Meet our new Studio Administrator, Rachel De Fontes.
Originally from oh so sunny Southern California, Rachel now lives & works between the US, UK & EU. She has a great love for traveling and has been known to tune in for Helena’s Resiliency Circles and Scene Study classes from the deepest corners of the world (where there’s wifi, there’s a way).
She is Director of Murmuration Studios, a London & Dublin-based theatre & film production company, which she co-founded with two other actors she met at Helena’s studio (shout out to Sarah Noll and Justin Ensor!)
She first met Helena in 2019, and has been in close connection with the studio ever since, meandering through the different acting courses/workshops as well as the RCs, which she has always felt incredibly supportive and meaningful to her life.
She is at her absolute happiest both when she is in nature - hiking, listening to the sounds around her, feeling the ground beneath her feet - and when she is engaged in meaningful work - in a magnetic rehearsal room, connected with collaborators, or on the stage, a sense of magic in the air shared with audience and performer alike.
Outside of her work at the studio, she is an actor, writer & producer. In 2022, she starred in a short thriller, produced 'An Intervention' in London (Riverside Studios), co-wrote a short film (set for 2023 production), aired one of her theatrical pieces in a Festival of New Writing, saw the release of the Paramount Pictures film “The Infernal Machine” which she acted in alongside Guy Pearce and began developing her feature-length film, “Jenny, and”.
She’s trained/worked with various companies & professionals across the US, UK, Ireland, Russia, Portugal & Australia and she feels that Helena’s studio is particularly special. She is very happy to be a part of our Studio Team and says she can’t wait to see where 2023 will take us.
IMDB | Spotlight
Interview with EmpowerHer*Voice Theatre Spotlight Collective
Actors, what’s interesting for me when I watch actors on camera, I can see the ones who are holding their breath and the ones who have the ability to surf with the experience. Because fundamentally “breathing is meaning”
And tone, is almost like the setting, the atmosphere, the tone of the piece, but it’s actually also the physicality of our voices. And that makes love, peace or war. It’s not the words. It’s actually the tone that I respond to as opposed to the words.
Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® @getoi & Fitzmaurice Voicework ® @fitzmauricevoicework
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Want to see more posts like this follow us on instagram @helenawalshcoaching
If you want to work with Helena and really liberate your expression, enliven and bring more subtlety, diversity & nuance to your acting craft or if you just want to really inspire and engage those around you, comment “me” below and we’ll reach out with details of our new online voice, acting and empowerment programmes.
https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/store
How to attune to the body
Your job as the actor is to embrace the dialect of vulnerability.
We have been conditioned to believe - my felt experience equals there is something wrong. Oh there is something wrong if you are feeling something.
Basically what I’m saying is when I’m sad, angry or hurt and someone says “what’s wrong”? Why should there be anything “wrong”? I’m feeling.
There are different questions we can ask.
You look sad - you can name it. Do you feel angry? So that’s acknowledging the experience.
When we do that, then what starts to happen is the body starts to feel seen, the body starts to feel heard.
So what you are doing is attuning to the language of the body instead of skipping a beat and trying to understand.
~ Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence & Fitzmaurice Voicework ® & NeurosystemicsTM
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Want to see more posts like this follow us on instagram @helenawalshcoaching
If you want to expand and deepen your acting process and bring more diversity, nuance and complexity to your performance. DM to get started. We are now auditioning for The Actor’s Practice!!
https://helenawalshempowerment.mykajabi.com/theactorspractice
Vulnerability is the language of the HEART
Honouring the power of Vulnerability as a language all by itself.
It has a special dialect of connection and relationship.
Vulnerability is the language of the HEART.
This HEART language needs a compassionate space of awareness in order to elevate this art form, the human experience to a deeply personal and collective one at the same time.
~ Helena Walsh on voice and acting
Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® & Fitzmaurice Voicework ® & NeurosystemicsTM
~ PS. Like this post, share with your friends
Want to see more posts like this follow us on instagram @helenawalshcoaching
If you want to expand and deepen your acting process and bring more diversity, nuance and complexity to your performance. DM to get started. We are now auditioning for The Actor’s Practice!!
