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Vocal Process Reports...
Gillyanne Kayes
on her USA trip in September 2002
Two days after On
the House I set out for the USA on a mini tour of three
universities: University of Oklahoma, Tulsa University and
University of Kansas. The tour had been co-ordinated by my colleague
Rena Cook from the University of Oklahoma; the other hosts were Lisa
Wilson and John Staniunas.
Each theatre
department had its own flavour. OU have a substantial Faculty of
Drama with a high intake of students in the ‘freshman’ year. TU is
more compact and, as a private university, had some great
facilities. Lisa Wilson is at the helm of the vocal team and is very
keen to expose her students the work of internationally renowned
teachers and artists. KU is over 100 years old as a university with
a campus renowned for its beauty. John Staniunas is Artistic
Director of the theatre department for this year and, with his own
background as a singing actor (he had recently completed a run of
Scarlet Pimpernel that summer) clearly has a lot to offer his
musical theatre majors.
All three
departments welcomed me warmly and it was clear that both students
and staff were eager to learn from techniques in Singing and The
Actor. I was able to work with students at all levels in each case –
offering classes that ranged from the fundamentals of voice
production (spoken voice) to exploring voice qualities in text, to
advanced musical theatre practice. Singing classes were the
responsibility of the schools of music or opera and I found that the
approach to vocal production was largely classically biased. This
meant that, although vocally skilled, sometimes the students could
not meet the dramatic needs of the Musical Theatre repertoire that
they were singing. It was great to be able to give the actors
permission to explore different sound qualities in creating the
world of the song. In the Musical Theatre master-classes I talked
about the decisions that an actor must make in preparing sung text
and how these must be reflected in the voice as well as body.
Doing the trip gave
me a fantastic opportunity to explore the teaching potential of
Singing and The Actor in different situations. I had been asked to
address problems of voice production in theatre voice. Lisa Wilson
was particularly keen for her advanced students to do some
high-energy voice work. I was glad to have worked with colleague
Lise Olson in her Voice of Violence workshop, using some of her
excellent insights into applying anchoring, twang and abdominal
breathing to the use of heightened dramatic text.
Classes at KU took
me yet a stage further. I wanted to see if the students could access
quickly the changes of voice quality available to them. With a mixed
group of sophomores and Seniors I embarked on a vocal warm-up that
would put them in touch with key moveable structures and lead them
into exploration with classical text. I encouraged the students to
use their own words in describing how they felt, how they sounded
and what they visualised in making the new sounds.
Many students
reported a sense of greater connection with their text and their
body as an instrument and some amazing sound qualities emerged. The
students were asked to explore change of onset at new verse lines,
then at each change of thought, then – finally – from their own
impulse. Some of the work was truly exciting. One advanced student
reported that it was really amazing to explore sound qualities this
way and that it enabled him to discover new meanings in the text
without reference necessarily to intention and objective. His
reading of the text became more ‘layered’. We finished the class by
talking about how the different onsets can take you into different
vocal gestures and how this might be used as a tool in performance.
It was a great trip.
My thanks to Rena, Lisa and John for hosting me and to the students
who worked so hard and responded so well in classes and
masterclasses.
Gillyanne Kayes
on her US masterclass tour, September 2002
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