Re atumela phetogo1: Africanisation in Embodied Actor-training Performance Platforms Incorporating Multimodal Learning Janine Lewis Karina Lemmer Abstract This article reports on the implementation of multimodal creative training employed for embodied per

This article reports on the implementation of multimodal creative training employed for embodied performance courses that include physical theatre and voice studies for actors. Awareness of embodiment is imperative for training actors, which in turn underpins the inherent nature of a visceral African performer and conceptual performance. However, attention to embodiment as a site of learning has been sporadic and paradoxically under-documented with-in the area of adult performing arts education. This article focuses on the potential of multimodality to challenge and re-imagine actor-training through implementation of performance platforms incorporating embodied-learning/ performance/ space(s) (embodied-LPS). The performance platform training was initially designed for the physical theatre training of Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) students in 2000, and this article reflects on how this multimodal training approach may be validated when reflecting on its application to the voice course since 2011. Using a reflective research design, association of practice was identified through lecturer’s observation and reflection on the teaching and assessment strategies employed to cluster sample groups of acting-training Bachelor of Technology (BTech) students. Strategies embrace multimodal, self-directed and cooperative learning, that integrate reflexive practice-based principles. The performance platforms are primarily practical applications of theoretical underpinnings that are explored, reflected upon and interpreted. Within the South African higher-education environment, the documentation and reflection in this article serve to validate that such multimodal (re)conceptual performance creativity facilitates transformation for the creative student through ownership learning and co-creation of new knowledge

The actor's use of the prosodic elements of speech to express clarity and intent in performance

This study considers the L2 actor’s engagement with L2 text, within a multilingual South African actor-training context, and includes an authoethographic element as I draw from my lived experience as lecturer-director at a university with a multilingual student body. It investigates the challenges that the L2 actor navigates when required to embody and envoice text in a L2 and investigates the prosodic elements of speech as a base for designing creative explorations that could aid the L2 actor and the director in a multilingual context. Prosody is explored, as communicative devise that conveys the meaning and intent of the speaker and utterance, with specific focus on the universal patterns applied to express the primary emotions. This is complimented by consideration of how prosody is implied and applied in the approaches to the actor’s training in acting and theatre-voice. A series of pilot experiments, productions created with L2 actors is discussed through ex-post-facto reflection. This reflection, informed by relevant literature, traces the development of creative explorations that are applied in the study’s formal experiment, a production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters in which the embodied prosody based explorations were used as primary creative and directing strategy. The participants (cast) and researcher (director)’s reflection of the process and elements of the final performance is discussed. The formal experiment concludes that applying creative explorations that are based in pre-linguistic bodyvoice patterns and escalate to include paralinguistic and L1 content could assist the L2 actor in the embodiment of L2 text, towards communicating the character’s intent in performance.DramaPhDUnrestricte

Audio-psycho-phonology as an aim to improve the pronunciation of the English of Zulu speakers : an evaluation

Thesis (M.A. (English))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2001.This study investigates the impact of Audio-psycho-phonology (APP), a process of hearing stimulation by means of a devise called the Electronic Ear, as an aid to second language (L2) pronunciation training. The outcomes of APP and traditional pronunciation training on the vowel perception L 1 Zulu-speakers who use English as a business language were explored. This group was chosen because intelligible pronunciation is important in their designations. Perception of English vowels was isolated as a base for testing. Pre- and post testing of vowel perception indicates that APP did not have a significant impact as an aid to pronunciation training. A post hoc attitude assessment, conducted amongst the business community, yielded interesting results regarding the connection between pronunciation and language attitudes.Master