Back by (our) popular demand! Holly Stoppit and Briony Greenhill combine our quite formidable forces for a deep week of singing, self-exploration, improvisation, creative expression, embodiment, nature connection, play, fun, joy, depth and support in the sweet sacred land of Embercombe, Devon UK.

Briony will lead Collaborative Vocal Improvisation - a wonderful art-form of making up vocal music on the spot with others. It’s an exciting, beautiful, thrilling, deep, challenging approach to singing for those who can sing in tune, keep a beat, and want an adventure.

Holly will share her treasure trove of embodied, sensory and nature-connected play. Through play and laughter, the group will become a vessel of trust and support, which will make space for our inner worlds to reveal themselves. Meditation, deep listening and permission will open the doors to body-based inquiry; we’ll move, dance and create characters inspired by the nature that abounds, uncovering profound insights and unfathomable ridiculousness along the way. 

We’ll explore ways to bring voice and body together.

It will be a bold, liberating, connecting, fun, expansive midsummer week. Pray to the gods of British summertime to bestow good weather upon us and we will be able to enjoy Embercombe’s swimming lake, shady forest and lush meadows in abundance.

There will be optional morning and evening activities, creative time together around the fire, and downtime on the land. On the last night there will be a fully improvised cabaret (performed by all of us, if you want to!).

This is for mixed experience levels. Everyone needs to be able to sing in tune and keep a beat. Basic intro work will be available for the newcomer, as well as great creative opportunities for the more experienced practitioner.

We’ll sleep in very comfy yurts, be fed Embercombe’s delicious healthy fresh food; and enjoy together a space without alcohol or mobile signal, unplugging, detoxing, and recharging, finding that spark within and between us, and with a little luck, co-creating delight with it.

About the Teachers

Holly is artistic director of Beyond The Ridiculous, a collective of solo improvisers who use their authentic impulses to create audaciously truthful performance.

At the heart of all of Holly’s work is a desire to promote creative discovery and connection through play.

HollyStoppit.com

CVI is the art of co-creating vocal music in the moment. Here is a short film about Briony’s teaching, which has evolved from the lineage of Rhiannon, Bobby McFerrin, Joey Blake and others. Briony is a founding member of The Well Global Vocal Improvisation Network and the UK Vocal Improvisation Festival and has been teaching this artform internationally for over 14 years. 

Briony has released 4 entirely improvised albums. Her debut studio album Crossing the Ocean reproduced improvisations in the studio adding instrumentation. It was featured in The Guardian, Mojo, Radio 3, and Woman’s Hour.

Briony teaches vocal musicianship from beginner to advanced levels, while also honouring the spiritual, ritual and therapeutic application of CVI.  She is a qualified SomaSource Leader; a “psycho-spiritual educator, artist, activist and healer who has an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles.”  

Brionygreenhill.com

Fees

Fees include luxury yurt accommodation, 1-3 to a yurt; full board at Embercombe, and all teaching.

We use the Green Bottle model for pricing. We encourage you in integrity to select the tier that reflects your personal financial experience.

Tier 1 £1245

Tier 2 £995

Tier 3 £795

Tier 4, camping £645

Assistant 2 spaces - for folks very experienced in either Holly or Briony’s work. If you’d like to be considered an assistant, please get in touch with the facilitator whose work you are familiar with.

If numbers allow, we aim to provide Tier 1 folks with a private yurt, Tier 2 with a twin yurt, and Tier 3 and assistants would be 3 to a yurt. Due to limited yurts and unknown numbers, there may need to be adjustments to this. Yurts are not en suite. There is no en-suite accommodation at Embercombe (apart from the wild wee ensuite all around….)

Up to 20 participants.

Travel and Timing

We begin on Tuesday 29th July at 2pm; and leave on Sunday 3rd August after lunch. The nearest train station is Exeter (we may be able to arrange a shared taxi from Exeter St David’s station at 12.30pm…). Exeter is 2-3h from London by train. The nearest airports are Bristol and London. If coming by train, book well in advance to get reasonable ticket prices - thetrainline.com or the Trainpal app (consider a railcard!).

Deep Play 2024 Participants Said….

I wish I could take this understanding and way of being to everyone in the world. What a privilege to be surrounded by such blissful nature. Hugging lands, hugging our hearts! It was like all my guards had permission to dissolve, I felt so present with myself and also others around me  too. It felt like fizzy playful popping popcorn, mixed in with deep smooth camomile calm sunsets. It felt like all edges were reached and you could stretch yourself as far as you felt comfortable. It was a wholesome, creative exploration in the most beautiful landscape too! <3

 - El

Just thank you so much. I've been practicing the vocal warm ups and free movement since we left and it's making such a difference to my general wellbeing. It was terrifying but amazing to connect back with my voice and show up unprepared and a bit shit so thank you for that  xxx - Jennie

Nurturing your inner child and the ancient human bits of your brain with a week living naturally, vulnerable, wildly and playfully in beautiful community space with a group of humans that very quickly begin to feel like the village and found family you've always wanted and never had.

Playing, expressing, embodying, sounding authentic emotions from how you are now to release, dissolve, accept and nourish those bits of ourselves that modern society tries to pretend aren't there but who are screaming for attention.

Being held in a group process by each other, and by two powerful, wise and courageous women who in different but equally lovely ways give off a vibe of your favourite teachers, your favourite fun Aunties and your favourite characters from a children's book, whilst seeming to find an impossible balance between humility & a general sense of utterly knowing their shit.  - Andy

When I left I realised I felt SO much more alive and just wanted to do more and keep bringing these things into my life. Effortlessly finding myself more playful, more confident and alive. It was an amazing experience to combine these two ways of being,  playing and singing, with so much permission and encouragement to be as I am and sing from my heart. An extraordinary combination of fun and heartfelt moments, so freeing and I felt space to bring parts of me I usually forget about or feel there is no space for.  This is a taste of what community can be with all the support and extra aliveness we can bring to each other. - Mariane

Beautiful soulful silliness - deep connection with yourself and others - Charlie

I consider this retreat pivotal in helping to learn more about and love parts of me that I've abandoned a bit. And to witness others in their processes too. So beautiful. And I had so much fun in the process. So much love!  - Heidi

If you want to explore your hidden diva and spend time in a safe fun loving excitement this is the course for you. Both Briony and Holly wrap you in a blanket of loving nurturing space that has you feeling capable of anything.

Thank you it breathed life back into me and made me feel so alive and appreciative of my life and the wondrful people I meet. Together you should rule the world love you - Rikki.

In this 4 day course, we will slow-cook ourselves in the beautiful stew of Collaborative Vocal Improvisation. We will sing, sing, sing; all together, in small ensemble, in duos, trios, and alone.

We’ll expand into emergent co-creativity, listening together to what human ecologist Gregory Bateson calls the Schismo-genesis - what is created in the space between - and how to surrender together to the music coming through.

We’ll work with singing, movement, language; with poetry - other people’s, our own, and spontaneously improvised, sung and spoken poetry.

We’ll explore using and sharing the holy essence of our voices in their full range of options. Becoming more and more at home in improvisation, and letting the music flow through.

We’ll work with the Resonant Body to cultivate the unique magnificence of your body’s sound. We’ll be witnessed and un-wittnessed, and play.

We’ll journey with what being seen and heard in a state of ease and surrender brings up for us, what stands in our way. We’ll hold caring space for our own and one anothers’ parts, but we won’t centre healing. Nor will we study music theory this time.

We will dive bravely into creativity together and come out braver, fuller vocal artists, more at home in the sacred art of vocal improvisation; able to express and move through a wider landscape in our singing.

The Structure

We’ll work at the Moor Imagination Collective in Buckfastleigh. The cafe there caters for us; local, very healthy, partly organic, plant based food.

We work together 10-6 each day; after the first morning, there is optional dance 8-9 each morning, then breakfast is provided on site at 9am.

Sessions run 10-1 and 2.30 - 6.

Breakfast 9am, lunch 1pm, Dinner 6.30pm

There is an evening session on the last night (Thursday)

On the last day 24th October we finish by 3.30pm.

Pricing

Please see here for the price. This is a 4 Day course at MIC.

If you need to book accommodation, see here.

