A voice and so much more (or when bodies say things that words cannot)

Abstract

This article explores and challenges two philosophical perspectives on the voice in performance, seen in Mladen Dolar’s A Voice and Nothing More (2006). Through a consideration of two songs from the 2005 musical The Light in the Piazza, I explore the relationship of the voice to language, and the voice to the body. Examining the effect of the foreign tongue in Piazza, and the prevalence of vocalize as a dramatic device, I conclude that our essential experience of voice is an embodied one, and not paradoxical as Dolar’s theories often suggest. Drawing on neuroscientific and biological perspectives, along with performance theory and musicology, I offer a concept of ‘corporeal vocality’, for understanding the voice as the paradoxical keeper of both linguistic utterance, and the bodily presence of the speaker/singer.

On breaking with

“…Over the last decade or so, they have become increasingly interdisciplinary, spanning across performative, gendered and philosophical paradigms (e.g. Cavarero 2005;Dolar 2006;Macpherson 2012Macpherson , 2015Poizat 1992;Thomaidis 2013aThomaidis , 2013bThomaidis , 2014.…”

“…Karantonis et al (2016: 47-51), for instance, in exploring the voice of Cathy Berberian, a key figure in the Early Musical revival of the 1960s, use the term 'feminine vocality' in conjunction with 'new vocality' to describe her bold non-conformance. 'Corporeal vocality' (Macpherson 2012) and 'physiovocal' approaches to singing (Thomaidis 2014) regard vocality as intertwined with the physical gesture in the performing body, as I have articulated in Mani (2017b). In regarding the voice as the 'paradoxical keeper of both linguistic utterance, and the bodily presence of the speaker/singer', Macpherson (2012: 43) advocates for corporeal vocality that connects voice to language, and voice to the body; he argues, 'our essential experience of voice is an embodied one'.…”

Voice Studies

“…Conceptualizing voice as the nexus of body and language, Dolar suggests it represents "the place where what cannot be said can nevertheless be conveyed " (2006: 31). Ben Macpherson (2012) reconsidered Dolar's paradoxical hierarchy of voice, body and language with reference to sung voice, but in this case, the place that "conveys" rather than "says"-the embodied in-between of vocality-implicitly relies on Fischer-Lichte's suggestion of transformation and transition. Roland Barthes famously defined the "grain of the voice" as "the materiality of the body speaking its mother tongue," while asserting it is not linguistic, timbral or tonal (1977: 182).…”