User:Paxilvox/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, B.C. 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 @ 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 26 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 "devisive" 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 Llinklater 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.

David Smukler
David Smukler is the Director of the Voice Intensive. He is on the faculty of the Department of Theatre at York University where he supervises the MFA Voice Teacher Diploma, conducts professional training for Equity Showcase Theatre, and regularly leads workshops across Canada. One of the country's most outstanding teachers of voice and text, Mr. Smukler's coaching experience includes film, television, theatre, and opera in Canada, the UK, the US, and the Netherlands. He was Director of Voice at the Stratford Festival for many years. After his actor training with Edith Skinner & Kathleen Stafford, he was one of the first teachers trained by Kristin Linklater.

Judith Koltai
Judith Koltai, Director of Movement for the Voice Intensive, is an internationally recognized movement instructor who specializes in training and coaching performing artists. Ms. Koltai's trademark work is the physical practice of SYNTONICS and she is a pioneer in the application of the discipline of Authentic Movement to voice and text in the work of the performing artist.

Lisa Beley
Lisa Beley teaches Voice and Speech at Simon Fraser University as well as commercial and animation Voice-Over at UBC. She holds a BFA from UBC, and an MFA in performance with a Voice Teacher Diploma from York University. She also works as a dialect coach in film and television and her voice can be heard in numerous animated series.

Cindy Block
Cindy Block is currently on faculty of the College Drama Program at the University of Toronto. She has taught Voice, Movement and Collective Creation at George Brown Theatre School, York University, The Centre for Indigenous Theatre, The Humber School of Comedy, Soul Pepper Theatre's Shakespeare Intenisves and privately with industry Professionals.

Dale Genge
Dale Genge has been the Head of Voice at Studio 58, Langara College for 25 years. Ms. Genge has also taught voice at the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School, Simon Fraser University and with theatre companies in Canada and the U.S.. She trained in voice and Laban Movement Analysis in New York, and worked as assistant vocal coach at the Stratford Festival under David Smukler and Patsy Rodenberg. She also trained with Richard Armstrong in the Roy Hart tradition of voice work. She has completed the "Leadership Training Program" with Jungian Analyst, Marion Woodman. She now works internationally with the "Marion Woodman Foundation", teaching voice to women through a Jungian perspective.

Brad Gibson
Brad Gibson teaches Movement and Voice at at Studio 58 Langara College, coaches and teaches professionally in Vancouver, and has recently been teaching voice, speech and acting throughout SE Asia. He completed an MFA in Performance and a Post Graduate Diploma in Voice Teaching at York University.

Gary Logan
Gary Logan is Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting, Washington, DC and was formerly Head of Voice and Speech for the National Theatre Conservatory, Denver, CO. He has coached at the Stratford Festival of Canada, Denver Center Theatre Company, Arena Stage, and Folger Theatre, among others. He acts and directs professionally, and is author of The Eloquent Shakespeare: A Pronouncing Dictionary for the Complete Dramatic Works—with Notes to Untie the Modern Tongue (University of Chicago Press).

Dawn McCaugherty
Dawn McCaugherty has worked across the country as an actress, director and teacher. She holds an MFA in Theatre Performance from York University. Currently on faculty at the University of Calgary, she has also taught at York University and the University of Utah.

Gayle Murphy
Gayle Murphy is the Head of Voice at the University of British Columbia's Theatre Program. She has also taught at the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School, Studio 58 and has led voice workshops in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal, Toronto and Bangkok. She worked as a professional actor for many years and completed an MFA in Performance from York University prior to specializing in voice. Gayle Murphy is the Voice Intensive's coordinator at UBC.

Ian Raffel
Ian Raffel is a teacher and voice coach who specializes in speech, diction, and text interpretation. He heads the voice department at The Vancouver Film School and has taught at Simon Fraser University and Studio 58 Langara College. He was graduated from the Drama Department of Carnegie-Mellon University where he studied with Edith Warman Skinner.

Gerry Trentham
Gerry Trentham is the Artistic Director of pounds per square inch performance and has created over 30 original works for the stage. He has performed throughout Canada, USA and Europe and has taught throughout North America, including York University, SUNY Buffalo State, Academy for Classical Acting in Washington D.C., Grant MacEwan College, and the University of Alberta. He holds an MFA in Performance and a Diploma in Voice Teaching from York University..

Previous Faculty
Other members of the Voice Intensive faculty have included:

Eric Armstrong,  (Voice, speech, dialects and acting at York University )

Christine Menzies (Associate Professor Department of Theatre California State University, Northridge)

Rod Menzies (Los Angeles Professional Voice Coach, founding member of the National Voice Intensive)