The Editors
Jonathan Pitches is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Leeds in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries. He specialises in the study of performer training and has wider interests in intercultural performance, environmental performance and blended learning. He is founding co-editor of the TDPT and has published several books in this area: Vsevolod Meyerhold (2003), Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting (2006/2009), Russians in Britain (2012) and Stanislavsky in the World (with Dr Stefan Aquilina 2017). He currently has two new books in production: Great Stage Directors Vol. 3: Komisarjevsky, Copeau, Guthrie (2017) and Performing Landscapes: Mountains (2018).
Libby Worth, Senior Lecturer in theatre practice in the department of Drama, Theatre and Dance, Royal Holloway, University of London, is a movement practitioner trained in the Feldenkrais Method and in dance with Anna Halprin. She co-edited Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist with Richard Cave, has published on Mabel Todd, Caryl Churchill and Jenny Kemp and has co-authored a book on Anna Halprin and another on the work of Jasmin Vardimon (forthcoming 2017). She was guest editor for the Theatre, Dance and Performance Training special issue on the Feldenkrais Method. She co-devised the performance Step Feather Stitch (2012) with visual artist Julie Brixey-Williams, which they subsequently wrote about in Choreographic Practices (Vol. 3, 2012), and they are now completing a dance film duet ‘Fold’. Current research includes interests in time/temporality in performer training, with a co-edited book planned for 2017 and in ‘folk’ dance in border regions and the issues raised for training in relation to amateur practices.
Training Grounds Editors
Dick McCaw was co-founder of the Actors Touring Company in 1978, and of the Medieval Players in 1981. Between 1993 and 2001 he was Director of the International Workshop Festival. Since 2002 he has been an independent researcher and Senior Lecturer (part-time) at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is contributing editor of The Laban Sourcebook (Routledge, 2011) and has been commissioned to edit the Complete Laban Toolkit (Nick Hern Books).
Kate Craddock is a Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a theatre maker and practice-led researcher, Kate interrogates concepts of collaboration, and is co-artistic director of mouth to mouth, a group of globally dispersed performing artists who utilise domestic web-based technologies as tools for performance. Kate also has a solo performance practice, and has performed in a number of international theatre festival contexts. Kate is the founder and Festival Director of GIFT: Gateshead International Festival of Theatre.
Royona Mitra is Lecturer in Theatre at Brunel University London. Her PhD, from Royal Holloway, University of London (2011), is on the British-Bangladeshi artist Akram Khan and her monograph Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism was published in May 2015 (Palgrave). Royona trained in classical and contemporary South Asian dance in India and specialised in physical theatre in the UK. She was the founding member and performer with Kinaetma Theatre, an intercultural physical theatre company that made work between India, UK and Portugal from 2002 to 2007. Her research interests include intercultural performance, dance and the diaspora, contemporary South Asian dance and physical theatre/dance theatre.
Thomas J.M. Wilson is a module/year coordinator for BA European Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford College, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Initially trained in equestrian vaulting he competed at European level in the mid-1990s. Subsequently he has engaged in practices rooted in the intersection between dance and theatre methodologies, working as both a performer and director/choreographer in a range of contexts. Thomas served on Oxford Dance Forum’s Steering Group (2008‒2010) and has regularly contributed to Total Theatre Magazine since 2001. He is an Associate of Gandini Juggling, working as their archivist and publications author.
Contributors
Rhoda Dullea is an accompanist, piano teacher and part-time lecturer based at the UCC School of Music and Theatre. Her research interests include the relationship of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century art music to literature, as well as music education and performance theory. Rhoda was conferred with a PhD from UCC in 2005, having obtained a prestigious two-year Postgraduate Scholarship from the Irish Research Council in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) to fund her studies under the supervision of Dr Christopher Morris. As a collaborative pianist, Rhoda has performed in a diverse range of musical and dramatic genres, from instrumental duos to ballet and theatre. Rhoda has recently completed a part-time Masters in Education (Arts, Creativity, Education and Culture) at the University of Cambridge, where she pursued studies in the area of interdisciplinary arts education, with a specific emphasis on opera education programming and development, an area that she continues to research.
Edmond Kilpatrick is a graduate student at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in the Master of Arts Education programme and he has taught as a sessional instructor in the dance and theatre programmes at the SFU School of Contemporary Arts since 2008. Edmond has had a professional dance career since 1990 as a contemporary dancer, as part of the corps de ballets of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal and for nine years as a featured dancer at Ballet British Columbia. He has choreographed over 20 dances for stage and film that have been produced in festivals as well as in self- and co-presentations. He is a Franklin Method™ Level 1 educator, a Pilates instructor, and holds a BFA in dance from Simon Fraser University as well as a diploma from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School.
