the
melting
pot of me
WOOHOO! Hello gorgeous.
Strap in for a story…
My life can be broken up into three parts:
1. My Music Theatre dream
2. Surprise Detour into Motherhood
3. What the heck do I do with my passion now?
Part 1.
My performing career was bright and exciting.
Ever since I could talk, I could sing. I wanted to be a singer when I grew up, and I would confidently tell that to anyone who asked! For as long as I can remember I've sung and danced my way through life.
Fast forward many years and I earned my degree in Music Theatre at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).
I spent the next 10 years working professionally in major musicals all over Australia and Asia, and officially was 'living my dream'. It was all I had ever wanted to do. I couldn’t imagine a life without performing.
(If you're looking me up, you won't find me under my current name - back then I was Allyce Martins ;)
I got to do WONDERFUL things like learn how to be a puppeteer (Chats and Jup Jup from Hi-5 are my party trick + claim to fame!)
Perform incredible national and international shows like Wicked, Les Miserables and My Fair Lady, and even audition for and be directed by Julie Andrews!
It was on these stages that I learnt resilience, dedication, respect, and self-motivation. I don’t know how anyone gets through audition after audition without those traits!
I also suffered with a shit tonne of anxiety, an eating disorder, and I got married and divorced all during that time.
It was my rich and vibrant 20’s. It was the breeding ground for me to truly discover who I was, what I wanted, and whether or not I was actually prepared to choose myself and back myself through it all.
I got lost constantly - in another, in my work, in my body, in perfection and in love.
And by the time I got to 30, I had vowed to never lose myself so deeply again.
Part 2.
Even though music theatre was all I had ever worked towards since I was a child, there always another side of me. One that I wasn’t quite sure where to place… how it ‘fit in’.
The side of me that as a child spoke to angels and put spheres of light around our home to protect it without anyone teaching me how to.
The side of me that sat before her altar and journalled and prayed while everyone else went to parties and got drunk.
The side of me that could hear the trees whispering to her, and a song in the wind.
That side tried to find a home, a place to belong all throughout my 20’s - on the side of performing I became a yoga teacher, a theta healing practitioner, a blogger, a raw food advocate, and a womb healing practitioner… and eventually found out that though they were all ON the way, none of them were ‘the way’.
I always felt like there was the performer Allyce, and the spiritual Allyce, and although I never hid from anyone my beliefs or values and was very open about both sides of me… I was never quite sure how to blend or make them meet.
ENTER MOTHERHOOD.
Our daughter flew into my womb while on a Magdalene pilgrimage of sorts through Europe.
She wasn’t ‘planned’ but I know EXACTLY when I conceived her. It was under a painting of a red rose, while the venom medicine of wasp stings (LITERALLY) flowed through my body.
She was conceived in passion and firey fury, and the day after as we walked through Montsegur I cried hot flowing tears as I saw past lifetimes where I had given my life and my daughters for this land.
There was nothing accidental about how and when she came through, so as much as it shook me… I knew she was the path.
All of a sudden I found myself leaving my career, moving to the other side of the country, and weaving a life away from everything I thought my life would be.
We had a wild pregnancy and birth in the living room of our home, with just my Mum and partner, Mario present.
Looking back, I am astounded by the trust and innocence I had in my body, my baby, and birth without ever having witnessed it before.
I felt lost in those first few months, as so many new mamas do - without my friends, my work, my community, my goals and dreams.
Slowly over time, this little love of mine brought music and my voice back to life. I sang to her constantly - every naptime filled with lullaby after lullaby. I used it as a way to keep practicing, keep making music even though I felt so untethered.
And as she grew, I grew. And I started exploring what the heck I wanted to do with my passion, my gifts, my talents now that I was a mother.
I knew I couldn’t go back to my life before - that meant moving away from my family again, travelling, and spending more time away from my daughter at work than felt right for me.
She changed EVERYTHING about me.
But I knew that just as much as I loved her… I loved sharing song + music. I had to find a way to share that love with people in a new way. I had to keep creating, and connecting with others through those creations.
Yes I am made to sing.
But I am also made to be heard.
Part 3.
I still sometimes long for my former performing life.
I miss the stage, I miss the fullness of the orchestra, I miss working as a team to tell a story.
But this is my path, just as much as performing was.
I was born to teach and lead.
I've spent my life studying how we make sound, how we move, why we do, and what motivates us.
I’ve taught singing since I was 18 years old, and treated every voice lesson I had with my own teachers as GOLD - soaking up every morsel they had to offer. I’ve always loved knowing HOW + WHY we express the way we do!
You see, I spent my entire performing career trying to make my voice ‘fit in’ with casting briefs.
To make a ‘perfect’ sound, to get it just the way the director wanted.
I placed all the power in others hands. They determined whether my voice was ‘right’ for the role.
Whether my look was right. Whether I was good enough.
I spent my days working on morphing and chameleon-ing my voice to get it perfect IN OTHERS EYES.
I can’t ever remember feeling like my voice was enough - just as it was.
The free and easeful sound that I intuitively KNEW existed within me was always JUST OUT OF REACH.
I was forever chasing a runaway train of the perfect sound.
It took me leaving the performing arts industry that I loved so much, and walking the tightrope of motherhood to access and embrace my true, full, authentic voice.
To find what I truly sounded like when I was singing only for myself, out of pure devotion, without the pull to please anyone else.
And so… the basis of my spaces is most definitely NOT technical perfection.
I’m so grateful for my technical background and I still get a kick out of challenging myself to learn new, more efficient, and freeing ways to sing. I love practising over and over again to achieve something masterful.
But it’s like the fun cherry on the top.
My focus is always primarily on somatics and how you FEEL as you sing.
Because that’s what it’s always been for me.
I sang, because it felt DIVINE.
Because there was nothing else I’d rather be doing.
Nothing else I wanted more.
Nothing else that felt like HOME for me.
In my 20’s I looked everywhere outside of myself to find that ‘love of singing’ again.
I found it in the orchestra swells, the magnificent 8 part harmonies, the sound of a group of people’s voices rising and falling in unison.
I found it in being a PART of something greater than me. Which was such a gift.
But I couldn’t find it on my own.
Because I was still so tied up in making my voice be what I thought OTHERS wanted it to be.
I’m grateful to finally begin to glimpse the true potential and shimmer of my voice, and the freedom in exploring it without outside parameters. I’m pretty sure she still has so much more to reveal to me, and in many ways, I’m only just beginning to uncover her full brilliance and magnificence.
But I’m happy to spend my life peeling back her layers, because a life well sung is a life well lived :)
And so for you my love…