https://helenawalshempowerment.mykajabi.com/theactorspractice
Create space for the unimaginable, the unexpected, the unknown to occur. It’s just one adventure into the unknown and then your life & career are full of wonder.Day 2 on our acting retreat in Glendalough!! What a world of difference. Scene exploration and discovery among the trees with the lake water lapping and final presentation of scenes together in the room with the backdrop of the majestic forest!With deep gratitude to you all Christina McMahon @christinadoescomedy Conor Duffy Dan Fitzgibbon @fitzgibbondan Gemma Long @_gemma_long_ Desirée Naranjo @desireenaranjo4 Graeme Coughlan @graemo_c Johanna O’Brien @johanna.o.brien James WhelanKate GlaveyMatheus Tonon @matheushtonon Rachel Walsh @rachel_ellen94 Sarah Walsh @sarahwalsh_actor Our upcoming in-person retreats and courses:🎶The Art of Singing 1-day retreat with Ruth McGill at the Glendalough Hotel on Saturday June 18th 2022🗣The Empowered Voice 1-day retreat with Helena Walsh at the Glendalough Hotel on Saturday June 25th 2022🎬'The Art of Acting' 3 night retreat with Helena Walsh & Chris Edmund at Killary Lodge from September 4th - 7th 2022🎬“The Actor’s Practice” 10-week advanced actor training, online with Helena Walsh and Benjamin Mathes starting September 2022Limited spaces available; DM to get started!https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/store
How to have an empowered voice
How do you have an empowered voice?
Well the first thing is, you want to be able to breathe more easily.
How do you breathe more easily? You need to feel safe and secure
How can you feel safe and secure when you’re on a film set, where there’s a lot at stake or when you’re in front of an audience where there’s a lot of people? You have to strategically and skillfully choose to sit into your animal body, your senses: what do you see, hear and touch.
Because they are a fact. What you hear is a fact. What you see is a fact. What you touch is a fact.
What goes on in your mind is not a fact! What your mind is telling you- “you’re good, you’re bad, this is terrible….you’re feeling anxious” etc is not a fact!
There is nothing factual or rational about the mind when the body is in situations where it may feel it’s overwhelming.
If the body is feeling overwhelmed, then the only way through that like the bear hunt is with the body. The mind is not going to get you out of that rabbit hole. So what we want to do is honour and build this relationship like animals do in the natural world - what do you see, what do you hear, what do you touch.
Now the mind is going to have resistance and is going to go “but that’s not what I’ve been taught” because it's conditioned that way.
What that does is, it builds a container for you to be able to breathe more easily, for you to have a felt experience so that then when you are expressing yourself, you are not listening to the sound of your voice, it’s a feeling, a vibration that’s moving through you, that’s empowering you to express.
When you feel grounded and stable, then the voice will express from a more nuanced and cultivated creative space.
Let me know your questions and your insights in the comments below.
If you like these types of voice and empowerment techniques, there are two opportunities to continue your study with me coming up:
🗣The Empowered Voice 1-day retreat at
I feel for me certainly the most empowering gift I ever discovered was my own authentic voice. And that took quite a practice and quite a process to be in the world with one’s own originality while at the same time having the ability to listen and respond to all of the biases and the prejudices that come at us in the world and still be able to hold your own in whatever environment that might be -Whether that’s - on set- standing up in front of a group of people and having to present something- just literally with the people you love - on a one-to-one basisWe all have different relationships, relational fields with all of these circles So I’m hoping that this work we’ll be doing together will affect all those relational fields - from the micro to the macro. If you want to work with Helena and really enliven and bring more subtlety, diversity & nuance to your acting craft or if you just want to really inspire and engage those around you, June 25th, Helena will be running a 1-day intensive voice retreat at Glendalough Hotel, Wicklow focussed on giving you the skills to feel more empowered and confident in your voice as well as developing more versatility and presence when you speak https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/empoweredvoiceretreat
How to be more inspired to create
I’m interested in you being inspired by the present moment to create.
By noticing the ten thousand intimacies in your day, you can then use those colours, textures, shapes to bring a deeper and richer experience to your acting.
You will have fostered a relationship with the present moment that is alive and alert and one you can create and reveal the textures of your character's human experience from.
We are after all made up of these moments of flow if we say yes to what is moving through us.
We have often been educated to numb this more creative and intimate relationship with our lives.
We move too quickly to notice but the actor needs to become the artist that slows the world down and sits and listens and sees so that a more wholesome experience of life is manifested.
~ Helena Walsh on voice and acting
Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ®, Fitzmaurice Voicework ® & NeuroSystemics
🤩Our upcoming in-person retreats and courses:
🎶The Art of Singing 1-day retreat with Ruth McGill at the Glendalough Hotel on Saturday June 18th 2022
🗣The Empowered Voice 1-day retreat with Helena Walsh at the Glendalough Hotel on Saturday June 25th 2022
🎬'The Art of Acting' 3 night retreat with Helena Walsh & Chris Edmund at Killary Lodge from September 4th - 7th 2022
🎬“The Actor’s Practice” 10-week advanced actor training, online with Helena Walsh and Benjamin Mathes starting September 2022
Limited spaces available; DM to get started!
https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/store
Sneak Peak: The Resilient Actor
Sneak Peak: The Resilient Actor Retreat
Here’s Helena Walsh to talk us through what you can expect on our in-person retreat “The Resilient Actor”, taking place June 26th in the stunning surroundings of Glendalough!
