Pauline Wetherell

Pauline studied singing at the Welsh College of Music and Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music. Career highlights include Buxton Festival Opera, a BBC recital, and creating the role of Eugene Dessenne in A Foreign Field by Eric Wetherell in 2010. As a singer herself, Pauline works to help performers find freedom and expressiveness in their breathing and in themselves as a whole.

She qualified as an Alexander Technique teacher in 1983, having trained with Walter Carrington (who was in turn trained by F.M. Alexander himself). She has been a teacher at the Birmingham Conservatoire since 1995 and has also taught at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

She has extensive experience in private practice — e.g. the NHS Health Centre Imperial College, where she has worked since 1986 as part of a multidisciplinary team of complementary practitioners, and at Holistic Health, a private alternative therapy centre in Hackney, East London.

In 2013 she became Visiting Tutor at the Birmingham School of Acting, teaching students on the MFA (British Acting Tradition) and MA Professional Voice Practice courses.

For performers who are studying for a future teaching career, Pauline has relevant experience helping train teachers of the Alexander Technique. Both Alexander and performing trainings involve non verbal skills conveyed by practical example - skills which mature over time through application and practice. She has worked on Walter Carrington’s training course at the Constructive Teaching Centre and as a visiting teacher at the Aalborg training course in Denmark.

Beyond being an Alexander teacher, Pauline also learns as much as she can about other approaches. There is overlap for instance with the vocal work of Kristin Linklater and with biodynamic craniosacral therapy. In 1993 she completed a one year introductory course in group psychotherapy at the Institute for Group Analysis in London. She has attended several of Peter Levine's workshops on somatic experiencing, and practices meditation and mindfulness on an ongoing basis.

By extending her range of skills in this way, Pauline seeks to position her Alexander work within the broader context of her own self-development and that of her students.