Communications, Drama and Film

Photo of Professor Konstantinos Thomaidis

Professor Konstantinos Thomaidis

Associate Professor in Voice, Theatre & Performance

K.Thomaidis@exeter.ac.uk

4528

01392 724528

Overview

I am an actor, director, musician and researcher with a primary interest in voice. Since 2007, my research has focused on the cultural politics of voice pedagogy, a critique of universalist, logocentric and essentialist approaches to voice, and the development of methodologies for vocal praxis, for practising and understanding voice as emergent, processual, generative and disruptive.

I have co-founded and edit the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and the Routledge Voice Studies book series. In 2015, I co-edited Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience (Routledge), a book that has been described as ‘a much-anticipated and highly useful collection of essays … enriching our understanding of vocal expression and the possibilities that a burgeoning field of voice studies has to offer’ (Twentieth-Century Music, Cambridge Journals). In 2017, I completed Theatre & Voice (Palgrave Macmillan/Springer 2017), whichs has been reviewed as marshalling 'a near encyclopaedic knowledge of artistic practice and history' (Journal of Contemporary Drama in English), and in 2019, I co-edited a volume on Time and Performer Training (Routledge 2019).  Since 2018, my research on voice revolves around the notion of 'listening back' and specifically methodologies of vocal autobiography (autobiophony) and retrieving voices considered irrevocably lost (vocal archaeology). 

Alongside voice, my main research interests are performer training, sound-based theatres, movement for actors and site-specific performance. For my academic work, I was shortlisted for the Early Career Researcher Prize of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) in 2019 and the Excellence in Editing Award for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) in 2020.

From 2013 to 2016, I was one of the convenors of the Performer Training Working Group at TaPRA and since 2018, I co-convene the Sound, Voice and Music Working Group.

I have worked as an actor, director, choreographer and musician in Greece, Poland, Germany, the UK and the US. Recent positions have included: Head of Movement for Opera in Sapce (London; ACE-funded), Associate Artist of Experience Vocal Dance Company (NYC & London) and core member of Waving not Drowning (Grotowski Institute, Poland & London). I am the Artistic Director of Adrift Performance Makers.

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Research

•   Embodied politics of voicing, physiovocal training, intersectional approaches to voice (particularly ethnicity, race, age, gender, ability & voice)

•   Vocal autobiography, vocal archaeology, vocal heritage, listening back

•   Vocal praxis as methodology, voice-based practice-research

•   Interdisciplinary voice studies, philosophies of the voice, voice ethnography, methodologies of vocal research

•   Performer training in the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis on Grotowskian and post-Grotowskian practices

•   Physical theatre, movement for actors, dance theatres, peripatetic performance

•   Greek theatre (sonic dramaturgy, acoustics, training for and directing Greek performance, musical performance)

•   Performance studies, transnational and cross-cultural performance

•   Devised music theatre, site-specific opera, and sound-based dramaturgy

•   International theatre, with an emphasis on Greece, Poland and South Korea



Research collaborations

Alongside Ben Macpherson (University of Portsmouth) and Amanda Smallbone (University of Winchester), I am the joint founder and convenor of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, a cross-institutional initiative designed to foster the development of voice studies as an interdisciplinary and international field. Alongside a series of publications, since 2013, the Centre has hosted a variety of events, such as a symposium on ‘The Philosophy and Praxis of Voice,’ the 2014 TaPRA interim event ‘The Voice of Training,’ and workshops with invited practitioners (including Royal Shakespeare Company Head of Voice & Text Lyn Darnley).

In 2016-17, I collaborated with Virginie Magnat (University of British Columbia) on the special issue Voicing Belonging: traditional Singing in a Globalized World. As an outcome of this collaboration, I co-organised the joint UBC/Exeter symposium 'Culture, Creativity & Wellbeing' (University of Exeter, 2018). The project developed into the Cluster of Research Excellence in Culture, Creativity, Health and Well-being (2019-2021), funded by a UBC Eminence Grant and the Wellcome Centre.

In 2018, I co-founded the Sound, Voice & Music Working Group of the Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA) with Adrian Curtin (Exeter) and Leah Broad (Oxford).

