Born and raised in France among a family of musicians, singing and dancing naturally became MayaJoëlle’s primary language. It was the start of her life long fascination with the power of sound, voice, music and dance, as a means to improve the quality of one’s life by experiencing the simple joy of just Being and as a deep way to connect heart to heart, with other fellow humans.
While the freedom of improvisation through voice and movement was natural in MayaJoëlle’s early years, it became deeply reactivated later, in 1990, through her involvment with Music for People. In her own words: “Studying with David Darling was like being back Home to myself. Many of the creative expressions that were a second nature to me as a child turned into techniques and my world of vocal expression and discovery expanded overnight. I met so much more of me, the me that I love to be”.
Her Joy, her mission is to unite people through the common language of sound and movement, to assist individuals to free their voices, to discover an expansive, limitless vocabulary of vocal sounds, melodies and rhythms, through their voices, through their bodies, to be fully anchored in the present moment, to let themselves be sung, be danced, embracing life, allowing the breath to become sound, to become the prayer.
Besides teaching vocal improvisation in Asheville, she also loves to gather Kindred Spirits in her native France through “Kindred Voyages” and to sing with them in a 12th century chapel, or a cave, adding the small group’s energy to the history of time that the walls have been holding for centuries and millenniums.
MayaJoëlle feels fully at home now in Asheville, NC. This beautiful town, lying at the foot of the Appalachian mountains, is the perfect place to connect with many dancing and singing playmates.