SOLECA TEATRO COMPANY
vocal artist/actress/company manager
First attempts to create soundscape
Jay Miller
Jay Miller is a vocal coach specializing in speech and communication. Since I discovered my jaw is during creating different sounds pretty tense I needed an exercise which focuses on relaxing my jaw muscles. This exercise helped me when I felt like I can´t explore my voice into fullest because I have issues with my jaw bone. His advice is to place the thumbs on the cheekbones and scroll it down alongside the bone. This is for the purpose of relaxing the masseter muscle.
​
VOICE DEVELOPMENT
As it became clear, appropriate breathing was a very important tool when creating a long-lasting sounds. Here are videos where I implied breathing exercises from Cicely Berry which then helped me during the creation of the Glitch.
Anna Pavlikova
How can I use my voice
to create a soundscape
for an
Immersive Theatre piece?
ABOUT ME
My name is Anna Pavlikova, I am from Slovakia and I study Performing Arts at Canterbury Christ Church University.
I chose PAR module for my last work at CCCU because I always loved to be part of a creative process in any kind of production. I wanted to connect all parts that I studied during my 3 years and that was drama, vocal studies or even dance. Because of my vocal studies and love for the music I chose to be in charge of sound. I wanted to create a soundscape or involve myself as a singer in any possible way. After we decided that everyone will be performing as well, my second company role was an actress. I also wanted to improve my managing skills and I became a company manager.
What you will find on this page is documentation of:
-
what was my role of a vocal artist about​
-
what was my previous work
-
vocal exercises
-
my new inspiration
-
glitch process
-
reflection
-
final soundscape
-
Role of an actress
-
Immersive engaging with the audience
-
Role of a company manager
-
Extra company work
VOCAL ARTIST
After Covid-19 and changing of members in our group we had to make some adjustments where I slightly changed from a sound specialist for the vocal artist.I divided this role into two parts, where in the first part I introduce my previous work and in the second part I talk about my new inspiration, my research and show my development.
​
PREVIOUS WORK
​
When I was thinking of how to create a soundscape for digital Immersive performance my first ideas led to song covers. I wanted to create an original soundtrack for each of our characters. I asked every member of our group to send me music which would be relatable to their character and my intention was to re-make it and add my voice into it. The way I intended to use this soundscape can be described as a soundtrack playing in the background during our video calls. I planned to create six different cover songs which would be symbolic for each of our characters. These are the soundtracks I managed to create. All of them includes backing tracks downloaded from youtube with singing and melody created by me. Even though I decided to change direction, we used the final version of the soundscape in the trailer for our performance
"What happens in Quarantine stays IN" created by the dramaturgy and media specialist Ivana Shopova.
Vocal exercises
As a vocal artist, I had to think about how to support my voice so I do not harm my throat and make sure I use my breath in a correct way, because of the long noises which I often made without stopping. Working with vocal specialists such as Cicely Berry and Jay Miller helped me to prevent from losing or damaging my voice. Here are the exercises that I practised.
Cicely Berry
For every singer or vocal practitioner is breathing an essential part of the practice and performing too. When I was creating various kinds of wind or high pitch sounds, I first struggled with my breath, because I did not know how to manage it so it lasts as long as was needed. This exercise from Cicely berry focused on shoulders and helped me to control my breathing through my stomach, rather than shoulders. As it is shown on the video, by widening my shoulders I opened the rib cage and that helped the air to be drawn into the deepest part of the lungs. I also felt my stomach muscles to be working and allowing the air going down the diaphragm.
“You have felt the air going deep into the stomach as the diaphragm goes down, and felt some movement of the stomach muscles to allow for this.“ (Berry 1973)
vocal artist/actress/company manager
main inspiration
What is the Glitch art?
The Glitch is usually happening in electronic devices as a technical fault
in the system. However, there are artists who use this flaw and transfer it into art.
The main inspiration I was influenced by is Rosa Menkamn´s work The Glitch Moment(um)
where she explores visual technological glitch and investigates it into Glitch Art.
Rosa Menkman explains glitch as interruption of the flow, which ends up in destructed
meaning.
"I describe the ‘glitch’ as an (actual and/or simulated) break from an expected
or conventional flow of information or meaning within (digital) communication
systems that result in a perceived accident or error."(Menkman,2011)
Another inspiration in my practice is glitch happening in our video rehearsals.
Working with these sources I transformed the visual glitch art into a vocal glitch
where I used my voice to create a "glitching soundscape".
​
​
​
GLITCH PROCESS
Even though Menkman´s work explores mostly the visual glitch, an interesting part of my process was to find the connection between visual and the sound.
Since I did not find any evidence of someone creating similar sounds before, I had to carefully listen to real glitches happening in technological systems, where Rosa´s collected glitching pieces worked as an inspiration. My minor aim when creating the glitch was to highlight the problems in communication between the characters and that is where the glitch transfers to Glitch Art. That is why some of my glitches are exaggerated and affected, and in some scenes, they are happening when characters are arguing. Additionally, part of the glitch art that I created can be described as a glitching noise, to which Menkman´s is referring to as“The etymological definition of noise refers to states of aggression, alarm and powerful sound phenomena in nature.“(Menkman,2011) According to this some versions of noise that I created, are aggressive, painful for the ears but they also reflect sounds of nature, which is also a big part of the interruption happening in the video calls.
