Critical Stages (Dec 2021)
Embodying the Extra-Corporeal: Releasing the Voice from Bodily Limitations Using Mediated Voice in Singing Training
Abstract
Despite the advances in contemporary performer training, which resist a paradigm rooted in Cartesian dualism, an impediment that is evident in the way in which classical singing technique is widely taught remains in the thinking of voice as extra-corporeal. This project centres on uncovering the liminal spaces where the intersection of technology and the lived body may converge in a classical singer’s process. Drawing inspiration from theatre artist Marie Brassard’s use of autobiographical narrative and methods that manipulate voice through mediated means, I integrated my Mother’s recorded voice into the devising process of an autobiographical music-theatre piece which intertwines the personal narrative of my family’s struggle with her descent into dementia and the music of Kurt Weill. The techniques I discovered highlight how using the disembodied mediated voice can function as a catalyst to inhabiting a more fully embodied one. By directly confronting the voice as extra-corporeal, the use of mediated voice in a classical singer’s process demonstrates that technology may encourage the voice to be released from its bodily limitations.
