As you would imagine, the life of an actor, musician or dancer isn’t all glamour; late nights, early morning rehearsal calls and often the perpetual concern of where the next job is coming, from can make life quite tiring and occasionally stressful.
Each performer has their own way of dealing with stress to ensure that the job remains enjoyable but I have never encountered an in-company commodity quite like Welsh National Opera’s Helen Greenaway and her skills in reiki.
Channelling energy helps to relax a performer
Reiki is a form of spiritual healing – originating in Japan – whereby the practitioner channels energy to assist with a number of complaints – pain, illness, stress for example – helping to rebalance body, mind and spirit.
Helen has been a member of the Welsh National Opera since the early 90’s and has been practicing reiki for the past couple of years. Although reiki can sometimes help people trained in diagnosis to discover problems, Helen uses it purely for relaxation, and has used her techniques on the cast, wigs department, costume department, crew and even admin staff.
When I heard about Helen’s ‘magical powers’ I just had to find out more so she invited me into her dressing room to demonstrate. Her husband, Jasey Hall, who’s also part of the WNO was our willing participant.
“It’s a particularly useful skill to have while on tour as touring can deplete you of energy and reiki helps to re-energise you in terms of health and keeping you emotionally balanced” she explained to me as Jasey lay down on the dressing table.
“It isn’t something I push on people, but if there is a situation where I think it may help, I do offer it.”
Helen took hold of Jasey’s ankles and held them for a long time. This, Helen explained, was grounding; creating a feeling of energy going from Jasey’s head to his feet. Next, she held both hands over each the 7 chakras – energy centres – which allowed her to feel the energy flowing consistently through each of them.
Whilst Jasey looked to me to be fast asleep, I wondered how hazardous it was to be relaxing performers so much before they go on stage. Helen explained that the practitioner makes their own atmosphere when working with energy which affects the degree of relaxation attained.
Helen performs reiki on her husband Jasey
“You can (use) music for deep relaxation, but in a working environment, it’s normally best just to do a bit of relaxation.”
However, Helen did tell me about a time when she brought some music in to relax a performer before a show. They were in a dressing room whilst the other ladies were getting ready but as she was carrying out the reiki, everyone in the room was getting more and more relaxed until suddenly they realized they had just few minutes to get on stage. Helen said they just had enough time to bring themselves back up again quickly and make it on stage!
Helen managed to perform reiki in one of our dressing rooms, with members of the orchestra practicing nearby and sounds from the stage coming through over the speakers. But still, the room felt very calm and quiet, even though I wasn’t actually involved in the process at all.
When she was done, Helen ‘grounded’ Jasey once more by holding his ankles and then asked him to sit up slowly. I asked him how he felt;
“Very spaced out, but very good!”
I quite fancy a bit of reiki on my lunch break – e-marketing and website admin is very stressful you understand – perhaps I could suggest to our Chief Exec that we incorporate it into our healthy working environment policy?! Or perhaps I’ll just settle for a sandwich, overlooking Royal Parade.
Backstage at the Theatre Royal Plymouth 