Professor Konstantinos Thomaidis

Konstantinos Thomaidis is Associate Professor in Voice, Theatre & Perofrmance at the Communications, Drama & Film Department, and Director of the MA Theatre Practice. He is an actor/director/musician and researcher with a primary interest in voice. Since 2007, his research has focused on the cultural politics of voice pedagogy and the development of methodologies for vocal practice-research: for practising and understanding voice as emergent, processual, generative and disruptive.

    He co-founded and edits the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and the Routledge Voice Studies book series. In 2015, he 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, he completed Theatre & Voice (Palgrave Macmillan/Bloomsbury 2017), which has been reviewed as marshalling 'a near encyclopaedic knowledge of artistic practice and history' (Journal of Contemporary Drama in English). In 2019, he co-edited a volume on Time and Performer Training (Routledge 2019) and, in 2024, he edited the first Greek volume dedicated to voice and music training for actors, commissioned by the National Theatre of Greece.

    Since 2018, his 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, his main research interests are: performer training, sound-based theatres, movement for actors and site-specific performance. 

    He has 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). He was the Artistic Director of Adrift Performance Makers. His most recent work is a film directed for the Greek National Opera TV.

Biography:

Professor Thomaidis obtained an Integrated MA in Drama & Theatre (Distinction) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. As part of the 5-year, full-time programme, he 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. He then received a MA in Physical Theatre and Performance (Distinction) from Royal Holloway University of London, where he trained in the methodologies of Gardzienice, Feldenkrais and Anna Halprin. At Royal Holloway, he also completed his Ph.D. thesis on the intersections of voice and body in intercultural pedagogies of singing.

   He 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, he 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, he holds a Dimploma in Choral Composition; has completed Estill Levels 1 & 2; and holds a Certificate in Gender-Affirming Voice & Communication Coaching. He is committed to inclusive and equitable voice pedagogies.

  He has taught at 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, he was part of the team that developed 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, he was Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Portsmouth (2013-2016). He has been invited to teach at the Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece, the BA European Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford, the MFA 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. He has 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).

   He has presented his research at IFTR, ATHE, TaPRA, Song Stage Screen, and other international conferences. He has delivered keynotes for the Royal College of Music (2022) and the Archive of Greek and Roman Performance at the Univeristy of Oxford (2024), among others.

   Between 2013 and 2016, he convened the Performer Training Working Group at TaPRA, alongside Mark Evans and Libby Worth, and from 2016 to 2019, he sat at the Executive Committee of TaPRA as the Working Group Coordinator. In 2018, he co-founded the Sound, Voice & Music Working Group of the association and co-convened it until 2020, with Adrian Curtin and Leah Broad. He co-founded and runs the Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, home of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and the Routledge Voice Studies book series.

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

  As a practitioner, he has 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, he has collaborated with the Greek Festival, the Greek National Opera, Opera of Thessaloniki, Peiramatiki Skini of 'Techni', Theatro Technis Karolos Koun and Regional Theatres across the country. He was the Artistic Director of Adrift Performance Makers.

Keywords

voice, voice studies, performer training, theatre, performance, movement, physical theatre, vocal archaeology, autobiography, inclusivity, divsersity