Embodied Voices Workshop Series at Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Please email k.d.simecek@warwick.ac.uk if you would like to attend any of these events.

6^th June 2024 (10am-4pm)

1. Authenticity and ownership: in developing an appreciation of the significance of voice and body in performance we will interrogate the concept of authentic voice and authenticity in performance, for instance, how does the identity of the performer relate to their performance? Are some works restricted to certain performers (in virtue of the contribution their body makes to the work)? Who ought to have ownership of a particular work? Whose permission is needed to re-perform a particular work?

Facilitator: Dr Katie Ailes is a poet, researcher, producer, and educator based in Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the performance of authenticity in contemporary UK spoken word poetry.

Confirmed speakers: Prof Freya Jarman (Musicology) and Dr Kathryn Stamp (Dance Research)

 

5^th September 2024 (10am-4pm)

2. Moral and political value of the embodied voice: To what extent do the performing arts contribute to moral and political education? Does an audience have a responsibility to engage in a particular way with a work of performance, and what would this entail? Can an artist demand this?

Facilitator: Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh

Confirmed Speakers: Prof Naomi Waltham Smith (Music theory, Philosophy and Sound Studies), Dr Sarah Weston (Applied and Community Theatre and Performance studies) and Dr Katharine Jenkins (Feminist Philosophy)

 

18^th September 2024 (10am-4pm)

3. Meaning and the Embodied voice: drawing on case studies from across the performing arts, we will interrogate to what extent the body of the performer affects the meaning-making experience for the audience. This raises questions about how bodies mean and how audiences 'read' them, as well as whether words and actions can easily be disentangled from one's voice and body (for instance, can another achieve the same meaning by imitating the gestures of another)? Does such dissociation cause harm (when is it significant)?)

Speakers: Prof Alice Lagaay, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (performance studies and media theory),

Mira Thompson (Singer, Song writer and Performer) with Prof Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca, Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts (performance philosophy) and Dr Anna Pakes, University of Roehampton (Philosophy of Dance)

Dr Karen Simecek (University of Warwick) and Dr Toby Young (Guildhall) will also lead a session on the ethics and politics of voice and body in performance: building an ethics framework