Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2010
Abstract
Recent theorizations of the female singing voice have often echoed those conceptions of feminine specificity that characterize femininity in terms of embodiment, closeness and presence. This paper follows a critique of such elaborations of femininity by the film theorist Mary Ann Doane, who proposed the concept of the "masquerade" as a strategy to reinstate distance into the understanding of femininity.
This paper explores the possibility of a "vocal masquerade," drawing on case studies from the sphere of extended vocal techniques, in particular the work of Diamanda Galás and Meredith Monk.