This project explores the implications of ‘queering’ Roy Hart Voice Work (RHVW) through voice research and artistic practice, imbricating multiple approaches and modalities to arrive at a new performance research practice that I call femme vocal ghosting. ‘Femme’ is a queer identity performed through reconfiguring visual signifiers coded as heteronormative through hyper-extension or other means. Because this identity performance relies on an existing visual lexicon, the femme community experiences a sense of invisibilization akin to ghostliness. The vocal in this research includes non-normative or transgressive vocalities such as shrill, chorded, incredibly low, and eerily high sounds. Ghosting is an emergent practice of queering through performance. It challenges normative understandings of existing materials or sources (plays, novels, media, etc.) by channeling one’s intuitive personal connections and inviting the conflation of personal association with those materials for both performance research and generation. Approaching both RHVW and femme identity through the lens of post-trauma, I advance ghosting to integrate these to practices developing femme vocal ghosting as performance practice and research.
| Date of Award | 10 Oct 2025 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Ben Spatz (Main Supervisor) & Monty Adkins (Co-Supervisor) |
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