Dr. Shannon Coates

Pedagogy Is Political – How Shifting Sociocultural Paradigms Redefines Our Teaching

 

Dominant cultures justify continuing oppression of underestimated groups by pathologizing or demonizing those groups in order to maintain power and control. Women, Black people, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, LGTBQ+, disabled people, neurodivergent individuals, and other historically marginalized groups have been stigmatized by church and state throughout history as mentally deficient, worshippers of false gods, mentally ill, or deviants. Educational institutions built on pathologizing and demonizing paradigms teach that there is a right and wrong way to sing, that there are superior art forms, that there are good and bad students, and that the role of the voice teacher is to prescribe proper singing while defending a superior art form. Although advocacy and rights movements have led to shifts in sociocultural paradigms, these shifts have not fully affected underlying educational philosophies, and thus are poorly integrated into our educational systems. Using the emerging Neurodiversity Paradigm, this keynote will examine some of the ways that historical sociocultural paradigms continue to influence our pedagogical philosophies, and offer ideas about how recognizing and embracing current sociocultural paradigms can change our pedagogy and redefine our conception of technique, art, learning, and teaching.

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Dr. Triniece Robinson-Martin

Cultural Appropriation, Appreciation, and Adaptation: A framework for understanding the continuum, identifying markers of operation, and considerations for growth

 

As vocalists, we are the voice of culture. As voice educators, we have the responsibility to honor those cultures most responsibly and respectably. With increased cultural sensitivity and reckoning comes a search for understanding and guidelines for operation. Through the combined research on Culturally Responsive Teaching, Ethnomusicology, and Applied pedagogy and performance, I will be introducing a framework to help performers and educators identify the different levels of cultural understanding in the context of performance.

 

In this lecture, we will explore the areas of Cultural Appropriation (i.e., Cultural Approximation), Cultural Appreciation (i.e., Cultural Empathy and Understanding), and Cultural Adaptation (i.e., Cultural Embodiment). These areas will be defined from both a historical perspective and modern application, in addition to a proposed guideline or identifying markers of operation and understanding will be presented.

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Ingo Titze

Vocal Performance in the 21st Century

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This keynote address will provide a sketch of the evolution of vocalization. Laryngeal adaptation to electronically-assisted vocal communication is considered, with specific reference to microphone assistance in CCM and Music Theatre styles, has resulted in a different phonatory set-up from the phylogenetically older calling and singing over longer distances. While current trends are toward mastery of many styles by individual singers, with and without amplification, training and maintenance of the instrument will likely not follow the same path for all vocalizations. Vocal fatigue, and recovery from fatigue, are defined and quantified in this address.

 

Tyran Parke

Songs for a New World – reviewing revivals of Music Theatre through a modern lens

 

There is no denying that the necessary and overdue global interrogation of diversity and inclusion in recent times has had a huge effect on Musical Theatre. Accelerated by significant and at times shocking international events and changing socialisation,this interrogation has seen musicals often scrambling to keep up with developments in this space. As we have reflected on our practices, while trying to maintain relevance in speaking to a changing audience, those left behind have included institutions and as well as individuals and establishments unable or unwilling to adapt. And while a new breed of musical is emerging, it is emerging slowly. While we wait for our stages to be populated with the next ‘Hamilton’, ‘Six’ and ‘A Strange Loop’, a significant source of pleasure - and income in relation to musicals - is nostalgia, found primarily in revivals or adaptations of existing material. As a leading director of music theatre in Australia, my commercial career relies primarily on mainstage revivals, balanced with an ongoing commitment as theatre maker and educator at the Victorian College of the Arts, to engage responsibly in my practice, using education and experience to develop a form that is inclusive to all. The challenge of the modern music theatre director is to revive existing texts without reviving the social politics of another era that conflict with current views. With a passion for maintaining the great works of the past, I am often charged with the task of ‘revising’ rather than just ‘reviving’ and in doing so, providing a modern context for traditional pieces. In this keynote address, I will discuss these issues, informed by my own research and my extensive body of work, enabling us all to investigate new ways into proven classics from the mainstage to the home studio.