'The Voice Embodied: a Practice-Based Investigation Through the Praxes of Noah Pikes, Enrique Pardo, and Linda Wise'
'The Voice Embodied: A Practice-based Investigation through the Praxes of Noah Pikes, Enrique Pardo, and Linda Wise'
Amy Rome
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
University of Central Lancashire UK December 2007 Abstract
What is the voice embodied? How is it possible to understand the voice as a gesture: a movement perceived as body? What are the creative processes of expressing voice? An interdisciplinary study into the artistic training and performance of voice, the aim of this thesis is to explore these research questions by examining three contemporary voice practitioners in conjunction with my practice. The practitioners, Noah Pikes, Enrique Pardo, and Linda Wise, are original members from the Roy Hart Theatre (1969-1990). Founded in the 1960s on the pioneering work of the German musician and voice teacher Alfred Wolfsohn (1896-1962), Roy Hart and the Roy Hart Theatre extended Wolfsohn's distinctive interdisciplinary approach to voice training within theatre practice. This investigation brings together the practices of Pikes, Pardo, and Wise for the first time to explore a lineage of Wolfsohn and Hart's work. Examining the practitioners' interdisciplinary methodological approaches to voice training and performance, the research reveals how these original members of the Roy Hart Theatre are challenging conventional methodologies to the way in which the voice of the actor-singer-dancer is trained through practice. My interaction with these international practitioners and their practices produced primary documentary evidence in the form of video footage and interviews. This primary research material presented within the thesis, was filmed in the artists' studios in London, Zurich and Paris over a five-year period, and provides rare experiential insights into these contemporary interdisciplinary approaches to training voice and performance in multi- cultural professional workshop settings. In addition, the thesis contains DVD recordings of the documentary: 'The Whole Voice' (2002) detailing Pikes' praxis, and my contemporary solo theatre performance: 'The Badlands' (2004). Demonstrating elements of the practices central to my investigation, the performance of the 'The Badlands' should be viewed as one example in practice, of how the ideas explored in the thesis might be realized. Whilst the study of artistically training and performing voice is a practical endeavour, pedagogically the practice poses a number of complex theoretical questions concerning the nature of how the integral brain/body is experienced. My research endeavours to bring theory and practice together. It reveals variations in the practitioners' praxes, including a shift from Wolfsohn, who drew directly from the psychological theories espoused by C.G Jung, to Post-Jungian perspectives. The study explores the significance of this development, placing a particular emphasis upon how agency and the imagination are conceived in practice. Exploring beyond the fundamental Jungian and post-Jungian psychological theoretical frameworks underpinning the practices central to this study, I propose through my practice to examine the significance of extending Wolfsohn's original ideas about the voice embodied from an existential phenomenological line of thought and the parallels this philosophy shares with more recent research stemming from neuroscience. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Table of Contents ü Acknowledgements v
Preface: A guide to interacting with the thesis vi DVD2 viii CHAPTER ONE 1. Introduction 1 1.1 A selective history of extended voice practice in the 20 " century 6 1.2 Improvisation: Pikes, Pardo, and Wise's practical approach to training voice and performance 11 1.3 Research Methodology 12 1.4 Contexture 17 CHAPTER TWO 2. On the edge: Wolfsohn's philosophical framework 20 2.1 Voice, emotion, and body 22 2.2 Differentiation of Wolfsohn and Jung's theories: body-voice-imagination 24 2.3 Wolfsohn, Jung, and Kant: subjectivity and modern philosophy 25
A COMPARATIVE STUDY(with DVI)!): 'PIKES, PARDO, AND WISE' (Italicised subtitles are accompanied with practical demonstrations similarly titled and numbered on DVD/: see Appendir #1)
CHAPTER THREE with DVD1:'Pikes' 3. A study of Noah Pikes' 'Whole Voice' praxis 30 3.1 Pikes, Wolfsohn, and Jung: philosophical parallels 30 3.2 Jung's conceptualisation of the structure and dynamic nature of the psyche 31 3.3 'Active imagination' and voice with DVI) demonstration: 'active imagination' 34 3.4 Archetypal voice and Jung's notion of the 'collective unconscious' with DVI) demonstration: 'archetypes and voice' 36 3.5 Animal voices with DVI) demonstration: 'animal voices' 39 3.6 Voice and gesture with DVD demonstration: 'dancing with sticks' 42 3.7 Discussion 44
CHAPTER FOUR with DVIII: 'Pardo' 4. A study of Enrique Pardo's praxis: whose voice is it? 45 4.1 Voice and philosophy-a contemporary perspective with DVD demonstration: 'Pardo's brief engagement with the existential phenomenology of Heidegger' 45 4.2 Pardo and Hillman's critique of fundamental Jungian theory 47 4.3 Horizontal voice with DVI) demonstration: 'horizontal voice' 50 4.4 Non-verbal story telling with DVD demonstration: 'non-verbal storytelling' 51 4.5 'Disassociation'- a post-structural performance training technique with DVD demonstration: 'disassociation' 53 4.6A Phenomenological approach to performance training with DVD demonstration: 'phenomenologicalperforma,we strategy' 55 4.7Discussion 56
II APPENDICES 108 #1. DYD1: A comparative practical study of Pikes, Pardo and Wise praxes, and demonstrations of central elements demonstrated in my practice and performance of "The Badlands"(2004) 109 #2. Rome, A. Script: 'The Badlands'(Hughes: 1998) 110 #3. Chronology of action research program 114