VOCAL WILDS
The Art of Embodied Improvisation
About Vocal Wilds
Vocal Wilds is a living field of improvisational singing, embodied voicework, and communal creativity. We gather to explore the voice as instinct, as lineage, as medicine, and as a pathway back into connection—with ourselves, with each other, and with the more-than-human world. Rooted in presence, play, and reverence, Vocal Wilds invites people to rediscover the wild intelligence of their creative expression and to co-create music that is alive, spontaneous, and deeply relational.
Our Mission
Our mission is to create spaces where people can return to the wild intelligence of their voices through improvisational singing, embodied presence, and communal practice. We guide circles where deep listening, imagination, and relational attunement awaken spontaneous song—and where creativity becomes a pathway to healing, belonging and liberation.
Our Vision
Our vision is a world where the human voice is reclaimed as birthright, medicine, and communal art. We envision communities gathering to sing without fear, without judgment, and without pressure to perform—creating living fields of connection that strengthen resilience, inspire creativity, and restore a sense of shared humanity. Vocal Wilds imagines a culture where improvisation invites us out of self-protection and into shared creative freedom—where ceremony and play coexist, and where collective song becomes a doorway back into wholeness and wonder.
Our Lineage
The Vocal Wilds collective emerged from a rich tapestry of practices, teachers, and collaborations that have shaped our understanding of the voice as a living, relational intelligence. It is nourished by the wisdom traditions that invite us to listen deeply—to body, breath, instinct, and the more-than-human world.
Our work is rooted in the lineages of vocal improvisation seeded by Bobby McFerrin and Rhiannon, the community singing movement, the Bhakti practice of Kirtan chanting, Hatha yoga, ecstatic dance, authentic movement, contact improvisation, partner yoga, Thai yoga massage, adventure based experiential education, and the trauma informed science of somatic attachment and nervous system regulation.
We honor the artists, mentors, guides, and companions who have influenced this path: the improvisers who showed us how song can arise from silence; the movement teachers who taught us to trust the body’s truth; the communities that welcomed us into collective practice; and the natural landscapes that continue to shape our sense of rhythm, resonance, and belonging.
Why VOCAL Improvisation
We sing improvisationally because the living moment is where truth reveals itself.
Improvisation calls us out of habit and into presence—into the body, into breath, into connection with what is actually happening right now. When we sing without scripts or expectations, we meet ourselves more honestly. We hear the subtle shifts of the nervous system, the quiet impulses of the heart, the instincts that are usually buried beneath performance and perfection.
Improvisational singing invites us to risk, to soften, to trust.
It asks us to listen deeply—to ourselves, to one another, and to the space between us. In this listening, we discover that music isn’t something we make alone. It arises relationally. It emerges from attunement, curiosity, and the courage to follow a sound we don’t yet understand.
We sing this way because it frees the voice.
It makes space for the timid, the wobbly, the bold, the brave, the unexpected. It allows the voice to roam, to wander, to remember itself as something wild and wise. Over time, improvisation becomes a practice of liberation—a way of breaking out of old patterns and stepping into creative possibility.
And we sing improvisationally because it creates community.
When people dare to sound together without a map, something ancient wakes up. Trust deepens. Belonging becomes embodied. A collective
song forms that no single person could have created alone.
Improvisation is our way home—back to voice, back to presence, back to the wild intelligence that lives inside us all.
We Believe
We believe the human voice carries ancient wisdom—of communion, of lineage, and of the wild intelligence woven through the natural world. The voice is instinctual. Emotional. Ancestral. It tells the truth the body remembers.
We believe singing is a birthright—an embodied, communal practice that reconnects us to ourselves and to each other. Not performance. Not product. But practice: presence, breath, curiosity, and courage.
We believe improvisation is a doorway into deeper listening. When we sound without scripts, rules, or expectations, something sacred stirs. A field opens. A place where creativity moves freely, where bodies soften, and where belonging becomes palpable.
We believe creative practice is medicine. Song regulates the nervous system. Song awakens play. Song reveals what has been held too tightly, and invites it into motion.
We believe community is needed now more than ever. When we gather to breathe, to sound, to witness one another with tenderness and respect, we remember ourselves as part of something larger—living, interwoven, resilient.
We believe the wild, spontaneous voice is a teacher. It shows us where we’re open, where we’re guarded, where we’re longing, and where we’re ready to grow. It reconnects us to instinct, to imagination, and to the creative life-force that moves through all things.
We believe song can bring people back into wholeness. Raw. Imperfect. Alive. The voice is a bridge—between inner and outer worlds, between self and community, between the known and the mysterious.
We believe singing is a birthright—an embodied, communal practice that reconnects us to ourselves and to each other. Singing is instinctual, emotional, ancestral. It carries what the body remembers and what the lineage knows.
