Linklater Symposium at LAMDA, , June 13, 2026, 9.30-17.30
We are happy to welcome you to the Linklater Voice Symposium 2026 organised in partnership with LAMDA and the Society for Theatre Research.
The symposium will draw together practitioners who will touch on four aspects of the Linklater practice to explore some of the afterlife of the work through reflections in the community. Its lineage will be revealed with Jackie Snow who worked extensively with Trish Arnold; David Jarzen will question what this work can tell us about society and how we are poised to alter the macrosystems at play; Joanna Kurzyńska’s session will engage us in continuous professional development practice and Françoise Walot will dig into
the psychological effects of the work.
We hope by documenting our practices to extend the life of this pedagogy and share it with the wider community.
Program
9.00-9.30: Welcome
9.30-9.35: Introduction to the day
9.35-11.30: Pure Movement1, Jackie Snow
Pause
11.45-12.45: Toxic masculinity and the voice2, David Jarzen
12.45-13.45: Lunch break
1.45-2.45: What does it mean to free the voice: can it mean freeing the person?3 Françoise Walot
Pause
3.00-5.00: Sigh-Sing4, Joanna Kurzyńska
5.00-5.30: wrapping up the day
- In her session for the Symposium, Jackie Snow transmits Trish Arnold’s movement practice, in which imaginative impulse initiates physical action, frees the breath, and releases the voice. This work supports the actor’s ability to connect thought to sound, body to text, and imagination to truthful expression, sitting in direct and practical relationship to Linklater voice training.
- David Jarzen will explore the intersection of masculinity, identity, and voice, drawing on his continued practice and research conducted at RCSSD, in his peer-reviewed article, "Letting Go of Manning Up – Conscientização, Masculinity, and Voice in Actor Training."
- Freeing the voice: using her story and stories from other DLTs, Françoise Walot discusses what it means to free the voice: Can freedom just be an individual matter?
Can freeing the voice free the person? - Sigh–Sing with Joanna Kurzyńska is an original exploration of singing voice emerging from the principles of Kristin Linklater’s Freeing the Natural Voice. What
happens when the freed sigh is not resolved, but allowed to continue? When impulse extends beyond speech into tone, and tone into relationship? Can individual sighs become harmony - and can harmony become song without will or aesthetic intention? We will ask these questions in practice during the session, inviting a traditional song to become a partner in the exploration. This session approaches singing as a continuation of release, and listening as a whole-body act of presence.
Where does the longing to sing arise — and what shifts when we trust it?
Speakers
- Jackie Snow (www.jackiesnow.com) has trained actors in movement for over forty years. Originally trained as a dancer and teacher she specialised in actor training
that integrates movement, breath, voice, and the actor’s imaginative life. She began teaching at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where she trained as a movement teacher for actors under Trish Arnold, alongside Sue Lefton. She taught at Guildhall for twenty years before becoming Head of Movement at RADA, and later Senior Lecturer in Movement at the Manchester School of Theatre (MMU). She has been a visiting tutor at LAMDA, Drama Centre, Rose Bruford, Mountview, the British American Drama Academy (BADA), and Regent’s University London.
Jackie is the author of A Movement Training for Actors (Methuen Drama, 2012) and currently trains new movement teachers and professional actors in London. - David Jarzen He/Him/His (davidjarzen.com) is an actor, singer, teaching artist, and advocate. Having trained at Point Park University as a musical theatre actor, he moved to London and graduated in 2022 with a Master of Fine Arts in Voice Studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. David is a certified teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork and a Designated Linklater Teacher. He taught at many leading drama schools across London including Mountview, East 15, Rose Bruford, Collective Acting Studio, LAMDA and Central.
He is currently a Fellow at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at NYU (New-York). - Françoise Walot (www.training-voice.com/en) trained as an actor at the Liège Conservatoire in Belgium and as a voice coach with Kristin Linklater in the USA. She became a Designated Linklater Teacher in 1993. Since then, she has taught, performed and directed in Belgium, taught voice and acting in different institutions in the UK (Birmingham Conservatoire, CSSD, LAMDA, BADA), and led numerous voice workshops in England, Belgium, Poland and Greece.
She often works with poets and trains voice teachers. - Joanna Kurzyńska (www.voiceinprogress.eu) comes from Wrocław in Poland. A violinist by profession she is an actress and theatre director, sometimes she is also a
composer, quite often she is a singer and teaches acting and voice work. Co-founder of the Youth Academy of Musical in Wrocław and the original Studio Voice In
Progress, in which she conducts research on the source, possibilities and meaning of the human voice, with a special attention to Linklater Voice Method. Honored with the medal “Meritorious for Polish Culture” in December 2021.
In August 2023 she became Designated Linklater Teacher
To enrol
WHEN: Saturday, June 13, 2026, from 9 AM to 5.30 PM
WHERE: LAMDA, 155 Talgarth Road, W14 9DA, London
HOW: To get to LAMDA travel via the District or Picadilly Tube Lines to Barons Court, then it is a short five-minute walk from the station.
What to Bring: Water, some pens and drawing material (you will be offered paper); come with loose clothes.
Lunch, etc: Onsite is a cafe that serves relatively cheap coffees/teas/etc. In the immediate vicinity are a lush French cafe, Gails, a lovely Polish Cafe, and a garage with an M&S.
FULL PRICE: £60
EARLY BIRD (PAY BY 13TH OF MAY): £50
STUDENT AND PEOPLE ON LOW INCOME: £30
TO PARTICIPATE ON ZOOM CALL: £30
TO ENROL, CONTACT ME:
OR GO TO https://buytickets.at/kristinlinklatersymposium
