How does it feel to have a voice from the inside? This performative lecture takes cue from the observation that much of the discourse in the emergent field of interdisciplinary voice studies is premised on methodologies that do little to disclose how voice is experienced by the voicer. There is a developing body of such data in physiological analyses of voice (which perhaps unavoidably are concerned with voice as a measurable and scientifically defined bodily function) and some scarce theoretical propositions that bridge phenomenological writing and processes of artistic development, be they creative or training/technical. But how often does a voicer get to interrogate voice as part of their personal history? And how often do they get to disseminate this lived knowledge from a joint theoretical and artistic perspective? Or, to invite audiences to think about their own voices in such terms? This experiment in practice-as-research explores the performative potentials of the nascent methodology of vocal autobiography. The solo layers DIY intermedia, academic discourse and physiovocal praxis with subtle dramaturgies of audience participation to think through the potential of a shift from voice to voicing.
Dr Konstantinos Thomaidis is Lecturer in Drama, Theatre & Performance at the University of Exeter. He is founding co-editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and the Routledge Voice Studies book series as well as co-founder of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and the 'Sound, Voice & Music' working group at TaPRA. His publications include the collection Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience (Routledge 2015, with Ben Macpherson), the special issue 'Voicing Belonging: Traditional Singing in a Globalized World' (Intellect 2017, with Virginie Magnat), and the monograph Theatre & Voice (Macmillan/Springer 2017). He is currently editing the special issue 'What is New in Voice Training?' for Theatre, Dance and Performance Training journal and the collection Time and Performer Training (Routledge, with Mark Evans and Libby Worth). He is the Artistic Director of Adrift Performance Makers and Head of Movement for Opera in Space.