Voice, Body, Mind Louise Mahler (Aug 1st, Sept 13th , Oct 9th, Nov 7th)
This unit is about coherence in communication. Its focus is voice and our ability to effectively use it in our relations with others around us.
Many of us are hindered by the psychic-vocal-prison of our culture, and further restricted by the solitary-vocal-confinement of our organizational and social contexts, in which vocal discovery is antithetical to dominant visual, patriarchal and linear thinking. This reinforces poor habitual patterns and works against coherence. The emergence of coherence in communication entails the consideration of voice holistically. The work of this unit is in evoking the fullness of voice, mediating between the singer/speaker’s intention and the listener’s receptivity in one integrated, coherent interaction, healing broken connections between mind, body and voice and experiencing them through the whole spectrum of sensual awareness.
Voice is considered a complex holistic phenomenon, a product (i.e. sound) which is invisible, made from a place in the body we can not see (larynx) or sometimes feel, linked to both emotional and physical responses, and with an output we hear differently to those around us. The exploration will thus include translation and interpretation, with singing playing a lead role in the exploration as it takes centre stage, asserting its role as an innate phylogenetic predisposition of all people; a tonality, lens and touch through which all life is comprehended.
Through a review of current vocal professions and vocal research, we discover a ‘broken’ tradition, holding the essence of voice but hindered by the social assumptions of Bel Canto, by the deeply entrenched divisions between vocal professions, by an ignorance of singing within those professions, by stifling positivist research and by conflicting ethical foundations.
Using an integrated approach incorporating heuristics and hermeneutics, the work of the unit involves a growing awareness of voice as a truly complex phenomenon. As we consider the ‘brokenness’ of our vocal tradition, the complex and bewildering role of emotions in vocal development and the impact of relational imbalances between self and other that lead to a lack of coherence of communication, our work becomes the task of reconstruction of the coherent self, integrating experiential techniques from disparate vocal professions and beyond, piecing together some critical components and creating others. What emerges is a new, integrative and transformative vocal practice.