Teachers

Christine Isherwood, M.A., VMTR, (Registered Voice Movement Therapist), REAT (Registered Expressive Arts Therapist), directs and teaches the Voice Movement Therapy Training Program, works with individual clients, conducts workshops and trainings internationally, and supervises VMT students and practitioners. She has been engaged in teaching Voice Movement Therapy internationally for more than twenty years: in the UK, USA, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Engaged in a quest for voice and psychological well-being, she trained with the founder of VMT, Paul Newham, in London in the mid 1990s and subsequently taught with him prior to his retirement from this work. In partnership with Anne Brownell, she established, co-directed, and taught the Foundation Training in Voice Movement Therapy in the USA. Now its Director, she will be conducting more full training programs in the USA and elsewhere. She founded the first Voice Movement Therapy Training Program in Beijing and Shenzhen, China, under the auspices of Apollo Education & Consulting Institute dedicated to the training and development of VMT practitioners in China.

Christine has an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counselling from Goddard College, Vermont, USA, is a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, and holds a Certificate in Traumatic Stress Studies through the Trauma Center in Brookline, MA, USA. Before training in VMT, Christine took a degree in Cultural Studies at the University of East London, UK; gained a Diploma as an Assertiveness Training Teacher with the Redwood Women’s Training Organisation; undertook a two-year training in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychotherapy; and studied therapeutic healing with noted eclectic healers. She has over thirty-five years’ experience working with: street homeless people in Central London; as a mental health counsellor in the fields of addiction, domestic abuse, sexuality, and gender; as a group facilitator and trainer; and as a VMT practitioner and trainer with those seeking to transform their personal or professional selves through the voice. She is a founding director and member of the International Association for Voice Movement Therapy.

Christine is a singer and writer who has written and performed in political musicals, toured the UK and Europe with theatre groups and bands, and has recorded several albums, as well as performing internationally. She has lectured and taught at Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts (LIPA); the Western Australian Academy for Performing Arts (WAAPA); for numbers of years was adjunct faculty at the Creative Integrative Expressive Arts Therapy Training Program at the CREATE Institute, Toronto, Canada; and teaches at Apollo Education and Consulting, Beijing, China. Christine continues to commit herself to an intensive exploration of VMT and to experiment vocally, write, and learn, and has completed performance studies in the USA and abroad. She lives in Massachusetts, USA.

Lerina van Rensburg, BA, PGCE, VMTR, LRSL, has been entertaining audiences from a young age. She is a qualified VMT practitioner with experience in working with personal clients and offering VMT workshops in song writing, performance and self-development. Lerina’s qualifications include Voice Movement Therapy Practitioner (VMTR), a Licentiate in drama (SDCSA), BA Degree (UP), Postgraduate Education Certificate (Unisa) and a Level 6 Teachers Licentiate in vocals (Rockschool).

Her wide teaching experience ranges from London-based schools, CHIMS (Courtney House Instrumental Music School), and heading up the Music Department of Pretoria-East Primary. Lerina teaches in all different genres from rock & pop to classical music. She prepares students for concerts, competitions and professional engagements. 

In 2005, she founded Vibrience Music Notes, where she has not only been individually teaching Vocals and Guitar but steering the music academy into a flourishing business. In 2016, she launched a second music school, Ovie-Vibz, currently with 16 teachers and still growing.

Lerina’s teaching philosophy is based on exploring the many aspects of the human voice and allowing every student to be the best they can be, to have the freedom to express themselves through their voice, to explore the endless possibilities the voice has to offer, but also to experience the voice in full.

“My aim is to make music, to understand music, to know my instrument and to keep exploring, experiencing & expressing!”

Gina Holloway Mulder, BADA (Hons), PGDA, MAP, VMTR, MA, has been facilitating personal and corporate communication, self-cultivation, creativity, and performance development through voice and movement work since 1999, incorporating Voice Movement Therapy into her practice since 2007. She trained in VMT on the 2005 – 2006 USA training, and in 2007 was the first South African practitioner to qualify.

Gina practices at her private studio in the lush Springside Nature Reserve located in the Valley of 1000 Hills in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Here she offers sessions for individuals, couples, groups, and workshops. She also offers 5-7 day bespoke private VMT retreats to local and international clients. In the corporate and business context, through Voice 360, Gina develops VMT-informed training programs and interventions for individuals and teams at various organizational levels. For detailed information about Gina’s corporate work please visit www.voice360.co.za or email gina@voice360.co.za

With a background in theatre and a passion for choreography, physical theatre, dance, performance art, film, and design, Gina focuses her creative work on integrating voice, body, and psyche for devised interactive theatre.

Gina is committed to growing the practice of VMT in South Africa and globally and has run multiple workshops in Malaysia and China. She has lectured in VMT at colleges and universities such as the University of Johannesburg and University of Cape Town and assisted Christine Isherwood on the VMT practitioner training at Apollo Education Consulting and Training school in Beijing, China in 2019.

Gina is passionate about researching and writing about VMT, especially in relation to the latest neuroscience discoveries and the potential for the application of VMT in various contexts. She has edited two issues of the Practitioners of VMT Journal and is currently co-editing a new book about VMT with Anne Brownell and Deirdre Brownell. 

Gina offers all her services in person and online.

Melanie Harrold, VMTR, began singing in the early 1970s and worked as a professional singer/songwriter and in musical theatre for twenty years, recording and touring the world. 

She qualified with Paul Newham, founder of VMT, in the early nineties and assisted him on his additional trainings while taking further introductory courses in Existential Psychology and Jungian Analysis. In 2002 she received a Post Graduate Diploma in Body Psychotherapy. 

She has been a guest teacher on the Voice Movement Therapy trainings led by Anne Brownell and Christine Isherwood in the USA, and has co-led post-VMT Training workshops with Anne Brownell. 

Over these last decades she has been developing her work: The Singing Body– bringing our voices home, rooting creative and therapeutic transformation in movement, breath and song. She has been creating communities of singers as well as seeing individual clients and voice students. 

In 2015 she returned to her own roots, performing and recording with Daphne’s Flight, a group of female songwriters who are currently releasing their fourth CD together and continuing to tour in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. 

She is currently writing up her research on The Singing Body.