Past

The Musical Body has grown through more than two decades (since before 2003) of artistic practice, facilitation, study, collaboration, experimentation and community - with roots reaching further back into childhood experiences of singing, moving, making up sounds, listening and spending time in relationship with the natural world.

This is an evolving history of some of the experiences, people, practices and projects that have shaped Charlotte Roberts and the development of The Musical Body.

1990s — Early roots

As a child, Charlotte spent time with a favourite tree on Wurundjeri Country in Newham, in the Macedon Ranges — listening, singing, playing with sound and developing an early relationship between voice, imagination, place and the living environment.

Making up songs, mimicking animals and creatures, experimenting with language and sound, moving and expressing feelings through singing were all part of her early musical life.

Around age 14 — An early seed of collaborative vocal music-making

As a teenager singing in a choir, Charlotte took part in a workshop with musician Mal Webb, who taught the group one of his songs — remembered as Water Bear — by dividing the choir into different vocal parts and incorporating beatboxing and vocal rhythm.

The experience stayed with her. Charlotte began experimenting with the underlying idea of building music through layered voices and rhythms, and later adapted this into more improvisational and collaborative forms of song-making.

From 2003 onwards, she brought these ideas into youth camps and other groups she facilitated — inviting people to invent vocal and rhythmic parts, improvise, layer sounds and build songs together in the moment.

Years later, Charlotte encountered established practices such as circle singing and collective vocal improvisation and recognised connections with something she had already been exploring intuitively through her own facilitation.

2001 — Camps, community and experiential learning

As a teenager, Charlotte attended Discovery for Teens, an experiential camp that profoundly shaped her sense of what living, learning and creating together in a group could make possible.

She left wanting to create and facilitate camps as part of her life's work and contribution to community.

The culture of immersive group experiences — shared life, play, creativity, responsibility, relationship, reflection and learning through experience — would later become an important foundation for The Musical Body camps.

2003 — The beginnings of The Musical Body - Charlotte- the ‘Creative Midwife’

Charlotte began facilitating movement, singing, sound improvisation, collaborative song-making and creative play within youth camps.

Drawing on her own experiences of singing, movement and improvisation, she experimented with helping groups invent vocal and rhythmic parts, build songs together, play with sound and language, and move between music, movement and spontaneous group play.

Some of these early explorations were gathered under the playful name PlanetSOL — Sing/Smile Out Loud.

This marks the beginning of the body of facilitation and artistic practice that would gradually develop into The Musical Body.

2003–2009 — Experiential education, movement, play and Dance Therapy

Charlotte spent periods in Costa Rica, Peru and Chile, volunteering, facilitating groups and exploring experiential approaches to movement, dance, music, play and community.

These experiences deepened her interest in the ways singing, dancing, touch, play, creativity and shared group life can create connection — and in forms of learning that happen through bodies, relationships and direct experience rather than only through instruction.

Back in Australia, Charlotte continued studying experiential and nature-based education and completed studies in Dance Therapy, alongside developing her own approaches to creative movement, singing, drumming, vocal play and collaborative songwriting.

2006 — Experiential and nature-based education

Charlotte formally studied Primary and Outdoor Education- specialising in Experiential Education and Nature Education, with particular interests in body-based music, drumming, creative movement, creative singing, vocal play and collaborative songwriting in camp contexts.

She brought these practices into camps and leadership programs, continuing to explore how music, creativity, relationship, play, group life and experiential learning could inhabit the same space.

2006–2017 — Teaching, music and group facilitation

Alongside developing The Musical Body, Charlotte worked extensively across music, movement, outdoor and experiential education, schools, camps and community settings.

She worked as a primary and music teacher, CRT, camp and outdoor educator, and before- and after-school educator, while facilitating drumming, movement, creative singing, vocal play and collaborative songwriting.

Charlotte led The Musical Body and Embodying Voice groups in the Nillumbik area and at spaces including Cecil Street Studio, Dancehouse and Abbotsford Convent, as well as from home, including ongoing eight-to-ten-week series.

During these years she also studied African drumming and played dunduns for teachers, further developing rhythm and ensemble music-making as part of her practice.

Estill Voice Training — workshops and private study (2010–2015)

2009 — Dance Therapy, Body Work and teaching

Charlotte completed Dance Therapy studies in Australia, further developing her interest in the relationships between movement, expression, creativity, lived experience and group process.

She also did a number of body work weekend workshops with a few different modalities and became registered as a primary school teacher with the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT).

2009–2021 — Alice Cummins, Body-Mind Centering and developmental movement

Charlotte began an intensive and long-term period of study with Alice Cummins, participating in week-long Body-Mind Centering immersions and private sessions across more than a decade.

