Profile
I am a voice practitioner, actor trainer, researcher, performer, poet, singer and guitarist. I have extensive international experience as a voice consultant and trainer, feminist theatre performer and actor trainer in conservatoires, theatre companies and businesses in Japan, Colombia, Argentina, Romania, Australia, the US and the UK.
My research is about the felt experience of vocal sound in the body and the auditory perception of voice/ pitch. The sensations themselves and the assumptions surrounding their reception, are all phenomena linked intrinsically to race, class and gender, and have implications for access (or not) to democratic public platforms.
I have interests in the documentation of voice in the history of theatre practice in western Europe and the USA, inter-generational Lesbian feminist music performance and the poetics and embodied reading of verse text, including work by Elizabeth Bishop and Alice Oswald.
I received my BA in English and American Studies at the University of Sussex, an MA in Women’s Studies at the University of Kent, an Advanced Diploma in Voice Studies (ADVS) at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Kristin Linklater teacher designation in 2015 (DLT) and a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
After ten years writing and performance with the all-women Siren Theatre, I took up voice posts at the National Youth Theatre, The Poor School, Middlesex Polytechnic, the BA in Acting at Central, and Roehampton University. I took up a senior practitioner voice post at RADA in 1999 and as Head of Research and Development in 2004. In 2010, I took up the post at Central to run the MA/MFA in Voice Studies and head up the International Network for Voice (INV).
Areas of Expertise
- Voice Coaching / teaching for theatre
- Intersectional voice praxis in the training studio
- Practice as research in voice
- Interpretation of embodied poetics
Key Publications
2019. ‘In Memory of a Radical: Cicely Berry’, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, 4 (No 1). pp. 55-70. ISSN 2057-035X
2019. ‘Pitch and gender in voice training: new methodological directions’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 10:3, 332-336, DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2019.1660523
2018. Voice: Readings in Theatre Practice (London: Palgrave)
2014. ‘Poetic text in contemporary voice training: a repositioning’ Voice and Speech Review, 8.2, 131-148, DOI: 10.1080/23268263.2014.906957
2012. ‘The Physical Voice in the Moving Body’, The Physical Voice in the Moving Body, November 2012, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. (Unpublished)
2009. Teaching Stanislavski: Case Study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Palatine)
2009. Breath in Action: The Art of Breath in Vocal and Holistic Practice, co-edited with Rena Cook (London: Jessica Kingsley)
2009. ‘Breathing the Verse’, in Breath in Action: The Art of Breath in Vocal and Holistic Practice, eds. Jane Boston and Rena Cook (London: Jessica Kingsley) pp. 199-213.
2007. Editor. J. Clifford Turner’s Voice and Speech in the Theatre (6th Edition), (London: Methuen Drama).
2007. Performance Breath DVD (RADA)
1997. ‘Voice: The Practitioners, their Practices, and their Critics’, New Theatre Quarterly, xiii. 51 August, 248-254.
External Practice
My practice includes a public lecture on voice and film at the British Film Institute (2018), curator and presenter: Ex-changing Pedagogies: an International Dialogue in Voice Training, Central 2018, voice lecture for the Wellcome Trust (2016), an interview on voice as sound for the BBC’s Natural History Unit, (2017), curation for Being Human Festival at Central in association with the Female Voice event at the National Theatre (2014), conference co-host coordination for VASTA at Central (2014), and at RADA: Breath Conference (2007), voice consultancy for Google (2013), directorial work co-directed Alice Oswald’s Memorial (Brighton Festival, 2012), master-classes for Blake Society and Poel Festival (2012), music performances with Siren (2014-2021), senior voice training for RADA in Business, with clients Siemens, BP and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2005-11) and chair of the Shakespeare North Theatre education subcommittee (2009-2019).
Register of Interest
Nothing to declare.
