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Home2023 VASTA Annual Conference

  Hemispheric Integrations:
Theoretical frameworks for the future of vocal practice and pedagogy.

July 10th - 14th, 2023  |  VASTA Annual Conference

Register for the 2023 VASTA Conference

VASTA's 2023 Conference will take place in charming La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, in collaboration with CEUVOZ and the Instituto Sudcaliforniano de Cultura. The conference will be VASTA's 2023 Annual Conference and CEUVOZ's 2nd International Voice Conference. CEUVOZ will invite participants from across Mexico, as well as from every country in Iberoamérica.

VASTA's keynote speakers are Christine Hamel and Ann Cahill, authors of the incredible "Sounding Bodies: Identity, Injustice and the Voice." The goal of this year's conference is to engage in deep conversations with colleagues from across the Americas and beyond about a future of voice pedagogy that integrates innovative theory and practice.

Most of the conference activities will take place at the Teatro de la Ciudad, which is part of the Unidad Cultural Jesús Castro Agúndez. Some activities will take place at Hotel Araiza Palmira, where VASTA will have some single and shared rooms available. There are several other hotels around the city as well, with a variety of rates. Given the collaboration with CEUVOZ and ISC, this year's conference will not be a fully hybrid gathering. Instead, we plan to livestream a few main events and then record all other sessions, which will then be made available asynchronously for a reduced fee. This will include any pre-recorded, asynchronous VASTA member presentations. 

Versión en Español
             
Pictured left: 
La Paz Cultural Centre, Malecón, Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, Museum of the Whale & Marine Sciences, Baja Californai Sur Museum of Art, House of the South Californian Artisan, Regional Museum of Anthropology and History, Velasco Gardens.  
 

Registration Breakdown


In-Person: Full Conference Package
All-inclusive package for the 2023 conference: VASTA has a limited number of single and shared rooms at Hotel Araiza Palmira available on a first-come, first-served basis. Rooms can be shared with another conference participant (you can request a specific person or VASTA will assign you one). You may also share a room with a non-conference participant guest, who will then pay a reduced additional fee (see the companion rate below). Hotel rooms include pool & gym access, laundry, high-speed wifi, air conditioner, and more. 
Included in the price is a four night stay (July 10, 11, 12, 13), three meals a day (July 11, 12, 13), breakfast on July 14, welcome dinner on July 10, and transportation around La Paz (to/from hotel, conference locations, etc.), as well as access to the entire conference in La Paz. 

This package offers our best deal for the conference! Learn details about accommodations here.

Single Room SOLD OUT!
Registration Rate: $850 

Shared Room SOLD OUT!
Registration Rate: $700

In-Person: Full Conference Pass (No Housing)
This conference pass includes lunch & dinner on July 11, 12, 13, the welcome dinner on July 10, and access to the entire conference in La Paz. 

Registration Rate: $500

Online: Professional Pass
Access the online-only portions of the conference, including pre-recorded presentations and onsite recorded sessions after the conference. 

Standard Rate: $100

Online: Student Pass
Access the online-only portions of the conference at the student rate.

Standard Rate: $50

 

Register for the 2023 VASTA Conference



Resources: Hotels, Transportation, & Attractions


 

La Paz


Hotel Araiza Palmira



Instituto Sudcaliforniano de Cultura



CEUVOZ



Not a VASTA Member? Register for the conference & purchase a VASTA membership all at once! Simply click register above for next steps.

If you are struggling to attend the conference, we would like to help! A 30-70% discount is available to members in lower-income countries for the conference registration. See World Bank income level information here and email conference.director@vasta.org to receive a discount code. 

View the List of VASTA Sessions!



Countdown: 2023 Annual Conference
Countdown
Countdown: 2023 Annual Conference

View the Session Descriptions!


View the Schedule for Hemispheric Integrations:

Click here for the PDF of the schedule. 

 

VASTA's 2023 Keynote:

Philosophizing About/With the Voice: Deploying Theory to Deepen Practices Committed to Vocal Justice

Philosophizing takes different forms; what we already do as voice trainers is a way of philosophizing with the voice, as vocal work constitutes ways of engaging with questions about meaning and identity. In this talk, we will bridge the divide between theory and practice by bringing to the fore and interrogating implicit understandings already present in voice work and offering new philosophical concepts that can create pathways to greater vocal justice.


