VOCAL WILDS
The Art of Embodied Improvisation
About Vocal Wilds
Welcome to Vocal Wilds — a sanctuary for the untamed, instinctual voice.
At Vocal Wilds we offer an invitation to explore 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 Artistic Roots
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. Our work is nourished by wisdom traditions that invite us to listen deeply—to body, breath, instinct, and the more-than-human world.
Collectively we draw from the living field of vocal improvisation—shaped by the influence of Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon, and their extended musical families. We are nurtured as well by the community singing movement; the devotional soundstreams of Bhakti and Kirtan; a cappella ensembles; jazz traditions; classical and conservatory-style vocal training; Meredith Monk’s experimental lineages; Music for People; and the spontaneous pulse of drum circles.
As movement practitioners, we draw from improvisational forms that return us to the wisdom of the body—ecstatic dance, authentic movement, and contact improvisation.
As facilitators, our work is rooted in adventure-based experiential education and supported by the trauma-informed sciences of group development, somatic attachment, polyvagal theory, and nervous system regulation.
We honor the artists, mentors, guides, and companions who have shaped this path: the improvisers who showed us how song can rise from silence; the movement teachers who taught us to trust the body’s intelligence; the communities that welcomed us into collective practice; and the natural landscapes that continue to teach us rhythm, resonance, and belonging.
Why Vocal Improvisation?
When we sing improvisationally, 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 improvisationally 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 builds 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.
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
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.
More about her healing arts and expressive arts work can be found on our page Our (Vocal Wilds) Collective.
Irene Soléa Antonellis
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.
More about her healing arts and expressive arts work can be found on our page about Our (Vocal Wilds) Collective.