Somatic Voices in Performance Research and Beyond brings together a community of international practitioner-researchers who explore voice through soma or soma through voice. Somatic methodologies offer research processes within a new area of vocal, somatic and performance praxis. Voice work and theoretical ideas emerge from dance, acting and performance training while they also move beyond commonly recognized somatics and performance processes. From philosophies and pedagogies to ethnic-racial and queer studies, this collection advances embodied aspects of voices, the multidisciplinary potentialities of somatic studies, vocal diversity and inclusion, somatic modes of sounding, listening and writing voice. Methodologies that can be found in this collection draw on: eastern traditions body psychotherapy-somatic psychology Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method Authentic Movement, Body-Mind Centering, Continuum Movement, Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy Fitzmaurice Voicework, Linklater Technique, Roy Hart Method post-Stanislavski and post-Grotowski actor-training traditions somaesthetics The volume also includes contributions by the founders of: Shin Somatics, Body and Earth, Voice Movement Integration SOMart, Somatic Acting Process This book is a polyphonic and multimodal compilation of experiential invitations to each reader’s own somatic voice. It culminates with the "voices" of contributing participants to a praxical symposium at East 15 Acting School in London (July 19–20, 2019). It fills a significant gap for scholars in the fields of voice studies, theatre studies, somatic studies, artistic research and pedagogy. It is also a vital read for graduate students, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers.

Voice Studies brings together leading international scholars and practitioners, to re-examine what voice is, what voice does, and what we mean by "voice studies" in the process and experience of performance. This dynamic and interdisciplinary publication draws on a broad range of approaches, from composing and voice teaching through to psychoanalysis and philosophy, including: voice training from the Alexander Technique to practice-as-research; operatic and extended voices in early baroque and contemporary underwater singing; voices across cultures, from site-specific choral performance in Kentish mines and Australian sound art, to the laments of Kraho Indians, Korean pansori and Javanese wayang; voice, embodiment and gender in Robertson’s 1798 production of Phantasmagoria, Cathy Berberian radio show, and Romeo Castellucci’s theatre; perceiving voice as a composer, listener, or as eavesdropper; voice, technology and mobile apps. With contributions spanning six continents, the volume considers the processes of teaching or writing for voice, the performance of voice in theatre, live art, music, and on recordings, and the experience of voice in acoustic perception and research. It concludes with a multifaceted series of short provocations that simply revisit the core question of the whole volume: what is voice studies?

How can actors bridge the gap between themselves and the text and action of a script, integrating fully their learned vocal skills? How do we make an imaginary world real, create the life of a role, and fully embody it vocally and physically so that voice and acting become one? Christina Gutekunst and John Gillett unite their depth of experience in voice training and acting to create an integrated and comprehensive approach informed by Stanislavski and his successors – the acting approach widely taught to actors in drama schools throughout the world. The authors create a step-by-step guide to explore how voice can: respond to our thoughts, senses, feelings, imagination and will fully express language in content and form communicate imaginary circumstances and human experience transform to adapt to different roles connect to a variety of audiences and spaces Featuring over fifty illustrations by German artist Dany Heck, Voice into Acting is an essential manual for the actor seeking full vocal identity in characterization, and for the voice teacher open to new techniques, or an alternative approach, to harmonize with the actor's process.

Through the presentation of research and an examination of exclusionary conditions, and the ways in which these are being challenged, the editors and authors present an important debate focused upon human rights and practical application of inclusive practices.

Voice as Art considers how artists have used human voices since they became reproducible and entered art discourse in the twentieth century. The discussion embeds artworks using voices within historical and theoretical contexts in a comparative overview arguing that reproduction caused increased creativity moving from acting to creating phonic materials framed by phenomenological deep listening by early video and performance to the plurality and sampling of postmodernism and the multiple angles of contemporary forensic listening. This change is an example of how artistic practice reveals the ideologies of listening. Using a range of examples from Hugo Ball, Martha Rosler, Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Janet Cardiff and Mike Kelley through to contemporary practice by Shilpa Gupta, The Otolith Group and Elizabeth Price, the voice is tracked through modernism and postmodernism to posthumanism in relation to speaking subjects, sculptural objects, documents, dramaturgical utterance, forensic evidence, verbatim techniques and embodied listening. This book gives artists, researchers and art audiences ways to understand how voices exist in between theoretical discourses, and how with their utterances, artists create new dispositions in space by reworking genres to critique cultural form and meaning. This book will be of great interest to students and practitioners of sound art, visual culture and theatre and performance.

