Tracing/training rebellion - object work in Meyerhold's biomechanics

[First paragraph] Lying in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts in Moscow (RGALI) is a nine-page document entitled Programme of Biomechanics, Meyerhold Workshop (1922). Though modest in size, it is an unashamedly ambitious programme, which sought to redefine acting in a post-revolutionary context and to place performer training in Russia on a par with science. ‘The task of the biomechanical laboratory is to work out through experimentation a biomechanical system of acting and of actor’s training’ (Hoover 1974: 314), the document claims, setting out a dedicated model of Practice as Research, seventy years before the term became common place in the UK

Research and Practice in Voice Studies: Searching for a Methodology

As more and more actor training conservatoires become subsumed into university structures there is a growing pressure on practice based teachers of voice to become active researchers. At the same time there is a growing area of scholarly research within Voice Studies. This article examines the shifting patterns of research and practice within Voice Studies and uses, as a case study, the author’s experiences of teaching at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD). The author examines tensions between practice and research within a conservatoire setting and explores potential research methodologies in relation to this. The author proposes Practice as Research (PaR) as a suitable methodology for research within practice based Voice Studies and draws on current discourses relating to PaR within Theatre and Performance. The author proposes a model for Voice Studies PaR, which is based on the work of Robin Nelson, and demonstrates how this is being applied within Voice Studies research at RCSSD. The author addresses issues of dissemination of PaR and briefly relates the work in the UK to growing research agendas internationally