Envoicing the future: Victoria hanna's exterior voice

Ruthie Abeliovich

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This essay examines theatrical dimensions of the future in Signals, a performance by the Israeli vocalist Victoria Hanna. An examination of four scenes from this performance, I argue, shows that the sounds in Hanna's voice act in the symbolic dualities of femalemale, humantechnological, and embodieddisembodied figures. These dualities amplify the discrepancy between Hanna's staged identity (female, human, embodied figure) and an absent exterior other (male, technological, disembodied figure). The notion of envoicement is developed in order to analyse these dualities and, in particular, to explore the bodyvoice relationship that they compose. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas's ethical theory in Time and the Other, I argue that the meaning attributed to the future is never conveyed in its presence but rather in its absence; that is, signifying practices that represent the absent exterior referent stage the future. Through this central claim, I thus assert that Hanna's disembodied voice envoices the future.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)159-165
Number of pages7
JournalTheatre Research International
Volume34
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2009
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Visual Arts and Performing Arts
  • Literature and Literary Theory

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