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Supervision

I am interested in hearing from students exploring the intersections of voice, sound and performance studies and in supervising work in any area related to my research interests. If you wish to discuss a potential doctoral project, feel free to contact me via email (k.thomaidis@exeter.ac.uk), attaching a short (400-500 words) proposal and a CV. I am equally interested in thesis-focused and practice-based projects.

In the past, I have supervised a practice-as-research PhD on anti-logocentric somatic training for actors (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London) and examined PhDs on actor training for contemporary opera singers (Portsmouth), sacred performance (Exeter), the use of the microphone in classical singing (Newcastle, Australia), inclusive breathing pedagogies for Shakespeare (South Wales), digital ventriloquism (Glasgow) and theatre in dementia care (Exeter).

At Exeter,

I currently supervise:

  • Sarah Holden-Boyd's research project on weight-lifting and voice training
  • Chinasa Vivian Ezugha's research project on glossolalic performance
  • Georgia Achilleopoulou's research project on vocal autobiography, musical theatre and feminist performance
  • Hippolyte Broud's research project on recordings and vocie trianing in French drama schools

Previously, I supervised:

  • Francesco Bentivegna’s research project on theatre, AI and synthetic/artifical voices 
  • Faye Rigopoulou's research project on ageing female vocality in musical theatre
  • Sophia Edlund's research project on voicing humanimal thelxis

I have facilitated successful applications of current PhDs to the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust and the David Cawthra Memorial Fund.

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 |

2024

  • Rigopoulou F. (2024) ‘Returning from afar, from always, from without’: Ageing Female Vocalities in musical theatre.
  • Thomaidis K. (2024) Εκπαιδεύοντας τη Φωνή: Μικρή Εισαγωγή, Η Σύγχρονη Φωνητική και Μουσική Εκπαίδευση των Ηθοποιών [Contemporary Voice and Music Training for Actors], Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece, 16-25. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2024) Ακούγοντας το Μέλλον: Προς μια Συμπεριληπτική Φωνητική Εκπαίδευση για Ηθοποιούς, Η Σύγχρονη Φωνητική και Μουσική Εκπαίδευση των Ηθοποιών, Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece, 182-196. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2024) Η Σύγχρονη Φωνητική και Μουσική Εκπαίδευση των Ηθοποιών, Δραματική Σχολή του Εθνικού Θεάτρου.

2023

  • Thomaidis K. (2023) Αναλυτική Παραδοτέα Αναφορά: Πορίσματα Μελέτης για το Πρόγραμμα σπουδών της Εκπαίδευσης Φωνής στη Δραματική Σχολή του Εθνικού Θεάτρου και για την Αναβάθμιση της Σχολής, Drama School of the Greek National Theatre, Drama School of the Greek National Theatre, 39 pages.
  • Edlund S. (2023) Voicing Thelxis: Kulning, Lulling and Siren Song as Practices of Vocal Attraction.
  • Thomaidis K. (2023) Ichneutai by Sophocles: The Invention of (Theatre) Music?. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K, Verstraete P, Burzyńska A, Schröder J, Roesner D. (2023) Memory and Sound, Voice and Archeology. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2023) Voice & Practice & Research, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 7, no. 2, pages 131-135, DOI:10.1386/jivs_00061_2.
  • Thomaidis K, Vogiatzi M. (2023) En-Staging Nora: Unruly Modernisms in Theodoros Terzopoulos’s Nora, The Edinburgh Companion to Modernism in Contemporary Theatre, Edinburgh University Press.

