weaving Voices 01.04.2025 issuu - Flipbook - Page 17
Cracking the caramel
Voicing it
V
Stories of connecting through voice
My story of it – what is it I’m looking for?
Christiane Hommelsheim
“A Question of it – methodology is whatever generates
possibilities and delays closure.”
Margaret Cameron13
Crème Caramel is a French dessert where on a delicious
sweet pudding there is a crusty top surface of caramel.
When you begin to eat, your spoon has to crack through
the caramel to sink into the pudding.
In my story it became a symbol of cracking though
paradigms or assumptions. You thought this was a
firm surface one could trust and build on, but no, in a
split second you crack through it and your whole world
changes.
Walli Höfinger
“Connection is the feeling of landing
in the present tense. Fully immersed in
whatever occupies you, paying close
attention to the details of experience.
Characterised by an awareness of your
minuteness in the scheme of things. A
feeling of being absolutely located. Right
here. Regardless of whether that ‘right
here’ is agitated or calm, joyous or
painful.”
Kae Tempest31
Age 22 I started studying art and my professor, Ulrike
Rosenbach (video and performance artist) flipped
through my portfolio and asked me:
In a blink of an eye I knew that I painted these pictures
because I had fallen in love with the painting teacher
in the small art school I had gone to, to prepare the
portfolio.
13 Cameron, M. (2016) I Shudder to Think: Performance as Philosophy.
Brisbane: Ladyfinger Press, p. 11.
As a voice practitioner, I am fascinated by the complex
phenomenon of the human voice. In my experience
the voice is an organ with a multifaceted capacity for
connection. In my practice I often witness that voice has
an impact on many levels: physical, mental, emotional,
musical, imaginative, artistic and spiritual.
In my own voice practice the word ‘connection’
functions as a code word for an experience that carries
many different states and meanings. In the sense that
I am talking about, it is a placeholder for a specific
experience that is hard to name or pin down, as any
experience is fleeting.
–WHY do you paint these pictures?
I knew that it (the paintings) didn’t mean anything. But
I knew that it had to be Art, since acting had shown
up as too dangerous for me in terms of male directors
potentially objectifying me, or using me, my body, my
voice, my psyche on stage for their own purposes, for
their Art. How would my true voice ever be heard?
As a human being I am voice-centred and voicegifted. I am naturally curious and also emphatic. I
seek connection because without connection I cannot
survive. I seek communication and relationship, because
I depend on them. And like many other species, I need
to express to relate.
“It is not in my control, but I can notice
it, when the experience of it arrives, and
learn from it.”
Walli Höfinger32
31 Tempest, K. (2020) On Connection. Kindle Edition ed. London:Tempest,
Faber & K.
Faber,
p. On
8. Connection. Kindle Edition ed. Lon31
(2020)
The moment when the experience of ‘connection’
arrives is clearly perceptible to me. I cannot hold it or
keep it. It is not in my control, but I can notice it, when
the experience of it arrives, and I can learn from it.
I cannot ‘make’ connection, but I can create an
environment and build a practice where connection can
find me. My job then is to notice it, when it happens.
And this leads me to be present in the moment, being
perceptive from moment to moment.
don:
Faber & Faber,
p. 8. notes.
32 Höfinger,
W. personal
32 Höfinger, W. personal notes.
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