The heuristic pedagogue: navigating myths and truths in pursuit of an equitable approach to voice training

Abstract

This article reflects on a 5-year period of research into equitable approaches to actor training and voice. This reflection is performed as a conversation between two of the author’s voices; the pedagogue that has lived the experiences and the academic that has framed and written about those experiences. The discussion reflects on the challenges of voicing the lived experiences of the researcher within an academic frame. The author describes a heuristic process of research that has challenged them to move out of their comfort zone and has decentred their value system in response to the experiences of acting students with diverse intersectional identities. The author draws on principles of critical and radical pedagogy to propose an alternate framework for actor training with three interrelated strands; the Pedagogies of Method, Acculturation and Instruction.

Keywords:

• voice
• pedagogy
• actor training
• equity
• diversity
• heuristic

Daron Oram is Principal Lecturer in Voice at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where he teaches on the BA Acting Collaborative and Devised Theatre and the MA/MFA in Voice Studies. Daron is a designated Linklater voice teacher, and in 2019 was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship.

Notes

1 Applied theatre is theatre that tends to be made in non-traditional settings that “aims to bring about change in communities and participants from all walks of life.” https://www.cssd.ac.uk/ba-date (Accessed 17th July 2019)

2 In the UK this tradition has been developed in the work of key practitioners associated with the Royal Shakespeare Company; Cicely Berry, Patsy Rodenberg, and, more recently, Barbara Houseman and David Carey. In the US, this work has been led by practitioners such as Arthur Lessac, Catherine Fitzmaurice and Kristin Linklater.

3 Kristin Linklater trained at LAMDA in London, where she became voice teacher, Iris Warren’s, assistant. She moved to the US in the 1960s, where her work focusing on the dynamic relationship of the actor’s quartet; body, voice, thought and emotion, was ideally suited to the evolving approaches to psychological realism. Kristin was my teacher and mentor for 15 years. Sadly, she passed away on 5^th June, as I was completing this article.