This sustained engagement with Body-Mind Centering, developmental movement and embodied anatomy became an important influence on The Musical Body and on Charlotte's continuing questions about the relationships between sensation, developmental movement, breath, voice, sound, language and musicality.

Her embodied studies during this broader period also included WaterDance and Watsu 1, alongside other body-based practices.

2010 — Tamalpa Life/Art Process

Charlotte completed Levels 1 and 2 of the Tamalpa Life/Art Process, deepening her exploration of relationships between movement, imagination, drawing, writing, lived experience, performance and artistic expression.

She subsequently became a certified Tamalpa Life/Art Practitioner®.

2010–present — Peer practice and communities of practice

Alongside formal training and facilitation, Charlotte has continually participated in, initiated and hosted peer-practice groups and communities of practice.

These have included movement-based practice, embodied and vocal improvisation, collaborative artistic practice, TaKeTiNa practice groups, Peer-Practice retreats in her home over a number of days, companion practice and spaces where artists and facilitators can continue experimenting and learning alongside one another over time.

This sustained culture of peer practice has become an important part of the development of The Musical Body. Practices are not simply learnt and then taught, but repeatedly explored, adapted, questioned and transformed through experience and relationship.

Over time, this has also informed an increasingly responsive approach to facilitation and score-making within The Musical Body. Rather than only working with predetermined scores, participants are supported to create and develop their own scores in response to their artistic wishes and intentions, what is emerging between people, and the changing life of the group itself.

2011 — Embodied Voice, residential immersions and The Singing Shack

Charlotte began facilitating regular Embodied Voice and Embodied Voice & Rhythm classes and longer-form immersions in Melbourne and Newham, including two-to-three-hour weekly sessions over eight-week series and four-to-five-day residential experiences.

The Singing Shack in the Macedon Ranges became an ongoing home for The Musical Body — a place for workshops, camps and immersions, improvisation, artistic experimentation and collaborative practice.

2011–2019 — Improvisational performance and collaboration

Charlotte collaborated extensively with Hilde Knottenbelt as a vocal improvisational duo, often improvising in relationship with dancers, movement artists and spoken-word improvisers.

These collaborations included FourNow Ensemble (alongside Hilde, Ingrid Baring and Rose Fayman), and a trio with Hilde Knottenbelt and musician Ernie Gruner, and other interdisciplinary improvisational performances.

This period formed an important part of Charlotte's development not only as a facilitator but as an improvising vocal artist working responsively with other bodies, voices, instruments and artistic forms.

c. 2013 — Dr. Lala Lulu and Melbourne Fringe

Alongside her developing facilitation and improvisation practice, Charlotte created and performed Dr. Lala Lulu Is Coming Out, an experimental autobiographical-ish music and performance work for Melbourne Fringe.

The work brought together audience circle-singing and collectively improvised songs, composed songs, storytelling, character and alter egos, animal and extended vocal sounds, physical performance, nudity, humour and deliberately unruly theatrical material — including peeing in a bucket on stage, a creative decision that makes somewhat less sense to Charlotte in 2026 than it apparently did at the time.

Personal stories around finding voice, identity and developing patience sat alongside characters including a misogynistic reggaeton star, while audience members' own experiences could become material for improvised songs. These included a spontaneous song responding to one audience member's arachnophobia and another celebrating someone completing a significant period of study.

The work moved freely between life and performance, raw sound and musical form, composition and improvisation, performer and audience — with what emerged in the room becoming part of the work itself.

This period was part of Charlotte's ongoing exploration of what happens when vocal and musical material moves beyond conventional song into theatricality, extended voice, spontaneous composition, character and play — territories that would continue to develop within The Musical Body.

2011–2023 — Touring and teaching

Charlotte toured regularly throughout Victoria and New South Wales, facilitating improvised singing, Embodied Voice & Rhythm and The Musical Body workshops and immersions, including work in Bermagui, Mittagong, Fremantle, Sydney and other regional communities.

2013–present — Creative Voice

Charlotte began regularly participating in Creative Voice with Hilde Knottenbelt, including participation in an advanced/practitioners group.

Creative Voice's relationships between vocal improvisation, embodied expression, psychodrama, group process and spontaneous artistic creation became an important lineage and continuing conversation within Charlotte's own practice.

2013 & 2017 — All The Way In with Rhiannon

Charlotte undertook year-long All The Way In studies with vocal improviser Rhiannon in the United States and Europe, alongside a peer gathering of All The Way In students/practitioners in Portugal.

These sustained immersions deepened Charlotte's engagement with collaborative vocal improvisation, spontaneous composition, ensemble listening and the possibilities of making complex music together in the moment.

