The Swirl of Emotion Among Us: Affect, the Voice, and Performance Training

Abstract

Our recent theory of intervocality (Cahill and Hamel 2018, 2021) provided a new model of voice as material, relational, and socially constructed. However, our work did not substantially address the complex relationship between voice and emotion, or how that complex relationship could be taken up more effectively and ethically in actor training and the theater studio. Utilizing insights from affect theory, cultural psychology, and affective neuroscience, this article argues for the need for pedagogies that substantively engage with the cultural specificity of emotion, affect, and voice to create more just practices and experiences within the training studio and in performance.