Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2009
Following the departure of the Roy Hart Theatre for France in 1974, and the death of Hart in a car accident shortly afterwards, his pioneering work in exploring the theatrical potential of the human voice has tended to be neglected in the English-speaking world. In the following article, Paul Newham demonstrates that, despite Hart's undoubted importance in the application of his methods of vocal self-discovery to performance, those methods were firmly rooted not only in aspects of Freud's theory of abreaction and Jung's belief in the multi-aspected or ‘polyvalent personality’, but more specifically in the practical therapeutic work on the human voice conducted by Alfred Wolfsohn, first in Germany before the war, then in Britain from Wolfsohn's exile in 1938 until his death in 1962. The author, Paul Newham, is founder and director of the International Association for Voice Movement Therapy in London, and has worked therapeutically with a wide range of clients, including performing artists. His book The Singing Cure: an Introduction to Voice Movement Therapy, will be published by Random House in March.
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