ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the intersection between "international" and "intercultural," although the concerns addressed here overlap at times with intracultural concerns in many US and UK voice classrooms. It also focuses on three areas, which eventually developed into a research methodology: issues surrounding embodiment in voice training, interculturalism as a way of working, and researching through practice(s). The book argues that a continuum of training that teaches various ways of perceiving and doing places different traditions in a polar relationship. It also focuses on songum and the vocal dynamics of the spoken and sung voice passages of this storytelling form. The book emphasizes on understandings of breath and voice to investigate how "energy" and "presence" function conceptually and practically in both traditions. It describes some of the ways body/voice is treated during training, particularly during sankongbu in which performers regularly lose their voices.