2022

  • Bentivegna F. (2022) Voicing Kinship with Machines: Diffractive Empathetic Listening to Synthetic Voices in Performance.
  • Thomaidis K, Onciul B, Recalma J, Weaver R, Murthy M, Brown B. (2022) Gifting Together and Gifting Back: A Pluriphony of Postcards, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, volume 13.2, pages 326-336, DOI:10.1080/19443927.2022.2066342. [PDF]

2021

  • Thomaidis K, Macpherson B. (2021) The Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies: Ten years of voicing-with, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 6, no. 2, pages 143-147, DOI:10.1386/jivs_00043_2.
  • Thomaidis K. (2021) Τέσσερις θέσεις για τη φωνή: έρευνα και καλλιτεχνική πρακτική «μετά» τις διεπιστημονικές φωνητικές σπουδές, Σκηνή. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2021) Training as Vocal Archaeology.
  • Thomaidis K. (2021) Autobiophony as Wellbeing, Roundtable Discussion on Voice and Well-being, Ubc, Canada, 18th - 18th Feb 2021.
  • Thomaidis K, Park CE. (2021) Pansori & New Technologies: An Interview with Chan E. Park.

2020

  • Thomaidis K. (2020) For Ali, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 5, no. 1, pages 7-8, DOI:10.1386/jivs_00012_1.
  • Thomaidis K. (2020) Overhearing Chartographers: Voices That Travel, Cartografía de la voz en el inicio y desarrollo de los Teatros Universitarios en Chile, Santiago, Chile, 29th - 29th Jul 2020.
  • Thomaidis K. (2020) A phonotechnics of vocal somaticity: an autobiophonic note, Somatic Voices in Performance Research and Beyond, Routledge.

2019

  • Thomaidis K. (2019) What is New in Voice Training?, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, volume 10, no. 3. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2019) What is New in Voice Training?, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, volume 10, no. 3. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2019) Rethinking Theatre Voices.
  • Thomaidis K. (2019) Between Preservation and Renewal: Reconsidering Technology in Contemporary Pansori Training, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, DOI:10.1080/19443927.2019.1645040.
  • Thomaidis K, Boston J, Carey D, Houseman B, Darnley L, Godfrey K, Nelson J, Kemble S, Rodenburg P, Hughes-D'Aeth C. (2019) Resounding Legacies: Remembering Cicely Berry, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 4.1, DOI:10.1386/jivs.4.1.55_1. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K, Boston J, Carey D, Houseman B, Darnley L, Godfrey K, Nelson J, Kemble S, Rodenburg P, Hughes-D'Aeth C. (2019) Resounding Legacies: Remembering Cicely Berry, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 4.1, DOI:10.1386/jivs.4.1.55_1. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2019) Listening Across, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 4.1, DOI:10.1386/jivs.4.1.3_2. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K, Evans M, Worth L. (2019) Time and Performer Training, Routledge. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2019) The always-not-yet / always-already of voice perception: training towards vocal presence, Time and Performer Training, Routledge. [PDF]

2018

  • Macpherson B, Thomaidis K. (2018) Congruence and contrast, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 3, no. 1, pages 3-6, DOI:10.1386/jivs.3.1.3_2.
  • Thomaidis K. (2018) Voice: Performance and Forensics, Performing Interdisciplinarity: Working Across Disciplines Through an Active Aesthetic, Routledge, DOI:10.4324/9781315558639-21.

2017

  • Thomaidis K, Beahrs RO, Chang HKH, McAllister-Viel T, Stadnicki DA, Schwartz JA. (2017) Reviews, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 2, no. 2, pages 201-218, DOI:10.1386/jivs.2.2.201_5.
  • Thomaidis K, Cockburn R. (2017) 'The subject' and voice: Cross-Chapter Discussion, Performing Interdisciplinarity: Working Across Disciplinary Boundaries Through an Active Aesthetic, Routledge, 215-218. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2017) A Voice Is. A Voice Has. A Voice Does.; a performance-lecture in the area of vocal autobiography, exploring co-creative methodologies and lineages of autobiophony through performances, workshops and talks. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2017) Voice: Performance and forensics, Performing Interdisciplinarity: Working Across Disciplinary Boundaries Through an Active Aesthetic, 219-236, DOI:10.4324/9781315558639.
  • Cavarero A, Thomaidis K, Pinna I. (2017) Towards a Hopeful Plurality of Democracy: An Interview on Vocal Ontology with Adriana Cavarero, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 3, no. 1.
  • Cavarero A, Thomaidis K, Pinna I. (2017) Towards a Hopeful Plurality of Democracy: An Interview on Vocal Ontology with Adriana Cavarero, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 3, no. 1.
  • Konstantinos Thomaidis, Virginie Magnat. (2017) Voicing Belonging: Traditional Singing in a Globalized World, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, volume 2, no. 2. [PDF]