Meet Our Keynote Speakers

 
   Christine Hamel is an Assistant Professor of Voice & Speech and Acting at Boston University School of Theatre, which she is currently the Co-Chair of Performance. Her areas of research include the social, political, and ethical aspects of voice; the development of sustainable, imagination-centered, and physically grounded methods for actors to explore emotionally challenging terrain; and inclusive approaches to classroom pedagogy. Sounding Bodies: Identity, Injustice, and the Voice is her first book. As a professional actor and voice coach she has worked on and Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, including for the Cort Theatre, the Huntington, PTP/NYC, Olney Theatre Center, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, New Repertory Theatre, Lyric Stage Company, and others; she has vocal coached over 95 professional productions. She has also specialized in the development and coaching of solo performance, and was recently named a Granada Artist-in-Residence at UC Davis where she created Alone/Together, centering the actor as a generative, creative artist. At BU, Christine was the founding artistic director of Femina Shakes, an initiative committed to exploring Shakespeare unconstrained by the limitations of conventional gender narratives, prioritizing the relevance of embodiment as both implicated in and resistant to various forms of oppression in and around those texts. Christine is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher, holds a teacher training certificate of completion from MICHA (Michael Chekhov Association), is a certified Divine Sleep® Meditation and Mindfulness Leader, and is a member of Actors' Equity. She lives in Arlington, MA.
 
Ann J. Cahill is Professor of Philosophy at Elon University, where she also serves as the Director of National and International Fellowships. Her research interests lie at the intersection of feminist philosophy and philosophy of the body. Sounding Bodies: Identity, Injustice, and the Voice is her third book, and the first she has co-authored. Rethinking Rape (2001) argued that conceptualizing sexual assault as an embodied experience allowed for a better understanding of its harms and social and political meanings; Overcoming Objectification: A Carnal Ethics (2011) revisited a foundational concept in feminist theory, ultimately concluding that deploying the concept of objectification to analyze the ethical questions inherent in social phenomena such as sexual assault, sex work, and representation of femininely gendered bodies was both philosophically and politically problematic. In addition to her book-length works, she has published over twenty-five peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, addressing topics such as miscarriage, beautification, pedagogy, and inequality in academia. In 2016, she received a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to direct a Summer Institute for College and University Teachers on the theme of “Diverse Philosophical Approaches to Sexual Violence.” Originally from New England, she has lived in Greensboro, NC for most of her adult life.

Meet the 2023 Conference Team

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Tania González Jordán

Conference Director
Tania González Jordán is a Mexican actress trained in the Centro Universitario de Teatro, of the Universidad Autónoma de México, where she is now an associate professor of voice and speech; a Designated Linklater Teacher (DLT) since 2012, she has a master’s degree in arts from the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. She has taught voice for actors and voice professionals at CEUVOZ and the main Acting schools in México City since 2003. She has attended workshops and Master Classes with Cicely Berry, Arthur Lessac, Kristin Linklater, Luisa Huertas, Patsy Rodenburg, Joao Das Neves, Zebba Dal Farra, and others. Certified from 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos, in a Critical Thinking Program, she is interested in the poetics for voicework in Mexican actor´s training. As a theatre actor, her work has taken her to perform in México City, Jerusalem, Lyon, and all over México in radio, films, and television until the present day. As a director, she presented her first play in 2012.

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Sergio Carazo Cardona

Associate Conference Director
Sergio Carazo Cardona graduated with a degree in Acting from the National School of Dramatic Art (ENAT) in Mexico City, and has worked as actor, playwright, and teacher without interruption since 2016. Their stage work has focused primarily on cabaret theatre with a strong emphasis on the diversity of gender identities and expressions; leading them to work as a director and vocal coach of plays with casts made up of trans actors. In 2022, they completed the first stage of the training process for becoming a Designated Linklater Teacher, at the KLVC in Scotland; designation that will complete in the year 2023. As a voice and speech teacher, they has regularly taught at the Mexican Association of Independent Filmmakers (AMCI), SIGE-Produciendo (school for dubbing actors) and Universidad Anáhuac, and, recently, visiting professor at CEUVOZ.

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Antonio Ocampo-Guzman

VASTA Board President

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Kimberley Cohan

Director of Operations

General questions or thoughts?

The conference team is here to help!

To get in touch with us, click here!