A Voice Lesson (Reimagined) — The Documentary

Описание: A Voice Lesson (Reimagined)
Written, Performed and Composed by Anna-Helena McLean

with core support from Kendell Foster, Elena Voce Siriani and Karen Simecek
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A posthuman odyssey disguised as a voice class. An immersive performance that takes a contemporary departure from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando — where her stream of consciousness meets the algorithmic flow of AI. Here, the audience join a voice class like no other, blending live looping, cello, AI projection and collective song to explore how voice can bridge body and technology. This is a participatory event that can be accompanied by workshops and welcomes diverse community voices.

Created in collaboration with Andrew A C Cooper, Kendell Foster, Elena Voce Hood, Zahra Mansouri, Karen Simeçek, Thomas Siriani, Scarlett Stitt, Erin Washington and [rn_1]

A posthuman odyssey disguised as a voice class

(Think Florence + the Machine meets Laurie Anderson)

Orla, a voice teacher, welcomes the audience as her students for a lesson that begins in everyday chaos and slips into cosmic revelation.
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Through live looping, electronic cello, AI projection, and audience call-and-response, voice becomes voltage — a living bridge between flesh and frequency, between the human and the more-than-human. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Orla’s studio becomes a feedback chamber where light, sound, and language blur into white noise — the sound of a body remembering itself.

What starts as razor-edged humour and sharp social commentary on burnout, gender, and digital life breaks open into something stranger: an ecstatic act of resistance in a world that’s forgotten how to feel.

It’s part stand-up, part sound experiment — a data-age confession where glitch becomes grace and distortion hums at the edge of consciousness.

In a digitised future, embodiment might be the only power we have left.

This is theatre that breathes.

Sing it before the signal fades.

Testimonials:

The work of an extraordinary performer as singer, actor, musician and mover... totally inhabiting an original practice and its ongoing research. The searching is within the body and voice and so too the investigation takes place live, and in the moment as we witness it in the body and between us. The vocal exploration is only possible because of the unique command over performance, live interactions with the audience and craft.
Niamh Dowling, Principal of RADA

I found the work to be overflowing with talent and craft, and like no other piece of theatre I've ever been a part of. I was drawn-in by Anna-Helena's presence, confidence and ease on stage, and awed by the creativity in the storytelling. I am so excited by it!
William Ryder MFA CPA, actor, voice & speech educator (Patsy Rodenburg Associate) and corporate coach