Carmencita Palermo, born in Sicily, trained in Bali, and based in Tasmania (Australia), is a researcher and performer who focuses on Balinese masked dance theatre and mask embodiment cross-culturally. Her performance and teaching practices explore the dynamics of interaction between body, masks, music, audience and environment in different cultural contexts, with particular attention to the roles and perspectives of women. She has performed and taught in Australia, Indonesia, Europe and Brazil. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Naples, ‘“Orientale” Universita’, researching Balinese women in literature and theatre.
Agnieszka Pietkiewicz holds a PhD from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Department of Drama, Theatre, and Performance). She is an actress and theatre pedagogue. In 2007–2009, she worked at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, where, together with Grzegorz Ziółkowski, she co-created the project ‘Song In-Between’. The results of that endeavour consisted of a solo performance, ‘The Leaden Ball: A Work-in-Promise’, as well as numerous sessions of work with actors in Poland, South Korea, Malta and Armenia. In 2009, she assisted at the international course for actors, entitled Atelier: To the Light, in Brzezinka, the forest base of the Grotowski Institute. In 2007–2011, she was an actress at Rosa Theatre and participant in international projects concerning the actor’s training: ‘Regula contra Regulam’ (2007–2011) and ‘Theatralia’ (2012). At present, she is conducting a research project ‘Acting at Studio Theatres Inspired by the Work of Jerzy Grotowski in Poland and Italy’, financed by the resources of the National Science Centre.
Alison Robb trained as a theatre director at the Flinders University Drama centre, working in the industry for about 10 years as a director, assistant director, stage manager and theatre technician. Alison is currently re-training as a clinical psychologist, combining this professional study with a qualitative PhD to investigate factors impacting on the psychological well-being of actors. She hopes to establish targeted support services for actors and other members of the performing arts industry. She is a student member of the Australian Psychological Society and the College of Clinical Psychologists, as well as a member of the Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare and an administrator of the Psychology and Health Forum. Her most recent arts work was with Restless Dance Theatre, ‘Intimate Space’, for the 2017 Adelaide Festival of Arts.
Clemence Due is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Adelaide. Her research interests focus on child mental health, particularly in relation to young people with refugee and migrant backgrounds. She is also interested in developmental and cross-cultural psychology, primarily utilising mixed-methods, participatory research methodologies. She is a strong advocate for social justice in many arenas and is an accomplished pianist. Clemence is a member of the Society for Australasian Social Psychologists, the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, as well as the Health, Disability and Lifespan Development Research Group at the University of Adelaide.
Claire Syler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Missouri, US. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies (with an emphasis on the learning sciences) from the University of Pittsburgh and a MFA in Directing from the University of Memphis. A scholar and artist, Claire’s writing has appeared in Theatre Topics, Journal of Dramatic Theory & Criticism, Modern Drama and Teaching Artist Journal, and she has worked professionally for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Nashville Repertory Theatre and Attack Theatre (Pittsburgh, PA).
Petronilla Whitfield is Associate Professor on the Acting at the Arts University Bournemouth, UK. She has a PhD in Arts Pedagogy (focusing on the support of acting students with dyslexia) from Warwick University and a Master’s degree in Voice Studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Trained originally at Arts Educational Schools, she was a professional actress for 20 years, appearing with theatre companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in TV and film. Petronilla has taught voice and acting at several of the leading British drama schools. She has presented her research on dyslexia and actor training at various conferences, and her work has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals.
Daniel Galbreath is a Birmingham-based conductor, active choir leader, chorus master, workshop leader and researcher in the area of contemporary singing. His PhD research into performer experience and practice during improvisatory choral music is supervised by Professor Deborah Mawer at Birmingham Conservatoire. He conducts new-music chamber choir Via Nova, the Warwickshire County Male Voices, the Midlands Chorale, and the Waste Paper experimental opera company. Originally from the Wyoming in the USA, where he studied and performed as a violist, Daniel’s choral training began with Dr Nicole Lamartine, and later with acclaimed conductor Paul Spicer at the Conservatoire.
Gavin Thatcher is a Birmingham-based theatre maker, workshop leader, lecturer and researcher in the area of the body, movement and dramaturgy. His PhD research into dramaturgical practice in contemporary British dance-theatre is supervised by Dr Dick McCaw at Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2015, he was part of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s Foundry Programme for emerging artists, where he was mentored by Alexander Zeldin and Caroline Horton. Gavin is interested in making work with untrained bodies, and mostly recently has assisted acclaimed French theatre director, Mohamed El Khatib, working with over 50 football supporters on stage.