In this episode my guest Mathilde Porges Shisko, she is a polyvagal informed voice and performance coach that brings light to a part of our body that we talk very little about: our voice, and reveals the role our voice can play in further expanding our wellbeing and sense of safety. Get ready to be inspired!
About the Guest
For more than 25 years Mathilde has been a leading voice, performance and speaking coach in Canada. Integrating Dr Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory and Michael Allison’s unique application of it, The Play Zone, Mathilde combines science, art, mindfulness and play, to help her clients realize their full vocal potential. She believes “when our voices are truly connected to our intention, our voice is clear, impactful and potent.”
Mathilde started her acting career at a young age, attending Australia’s premier acting school, NIDA. She continues to work in Theatre, Film and Television as an actor and as an instructor in the craft at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and is the outgoing voice and acting coach at the Vancouver Film School where she was on faculty for 20 years.
Alongside her personal coaching business, My Voice Coach, where she coaches “anyone who needs to be heard,” Mathilde has been the lead voice coach for the NDP Government in British Columbia, Canada since 2008, working with Premiers, Members of the Legislative Assembly and the House of Commons. She is a TEDx Speaker Coach, voice and speech coach for McIlroy and Associates and Industry, guest public speaking instructor at the Centre for Digital Media, SFU.
Mathilde has been working alongside Michael Allison at the Polyvagal Institute since 2022 in his course Play Zone Pro and is a Pod leader for PVI’s flagship Certificate Course. She is a regular contributor to the Institute through her educational video series Voice on Vagus and hosts monthly online Community Conversations with Allison at PVI. In April 2023, she co facilitated PVI’s first of it’s kind Live Jam Retreat with Allison in Santa Barbara, leading embodied neural exercises in breath, voice and movement to find your Play Zone for performance. In September 2023 she was a guest speaker at The Master Series in Oxford, Europe’s largest Trauma and Mental Health Conference and The Polyvagal Institute’s Legacy Talks with Dr Porges and Deb Dana in Florida in November 2023.
She believes that VOICE truly is our natural resource for finding safety, connection and belonging. This has become her life’s work.