Analyzing his own research-creation over the years, the author uses a framework around a heuristic notion of alignment to analyze the quest for coherence between his sense of self and his artistic practice. Although this quest has characterized his personal and artistic trajectory, the model offers a distinct potential to help other research-creation artists locate and address areas of misalignment (friction points between their art and their self), prompting or framing their own processes of seeking alignment. Seeking alignment is both a process of self-reflection and a research-creation method that leads to discernible shifts in an artist’s life and practice.

The author has evolved this notion of alignment from the more specific term vocal alignment, commonly used in vocal technique and pedagogy. His conception of vocal alignment includes and goes beyond the physiological alignment of different body systems designed to optimize the production of vocal sound, giving equal importance to both semantic interpretations of the word voice. It asks: how can an artist align the vocal sounds their body produces with their artistic, personal, social, and political voice? 

This thesis investigates the author’s process of seeking vocal alignment through his voice-based artistic work. Each of the three core chapters is preceded and followed by sections called “Alignments,” in which self-reflexive and auto-ethnographic writing provides insight into his research-creation process. The reader is invited to engage with these artistic works through sections called “Exhibits” (Lip Service, Anthropologies imaginaires, and Bijuriya).

Chapter 1 investigates the author’s critical stance on musical, social, theoretical, and practical aspects of musical life in the Canadian new music scene, highlighting the colonialist assumptions, cultural prejudices, and power imbalances that impact it.
 
Chapter 2 is an analysis of the author’s project Anthropologies imaginaires (2014). He analyzes how his use of voice, body, satire, deception, humour, and laughter formulates a critique of coloniality. 

Chapter 3 focuses on the author’s solo interdisciplinary drag performance Bijuriya (2021-22). He analyzes the different musical, vocal, and performative strategies that coexist in the piece, and his exploration of different relations to the body and the voice, in line with the concept of vocal alignment.