The Wildness & Precision® Course for Extraordinary Performance
Fall Cohort: September- December
Spring Cohort: February-May
Introduction
Four months of unprecedented performance training.
Twelve modules following the journey of performing from the desire to communicate all the way to sublime performance.
An intimate cohort of extraordinary performers that relentlessly nourish and support each other.
Precise coaching to elevate you beyond what you’ve imagined possible…
This is the Wildness and Precision Course for Extraordinary Performance.
This program is the culmination of all my work thus far in coaching elite performers, performing professionally, and research in areas of human design, vocal skill, storytelling, neurobiology, and human potential.
This level of training is unprecedented.
It is designed to be transformative and to collapse the timeline between what you can do now, and what you are fully capable of.
The course is inherently trans-disciplinary so the learning is immersive and exponential.
We work precisely with your bio-individuality, your artistry, and your desires.
Your design and desires are the blueprints we use to get you where you are meant to be with ease and grace.
This is not for you if you “sort of” want to improve.
This is for you if you are unstoppable, are ready for coaching that will expand and elevate you, and want to play deeply with other highly-skilled performers and creators.
The Wildness & Precision® Method
These potent principles, strategies, and tools help achieve your desired results now,
while developing skills and fluency for a lifetime.
I Optimal Coordination
Cooperating with the design of your body, your art form, and the world gives you immediate, consistent access to your current skills and abilities. This step includes using your voice and body expertly and creating optimal acoustical and movement qualities immediately.
II Skill Mastery
In this area, we identify what further skills you might need to do your best work, and find ways to work at the leading edge of your abilities so you can do better and more precise work in service of your art. This pillar includes skill-building, refinement, and precise technical work.
III Performance Practices & Rehearsals
Here we work with text, character, rehearsal iterations, structure, and our entire biopsychosocial selves to create an integrated performing process.
* This is the training I wish every performer could have.
IV Extraordinary Performance Coaching
This phase is about creative collaboration. We exchange ideas, create and develop work, and use short feedback loops to reveal the greatest, most essential performance. The artist is self-sufficient in their skills and coordination, and the coaching is synergistic and empowering.
The process is non-linear, and can use some or all pillars in combination and in any order.
About the Course
THE COURSE INCLUDES
12 Course Modules
12 Live Group Coaching sessions with Kate
Recorded replays of each coaching
Exercises & Rehearsals to fast-track your mastery
Supplemental Materials, Suggested Reading, and Videos relevant to specific modules of the course, and posted in conjunction with those lectures.
An intimate, trans-disciplinary cohort of extraordinary performers
Support in the private FB discussion group
THE COHORT
The intimate group cohort provides fertile ground for multi-dimensional learning, cross-pollination of disciplines, and an immersive environment that increases learning value exponentially.
And, as performers, it gives us something invaluable and essential to all performing- an audience.
SCHEDULE
The Wildness & Precision Course is 4 months long.
Lectures and coaching take place in the first 3 weeks of each month, with an integration week at the end of each month.
Days and times of live coaching sessions are determined by the availability of the participants as provided on your application form.
ALUMNI NETWORK
As an alumnx of the program, you are invited to a global network of people who explore, practice, and teach in a systemic, qualitative, and innovative way. The community allows you to meet and collaborate with all of the amazing performers who have participated in the program, and exclusive invitations to opportunities and events.
THE MODULES
The Modules provide deep work in voice, movement, optimal performance, skill-building and technical work, performance training, and extraordinary performance coaching.
Part I Optimal Performance
Wholeness of Performing
Breath Coordination & Skilled Breathing
Building Your Optimal Daily Practice
Part II Skill & Technique
Technical Work & Skill Building
Emergence & Optimal Performance Properties
Observation & Analysis of Movement
Part III Artistry
Interpreting the Senses
Acting & Emotion in Performance
Performance Preparation
Part IV Extraordinary Performance Training
Performance Readiness (Transforming Pre-Performance Energy)
Auditions & Recording
Synergizing & Integrating The Performance Process
About Kate Conklin
Kate Conklin is a soprano, and interpreter of the highly demanding vocal music of Bulgaria. For two years, Kate was the vocalist for Cirque du Soleil’s “O,” the resident aquatic show at Bellagio, Las Vegas, where she performed approximately nine hundred shows. Her performing includes singing for film and television, premiering original new works, and collaborating with composers and choreographers.
Kate sings in seventeen languages, and is known for her playful gravitas.
Kate is an educator and performance coach, specializing in working with high-level performers whose work demands both excellent technique and profound artistry. Her coaching synergizes voice, Alexander Technique, and performance readiness practices, and has been called, “Simple and instantly adoptable, yet radical and groundbreaking.” Kate works with artists from arenas of stage, film and television, as well as members of the LA Philharmonic, LA Master Chorale, and Cirque du Soleil. Kate’s clients are comprised of singers, producers, actors, dancers, conductors, aerialists, mimes, clowns, and high-divers. She has taught and guest lectured at 20+ institutions.
