The role of ‘presence’ in training actors’ voices

Abstract

What new models for training the voice of today’s intercultural actors in a globalised world have emerged and how are they different from the iconic mainstream voice approaches used in many US and UK acting conservatoires? How might an intercultural approach which places multiple traditions along a continuum of training offer other ways of conceptualising and training ‘energy’ and ‘presence’ in relation to voice? The materials of training (body, voice, breath, ‘energy’) are not stable, universally agreed concepts reducible to ‘human’ experience. When designing intercultural voice curriculum practitioners often negotiate differing ideas of what a voice is, what it can/should do, and how voice can/should do it. Using master voice trainer Patsy Rodenburg’s fifth book, Presence, as a departure point, in comparison with the author’s experiences teaching actors’ voices at the Korean National University of Arts, School of Drama (Seoul, S. Korea) the article offers a perspective that reframes a discussion of the role of ‘energy’ and ‘presence’ in contemporary voice training by displacing universalism as a primary explanatory position and offering instead an alternative paradigm to understand the interior/inner processes and potential of the voice as embodied phenomenon and process.