Owning Our Voices offers a unique, first-hand account of working within the Wolfsohn-Hart tradition of extended voice work by Margaret Pikes, an acclaimed voice teacher and founder member of the Roy Hart Theatre. This dynamic publication fuses Pikes’ personal account of her own vocal journey as a woman within this, at times, male-dominated tradition, alongside an overview of her particular pedagogical approach to voice work, and is accompanied by digital footage of Pikes at work in the studio with artist-collaborators and written descriptions of scenarios for teaching. For the first time, Margaret Pikes’ uniquely holistic approach to developing the expressive voice through sounding, speech, song and movement has been documented in text and on film, offering readers an introduction to both the philosophy and the practice of Wolfsohn-Hart voice work. Owning Our Voices is a vital book for scholars and students of voice studies and practitioners of vocal performance: it represents a synthesis of a life’s work exploring the expressive potential of the human voice, illuminating an important lineage of vocal training, which remains influential to this day.

Staging Voice is a unique approach to the aesthetics of voice and its staging in performance. This study reflects on what it would mean to take opera’s decisive attribute—voice—as the foundation of its staged performance. The book thinks of staging through the medium of voice. It is a nuances exploration, which brings together scholarly and directorial interpretations, and engages in detail with less frequently performed works of major and influential 20th-century artists—Erik Satie, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill—as well as exposes readers to an innovative experimental work of Evelyn Ficarra and Valerie Whittington. The study is intertwined throughout with the author’s staging of the works accessible online. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in voice studies, opera, music theatre, musicology, directing, performance studies, practice-based research, theatre, visual art, stage design, and cultural studies.

Singing Utopia is an original study of voice in musical theatre. Rather than focusing on how actors sing or analysing voices using established approaches found in opera studies, this book offers readers ways to understand musical theatre voices from a cultural perspective. It argues that musical theatre singing allows listeners and audiences to escape their everyday lives; and that voices can 'be' utopian. It then considers what this means and uncovers some paradoxes and difficulties in this idea. Introducing a new set of terms, it provides a way to listen to, think about, and even perform, voice in popular musical theatre.

How can actors bridge the gap between themselves and the text and action of a script, integrating fully their learned vocal skills? How do we make an imaginary world real, create the life of a role, and fully embody it vocally and physically so that voice and acting become one? Christina Gutekunst and John Gillett unite their depth of experience in voice training and acting to create an integrated and comprehensive approach informed by Stanislavski and his successors – the acting approach widely taught to actors in drama schools throughout the world. This updated edition contains: a new chapter on vocal embodiment of actions, new findings from neuroscience supporting the approach, more exercises, warm-up routines for training, rehearsal and performance, and a completely new glossary of terms. The authors create a step-by-step guide to explore how voice can: - Respond to our thoughts, senses, feelings, imagination and will - Fully express language in content and form - Communicate imaginary circumstances and human experience - Transform to adapt to different roles - Connect to a variety of audiences and spaces Featuring 55 illustrations by German artist, Dany Heck, Voice into Acting is an essential manual for the actor seeking full vocal identity in characterization, and for the voice teacher open to new techniques or an alternative approach to harmonize with the actor's process.

Amanda Glauert revisits Beethoven’s songs and studies his profound engagement with the aesthetics of the poets he was setting, particularly those of Herder and Goethe. The book offers readers a rich exploration of the poetical and philosophical context in which Beethoven found himself when composing songs. It also offers detailed commentaries on possible responses to specific songs, responses designed to open up new ways for performing, hearing and appreciating this provocative song repertoire. This study will be of great interest to researchers of Beethoven; German song; aesthetics of words and music.