REBECCA ELATIKI

For years, I was taught that my voice had one job:

to be beautiful, to be controlled, and to fit in.

My voice was trained, shaped, refined, and domesticated.

But something in me was starving for an expression beyond "beautiful." 

For me, wailing has been that practice of re-wilding the voice.

The path back to the primal voice I was born with and the

ancestral voice that can never be severed. 

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WHY WAILING?

Throughout cultures all around the world, wailing was once a sacred profession that belonged to women. Wailing women were skilled mourners deeply attuned to the raw, felt experience of life. They were called upon because they knew how to do something essential: transform private anguish into collective sound. Turn the unspeakable into the undeniable. This lineage of wailing women lives closely within many of our bloodlines.

 

From the keeners of Ireland to the threnos rituals of Ancient Greece. From the zaghrouta of the Middle East and North Africa to the lamento tradition of Southern Italy. From la llorona “the weeping woman” of Latin America, the tanadt indigenous Moroccan wailing traditions, and more. This tradition is as old and as common as loss itself. And yet this practice was systematically removed from us. Forbidden, forgotten, and almost lost.  This workshop is a reclamation of that practice. 

 

 

RE-WILDING THE VOICE

​​This workshop was born from my own hunger. Having been trained within the standards of western singing, I was taught that the voice had one job: to be beautiful. To be controlled. To fit in. To stay within the established boundaries of tone, pitch, and acceptability.  So for years, I stayed within those lines. My voice had been trained. Shaped. Domesticated.

And yet something in me was starving. I found myself desiring an expression that was more than just "beautiful." That hunger led me to explore different vocal techniques that eventually led me to wailing. I believe this practice is held in collective memory and lives in the body. I believe it's the path back to the primal voice we were born with and the ancestral voice we can never be severed from.

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Wailing is how we find our way back to the wild nature of our voices. 

 

Together, we’ll explore this vocal tradition and build healthy habits to add more flavors and more truth to your vocal repertoire. 

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What You'll Actually Learn

You'll walk away with somatic and vocal techniques that help you:

• Access Your Voice with More Truth, Freedom, and Creativity — release the tension and self-editing that keeps so many of us quiet

• Breath & Body Foundations to Build Real Vocal Strength

  • Diaphragmatic breathing to support sound without straining your throat

  • Grounding techniques to release tension in the jaw, throat, and chest before you even make a sound

  • Body scanning to notice where you physically hold back your voice​

• Emotional/Somatic Release — techniques to physically discharge stored tension 

  • Practices for locating where emotion lives in the body and giving it a vocal outlet

  • Tools for moving through vulnerability without shutting down or dissociating

• Vocal Range & Expression

  • Techniques to expand your vocal range — moving beyond a "polite" register into deeper, fuller tones

  • Practices for using pitch and volume as emotional expression, not just communication

  • Working with vibrato, growl, or raw texture as intentional tools, not "mistakes"

 

THE DETAILS

Date: August 23rd, 2025 Time: 10:30AM–2PM PST 

Where: Online via Zoom (link sent 1 week before) 

Investment: $50–100 sliding scale | Accessible Tickets Available | No one turned away

What to bring:

• Water and/or tea

• A journal (optional)

• Comfortable clothes

• A private space where you can make sound freely

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No vocal experience needed. Designed for the times.

Held in solidarity with women everywhere ❤️‍🔥

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