2016

2015

  • Thomaidis K. (2015) What is Voice Studies? Konstantinos Thomaidis, Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience, Routledge, 214-216.
  • Thomaidis K. (2015) Introduction: Voice(s) as a Method and an In-Between, Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience, Routledge, 3-9.
  • Thomaidis K. (2015) Musicianship Above All? New Perspectives on Training Towards Integrated Bel Canto Performance, Music on Stage, 245-252.
  • Thomaidis K. (2015) The Re-vocalization of Logos? Thinking, Doing and Disseminating Voice, Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience, Routledge, 10-21.
  • Thomaidis K, Theodoridou N. (2015) Portable Soundscapes: An Acoustic Travelogue. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K, Macpherson B. (2015) Voice Studies Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience, Routledge.
  • Macpherson B, Burrows G, Van Lancker Sidtis D, Bonenfant Y, Darnley L, Smallbone A, Eidsheim NS, Adedeji F, Fret J, Thomaidis K. (2015) What is voice studies?, DOI:10.4324/9781315750064.

2014

  • Thomaidis K. (2014) The revocalization of logos? Thinking, doing and disseminating voice, Studies in Musical Theatre, volume 8, no. 1, pages 77-87, DOI:10.1386/smt.8.1.77_1.
  • Thomaidis K. (2014) Singing From Stones: Physiovocality and Gardzienice's Theatre of Musicality, Gestures of Music Theater: The Performativity of Song and Dance, Oxford University Press, 242-258. [PDF]

2013

  • Thomaidis K. (2013) THE VAKHTANGOV SOURCEBOOK, STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE, volume 33, no. 2, pages 254-256. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2013) Between Preservation and Renewal: the Use of Recording Devices in Modern Pansori Training, TaPRA 2013, University Of Glasgow And Royal Conservatoire Of Scotland, 4th - 6th Sep 2013. [PDF]
  • Thomaidis K. (2013) The Vocal Body, Body and Performance, Triarchy Press, 85-98.

2012

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External impact and engagement



Contribution to discipline

Founding co-convenor of the Centre of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, 2013-present

Founding co-editor of the Journal of interdisciplinary Voice Studies (Intellect) 2015-present

Founding co-editor of the Routledge Voice Studies book series, 2015-present

Co-convenor of the Performer Training Working Group at the Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA), 2013-2016

TaPRA Execuitive Committee (Working Group Co-Ordinator), 2016-2019

Founding co-convenor of the Sound, Voice and Music Working Group at TaPRA, 2018-2020

Member of the first iteration of the Nordic Network of Vocal Performance Research, 2016-present

Member of the research team for the Cluster of Research Excellence in Culture, Creativity, Health and Well-being, 2019-present

Founding member of the Therino Manteio Ancient Greek Drama Workhsop (Dodoni, Greece), 2018-2020.

External Curriculum Consultant, BA Acting and BA Directing, Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece, 2022-2023.

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Teaching

I currently convene and teach the following modles:

(for a former student reflecting on the training: https://news.exeter.ac.uk/alumni-news/from-the-northcott-to-new-york/ )

Since 2017, I have taught in the following modules:

  Since 2020, I convene the MA Theatre Practice. You can read more about the training offered at the MATP here: https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/cdfpractice/2023/12/15/ma-theatre-practice/ 

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Biography

I obtained an Integrated MA in Drama & Theatre (Distinction) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. As part of the 5-year, full-time programme, I followed the Acting Pathway and trained with leading actors and directors in Ancient Greek theatre, Method acting, Stanislavski-based acting, acting for film, folk storytelling, physical theatre and speech training for Greek drama. I then received a MA in Physical Theatre and Performance (Distinction) from Royal Holloway University of London, where I trained in the methodologies of Gardzienice, Feldenkrais and Anna Halprin. At Royal Holloway, I also completed my Ph.D. thesis on the intersections of voice and body in intercultural pedagogies of singing.

