Shaping Sounds Voicemotion

Voice, motion, emotion

Generally the British tend not to explore or display their emotions in any great depth. Anger can seem ugly, love soft, sadness a sense of  disintegration while some feelings are avoided altogether. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths went to find out more about exploring the look of love – or hate – in a workshop, Voicemotion. 

Do we ever think what love, anger, jealousy, hatred looks like? Or even sounds like?

Shaping Sounds, Voicemotion

Guy Dartnell has. He runs workshops exploring how people can become more emotionally aware, how emotions affect us inside and out; how feelings impact on the body and facial expressions. He helps participants go where they haven’t been before; help them connect with their feelings and bodies; and learn something of themselves in the process.

Dartnell explains “The fusion of voice and movement is achieved by using the energy of the emotions as both the fuel and glue driving and forging the vocal-physical dynamic. … The emphasis is on emotional ebb and flow – that if one can be open to one’s feelings and not stand in their way, then the voice and the body flow naturally and easily together – the feeling aspect spontaneously informing the body what to do, side-stepping the more thinking and instructional aspects of the individual, which tend to ‘get in the way’.

Shaping sounds, Voicemotion

I admit I haven’t been to one of the workshops. Dartnell has devised his methods from his own theatre experience. He is an inter/national award winning solo and collaborative artist, whose work crosses the realms of theatre, dance, music, film and participatory performance. He has been an associate artist with Improbable and Lone Twin Theatre (which produced the boat project in Hastings in 2012).

There is a therapeutic element to his process but it is not purely that. Other dramatic-based workshops do that – looking at an individual’s experience and blocks to who they are or what they want to achieve. In Dartnell’s workshops there are no words. “I am not interested in where the emotions come from or what they mean, I am helping people embody and learn what an emotion looks and feels like.”  Dartnell is a safe pair of hands and if someone does not want to go too deep or are frightened of being taken over by a state, he is there to moderate what is happening in the room – and, at any time, someone can always step away.

This exploration of sound and voice has evolved from the work of  Alfred Wolfsohn. During the First World War Wolfsohn noticed the poignant, raw sounds that young men emitted when trapped, injured in No Man’s Land – bereft, primeval sounds that are never normally heard and wondered where they came from.  Through his explorations and studies, he began to understand the magic behind the human voice. However, Dartnell, also influenced by the work of the Roy Hart Theatre, has gone on to evolve his own processes through his theatrical experience.

I understand what actors derive from the experience. But what about more undramatic mortals? There is a strong sense of play in the workshops, people do learn more about themselves, experience feelings they might not have felt for years. Dartnell adds “people leave energised and surprised and feel changed in some way. They can be exhilarated, joyful, tearful, grateful for the experience. And I always come away having discovered something really special to me.”

Music and Visual Arts have a lively presence in East Sussex. There are many theatre practitioners in the area and Dartnell would like performance and theatre to be seen as being an equal to the arts in Hastings and St Leonards.

Workshops are Thursdays January 22, 29, 5 February 7.30-10.00 pm at St Matthew’s Church Centre, London Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, TN37 6PD  
Cost £55/(Concessions £45).
Any other information contact Guy Dartnell by email or Mobile: gdartnell@mac.com 07709 316 274.

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