They also gave further language and context to forms of improvised and collaboratively layered vocal music-making Charlotte had been experimenting with in groups since the early 2000s.

2017 — Building Australian vocal improvisation community

During Rhiannon's visit to Australia, Charlotte assisted with aspects of her Melbourne and Macedon Ranges visit.

Charlotte also established an Australian Vocal Improvisation Community Facebook group and WhatsApp network, beginning a longer-term project of strengthening connection, visibility, peer practice and collaboration between vocal improvisation artists, facilitators and related practitioners across Australia.

2017–2021 — Further body–voice study

Charlotte continued her embodied and vocal studies through a number of intensive experiences with body–voice practitioners including Jonathan Hart-Makwaia, Amit Carmeli and Jorge Parente.

These encounters sat alongside her continuing studies and practice in movement, improvisation, developmental embodiment and relational voice.

Alongside her ongoing practice, Charlotte explored Action Theater with Danielle Cresp and Middendorf breath work with John Howard, including through peer practice, and continued practising and exchanging with Susan Bamford Caleo and John Howard into 2023 and beyond

2018 — ISMETA and Stay in Your Power

Charlotte became registered with ISMETA as a Somatic Movement Educator/Therapist.

She also released her second album, Stay in Your Power, continuing the parallel development of her practice as a vocalist, songwriter/composer and recording artist.

2018–19 — United Women’s Voices

Charlotte received support through a Creative Victoria VicArts grant for United Women’s Voices, a collaborative vocal project bringing women together from Asylum Seeker and Refugee backgrounds at Brunswick Uniting Church through voice, singing and collective music-making.

The project continued Charlotte’s exploration of individual and collective voice - creating space for different voices and experiences to be heard while exploring the possibilities of singing and creating together both in person and in an online capacity.

2019 — Musical Body immersions and songs for individuals

Charlotte continued offering Musical Body workshops, retreats and immersive experiences in Melbourne and at The Singing Shack.

During this period she also offered Songs in Time and Mantramations — improvised and personalised songs created for individual people.

c. 2019 — Vocal Digs and Sounds From PlanetSOL at La Mama Theatre

Sounds From PlanetSOL explored another strand of Charlotte's developing body–voice–music practice through a highly musical character whose bodily, creature-like and playful vocal sounds became the starting point for collaborative music-making.

Rather than separating unusual or bodily sounds from music, the performance explored how these sounds could gradually transform into rhythm, melody, song and other musical forms — and then move back out of musical organisation again.

The audience became active collaborators in this process, helping sounds develop, repeat, layer and transform until music emerged collectively from the material of the character's body and voice.

The work was an early performance exploration of a question that has continued through The Musical Body: what becomes possible when we become increasingly fluent in moving between raw, bodily and experimental sound and more organised musical form?

Charlotte developed and performed Vocal Digs, a solo performance work created with director Danielle Cresp and presented for a full season at La Mama Theatre, exploring improvised voice, music, movement and interdisciplinary performance.

The season became an important artistic laboratory — and a way for Charlotte to move directly through her own terror of performing. Rather than needing to know exactly what would happen, she explored the vulnerability and exhilaration of beginning with very little and discovering the work in front of an audience.

Scores and structures could emerge, be inhabited, disrupted and transformed according to what was alive on a particular night — Charlotte's feelings and preoccupations, encounters with the audience, or themes that unexpectedly took hold. Liberation became a particularly persistent one, resulting in a surprising number of songs across the season.

Part of the work was also about opening up the perceived mystery of creativity. Charlotte would share discoveries with the audience as they happened: how a handful of notes could become the beginning of a song; how an impulse could be followed rather than dismissed; how music could be made without knowing in advance where it was going. Underneath this was a simple proposition: creativity isn't reserved for a special category of people. We are all creative.

Voice moved between raw sound, language, rhythm, melody, movement, song and theatricality, while the performance itself moved between uncertainty and form, fear and play, not-knowing and discovery.

Vocal Digs became an important exploration of something that continues through Charlotte's practice: what becomes possible when we allow ourselves to begin before we know what we're making, and trust that something can be discovered along the way?

2019–2024 — TaKeTiNa and ongoing peer practice

Charlotte led and participated in regular TaKeTiNa peer-practice gatherings, alongside continuing movement-based companion/community-of-practice groups and vocal improvisation communities of practice, both online and in person.

2020–2022 — Shiatsu

Charlotte undertook studies in Shiatsu, adding another dimension to her ongoing engagement with touch, embodied listening, body awareness and relational practice.