Level

If you are new to CVI with Briony, please make sure you do an intro course before this one.

This is for Journey-people, Advanced Students and Alumni.

Sound and Silence

Vocal Improvisation, meditation, deep rest, and the velvet black: a residential retreat on Dartmoor for those who can sing in tune and want a rest.

Often in CVI (Collaborative Vocal Improvisation), at the end of a practice we are left in a state I call the Velvet Black: a deep and expansive rest state. Singing can be a beautiful route into profound states of meditation.

In my normal classes we don’t linger here, because the point is singing.

This time, the point is also the quiet, the rest.

We’ll do toning, Resonant Body, Sound Healing, napping, meditating. Probably bits of circle singing for bouts of harmony and joy. Then we’ll check in and do it some more, interspersed with long break times, late rising, early to bed, gentle morning body practices (yoga/dance, optional), and very nourishing food. We will be very unambitious musically; rather, using the voice as a companion to a kind of peace.

Quiet.

Exhalation.

Restoration.

The voice is very potent tool for clearing us out and shifting us into the rest-digest-recover state.

We’ll linger and lounge there…….

It’s timed to be a deep, early winter restoration pause to resource and nourish for the winter season ahead.

Details

Arrive Friday 5th December 4pm for a 5pm start. Depart by 3pm on Sunday 7th.

Prices:

Tiers relate to the Green Bottle Model below. You select your tier. You will not be investigated.

Tier 1 £575 (single room)

Tier 2 £445 (shared room)

Tier 3 £335 (shared room)

There are 2 assistant places at £195 and 2 name your price places.

Payment plans are available.

How to Book

To book, make a £100 deposit and complete a short registration form. Then we’ll get in touch with you to complete your registration.

If you have any questions please email info@brionygreenhill.com.

Paradigm Shift

Living today can be extremely painful.

We might say that life, at least in the Global North, and perhaps especially in the UK and the US, is dominated by a 2000 year old paradigm of power over; of fear, violence and trauma; of taking, violence and dominance.

This lack of life-honouring has life in the brink. 24-150 species go extinct each day. With climate change, we question what is the world we are handing on to the children; and when, if not now, is it sensible to stop having them.

In this world, as a mother, I cannot keep leading my groups in a bubble separate from that reality.

Things must change profoundly. How can this mycellial web of the vocal improvisation play its part in that change? What is the place of our singing, our voices, our communities and our songs in midwifing a regenerative paradigm here in the global north?

What pains rumble in our hearts and minds around these collective themes? Let’s sing them.

What dreams of a better world live in our hearts? What piece of the dream arises in each of us? Let’s sing that too.

In this program, we’ll gather for 4 days, warm our voices up, sing all the forms, get language going, and sing and feel and talk and pray through this.

What a time to be alive.

Here we go.

Taboo

Can we widen the truth frame, as vocal artists; so we can stand in our ground while giving voice to realms of human experience so often couched in privacy, shame, and unspoken-ness?

This is an experimental journey into the wider shores of courage, power and intimacy as vocal artists.

We’ll work a lot with improvising with language, self expression, poetry and creativity; all embedded in collaborative vocal improvisation.

We’ll hold a strong container of confidentiality and safety, and have each other’s backs as we feel what we feel as we give voice to what is authentic.

Together, we become braver

Together, we grow in voice and power.

In doing that, can we create a truer, kinder culture? When we as vocal artists dare to address what is usually kept private, we welcome all of ourselves home, and we help everyone who hears us to welcome themselves home. To meet the wider shores of humanity and be prepared to meet it in themselves and whoever they encounter.

And in that, does our brittleness soften, do we judge one another less, throw each other away a little bit less? An enquiry.

Let’s do this!

The 4 Days

These two themes are directions I want to take my work in. Honestly, right now, I’m not sure if this should be one 4 day course or 2. Let’s start by combining them and see what happens.

Over the 4 days, we’ll warm up, drop in and sing together. We’ll hold space each day for whatever this work is bringing up for us: whether it’s the singing itself, or the themes as the central fires that we’re gathering around - what this content brings up for us. We’ll hold each other in listening, compassion and kindness, with tools for nervous system regulation and care - as we dare to go into the deep inner, the big outer, and bring it all into our artistry and our singing.

