Changing direction – and finding a voice

The word ‘unprecedented’ has been used over and over again in the past few months with reference to the changes we’ve experienced resulting from the global pandemic – changes to our lifestyles, careers, behaviour and even to how we think about the world and our place in it. We were creative and adapted fast in order to serve our audiences and, in my case, students. Students, teachers, activists, performers and artists went digital, resulting in a huge leap forward in the use of home technology, and we developed new skills and adopted new ways to make work.

Loss

The performing arts as we knew them changed almost beyond recognition. Theatres shut their doors overnight and plans for future productions were stalled or cancelled. Performers who had secured their dream jobs in the West End and on Broadway saw the closure of shows on a scale that has never been seen before, even in the darkest times.

During this time, we also lost a leading light in the teaching of voice and performance when Kristin Linklater sadly passed away on June 5th after a lifetime spent teaching and developing her voice methodology, which is laid out in her book ‘Freeing the Natural Voice’.

Kristin taught some of the greatest actors and teachers of our time, such as Bill Murray, Patrick Stewart and Sigourney Weaver. She spent her professional life in theatres, actor and teacher training settings, and in the wider community, connecting language to voice in order to better express the human condition at a global level. She will be sorely missed by the many practitioners and performers who trained with her and continue to teach and embody her wonderful work. 

Reinvention

Now that we are slowly gaining our performance spaces back and returning to the studios and classrooms, the human need for face-to-face contact and our yearning for some shared experience of art is pulling us into new pathways for performance and creativity. The pandemic put many careers on hold and many are thinking about what sort of creative directions we might move into as we look to the future. Those of us with the skills to create challenging and provocative performances will surely be called upon to tell the diverse and ‘unprecedented’ stories of our time. To draw out those stories, creatives may reinvent how they work and diversify the scope of their careers. It’s timely, therefore, that the new MFA Linklater Teaching Practice (Voice and Theatre Arts), has been designed to develop teaching artists who will be able to facilitate the performance of those stories.

Designed by Kristin Linklater herself in collaboration with others, it is pioneering training for actor-teachers, reimagined in a way that chimes perfectly with the new and unexpected circumstances we now all find ourselves in. The underpinning ethic at the heart of the course is the fundamental belief that the highest purpose of theatre is to shed light on the lives we lead and to shift perception towards potential transformation.

In our new landscape, many actors trained under conventional programmes may wish to develop their skills while they consider how to best serve their creativity. For example, when actors create projects with community groups or begin to lead classes in a drama school setting they often lack the specific skills and ethical preparation to engage effectively with groups. Combining the Linklater approach with the Applied Theatre Arts methodology of Augusto Boal, the movement work developed by Trish Arnold, and the acting techniques of Michael Chekhov, this new programme will enable participants to expand their capacity to create and collaborate, culminating  in the awarding of Designated Linklater Teacher status. 

Transformation

Kristin saw actors as change-makers, as transformers of society and vessels for activism that can bring together the disciplines of theatre, education, politics and sociology into a dynamic synthesis. This course is centred around teaching and training actors through the Linklater methodology, as well as embodying skills and transforming lives.

A lot of people are reassessing their lives right now. If you are one of them – thinking about where your career might move to next and how you could harness your talent in a meaningful way – this programme will equip you with the skills to enable diverse communities to enhance their voices and be heard.

Mary Irwin is lead tutor and co-designer of the MFA Linklater Teaching Practice (Voice and Theatre Arts) at ALRA (The Academy of Live and Recorded Arts)
 maryirwinstudios.com

To find out more about the MFA Linklater Teaching Practice (Voice and Theatre Arts) MFA at ALRA (The Academy of Live and Recorded Arts), as well as the other vocational training available, please see the website, and email [email protected] for more details.