Kate was a Fulbright Scholar to Bulgaria in 2002, where she rehearsed and performed as a member of The Academic Folk Choir of the Plovdiv Academy of Music, developing her work in regional solo repertoire, choral literature, conducting, and pedagogy.
Kate is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and holds BFA and MFA degrees in Vocal Performance with emphasis in opera, contemporary, free improvisation, North Indian Classical, and Balkan vocal music. She has additional study in optimal performance practice, pedagogy, neurobiology, anatomy and physiology, biology, physics, systems thinking, anthropology, writing, and philosophy.
Watch Kate’s TedX Talk
Testimonials
“I have found the Course to be an invaluable, synchronistic blend of exactly the information I want to have access to as a professional performer. Kate has a knack for presenting dense, scientific material in a usable, and more importantly, efficient and accessible manner. While some of the information I may have run across in previous studies, the way it is combined and presented here has been responsible for multiple breakthroughs just in the duration of the course. Most of the material, however, has been new to me and immensely interesting — and important in creating fluidity and efficiency between the constraints of my instrument and what I want to say and do in performance. I am excited to see what further review and deeper study on my part will bring as I integrate new understandings with the demands of what I do on and off stage.”
Rainelle Krause
Soprano & Aerialist
“What I have been exposed to in this course has been exceptional. To think that I am currently enjoying a library of what Kate has spent years of her life testing, teaching, and using in her own amazing performance background is really unbelievable.
Kate has the ability to, in a condensed time period with a clear map, lead someone out of the safe end of the pool and into the deep. She really breaks down what is possible in trying to gain greater mastery over this instrument we call “voice” which is really body, heart, and mind. She teaches you to find choices and not just become a victim of old habits and thought patterns.
A lifelong singer and performer, I am grateful for a style of teaching that is so grounded in a different kind of science. Rooted in deep listening to your own intuition and inherent knowledge, it has also given me new ways of looking at what I’m trying to accomplish, sometimes radically new and I have test driven those tools in concert and in the studio with great results.”
Pam Tillis
Multiple CMA and Grammy Award-winning Singer, Songwriter, Broadway performer & member of The Grand Ole Opry
“Kate Conklin’s Course has been an amazing experience for me. The information has been laid out in a very systematic, easy-to-learn style, with practical applications from the very first lesson onward. I have personally made revelations that have made an enormous difference in my physical comfort both in singing and in life. The approach is rooted in science, and yet not in any way dry or difficult to understand because Kate has broken it down into manageable parts. The lectures are very informative, but they are so much more than a laundry list of facts, as they also have suggestions of exercises to play with the information discussed, and all of those have been great. I have also loved the group sessions because seeing my colleagues play with these concepts has been so helpful in my visceral understanding of them all. I consider this one of the best investments I have made in my singing and would recommend it to any serious performer interested in continuing to grow. “
Anita Lyons
Soprano
“This Course introduces the most efficient and logical approach to singing, and could greatly benefit any singer. It is programmed perfectly to present challenges and new concepts that can be explored immediately with any repertoire while maintaining thoughtful, digestible steps, and never becoming overwhelming. One particular component of the program is live coaching with the group each week, which has ended up being my favorite part! I was not only able to work through specific questions I had when applying the course to my own practice but also found myself investigating the other members’ topics of discussion as well each week. This course has done SO MUCH good for my technique, my performance, and my whole approach to singing (and therefore, my whole self… Oh just wait, guys!). I could not recommend it enough!”
Rebecca Richardson
Soprano
“As a professional singer and performer of over 25 years who has had her share of struggles with technical issues (vocal fatigue, stamina, etc), working with Kate Conklin has been absolutely invaluable. Her particular approach, using principles of the Alexander Technique, is simply wonderful. It is a way of looking at practice and performance through the lens of anatomical function wedded to psychological intention. The resulting vocal freedom and vocal stamina are palpable!
I like the structure of the course, with recorded lectures that are always accessible online to watch/listen to, mixed with the live coaching where a participant can both work on some material in real-time and observe others doing so. Both are so useful! Kate also provides reading material and references to complete the picture.
Highly valuable and much appreciated. Thank you, Kate, for creating this course!!!!”
Dina Emerson
Vocalist– Meredith Monk Ensemble, Cirque du Soleil
“Kate Conklin’s Course has reinvigorated my practicing. Listening to the lessons on my own time, and then applying discoveries engaged the “why” of music-making again. The weekly coachings allowed for observations to expand further through conversations with other artists in a safely guided peer environment. It served as a welcome weekly reminder to continue questioning and re-examining preconceived notions of “the right way” when it comes to artistic expression. I highly recommend any opportunity to walk with Kate on the path to personal artistic discovery.”
Sara Stejskel
Soprano
“I particularly enjoy the group coaching. Hearing other people’s challenges and triumphs helps shake up my own assumptions and give me a wider range of vocabulary and experience to draw from. It’s been a wonderful community to connect with and I walk away from each lecture and coaching session, energized and ready for more. I’ve really benefitted from the structured, weekly meetings as they continuously build on skills and ideas allowing me to make greater improvements in a much shorter period of time. I wish I could give this experience to everyone!”
Madison Smith
Soprano