The Other Side of Performance: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Listening for Voice and Speech Trainers

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the practice of listening in actor training, rehearsal, and performance. It introduces an interdisciplinary approach to listening not yet found in the literature on acting. Historically, the sender-message-receiver communication dynamic has informed much of acting theory, as well as approaches to voice, movement, and actor training. This dynamic also finds expression in the way actors and directors rehearse, whether in theater, television, or film. The article proposes that any linguistic utterance conveys more than the spoken words, adding the influences of tone, mood, setting, the speaker’s historicity, the environment, and many other factors. In previous models, actors follow the paradigm of transmit/receive, where receive means the message has been heard. It emphasizes interpretation as the primary dynamic in all communication. This interpretive element informs how an actor can listen genuinely as a character. Because there is always the danger of a discipline being blinded by or stuck in its own tradition, the merit of being able to look at listening through the lenses of other disciplines has freed the authors from the limitations of tradition, valuing and embracing the interdisciplinary elements of their acting work.

KEYWORDS:

• Acting
• action
• communication
• hearing
• interpretation
• listening
• neurobiology

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the following: Bill Mazzella, MD; Jessica Bues; Ellen Kress, PhD; B. Scot Rousse, PhD; Francisco Gallegos, PhD; and Fernando Flores, PhD.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this article, when we use the term “actor training,” we include all elements of performance training such as voice, speech, and movement in addition to acting pedagogy.

2. His influential work is now being practiced internationally, as noted on his website, https://www.joyofphonetics.com.

3. Courses are offered by Dr. Fernando Flores via Pluralistic Networks. See www.pluralisticnetworks.com.

4. See Truth and Method (Gadamer and Weinsheimer 1975) and Understanding Computers and Cognition (Flores and Winograd 1986).

5. See Speech Acts (Searle 1969).

6. See Acting: The Gister Method (Alberti and Gister 2012).

7. Merriam-Webster, s.v. “neuroplasticity,” accessed January 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plasticity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joe Alberti

Joe Alberti, PhD, is the Editor of the AmSAT Journal (Alexander Technique) and served as Associate Editor and Editor of the VASTA Voice over a four-year period. He is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher, a certified Alexander Technique teacher, and a certified Colaianni Speech Practitioner. His book, Acting: The Gister Method (Pearson Academic, 2012), is based on his doctoral dissertation and studies at the Yale School of Drama under Earle R. Gister. He teaches full-time at the University of Oklahoma School of Drama. In Summer 2020, he will complete certification in Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing.

Genoa Davidson

Genoa Davidson is the Production Manager and Associate Editor of the AmSAT Journal. In addition to teaching the Alexander Technique, she is an actor, acting coach, and writer. She and her partner, Joe Alberti, have just written and produced their first full-length play, a modern adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. She is currently certifying as a Colaianni Speech Practitioner and will complete Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing in July. With Dr. Alberti, she is currently working on a new play about the lives of John and Abigail Adams.