What did not work/reflection
In the beginning, I was just experimenting and exploring various sounds. Later I found out it did not work because it did not reflect the research from Menkman´s work, and I was not using my voice only, which would not make sense for my role of a vocal artist. When doing these sounds I did not know their purpose yet. What helped me later in the process was to watch the video scenes, get inspired by the atmosphere, and the environment in which our characters were placed and add the glitch accordingly. In case we would have had more time and start Instagram performance earlier and more organised, I would have developed the soundscape further. My idea was to use it in every video scene and explore various types of natural and technical glitches.
USING DISADVANTAGE FOR ADVANTAGE
First I thought if I have too much saliva it would not work and I found it unuseful, however, later I found out it actually sounds good and is relatable to glitching sound of "white noise".Unfortunately, I did not manage to use this in the final soundscape.
GLITCH AS IMMERSIVE TOOL
Since our piece takes tools from Immersive theatre, I had to think about how is the glitch connected to my research question. My major discovery when creating the final glitching soundscape was that the Glitch Art works as a double-immersive tool.
Firstly it brings awareness that characters are connected through technology, as “Technologies in immersive practice are used with dexterity to ignite the imagination; to offer clues and set experiences in place;“(Machon, 2013). To reach that awareness I used technical glitches, so the audience is immersed in the feeling of isolation with our characters.
Secondly, it works as an Immersive tool since we use it to enhance the character’s respective natural environment. Initially, the way we used glitch was mostly visual, however, inspired by glitches happening in our video rehearsals I wanted to emphasise the sounds of nature and environment that surrounded us thus making the audience experience the same atmosphere of the environment in which our characters were situated, being this a “natural landscape is the site, the climate and elemental forces come into play and are key features that inspire the sensual response of the audience.” (Machon, 2013)
FINAL GLITCH SOUNDSCAPE
In this soundscape, I created the sound of the wind. The wind was an important part of the natural environment in our video scenes. Initially, I had issues to make this long-lasting glitch, and that is where breathing exercises from Cicely Berry significantly helped me.
In this video scene, I was focusing on glitching noise, which was supposed to reflect loud music coming from speakers. When creating this soundscape I was focused on aggressivity to emphasise the fact that characters were arguing.
This was the scene where characters were arguing and the glitching here naturally starts with echoing which worked as an advantage and I added technical glitch.
Here I was focusing on a natural glitch. Since one of the characters is sitting outside and we can hear the voice of birds I wanted to exaggerate these sounds. Additionally, one of the characters has problems with blurring and that is why the visual glitch is added.
Some of the glitches that we experienced were just visual where a person would be frozen or blurred. This glitch was kind of like an experiment where I tried to reflect this visual glitch by stopping the video and exaggerating the surrounding environment at the same time, using unprofessional editing tools.
ACTRESS
My second company role was an actress in online 14-days performance named
​
​
“What happens in quarantine stays IN“
​
As our piece takes tools from realist theatre, I considered essential to do further research and use techniques from Stanislavsky toolkit written by Bella Merlin. For my individual character of Anastasia, I have found as useful the acting practise of The six fundamental questions, where the first three questions of Who? When? Where? were provided by our writers and the second three questions Why? For what reason? How? were up to us, actors. To answer the first three questions, as mentioned earlier, Anastasia was an Instagram influencer, traveller and singer, who lived in England with the rest of the characters. The story of her life starts few days before the world pandemic COVID-19.
To answer the second three questions, I would start with:
Why?
Role of Anastasia was significant for our story as she was the one who would usually call everyone in the group, she would be the most positive character and also reveal lots of secrets.
For what reason?
To answer this question I had to think about my character´s objective. Anastasia´s objective would be definitely to stay connected to her followers. Since she was a singer with occasional live gigs, her biggest fear was to lose her followers while being in lockdown. For this reason her behaviour was often self-centered.
How?
The way I tried to portray Anastasia´s objective was that I made her being little naive and falsely happy. For instance, she would often turn the conversation on herself and her popularity on Instagram. In other times she would pretend she cares about her boyfriend Colin, while in fact, she was in love with someone else.
My inspiration came from my knowledge of many Instagram influencers, who often act like their life is perfect, because they make it look perfect on social media. Since we missed a role of director, and some parts of the performance where I was talking to my followers through my stories had to be improvised by me, I used one of the conditions of acting practise called Inspiration, as claimed by Merlin´s toolkit:
“You create fantastic dialogues in the moment of improvisation or you execute extraordinary actions in the moment of performance. All these moments are totally unexpected, yet utterly in keeping with the character you are playing and the action of the writer´s script. That´s when you know you are inspired.“(Merlin, 2007)
Using Stanislavski´s technique of "getting into character" where
"Stanislavski felt that you needed to build up a life for your character part. Using the clues in the text you should work out their background in depth."(2020)
After reading the first lines in the script we were suggested from dramaturgs to create a character´s background. The way we created our profiles was by carefully choosing our personal pictures from the past and finding a relation between them and the character/story. Anastasia´s Instagram account worked as a digital tool when creating the background which is captured in the Instagram story highlights.