I have trained further with Gardzienice, the Grotowski Institute, Piesn Kozla/Song of the Goat, Odin Teatret, Experience Vocal Dance (NYC/London), the National Theatre of Greece, and the National Gugak Center (Seoul, South Korea). Always curious about training, I have participated in a number of workshops and masterclasses with artists such as Anne Bogart/SITI Theatre Company, Theodoros Terzopoulos/Attis Theatre, Anatoly Vasiliev, Punchdrunk, Fiona Shaw, Jatinder Verma/Tara-Arts, Valère Novarina, Michel Chion, Complicite, Body Weather Amsterdam, Jasmin Vardimon, Frantic Assembly, Improbable, Helen Chadwick Song Theatre and Anne-Lise Gabold, among others. As a voice specialist, I hold a Dimploma in Choral Composition, I have completed Estil Levels 1 & 2, and I hold a Certificate in Gender-Affirming Voice & Communication Coaching.

I have taught in universities, drama schools and conservatoires since 2008. including Royal Holloway University of London and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. From 2011 to 2013, I was part of the team that developed and taught the first iteration of the BA Vocal and Choral Studies at the University of Winchester. Before joining the Drama Department at the University of Exeter, I was Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Portsmouth (2013-2016). I have also been invited to teach at the Drama School of the National theatre of Greece, the BA European Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford, the MA Performance Training at the University of Plymouth, the MA Applied Theatre at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, the MA Physical Theatre and Theatre Pedagogy at the Estonian Academy of Theatre and Music, Tallinn, Estonia, the GEOKS Centre in Bali, Indonesia, and the Norwegian Theatre Academy. I have also taught voice for open-air Greek theatre at the Anicent Theatre of Dodoni, as part of the 'Therino Manteio' workshop (Ioannina, Greece, 2018 and 2019).

I have presented my research at IFTR, ATHE, TaPRA, Song Stage Screen, and other international conferences. Between 2013 and 2016, I convened the Performer Training Working Group at TaPRA, alongside Mark Evans and Libby Worth, and from 2016 to 2019, I sat at the Executive Committee of TaPRA as the Working Group Coordinator. In 2018, I co-founded the Sound, Voice & Music Working Group of the association and co-convened it until 2020 with Adrian Curtin and Leah Broad.

I have co-founded the Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and the Routledge Voice Studies book series. My research has received various awards and grants by the A. Onassis Foundation, the Leventis Foundation and the Greek Scientific Society. For my body of work in establishing interdisciplinary voice studies, I was shortlisted for the TaPRA Early Career Research Prize (2019); for the Special Issue 'What is New in Voice Training?', I received the Honorable Mention for Excellence in Editing Award by ATHE (2020); for my overall contirbution to voice studies, I was shortlisted for the TaPRA Outstanding Research Contribution (2023). My teaching has been nominated in the categories of Excellent Feedback (2014, Portsmouth) and Innovation (2018, Exeter). 

As a practitioner, I have been involved in more than 50 performances, including: Ichneutai (Epidaurus Festival), The Events by David Greig (Altenrative Stage of the Greek National Opera & 9 regional theatres), Dido and Aeneas, Hansel and Gretel, Stabat Mater, Liederkreis and Semele for Opera in Space (choreographer, director & performer; national and international tours; twice funded by the ACE), The Present of Things Past, Whilst this Machine Floats and Ophelia, Interrupted for Waving not Drowning (performer; various venues in London and The Grotowski Institute, Poland), Return and Lied und Tanz for Experience Vocal Dance (performer and assistant choreographer; London and 92Y, NYC), Chi Chi Bunichi (performer; national and international tour; funded by ACE), The Finger Project (dancer; The Place, London), and Phil Minton's Feral Choir (Barbican and Tate Britain, London). In Greece, I have collaborated with the Greek Festival, the Greek National Opera, Opera of Thessaloniki, Peiramatiki Skini of 'Techni', Theatro Technis Karolos Koun and 9 Regional Theatres across the country. I am the Artistic Director of Adrift Performance Makers.

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