Canada's National Voice Intensive

Canada's National Voice Intensive, under the direction of David Smukler, is a five-week program designed for professional actors (stage and screen), other performing artists, teachers (acting, movement, voice), and advanced students.

The Voice Intensive is designed around the development of a coherent vocal practice and its symbiotic relationship to physical, intellectual, and emotional investigations, as well as language and creative preparation. During the five-week Intensive the various strands of the voice training are explored and developed alongside the skills in speaking Shakespeare text, the ultimate test of the performer's skill in the English language.

History

The first Voice Intensive was held at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 1986. Previously, in 1982, David Smukler was invited to Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia to offer a 3-week voice workshop alongside theatre practitioner and teacher Linda Putnam who was offering a Grotowski-based workshop. At that time Grant Strate was the Director for the Centre for the Arts at SFU. Strate had previously organized two National Choreographic seminars and was planning a third to be held at SFU. Strate wanted to establish a Summer Institute at the Center for the Arts consisting of five workshops in Dance, Music, Theatre, Film and Visual Arts.

In 1984, Smukler and Putnam offered another workshop together at SFU and Smukler and Strate began to discuss a summer workshop for voice teachers, and in 1986, with the support of Equity Showcase Theatre and the Canada Council for the Arts, the first Voice Intensive was held.

As Strate and Smukler began to discuss the infrastructure of the Voice Intensive it quickly became apparent if the Voice Intensive was to do teacher training as originally envisioned, there were only so many teachers - "it’s a small country", so the voice aspect would have to be framed in the voice focus of actor training, always acknowledging that only a certain percentage would be voice teachers. This awareness and acceptance of voice teachers, actors, dancers and professional voice users from all over Canada and the US is one of the reasons the Voice Intensive was such a success. The first Voice Intensive in 1986 was a four week long workshop that by 1987 was a five week intensive with the realization that four weeks was insufficient time to introduce, explore and integrate as much information as the Intensive offered.

In 2000 a change in administrative policy ended the Summer Institute and the Voice Intensive was invited to the University of British Columbia (UBC) where it is now hosted by the Theatre Department at UBC.

Content and pedagogy

From its inception the Voice Intensive was intended to be an exploration, a laboratory free from the constraints of an actor training institution. Although it was a part of the Summer Institute it was to be in essence a research exploration for examining voice issues and problems in performance. There are ostensibly four components to the VI curriculum: voice, movement, speech and text.

Voice

The core of the Voice curriculum has not changed much since the beginning as it is based on the principles of Iris Warren as evolved by Kristin Linklater and David Smukler–the core voice progression. What has changed is how that progression is delivered and explored. After 23 years and a commitment to ongoing personal and collective research, the Voice Intensive is and continues to be an ever evolving experience. As a director Smukler has encouraged Voice Intensive faculty to explore other methods, styles, approaches that would augment and support the principles of Freeing the Natural Voice tradition and bring them to the work–with the understanding that they make it their own, that they embody the work that they are bringing in and know how it fits on with the core structure. The clarity of such synthesis has of course grown with time, and moved much more towards “practicality” as well. It must also be noted that none of this work has been brought in or thought of as adjunct. It has been embodied by the faculty exploring that work and integrated into the core curriculum with much thought, exploration and understanding so there is a pedagogical sense of wholeness to the structure.

Movement

Since 1989 the core movement practice has been offered and developed by Judith Koltai. Koltai's “Embodied Practice” is a synthesis and evolution of her explorations of Authentic Movement (as originated by Mary Whitehouse) and Koltai's own work of Syntonics (her practice based in the principles of Francois Meziers, the Anti-gynnastic of Therese Bertherat, and the Sensory Awareness work of German movement teacher Elsa Gindler).

Text

The chosen working text for the Voice Intensive is Shakespeare. Other authors and Elizabethan texts have been considered over the years, but Shakespeare's works were stayed with as they allowed a unique focus for the actor work including rhetoric, persuasion, argument, structures of prosity, scansion dynamics, an actor's approach not separating text from voice or movement, rather, allowing time to be allotted for detailed work and synthesis of each of these different facets. The range of experiences in the Shakespeare language presents multi-venues for:

1. increasing the actor's personal range of metaphor, image, thought process. A priority in the text work is to open the actor's imagination and deepen their emotional-vocal range. and the ability to speak.
2. evolve a balance of breath,voice, personal sources, imagination, emotional connection, character and situational need and
3. bringing to personal work to public or performance experience.

Speech

The intensive takes the viewpoint that the more that modern language has become a digital language and is frequently forced into being used as either "divisive" or "inclusive"--specialized and/or limited to a specific community that we need to look at the roots of language and how it is articulated in various forms of argument, emotional and intellectual needs. Therefore are we able to articulate the various needs, thoughts, and ideas.

Faculty

Right from the early years of the Intensive, as David Smukler encouraged the faculty to explore and bring their explorations back to the Intensive, he also asked that they stay true to the Iris Warren, Kristin Linklater training which established the need for regular discussion. Not only does the faculty meet prior to each year's Intensive to share research but they gather every winter for a three day midwinter colloquim to share research but to bring new research to the table.

Within two years of beginning, the Voice Intensive attracted young voice teachers to come an apprentice with the senior faculty. Each year there are between two and four beginning teachers or people who are in a voice teacher training program, all of whom have already participated in the Voice Intensive who come as Associates and they assist senior faculty, observe, coach and fully join in the discussions about the training.