Voice Over is a celebration of the human voice. The first Voice Over Festival took place in Autumn 1990 to create an ongoing focus for challenging and extraordinary voice work. It continues as a series presenting emerging and established, British and International artists at a range of venues across London.
Voice Over encourages and provides a platform for the voice within all artforms. The emphasis on voice work in dance is particularly important. The voice as an instrument of the body, the choreography of the voice in performance, and the relationship of the voice to a range of differing movement vocabularies is an exciting and developing arena of work attracting an increasing number of practitioners.
One highlight, Memories From The Middle Kingdom which ran for a week at the ICA in November 1990, offered an extraordinary fusion of voice, character, narrative, visual art, physical theatre and choreography. A successful collaboration between two British dance and mime artists, Martin Coles and Martin Gent (dA dA dUMB) with the Chinese vocalist Lui Sola.
An educational programme is linked to Voice Over presentations to help activate and develop the use of voice work in dancers and performers. To hear thirty workshop participants, many of whom were dancers and choreographers, sing their hearts out after a week-long intensive workshop with Czech voice artist Ida Kelarova was a joy and a favourable base on which Voice Over continues to build.
This autumn Voice Over present Meredith Monk and the Vocal Ensemble whose work epitomises the cross influencing of art forms that is a crucial part of Voice Over.
This project combines a British tour of the Concert version of Atlas – a new Opera which draws together a joyous range of music, vocalisation, expressive singing, and movement – and a workshop with her long-time creative associate Robert Een for invited movement and voice artists.
Thursday 29 October at 7:45, Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London SE1. Bookings 071 928 8800 (as part of an Arts Council's Contemporary Music Network Tour)。
Voice Over is a co-production between Shinkansen and Speakout.