What happens in Vocal Wilds Spaces
At Vocal Wilds gatherings, we slow down enough to hear what is true. We arrive in circle, breathe together, and let the body guide us into presence. We improvise—gently at first, then with growing trust—as we listen for the threads of sound that want to emerge. We explore rhythm, harmony, stillness, and play. We experiment. We take risks. We attune to one another through breath, movement, and voice, discovering how music forms when no one is leading and everyone is listening. Some moments are soft and devotional; others are wild, textured, and full of delight. In every gathering, we weave a field where the nervous system can settle, creativity can unfold, and belonging becomes something we feel in our bones. These spaces are ceremonial, relational, and alive—each one shaped uniquely by the people who enter and the songs that choose to come through us.
Meet the Founders of Vocal Wilds
TatiAnah Thunberg, LMSW (she/hers) is somatic psychotherapist, vocalist, expressive and improvisational artist, and a seasoned experiential facilitator with more than thirty years of experience guiding transformative group spaces. Her work centers the voice as a path to belonging—an embodied, relational practice rooted in presence, creativity, and communal care.
TatiAnah brings a trauma-informed, neurodivergent-aware lens, an attuned facilitation style, and a joyfully improvisational spirit to every space she leads—inviting participants to soften protective patterns, take creative risks, and experience the profound belonging that emerges when voices rise together.
She grew up singing in choirs, where early experiences of harmony and shared focus sparked a lifelong devotion to collective song. Performance never called to her as deeply as singing together—and in the 1990s, ceremonial community singing revealed her true home. There, she discovered song not as a showcase, but as communion, presence, and devotion.
Over the past fifteen years, through her creative and healing arts practices, she has woven together experiential education, community singing, Kirtan chanting, ecstatic dance, authentic movement, contact improvisation, Hatha yoga, partner yoga, Thai yoga massage, and the science of nervous system regulation and somatic attachment. These lineages have shaped her understanding of the singing as a practice of presence and relational intelligence.
Collaboration is central to TatiAnah’s artistry. She has woven a wide web of song kin through creative partnerships co-leading song circles, jams, workshops, classes, and retreats with beloved artists including Trevor Eller, Miriam Dowd Eller, Don Allen, Jeremy Fulwiler, Abby Alwin, Mary Fithian, Julie Kouyaté, Asia Sikkila, Robert Chester, Lyndsey Scott, Beth Patterson, Kath Weider, Carol Bardenstein, Dory Mead and Irene Soléa Antonellis.
TatiAnah continues to explore the art of voice and vocal improvisation through ongoing study with Dede Alder, Aime Debrone and will begin Rhiannon's immersive vocal improv program, All the Way In, in 2026, under the direction of Cara Trezise.
More about her healing arts and expressive arts work can be found on our page about our Vocal Wilds Collective and on TatiAnah's website Spirit Moves:
Tatianah
Thunberg
Irene Soléa Antonellis, MA, LPC, LMHC, CIRT (she/hers) is a music therapist, psychotherapist, life coach, vocalist, and recording artist with a lifelong career in the healing and expressive arts. She holds an M.A. in Counseling Psychology and Music Therapy from Lesley University and has led contemplative music concerts, workshops and retreats throughout the U.S. and in South America, Europe, and Asia. Nine years ago, she planted roots in Ann Arbor, MI, where she now lives with her husband and two daughters.
Irene draws musical inspiration from sacred sounds around the world and Latin folk music traditions. With a musical inheritance that includes Peruvian folk and huayno (her grandfather was Peruvian composer Manuel León), Irene blends musical traditions, the old and the new, and is known for her directness, equanimity, warmth, and humor.
Early in her career, she found a home in the vibrant a cappella communities of the Northeast, where she directed university and semi-professional vocal ensembles, toured with a cappella sextet 6Appeal, and quietly earned a few Best of Collegiate A Cappella (BOCA) nods while serving as adjunct faculty at Suffolk University. Her first solo LP, Beloved, was featured in Yoga Journal, Yoga Chicago, and on stages and studios from the Kripalu Center (MA) and Yoga Tree (CA) to the Prague Spirit Festival.
Rooted in her bicultural heritage and a deep belief in the voice as medicine, Irene is devoted to embodied practices that connect us to beauty, wholeness, and aliveness. In her private practice, one of her specialties includes working with musicians and creatives to heal trauma, build and maintain deep emotional health and groundedness, experience expressive flow, and navigate the unique challenges of liberated, nontraditional career paths. Her approach blends talk therapy with somatic modalities including Music Therapy, Brainspotting, and Parts Work, offering a dynamic and deeply grounded path to healing and self-discovery.
More about her healing arts and expressive arts work can be found on our page about our Vocal Wilds Collective and on Irene's website: