“ […] he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, […]”
1 Kings 19:13 (The Bible, NSRV)
8 voices, stories, narratives, flowings, explorations, beginnings, fragments...
presented in Journal for Dance, Movement and Spirituality (2024)
leaving traces behind for further explorations, learnings, moving, stuides, re-searching...
Note from the Editor –
DMaS special issue 10.2:
“Voice as movement and a spiritual ‘in-between’”
Juliet Chambers-Coe
We are delighted to offer this Special Issue on Voice as movement and a spiritual ‘in-between’. Each contribution has been carefully crafted by the authors within, led by a heart-centred approach that co-guest editors Elisabeth Laasonen Belgrano and Mark D. Price offered - and insisted upon - at each moment on the journey to creating this special issue. We apologise for the slight delay in releasing the issue, but as I am sure you know: heart work takes time. I feel deep gratitude to Elisabeth and Mark, and to all the authors who have so generously and bravely contributed their voicing-moving-thinking practices so articulately in the often shaky and uncertain space of embodied-spirituality-in-academia. That is what this journal does best, and this issue is a shining bastion of that aim. Until now the Journal has not fully attended to the spirituality of voice and so what is offered here forges new desire paths into exploring voice as immanent spirituality as it inheres in the moving body, since,
the spirits of heaven and earth…are the inexplicable, the unfathomable in nature. The sound of the human voice and the movement of the human body, can alone bring us near to glimpsing these worlds (Laban, 1975: 49).
Heartfelt thanks to Zoë Katsilerou, Cia Sautter, Marie Hay, Andrea Rushton, Misha Penton, Xueting Luo, Franziska Boehm, Serena Ruth, Mark D. Price and Elisabeth Laasonen Belgrano.
References
Laban, Rudolf. (1975). A Life For Dance. trans. Lisa Ullmann, London: Macdonald and Evans Ltd.
… voicing as loving as living as writing as moving: overflowing knowledge through a sacred rite of passage
Elisabeth LAASONEN BELGRANO, guest editor
In between the harmonies
Reflections on relationships between the experience of singing close intervals and the cultivation of presence within movement training for performers
Zoë Katsilerou
Keywords:
Actor Training, attention,
Breath Support, dance and spirituality,
Dance and voice, dissonance,
embodied knowledge, Voice Training,
| This paper reflects on relationships between sung close intervals and the cultivation of presence within movement training. Drawing on my experiences of facilitating the Moving Voice laboratory (2016-2020), and using voice, movement and improvisation as contextual frameworks, I reflect on the spiritual, practical and interpersonal significance of inhabiting dissonance, and the positive impact this can have on a performer’s presence. This article combines academic writing with poetic reflections of practical, in-studio work. All participants remain anonymised. I use this writing to discuss the learning that embodying semitones can offer with regards to cultivating presence as a spiritual, performative practice. What can embodying semitones reveal about our conditioning around inhabiting discomfort and dissonance? Expanding on embodied understandings and notions of presence and dissonance, this paper offers a new framework for practitioners and scholars and aims to inspire further investigation into the possibilities of semitones, presence and movement within training. |
"By cooking the elements in the retort they begin to speak out what they really are, namely the manifestations of God’s creative power"
(The Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum [Book of the explanation of symbols]. Zurich, Switzerland: Living Human Heritage Publications], p. 109.)
