The Voice Theatre Lab is housed at the Academy of the Arts, Launceston. Voice Theatre is a laboratory; it explores and develops physical and vocal training practices which are rigorous, and highly energized, fusing contemporary East and West theatre practices to create a physio-vocal training aesthetic.
Since its inception in 2006, the group have focus on the concept of crisis, and it’s affect on the voice. These investigations include the dichotomies of voice and body in order to abandon literal reality to locate another non-physical, non-tangible place; the relationship between abstract imagery, text and voice; the abandonment of text and the expression of imagery through sound; and the relationship of physical crisis and the voice. As well as training sessions throughout the year with core company members, the company mount exploratory productions that investigate these concepts.
The work of the Voice Theatre Laboratory is physically and vocally rigorous and spectators that enjoy challenging, expressive and experimental work, will find the experience most rewarding. It is demanding work that investigates the performer’s vocal presence through physical and conceptual acts of crisis. Each production focuses on the performers voice as the fundamental expressive and artistic material at the centre of a gamut of all theatrical elements.
The Voice Theatre Lab pushes the boundaries of the use of the human voice and body through states of ‘crisis’. The work explored is the result of the application of various dichotomies and contradictions, which abandons literal, and textual, therefore focusing on opposites and non-conventional means of vocal production and physical states. Voice work provides the key for the performer to rediscover his or her mysterious entity – an inner voice through improvisations and non-verbal expressions.
The Voice Theatre Lab’s on-going investigation aims to maintain the view that voice is indeed an immensely important tool, a tool that has been neglected, and that physical and conceptual crisis, as opposed to freedom, relaxation and textual, ‘literal reality’, can benefit the voice and allow it to flourish and reveal its many colours and nuances.
Contact: Robert Lewis