Dr Vanio Papadelli

Since 2020, she has been leading the module Writing the Body that explores interdisciplinary and embodied approaches to writing for the MA Creative Practice at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where she also supervises MA and MFA projects. This year, she will teach a 3-week intensive to MA Choreography students as well.

Vanio has worked extensively at Rose Bruford College since 2011 as the principal movement tutor in the BA European Theatre Arts and has contributed to other modules and supervised practical and written dissertations. She was recently appointed as Module Year Coordinator in the same course. She has convened the Research Methodologies unit at the MA Ensemble Theatre (2014 – 2018) and has coordinated the IRP projects for the MA Actor Performer Training (2021, 2022).

Vanio has taught physical and ensemble theatre at Goldsmiths (2009-2022) and has worked as a movement and dance tutor in various other Higher Education Institutions including LAMDA and Middlesex University.

After training as an actor and a dancer in Greece and the UK, she embarked on her Practice as research (PhD, Goldsmiths, 2013, funded by Greek State Institution of scholarships) into the Post-Grotowskian theatre tradition and Contact Improvisation as part of which she worked with the award-winning company Song of the Goat Theatre (Poland). She has studied internationally with various inspirational theatre and dance practitioners including Farm in the Cave (Czech Republic), Studio Matejka (Poland), Meg Stuart (UK), Nancy Stark Smith (UK/Spain), Charlie Morrissey (UK/Malta), Kirstie Simson (UK), and Simonetta Alessandri (UK). In 2022, Vanio became a Fellow of Higher Education Academy.

As a performer, she has worked for an eclectic mix of artists (Theatre Lab, Athletes of the Heart Lab, Song of the Goat Theatre, Angela Woodhouse, aswespeakproject, Nesreen Nabil Hussein). She has co-created with artist and dramatherapist Tania Batzoglou the performance ritual project titled CANDID that reflects on how female friendships evolve over time. She has led intergenerational projects for women that combine yoga, movement, and writing. Vanio’s work engages with issues of vulnerability, memory and candidness fusing physicality, video, autobiography and text into poetic, surreal and immersive environments and it has been shown in Greece, UK, Italy, Poland, Germany, Egypt and Lebanon.

Research Interests

• Movement (somatic movement, Contact Improvisation, experiential anatomy, Laban/Bartenieff fundamentals, yoga, release-based dance, expressive movement, improvisation).
• Physical Theatre (Eastern European ensemble theatre; European dance theatre).
• Intersections between dance and theatre training and devising.
• History and Theory of 20th and 21st Century European and American performance practice.
• Critical perspectives: Phenomenology, ecology, feminism, postmodernism.
• Embodied approaches to moving and writing.
• Tools for practice as research (PaR) methodologies and critical reflective writing.

Qualifications And Background

Education
2009-2013: Practice Based PhD: ‘Towards a practice of Attunement: An Incorporation of Elements from Song of the Goat Theatre and Contact Improvisation’ / Goldsmiths, University of London & Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

2008: Diploma in Dance / Birkbeck University
2007: MA Performance Making (Distinction) / Goldsmiths, University of London
2004: Diploma in Acting, Drama School of the Odeion Athinon / Athens, Greece

1999-2003: BA in Theatre Studies (First) / National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Other teaching qualifications
2022: Fellowship Higher Education Academy
2019: 200hours Yoga Teacher Training (by Yoga on the Lane – Vinyasa flow yoga)

2017 – 18 Fellowship in Accessible Performance Practice (Rose Bruford College)
Movement tutor and movement director with D/deaf or disabled young artists Ensemble 2018 Train: Training Programme, GRAEAE.

Grants and awards
2010 – 12 : Grant by A.G. Leventis Foundation towards doctoral research

2009 – 12: Full-time scholarship by State Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY) towards doctoral research

2006 – 07: Full-time scholarship by State Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY) towards Master’s studies.

2000 – 01: ERASMUS- SOCRATES FREEMOVER scholarship (IKY) for attendance at the Theatre Studies Department (Paris VIII – Vincennes- St Denis) and Department of History of Arts (Universidad de Salamanca).