Voicing Journeys Through Grief
A musicians study
of confronting grief through expressive arts
Andrea Rushton
Keywords:
grief, voice, dysphonia, lamentation,
expressive arts therapy, incantation,
arts and ecology,
| This article confronts grief, trauma and dysphonia through transformative techniques of expressive arts therapy. It discusses strategies for easing dysphonia and freeing the singing voice whilst exploring lamentation, incantation and spell casting as vocalisations of grief. Concepts of internalising and externalising and the role of the imagination are explored. Selections from the authors project are presented. These document the process of accessing the pain of loss through recording improvised music and vocalisations, writing, drawing and photography. The approach was methodologically loose, an experiment in what John Law describes as ‘messy research… techniques of deliberate imprecision’ and ‘emotionality’. (Law 2004:2-3) Seeking recovery and a return to functioning in society, mind, body and voice were allowed to move freely in creative practices whilst being present with memory, soul searching and the experience of loss. The ‘journey’ led from personal to collective grief and rage centred on climate breakdown. The research seeks to draw attention to concepts of intermodality, interconnectedness, the role of music in the grieving process, vocal rehabilitation, and the value of expressive arts as tools for transformation. Photographs, drawings, music and voice recordings are included. |
| ‘Sounding Sensations’ is a sounding-and-moving praxis that explores the transformational power of embodied expression. The praxis connects practitioners to their voice, their dance, and, if the spirits permit, their spirituality. The spiritual in-between is enlivened (scored) by way of the ‘Sounding Sensations’ practice score. This article explores the spiritual in-between experientially, as an experience, and metaphysically, as a place. The metaphor of ‘a shoreless ocean’ is introduced to capture the defining essence (the spirit) of the spiritual in-between. Intentional focus is placed upon appreciating and understanding the transformative capability of sounding, by way of the practitioner's voice and vocality. An adjacent focus is placed upon what is required (of practitioners, the praxis, and the practice score itself), in order to successfully score the spiritual in-between. This article works to contribute to a deeper understanding of the latent potential that exists not only at the intersection of sounding and moving, but at the intersection of sounding and spirituality. Sounding refers to and encompasses various non-linguistic vocalisations (grunts, groans, growls, screams, giggles, yells, whines). Released from linguistics, semantics and semiotics, sounding is understood to communicate something universal, unique, emotional, present, unrepeatable, and ultimately, spiritual. At its core, this article wishes to call forth the spirit of embodied expression. The ‘Sounding Sensations’ praxis invites practitioners to sound their frustration in a world of frustration, their desire in a world of desire, and their terror in a world of terror. This invitation serves as an intentional reminder to practitioners: that they are themselves a direct route to that which is spiritual, and that they can indeed animate themselves with agency. |
Scoring The Spiritual In-Between:
By Way of Sounding Your Sensations
Sounding Sensations
(Franziska Boehm & Serena Ruth)
Keywords:
dance and spirituality, Dance and voice, Expression, liberation, sounding and moving, somatic practice, release, Practice as Research
Such seemed the whisper at my side:
"What is’t thou knowest, sweet voice?"
I cried.
"A hidden hope," the voice replied.
('Two Voices',, Tennyson, 184, Stanza 144)
My practice as a singer-composer explores the sonorous expressivity of poetic language in a relational multi-layered meaning-making process. Drawing on a studio-centered contemplative approach, I focus on the intertwined and liminal spaces between my creative process and personal contemplative practices. My writing is a hybrid autoethnographic and poetic-postcritical engagement within a theoretical frame centered on the work of Robert Fripp and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I re-envision and re-imagine artistic discipleship, that is, the artist as disciple of the Muse—defining the Muse, in part, as the energy signature of a creative discipline. This energetic presence evolves and morphs as an inspired, externally perceived sacred source and as an internal guide inherent to the human psyche and to the artist’s creative process.
“ Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me.”
(Revelations 3:20, The Bible, NSRV)
This article discusses a new concept-based approach to contemporary dance practice called Speakingdance, in which a dancer performs their sense of being. The practice responds to the need for a more considered use of speech in contemporary dance and the historical perception of the dancer in terms of a body-object. Philosophical thinking about speech and being provide a framework with which to re-think the relationship between speech and contemporary dance to perform a dancer’s sense of being. The practice research approach, that Speakingdance has emerged from, values the agency and experience of the practitioner-scholar as part of a phenomenological enquiry. Practical experiments with the performance of dance and speech were documented through video and written experiential accounts. Following a period of studio-based exploration, to formulate the ‘just be’ approach to improvisation and the poetic rhythm of speech and dance in which dance ‘speaks’, three new solo ‘practice sharings’ were created to gather information about the resonant impact of the practice on audience members. The presence of resonance indicates that a relational engagement with the dancer’s being has been encountered and that the perception of the dancer has shifted away from body-object terms. The practice of Speakingdance provides a meaningful purpose for the use of speech in contemporary dance – to perform the dancer’s sense of being and promote a resonant relationship between the dancer and individual audience members. Further to this, the practice has revealed a particular conceptualization of being through what has been termed the ‘internal-being-construct’. The article encapsulates some of the findings of academic research on the topic of dance and speech which is only just emerging, and contributes a unique discussion of the of the dancer’s ontology.