2020–2022 — Place, birds, babies and collaborative composition

During the COVID years, Charlotte immersed herself in listening to and researching birds occurring locally around her home, experimenting with vocal improvisation and composition in response to their sounds and incorporating her findings into ‘Frogs Birds and Babies- The Musical Body’ workshop/laboratories where past-participants (those with some experience with Charlotte) could attend and work within the responsive world of scores relating to local birds and frogs, along with developmental or known cultural movement patterns, sound and language milestones of children. This was an area of research that Charlotte sought funding for through a few funding bodies, between 2017-2022 without success, so it continues to be something she’d like to tap back into at some point!)

Not long after this, Charlotte co-created Murmuring Walk with (now long-term collaborator) Ria Soemardjo and with text-wizardry from Sandra Long— a guided sound walk at Sanatorium Lake on Mount Macedon.

Murmuring Walk brought some of Charlotte’s passion for vocal improvisation in response to bird calls together with place-based listening and the patchwork, place based, found-sounds, non-linear approaches to composition she was exploring with Ria through a grant from Macedon Ranges council, supported by Sandra Long.

Within the In Your Arms (a 1-2.5 years project) at ArtPlay Fed Square, Charlotte also co-created music, vocal and text-based soundscapes with Ria Soemardjo, Rivka Worth and Vanessa Chapple within a shared lived experience and knowledge of Body Mind Centering practices and principles. These were later developed as audio explorations and meditations for parents with pre-crawling babies.

These projects strengthened an ongoing strand within The Musical Body concerned with listening and responding to babies, animals, birds, environment and place — and with the ways these encounters might reorganise human sound and musical imagination.

2021 — TaKeTiNa and Qigong

Charlotte completed her TaKeTiNa Rhythm Process facilitator training, bringing her long relationship with rhythm, pulse, disruption, embodied learning and group process more explicitly into The Musical Body.

Charlotte also completed her Open Sky Qigong teacher qualification, adding another strand to her ongoing embodied practice.

2022 — Touring while pregnant and Incantations

While pregnant with her son, Charlotte undertook an Australian tour, facilitating TaKeTiNa and The Musical Body in Warrnambool, Fremantle, Bermagui and New South Wales.

She also released her third album, Incantations.

2023 — Motherhood and a changing model for longer immersions

After the birth of her son, Charlotte began reimagining how longer Musical Body camps and immersions could be held.

Rather than facilitating every part of a one-to-two-week experience herself, she began developing a model in which aligned guest artists and facilitators — often people connected through shared practices, teachers or artistic lineages — could bring their own work into the larger Musical Body environment.

This allowed Charlotte to balance facilitation with time caring for her son while also opening the camps to a richer ecology of artistic perspectives.

During this period, ideas also developed around longer-form Musical Body immersion and facilitator-development processes.

2025 — Seven-day Musical Body Camps

A new generation of seven-day Musical Body Camps began in the Macedon Ranges, with Chiara Cortez joining as guest facilitator for the first camp.

The longer format brought together embodied voice and movement, vocal and musical improvisation, individual artistic wishes, responsive scores, group process, collaborative creation, shared living, rest and time in the surrounding environment.

January 2026 — Musical Body Camp with Ria Soemardjo

Long-term collaborator Ria Soemardjo joined Charlotte as guest facilitator for a seven-day Musical Body Camp, continuing the evolving model of intimate residential practice in which invited artists bring their own practices into conversation with The Musical Body.

April 2026 — Musical Body Camp with Moe Clark

Moe Clark joined Charlotte as guest facilitator for a seven-day Musical Body Camp, bringing her own artistic practice into dialogue with the group and the evolving Musical Body camp form.

2026–present — A more explicit period of practice-led research

The Musical Body has now been developing for more than twenty years through artistic practice, facilitation, experimentation, training, collaboration and sustained communities of practice.

Charlotte is building on this substantial history through a more explicit and sustained period of practice-led research and documentation.

This includes tracing and engaging more deeply with the many artistic, musical, somatic, developmental and relational lineages that have shaped the work; documenting recurring Musical Body scores, practices and principles; returning to long-held observations and questions through contemporary research; and developing individual, companion and collaborative artistic research processes.

The research asks how body, voice, music and relationship continually shape one another; what becomes possible when improvisers develop greater artistic fluency between raw and organised forms of expression; how relationship itself can become artistic material; and whether capacities practised through improvisation might also become available in the ways we relate and live.

The Musical Body continues to evolve through camps and immersions, 1:1 mentoring, collaborative artistic practice, composition and recording, communities of practice and research laboratories — continuing an inquiry that has been present in different forms since its beginnings:

What becomes possible in the spaces between life and music?