COLOUR SYMBOLISM
Since our dramaturgs decided every character should have its specific colour I chose the colour of orange which I use on my Instagram profile. Orange colour is popular for its enthusiastic, energetic and warm vibes, therefore it matched Anastasia´s personality, where I portrayed her being full of energy and positivity most of the times. This colour appeared in most of the pictures and stories she posted.
“Orange – Used to show energy, humour, balance, enthusiasm, expansive, vibrant, warmth, and flamboyant.“(A Quick Guide to Symbolism in Theatre | International College of Musical Theatre, 2020)
This was the isolation exercise suggested from our dramaturgs, which I considered helpful in relation to exploring the theme of Isolation. It was also useful in relation to acting practise "Inspiration" which I mentioned earlier since I had to use my imagination and improvise it, it helped me to understand Anastasia´s character better and use this improvisation when acting.
IMMERSIVE INTERACTION WITH AUDIENCE
What can be seen find below are the screenshots of interactive communication between audience and characters, whether by commenting under the video scenes or directly with Anastasia. My aim as playing the role of an influencer was to talk to the audience as much as was possible, and so I did that using the tool of stories or live streams. Unfortunately, live streams could not have been saved as evidence. As explained in the group description, the audience had several opportunities to reveal secrets between characters and change the continuation of the story.
COMPANY MANAGER
​
I chose this role at the beginning of the module because I was interested in managing my time more effectively. At first, nobody else in our group was interested in taking over this role, also because we did not want to have any hierarchic roles which then might cause any sort of inconvenience. However, after a few rehearsals and meetings, I felt like we could use someone who would manage this group because I wanted to avoid any potential problems in communication. My tasks included making sure that everyone knows what he is doing, dividing the work (we usually did this collaboratively) and encouraging my classmates when there was confusion or misunderstandings.
After COVID-19 this role became twice as difficult. With a lack of personal contact, communication and my ability to manage was getting more complicated. However, with the other two roles which I considered to be much more important, and help from some members of the group, I consider this role to end up being successful. Below you can find some of my work, however, most of the planing was happening in the messenger group chat.
screenshots and schedules
EXTRA WORK
Manifesto poem
Inspired by Tadeusz Kantor´s manifesto called"The Room" I created a poem which demonstrates what our project is about. Kantor in his manifesto speaks about room, loneliness and desire. I found it relatable to our theme of isolation, and everyone being closed in their own room when meanwhile, the worldwide pandemic happening behind the closed door is changing everyone´s life.
First draft
Final version
HOW HAVE I GROWN AND WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?
Role of a vocal artist was the most challenging and important part of my process. At the beginning when our project was supposed to be performed live I was expecting myself using my voice as a singer since we wanted to use various types of performing. After our process has changed for digital theatre I realized I could not make any proper research about it. Regarding this fact I have learned that practice cannot be explored and developed without doing the research first. In terms of growth I believe in a potential future career as a singer/vocalist/ theatre practitioner I have developed new skills, which if needed, I can always refer and come back to. As a company manager, I improved my time management skills and I have learned that while communication in person is in some cases more effective, digital communication has its prons too, but the only fact that matter is effort. As an actress, I´ve also developed my skills in the never experienced digital type of theatre. However, Immersive theatre was for me personally something I was excited to experience live. As theatre practitioner I was prepared to grow more when engaging with the audience in a proper way, involve them in our performance and making them feel soaked in our story. Since this was achieved but in a different-digital way, I have learned that adapting to the current situation and will not to give up was for our project essential.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Croftonacademy.org.uk. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.croftonacademy.org.uk/year%2010%20-%20intro%20-%20voice%20&%20characterisation%20exercises.pdf> [Accessed 30 May 2020].
​
International College of Musical Theatre. 2020. A Quick Guide To Symbolism In Theatre | International College Of Musical Theatre. [online] Available at: <https://theicmt.com/gb/a-quick-guide-to-symbolism-in-theatre/> [Accessed 29 May 2020].
Machon, J., 2013. Immersive Theatres.p.97.
​
Machon, J., 2013. Immersive Theatres.p.94.
​
Menkman, R. (2011) The Glitch Moment(um). Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam,p.28
​
Menkman, R. (2011) The Glitch Moment(um). Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam,p.9
​
Merlin, B. (2007) The complete Stanislavsky toolkit. London: Nick Hern Books limited, p.44
​
Merlin, B. (2007) The complete Stanislavsky toolkit. London: Nick Hern Books limited, p.101
​
©2020 by Soleca Teatro company. Proudly created with Wix.com