Speakingdance:
accessing, interpreting and performing
the dancer’s sense of being
Marie Hay
Keywords:
Spiritual Echoes in Motion:
Integrating Voice and Movement in Chinese Poetry and Kunqu Dance as an Eco-Somatic Practice
Xueting Luo
Keywords:
| This chapter delves into the complex interplay between tradition and modernity, exploring the profound spiritual undercurrents within Chinese artistic expression, specifically through the lens of traditional poetry and Kunqu dance. At the core of this investigation is the potential of Kunqu’s embodied practice, which weaves together poetic voice and dance movement, to transcend mere aesthetic pursuits and become a conduit for spiritual experience, fostering self-awareness and a deeper connection with nature. Employing an interdisciplinary framework that combines theoretical insights with practical experience, this research examines the symbiotic relationship between voice and movement within Kunqu Opera. Through critical analysis and eco-somatic practice, it addresses pivotal questions concerning the connection between poetry and Kunqu dance, the significance of poetic voice, and the potential for a renewed practice that integrates poetic voice and Kunqu dance to facilitate a spiritual journey rooted in historical, philosophical, and aesthetic foundations. The findings suggest that reimagining Kunqu through an eco-somatic lens not only rejuvenates these traditional arts but also underscores their relevance in addressing contemporary spiritual and ecological challenges across cultural boundaries. This study aims to expand the understanding of cultural practices as vehicles for spiritual exploration, advocating for a more nuanced appreciation of traditional arts within the modern spiritual landscape. |
“But maybe, there’s a thread tying us to life that can’t be ignored, as much as we try. A harmonic interval so desperate for resolution that the further away we attempt to get from home, the deeper set it is to bring us back. A chronic yearning that becomes so normalized that we don’t know we have it until we feel it nourished. Have you ever had the feeling of receiving something you really needed, and were surprised that you weren’t aware that you needed it? That’s the song I hear inside the song of this voice that cries out in the darkness of our uncertain times. With all my heart I feel that we do well to listen and let our voices join too, and if the heart breaks into a million pieces of desperate grief, so be it, there is cause for faith that it will be restored with love because one is made of the other.”
(Sam Alty, Voicecologist)
I have also felt the power of laments as a listener. I gave lament lessons to actor Heli Hyttinen who prepared a monologue dealing with crying and her great grandmother, lamenter Irinja Reijonen. Hyttinen had learned of the Reijonen’s laments, where she asks the dead mother to come at least in a dream so that she could see her. Hyttinen performed me the lament in a park in Helsinki in April 2023. My grandfather had died half a year ago and while Hyttinen was lamenting and even though she was lamenting to Irinja, I felt the longing and also the presence of my grandfather strongly. Her lament really touched me. And once she stopped the lament the first butterfly of the spring flew to us. The decedents are asked in the Karelian laments to come back as a bird or a butterfly, so we both felt strongly that the otherworld answered to us.
(Emmi Kuittinen, Karelian lamenter artist)
| In this article, a combination of video and text essay, I discuss the phenomenon of the voice as a vessel, the practice of “singing ancestors” and dreaming through the voice in the context of post-Grotowskian theatre practice. I draw on the footage from a laboratory session registered during the Judaica project in 2017 to analyse the performative, psychophysical and spiritual aspects of engaging with the notion of the dreamvoice by bringing together the commentaries and reflections from the two performers-researchers involved in the session: Ben Spatz, and myself. |
