AUSAR STEWART
SOULPEPPER ACADEMY: Voice & Embodiment
Ausar Stewart is one of North America’s leading voice, speech and communications coaches. Having taught in some of Canada's finest institutions he is presently a Professor of Voice and Acting at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Drawing from a wide range of training and experience, Ausar integrates performance principles with voice, speech and energetic modalities to create an electrifying signature approach to the art of communication.
Selected coaching credits include: Voice Coach on the remount of the Dora Award winning show Obaaberima, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Dialect Coach on the Dora winning School Girls or the African Mean Girls Play, Factory & Obsidian Co-production. Voice & Acting Coach for Dora Nominated The Flick, Outside the March Theatre. Dialect Coach for The Negroes are Congregating Co-Pro Piece of Mine Arts & Theatre Passe Muraille.
Ausar has also performed on some of the country's most celebrated stages including the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and Shaw Festival. Recent theatre credits include: Dan in Strangers Babies; Theatre Panic. Ensemble in Small Axe Co-Pro Project Humanity & Theatre Centre. The Pastor in Awake Expect Theatre. Marcus Garvey in I Marcus Garvey Theatre Archipelago.
Film and Television credits include Recurring role on Rogue (Direct TV), Principal roles on Man Seeking Woman, Murdoch Mysteries, (CBC), Nikita (CW) and Covert Affairs (USA Network). As the owner of Free Your Voice, he works with private and corporate clients cultivating the skills that instill confidence, develop personal power and leave a lasting impact. His clients Speak, Inspire and Lead. To learn more about Ausar visit: www.freeingourvoice.ca
Voice & Embodiment
The Right to Speak can no longer be taken for granted. Even in Imperial and Colonial contexts artists have long been the harbingers of the previously unspoken, taboo or subversive. Now more than ever it is a role which may increasingly need to be relied upon given the commonplace encroachments on so many freedoms.In this groundbreaking program Soulpepper Academy artists will be engaged in voice and embodiment practices that will unearth the capacity to decolonize their bodies and voices and empower them to speak truth to power. With the body being the most tangible manifestation of the Self it is the ultimate Site of accountability; the Source through which truth and purpose must be actualized. Through their Voice and Body artists will not only hone their craft they will embrace their artform as the crucible for Healing, Transformation and Renewal all three of which we as a global society find ourselves sorely in need of.