journey into your creative potential.
Perfect for:
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Previous About to... Being Somatic Writing Workshop participants
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Performers seeking to deepen their writing practice
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Writers ready to break through creative blocks
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Anyone yearning to write from a more authentic place
Remote
Join from anywhere and connect with interdisciplinary writers and creatives around the world! Zoom details will be sent to all registrants leading to the workshop week.
Registration Information/General Inquiries:
Team & Digital Operations-Martina Payette: operations@poundspersquareinch.net
Upcoming Learning Modules
Writing Module: Somatic Writing
APRIL 22 - 26, 2025
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About to... Being
Somatic Writing Workshop
Transform Your Writing Through Movement & Presence
Unlock the hidden dimensions of your creative voice in this somatic writing workshop where performance art meets the written word. It seems a vital time to gather in a supportive community and share our stories. Connect with writers, public speakers, storytellers, performers and interdisciplinary artists from around the world through discovering and developing your individual voice.
Through a body/voice writing practice honed from a life-long dedication to the art of performance, this full-body explorative method conceived and led by acclaimed teacher, performer and choreographer/writer Gerry Trentham (he/they) will help you unlock and revitalize the writer/creator hiding beneath your skin, the one you have been meaning to be.
Dates:
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Tuesday April 22, 6:00 - 9:00 pm EST online
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Friday April 25, 6:00 - 9:00 pm EST online
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Saturday April, 26 - 1:00-5:00 pm EST in person or online
In-Person and Remote Options Available
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In-Person: Saturday gatherings with Gerry Trentham and facilitators will be arranged depending on participation. We have previously gathered in Toronto ON, Calgary AB, New York NY, Buffalo NY, London UK and Stamford, NY and live streamed between locations.
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Remote: Join from anywhere and connect with interdisciplinary writers and creatives around the world! Zoom details will be sent to all registrants leading up to the workshop week.
Cost: $200 for the weeklong intensive $160 for Early Bird registration by March 17, 2025
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Bursary option possible with a letter of request (use Registration contact below
Registration Information/General Inquiries: lbs/sq" International Producer
Marisa Caruso info@poundspersquareinch.net
"Gerry Trentham is a once in a lifetime educator, he inspires the best in his students and finds the best in you. I am a better person and artist for having crossed paths with him and I am forever thankful for the man he helped me become."
-Clint Byrne, Filmmaker
Coaching
I focus on your specific interests and unique situation
You are:
a voice actor (audiobook, commercial, animation, etc.), an on-camera actor, a performance creator on stage, a professional voice user (lawyer, teacher, business leader, clergy, politician) or an individual looking for a more artful life. All can benefit from varied approaches to my deeply honed process.
Interactive movement, voice, creation and performance practices are geared to your needs.
What you say is one thing. How you speak it is another.
Many professional voice users, teachers, lawyers, clergy, leaders, politicians have spent years in education and work honing and preparing the content of what they say. In the speaking moment, however, they may have built little skill around the power of their vocal instrument. This voice training teaches how an authentic source resonated through a dynamic and articulate vocal range can achieve more powerfully and compellingly, an intended outcome. A vital part of your argument is the actual “sound” of the spoken text. Learn to be vocally confident and inspiring through physical practice. Learn to use your voice as a refined part of your rhetorical tool kit.
Gerry Trentham’s gentle but challenging approach to voice and speech training has been developed over three decades as part of the master teaching faculty of Canada’s National Voice Intensive, as faculty in some of North America’s most prestigious performance training institutions and in voice and movement workshops on four continents.
Beginning sessions can be very effective on-line and possibly preferred but in-person is best as training advances
Base fees are as follows
Private coaching
$160 per 45minute session
$500 for 4 session series
Group session
$20 per participant per hour with a minimum of 10 participants
Fees are negotiated depending on circumstances
"Voice work can be very revealing and touch on unexpected points of contention; Gerry ensures that those challenges are met with thoughtfulness and care. As a novice to voice work, I have discovered a new depth of resonance and an overall vocal confidence with Gerry's personal guidance."
-Mayumi Lashbrook, Dancer/Choreogrpaher
Fields of Attention
Ongoing commitment
This is ideal for voice, movement and performance teachers and those individuals dedicated to enriching their art practice or living a more artful life.
For those who have studied with Gerry a full series of modules build through a longer term to embody an advanced understanding of the Fields of Attention methodology.