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ABSTRACT
This article shares conversational thinking around the complexities present in the vocal development of the actor-in-training in a multilingual, multicultural training context, specifically referring to South African higher education. It is framed from the authors’ lived experience and discusses the pedagogical constructs present in the pluriverse where voice is central in the performance of identity. Organic congruencies, humans as multimodal bodyminded beings and embodiment are discussed as points of departure. The interlinked relationship between voice and language is considered. Searching for a humanizing pedagogy, translingualism, and embodied learning, among others, are offered as possible means to engage human congruencies in the multilingual, multicultural setting. Certain principles of Lessac Kinesensics are engaged with in this on-going project contributing to a decolonial approach to performance voice training in higher education.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Following Martinez-Vargas’ (Citation2020) position on decolonizing higher education in South-Africa.
2. Escobar draws here from the Zapatista of Chiapas (Harvey Citation1998). A discussion on the Zapatistas falls outside the scope of this conversation.
3. From Latin conversari “to dwell, live with, keep company with” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/converse).
4. Multimodal in this context implies various interrelated aspects found within humankind i.e physical, psychological, spiritual, emotional, cultural etc.
5. Of note here, for our argument, are the areas of cultural neuroscience and language development.
6. It is the intertwining of behavior, actions, culture, and language that compel us not to refer to voice but rather to bodyvoice in our pedagogical practices.
7. We acknowledge the potential problems around this statement. A discussion on the post-human perception of voice falls outside the scope of this argument.
8. Perhaps as a fluid and subjective object of becoming.
9. Schechner (Citation2015) describes performance to be a marker of identity that adorns the body to tell a story.
10. As alluded to in footnote 4.
11. In the widest sense of the word.
12. For information about translingual explorations please consult Lemmer and Munro (Citation2019) and Munro and Lemmer (Citation2019).
13. See discussion on “familiar event” below.
14. Lauwrens (Citation2022, 13) reminds of the Sobchack notion of subjective object and objective subject.
15. Lessac (Citation2019, 73–75) reminds that metaphors and images can be “borrowed or rented” but not enforced.
16. An example of an idiosyncratic use of metaphor is the invitation to engage in a “pleasure smell,” which is defined within LK as each person’s recall of an aroma (as familiar event) that stimulated in them a sense of well-being (see Sowndhararajan and Kim Citation2016). Drawing from the olfactory sense is valuable as the olfactory sense stimulates the amygdala and hippocampus, which relates to memory (see Soudry et al. Citation2011).
17. We are aware of the discourse on “post-development” that calls for a de-linking from “cultural and ideological bases of development” (Demaria and Kothari Citation2017, 2). Although not aligned with the context in which we refer to development here, it cautions against the essentialist lens promoted within hegemonic knowledge systems.
18. An in-depth discussion of this process falls outside the scope of this conversation.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Karina Lemmer
Karina Lemmer, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the Tshwane University of Technology Department of Performing Arts where she specializes in acting and voice. She is a certified Lessac body-voice and Meisner facilitator who has coached several stage productions and films. Karina has adapted and directed several classical texts and has also created original multilingual South African Theatre and is one of the founders of the Creative Research Lab that seeks to enable and showcase the relationship between performance making and research through embodied seminars and other collaborative creative outputs.
Marth Munro
Marth Munro, PhD, specializes in bodymind and voice in behavior and performance. She is a Lessac Kinesensics Master Teacher a Laban/Bartenieff Certified Movement Analyst and an Emotional Body Apprentice. She is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator (ISMETA). Marth has published extensively in the field of Embodied Performance Pedagogy (including on matters of Bodyvoice and Movement). She is a Professor Extraordinaire in School of the Arts: University of Pretoria, primarily contributing to post-graduate supervision in Embodied Performance and has supervised a number of master’s and doctoral students to completion of their studies across her fields of specialization. She serves on the editorial board of the Voice and Speech Review.
Isana Maseko
Isana Maseko is a graduate from Tshwane University of Technology, who is an arts academic, theatre maker and also freelance actor with strong performance background in theatre, arts administration. A Certified Lessac Kinesensics Facilitator, he teaches Voice and Embodiment at the University of Pretoria. Isana received a Masters in Performing Arts from Tshwane University of Technology with a study that investigates voice in South African performance contexts.