Geraldine Cook
Head of Department
Voice
Geraldine is currently Head of Voice in the School of Performing Arts (Theatre) at the Faculty of the VCA and Music, The University of Melbourne, Australia. Geraldine's experience as a teacher, actor and youth theatre director spans over 25 years in London and Melbourne. She trained in London at Middlesex University where she completed her degree in drama and education and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she completed a Licentiate in Voice and Speech. Further training was augmented with Patsy Rodenburg, Prunella Scales and Cicely Berry in London. Geraldine has a Masters in Education from The University of Melbourne.
In London she worked as a drama teacher and a youth theatre director working on community and education based productions at the Half Moon and Curtain Theatres. In Melbourne, Geraldine developed, implemented and taught community based performance training for the TAFE system at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE and Swinburne University theatres and inaugurated a training company developing theatre in education productions for people with disabilities. Geraldine has performed in productions at La Mama, Universal, Atheneum and Anthill. Recent voice-over work has included a soundscape for the Melbourne Immigration Museum and a travelling exhibition for the centenary of Federation.
Geraldine’s freelance work includes working as a voice and communications consultant for the corporate and government sectors, specialising in working with people from a non-English speaking background. She specialises in accents and dialects and is an Australian associate editor for the accent and dialect website located at Kansas University. Geraldine works as a vocal/dialogue coach for the Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, ABC and SBS and her most recent film work included "Ned Kelly".
Research Interests
Art meets science to help hearing-impaired actors
By Geraldine Cook
A research project at the University of Melbourne is investigating how artists and scientists may broaden the scope of habilitation practices for hearing technologies and develop a new cross-disciplinary methodology for evaluating vocal quality.
In July 2006 the ARC awarded a Linkage grant of $120,000 to the University of Melbourne, Departments of Otolayrngology and the School of Drama (Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA)) for a research project entitled ‘Vocal empowerment: researching the effect of actor voice training on young adults with cochlear implants and hearing aids.’
The research project is a collaboration involving Professor Richard Dowell, Head of Otolaryngology, Geraldine Cook, Head of Voice in the School of Drama at the Victorian College of the Arts, Cochlear Ltd. who are the makers of the cochlear implant in Sydney, Jodie Harris, an actress who wears a cochlear implant and who is an alumna of the School of Drama and Colleen Holt, Senior Research Assistant in the Dept. of Otolaryngology.
Aims of the project are:
- To adapt techniques from the discipline of actor voice training to the habilitation of young adults with cochlear implants and hearing aids;
- To research and measure the effects of adapted voice training on cochlear implant recipients and hearing aid users;
- To further develop an integrated cross-disciplinary framework for the evaluation of vocal quality
Jodie Harris graduated from the VCA in 2001. During her time at the VCA, she underwent cochlear implant surgery and the vocal training she received at the VCA, was really part of her habilitation. Jodie discovered techniques to improve the pitch, volume and rhythm of her speech and this gave her a greater sense of vocal confidence and empowerment, not only as an actor but also in daily life. Jodie says that the voice training helped her correct her soft, often, high-pitched voice. She mentions that people with hearing impairments are often not heard in group situations and she found that often people would not pay attention to her when she was speaking.
Jodie was always very keen to impart to others what she had learnt about her voice in her actor training. Both Geraldine and Jodie felt that young adults were the group most at risk during their rehabilitation because they are going through so many emotional, physical and psychological changes at that age.
They are currently working with the research group of nine young adults, every Saturday at the VCA where the participants undergo vocal training designed for the actor, led by Geraldine and Jodie. The aim is to measure the effects of the adapted voice training techniques on these young adults. Their voices are being recorded pre and post training and then measured by a team comprising an audiologist, a theatre voice teacher and a speech pathologist to see whether any change in vocal quality has taken place amongst the participants. The group is also participating in ‘well-being’ measures conducted by postgraduate psychology students, under the supervision of Dr Carol Hulbert.
It is hoped that training materials will be developed through the research project which could be integrated into the speech rehabilitation that cochlear recipients undergo in the cochlear implant clinics.
The process is being documented by Ivanka Sokol, a film maker, who has recently won a Green Room Award.
On September 25th, the group presented a performance of “Wish 3 More Wishes” at the Victorian College of the Arts. Directed by Naomi Edwards and facilitated by Geraldine Cook, the young group performed to over 70 people. The audience included scientists from Cochlear Ltd., speech pathologists, teachers of the deaf, family and friends. The group also performed “Wish 3 More Wishes” followed by a forum at the Seymour Centre in Sydney to Cochlear engineers on March 31st 2008. Subsequently, “Wish 3 More Wishes” was performed at the AGM of Cochlear employees (an audience of 700), held at the Waterside Convention Centre in Sydney, on 15th August 2008. A Creative Presentation seminar was held at the Faculty of the VCA and Music on 28th November which outlined the qualitative and quantitative outcomes of the project to an invited audience of interested professionals from the disciplines of speech pathology, creative and performing arts, theatre, teachers of the deaf and Cochlear Ltd. ,followed by a performance of “The Sound of Waves” with Jodie Harris, directed by Naomi Edwards and written by Gareth Ellis (alumni from the School of Drama).
Further information about the results of the combined methodologies for testing and evaluation of the project can be obtained from Colleen Holt, cholt@unimelb.edu.au and Geraldine Cook gcook@unimelb.edu.au.
Geraldine has also produced a DVD and accompanying manual and report of the training materials for Cochlear Ltd. (Videography by Ivanka Sokol).
Geraldine Cook and Jodie Harris are meeting with Cochlear Ltd. in May to discuss further possibilities for using this model of actor vocal training with other groups of young cochlear implant users.
Please click here to view a video of some of the workshop training.
If you do not have Windows Media Player to watch this you can download it here:
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Alternatively you can download a quicktime file of the video.
Current Research Projects
Geraldine is currently enrolled in Doctor of Education (Research) in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne.