Registrations remain open for the Voice and Speech Trainers’ Association’s inaugural symposium in Australia. Join us from 27-29 June 2024, in Naarm (Melbourne) for three days of knowledge exchange, practical play, and lively discussion.

Innovative Voice
Thu 27 - Sat 29 June 2024
Victorian College of the Arts at The University of Melbourne

For the first time in its 37-year history, VASTA will hold a symposium in Australia in 2024, showcasing voice in the Australasia region. Over three days practitioners and researchers will share and examine new practices and research from around the world.

The three-day gathering centres its exploration on the theme of “Innovative Voice”:
In an age of significant cultural, political and scientific progress, where do voice practitioners fit in? As digital technology and AI rapidly develop, how can we innovate our practice to remain relevant? How can our work include all voices? We invite you to consider what we must cut loose, and what principles and practices remain integral to our work going forward.

Meet the keynote speakers:

• Celeste Rodrigues Luoro (The University of Western Australia) and Glenys Collard (Mallee Aboriginal Corporation): Sharing their journey through their First Nations-le collaboration to study Australian Aboriginal English, an Indigenised variety of English spoken by approximately 80% of First Nations people in Australia (Rodríguez Louro & Collard, 2020,2021a,b). Their sociolinguistic research into Aboriginal English as spoken in Nyungar country, Southwest Western Australia, has allowed them to record and analyse the way that people use language in everyday contexts.
• Daz Chandler, creative producer and interdisciplinary storyteller: Speaking from their background in documentary filmmaking, broadcast journalism and media and human rights advocacy, Daz shares their work exploring the intersections of philosophy, ethics, history, technology and parallel worlding frameworks. They will speak on their current practice steering into immersive, experiential spaces using quantum mechanics and ‘parallel futuring’ frameworks, and the role AI and technological advances play in capturing - and sharing - our voices and stories.
• Nazaree (Naz) Dickerson, Actor/Writer/Director and Associate Lecturer at VCA: Naz is a Wardandi/Bibbulman Noongar and Burmese person from Boorloo (Perth), whose work explores themes of experiencing the world as a neuro-divergent, queer, First Nations woman. She will unpack the complexities of ‘Voice’ through a First Nations perspective and share moments where ‘Voice’ has played a pivotal role in affecting change for individuals and community.
• Philip-Michael Pandongan, aka Yung Philly, freestyle rap artist: Yung Philly bring his stagecraft, wit, and panache off the stage and into community spaces in his Rap workshops. Informed by his work with various community arts practitioners, as well as his mentoring of young people from Melbourne’s outer north, Yung Philly has developed Rap workshops that help undergraduate Theatre students connect to heightened language. Explore using rap to organically stimulate the articulators, exercise wit and wordplay, and take a deep dive into mood and feeling. Yung Philly’s workshops offer an engaging, contemporary approach to exploring rhythm, flow, sense and meaning.

The symposium also features a performance from Pony Cam, a panel discussion with Melbourne Theatre Company and a panel with the Australian Voice Association.

Member presentations include workshops, panels and papers on vocal combat, accent coaching, voice and clowning, improvisation and voice, Linklater, Rodenburg, Fitzmaurice and Roy Hart voice work, decolonising Shakespeare, and disability equity in voice training.

For the full program and registration, visit: https://vasta.events/innovative-voice/

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

Amy Hume and Jennifer Innes
Co-Directors, VASTA Melbourne Symposium
melbourne@vasta.org