Led by Briony Greenhill

Practicalities

• Price - see the Money Page. This is a 4 day non-residential course at MIC, Buckfastleigh.

• See here for some pointers for staying in Buckfastleigh.

• Food is included - within the start and end frame of the workshop. I.e. 3 meals a day on the middle days, lunch and dinner on the first day, breakfast and lunch on the last day.

• Our sessions run 10-1, 2.30 - 6. On the Wednesday and Thursday there’ll be optional yoga / dance 8-9am, then breakfast at 9am.

• We’ll have an evening together on the Thursday night. On the Wednesday evening I’ve requested to book us into a nearby lakeside sauna in the woods. I’ll amend this as and when it’s confirmed.

  
  

So you’re a good, experienced vocal improviser. You’re interested in performance. Folks are starting to get their phones out and video you when you sing in some kind of a public way.

What happens for you? Is it inhibiting? Do you start over-performing? Do you clam up? Do you want to get the hell out of there and run for the hills?

Drama-Therapist, Clown, Fool, Somatic Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist extraordinaire Holly Stoppit will lead us into deep playful exploration of the inner voices that come up when we are witnessed by audiences. 

You may have parts that are shy or insecure, you may have others that are critical or mean, there may be others that hoik you out of your body or make you want to be sick. With curiosity and deep respect, we’ll spend the week meeting these parts in meditation, through artwork, writing, embodiment and singing.

In giving creative form, body and voice to our parts, we can discover how they are trying to help us stay safe (even if “helping” looks like constricting, restricting, over-efforting or dissociating).

Through gentle, compassionate dialogue with our parts, we can help them to let go of their not-so-helpful strategies and find a different role within our systems, one which supports us towards unselfconscious flow and ease.

In welcoming our parts home, perhaps we’ll discover new realms of vocal delights? Perhaps they will help us find a way to let the vocal river flow to its fullest?

Throughout the week we will create a safe enough container which will allow us to delve deeply into our inner worlds together. We’ll drop into our bodies through somatic meditations, invitational movement and embodiment. We will sing sing sing (Briony will provide CVI forms)! We will creatively reflect on the parts that come up when we sing for each other, and we will offer each other support through structured dialogue and compassionate witnessing. 

There will be laughter and lightness, tenderness and depth. Holly has been leading “Deep and daft” workshops for adults for 18 years, combining performance skills with self-exploration. More about Holly here: https://www.hollystoppit.com 

Briony will be part participant, part back up teacher, part suggester of CVI forms to work with (that’s not Holly’s realm). Otherwise, Holly runs the show.

There may or may not be a public show as part of the week…….. tbc.

Price

See here. This is a 5 day non residential course at the Moor Imagination Center, Buckfastleigh.

Where to stay?

See here.

This is for advanced students, extremely experienced students, and alumni.

We gather for 4 days, improvise, sing and support one another.

On the Tuesday we drop in and sing. Tuesday night we have a Wildlings Cabaret.

On the Wednesday we have a 4 hour recording session there in MIC, and then debrief it.

On the Thursday night we have a public show there at MIC.

On the Friday we debrief it, support one another, do sound healing and say farewell.

How do we stay in our ease, flow and authenticity when there is an audience, a microphone, or a video camera?

How do we stay connected to the improvisational void in the intensity of performance and recording?

What is performance? What are our values around performance?

Are we there to entertain and impress people?

Are we there to listen to our audience and sing them back to themselves? Bring our own humanity so that they can love theirs, and one anothers’? Make them listen to us all night or invite their voices to make the music with us? Is it about us being above them, or with them?

We’ll unpack it all. We can realise we all have different values about it. That’s ok.

This is for people who have already been on an improvisation journey for years, have a well established personal and peer practice, and are curious to be supported in taking the next step in sharing the artform you love with a wider audience.

The whole group will have access to the audio and video files for a year, and have the rights to use it publicly if you have permission from everyone else visible in it. In that time you can download the files and keep them in your own location for longer term storage.

We will work with a professional mobile sound engineer and videographer.

The show will be ticketed and the ticket income will be a fundraiser for up to 3 causes we decide on together.