This practice-inclusive presentation explores the implications of “queering” Roy Hart Voice Work (RHVW) through voice research and artistic practice, imbricating multiple approaches and modalities to arrive at a new performance research practice that I call femme vocal ghosting. Femme is a queer identity performed through reconfiguring visual signifiers coded as heteronormative through hyper-extension or other means. Because this identity performance relies on an existing visual lexicon, the femme community experiences a sense of invisibilization akin to ghostliness. The vocal in this research includes non-normative or transgressive vocalities such as shrill, chorded, incredibly low, and eerily high sounds. The voice functions as a ghost of the body and can often be a channel for associative material that haunts us or feels part of our psyche in some capacity. I explore the intersection of extended voice practices through Ghosting-an emergent practice of queering through performance. It challenges normative understandings of existing materials or sources (plays, novels, media, etc.) by provoking gender and sexuality tropes via one’s intuitive personal connections and inviting the conflation of personal association with those materials for both performance research and generation.

Depicted in this presentation are video extracts from collaborative research explorations conducted with myself and varied collaborators, Francesca Placanica, Nate Speare, and videographic methods inspired by Ben Spatz’s Dynamic Configurations with Transversal Video (DCTV model). These inquiries explore the relationship between Roy Hart Voice Work, ghosting through existing materials including Eight Songs for a Mad King, a monodrama composed for Roy Hart, and queer performance practices. Through this presentation, I address how queer extended voice performance and work with monodrama aims to draw attention to the continued legacy of extended vocal practices, new forms they take, and to amplify representation of women and queer practitioners and practices in the genre.