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The theatre is a heterogeneous, dynamically generated place/space. For an analysis of the dynamic generation process of this place, voices in contemporary theatre are an especially productive object of study. Voices not only make us imagine places through language, but they also produce the places, and let us hear their own transience and fluidity so that the imagined or produced places are dissolved simultaneously.
 
The voice in itself is placeless; it has no place of its own which could be identified by a name because it fades away the moment it becomes sound and thus can never be “fixed.” The voice is the trace of the caller, whom it leaves behind even when it becomes sound, while it is accessible to the listener only as a trace and is therefore always differently heard. Although the voice works as an index, its identity is not given a priori, it is always constituted in retrospect. The voice cannot be located either with the speaker or the listener, but it always resides in a space between. Through its bodily nature, the voice structures in a processual way the particular relations between the callers, the listeners, and the imagined places. Voices which bring such properties to the fore are termed, in the present thesis, placeless voices.
 
Though the voice in itself is placeless, it creates a listening space; thereby, specific locations arise within a dynamic process – the origin of the voice or the position of the callers and the places of gathering or point of contact of the callers and listeners. This process, in which socially, politically, or geographically predetermined places are dissolved and theatrical places of gathering are created, is analyzed in the thesis with reference to specific, strikingly staged placeless voices, some variants of which are distinguished as “topological vocal gestures.” They structure different relations between the callers, the listeners, and the imagined places within the theatrical listening space. In the first part, it is examined how the places of origin of the voices, which are often identified with politically, geographically, or socially determined places, are formed and dissolved in a processual manner. In the second part, it is shown how the voices’ calling upon us create theatrical gathering places.
 
Since the voices are perceived not as something present, the places which are vocally generated are recognized as such only by the repetition of the different. Topological vocal gestures therefore correspond to self-repeating gestures. Each topological vocal gesture leads to a particular repetition with difference. Placeless voices hold places together only through their repetition. Topological vocal gestures in general show, especially in the form of repetition with difference, that origins or homes do not exist a priori, but are generated in a process. Through the voices, callers and listeners do not merge into a single community, but the voices are shared / divided (partage) by both sides – with difference.
 
By drawing on case studies from Japanese, German, and Belgian contemporary theatre and by referring to theories by Gilles Deleuze/Félix Guattari as well as Roland Barthes, this study shows – from a performance analytical perspective – that the repetition with difference, which makes a vocal place possible in the first place, does not only mark a physical, acoustically perceptible repetition, but also appears as an affective one; it makes the voice constitutively placeless while connecting the listener with a place. This is because the voice produces a specific, affective location: atopia. Atopia is the unqualifiable place which attracts the callers while generating different points of contact between the listening I and the calling you. The atopia becomes the clue which can lead us as listeners to the position of the callers and to the contact point between callers and listeners.
 

(Written by HARIGAI Mariko, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2023)