This one day retreat will give you the tools so that you and your nervous system have an integrity of practice and a process and feel more secure and supported as well as driven.
Helena knows how to help her clients and actors integrate feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, despair, and how to deal with conflict or difficult situations on set because of her in-depth training as a human empowerment and resiliency coach with one of the world’s leading trauma relief and resiliency experts, Steven Hoskinson.
Helena uses Organic Intelligence® with her clients and actors.
This moves both their processes to a whole new level and changes their lives for the better. Leaving the actor confident, unshakable and inspired to feel more pleasure and curiosity in their life and art.
This 1-day in person workshop with Helena Walsh takes place at Glendalough Hotel, 10am to 5pm Sunday 26th June.
Space is very limited. Click the link below to register.
https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/offers/fLTAdDLE/checkout
Finding the truth in the other actor’s eyes
Finding the truth in the other actor’s eyes.
In my workshops and teaching, I try, in a supportive, creative atmosphere and environment, to explore the notions of truth and authenticity in the acting process. As people, we build up defences and armour to deal with life but success as an actor depends on being open, free, receptive and vulnerable. I believe that by allowing the valves of feeling to open, committing to scrupulous analysis of text for acting clues, being in relationship and close contact with one’s scene partner and allowing heart into the work can bring formidable and often unexpected results. I have had forty years of experience worldwide as a teacher and director and remain passionate and questing in my commitment to nurturing actors to develop and further their craft and evolve as dynamic, resourceful, skilled and successful artists.
Chris Edmund, @chrisedmundbaker former head of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (Hugh Jackman, Jai Courtney) and one of our guest teachers at the studio giving some great advice for actors.
“There is not one job that I do when I’m not using one of the pearls of wisdom that Chris gave us. He was a very influential director, teacher and writer”- Hugh Jackman, Actor (The Greatest Showman)
“What an epic journey I got to go on with this extraordinary cast & crew, helmed by the sublime Chris Edmund” ~ Kate Walsh, Actress (Grey’s Anatomy, The Umbrella Academy)
If you want to work with Chris and go to a whole new level of embodying the story and grow and evolve through every story you skillfully will come to embody, DM to get started.
https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/chrisedmundactingretreat
🔥HOW TO GO DEEPER🔥Actors, a question I get this question a lot: HOW DO I GO DEEPER?Here are 3 ways to go deeper in your acting:🔥 Make More Connect to More: see the script as a doorway to a giant web of connectivity. Everything element of story connects and relates to every other element of story. When everything is connected, you will go deeper.🔥🔥Judge less, and Accept more. Actors, if there is still dualistic language or thoughts (good/bad, right/wrong, inferior/superior) in your acting (ie. good/bad choices 🙄), you’re still swimming in the shallow end. 🔥🔥🔥Prepare the body to receive and express. As you seek to go deeper, your body is your most important guide. Prepare it to receive the deep end (I did a video of that a few months ago), and then align your expression to that which you have received. This is how you will be heard from the deep end.~ Benjamin Mathes, @bcmathes @crashactingPS. Like this post, share with your friendsWant to see more posts like this, follow us on Instagram @helenawalshcoaching & @crashactingIf you want to work with Ben and really expand and deepen your acting process and bring more diversity, nuance and complexity to your performance, we’re now auditioning for our advanced actor training “The Actor’s Practice”! DM to get started.Our next course of The Actor’s Practice starts Monday 2nd May 2022https://helenawalshempowerment.mykajabi.com/theactorspractice
Are you doing this for your career?
Are you doing this for your career?
Save this video and watch it a few times.
Life is not well lived half assed. .
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Actors, you cannot be the actor you want to be unless you commit to becoming that.
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Commitment isn’t a sexy word nowadays. Let’s face it, we don’t need to commit to much anymore. We throw away instead of fix things that are broken; we keep swiping until we find the perfect person.
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We’d rather lease than buy, and it shows.
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Actors, you cannot have a career without commitment. Here are 4 points about commitment:
👉👉 Commitment Requires Discipline
👉👉 Commitment Requires Reception
👉👉 Commitment Requires More of You
👉👉 Commitment Always Pays off
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What are you committed to?
~ Benjamin Mathes, @bcmathes @crashacting
PS. Like this post, share with your friends
Want to see more posts like this, follow us on Instagram @helenawalshcoaching & @crashacting
If you want to work with Ben, we’re looking for ten actors who want to expand their potential and craft. If you want to deepen your acting process and bring more diversity, nuance and complexity to your performance this is the course for you! DM to get started.
Our next course of The Actor’s Practice starts Monday 2nd May 2022
https://helenawalshempowerment.mykajabi.com/theactorspractice