Dreaming Voice: A Dialogue

This co-authored chapter between Ilona Krawczyk and Ben Spatz considers how post-Grotowskian training and performance practice – with an emphasis on voice and song – can be enhanced and enriched by an approach to process drawing on the work of Arnold Mindell. Extending Mindell’s concept of dreambody into what we call dreamvoice, we focus on the reciprocality of perception and expression in voicework and the potential to work creatively with unintentional as well as intentional vocal expressions. The chapter is structured as a dialogue between practitioner-researchers sharing their experiences with post-Grotowskian theatre companies in Poland, their current relationship as PhD researcher (Ilona) and supervisor (Ben) and their mutual interest in voice and movement. The first and third sections of the essay are written by Ilona, taking her doctoral research in embodied voice to trace Mindell’s processwork and the notions of dreambody and dreamvoice through case studies from her Practice as Research, focused on voice pedagogy. The second and fourth sections are written by Ben, reflecting on the place of somatics in the post-Grotowskian and exploring the inextricability of technique, identity and culture in even the smallest kernels of the voice.