Ros Steen

(Former)

Biography

Professor Ros Steen (MA (Hons), DSD, IPA, FRSAMD) established and led the Centre for Voice in Performance, the National Centre of Excellence for the teaching, practice and research of Voice in Performance, and secured the School of Drama’s outstanding national and international reputation in this field. Professor Steen retired from the Conservatoire in 2013, but continues to practice professionally.

 

Professional highlights

Trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly RSAMD) and the University of Glasgow, she spent many years studying with Nadine George (Voice Studio International), our first International Fellow in Voice and pioneered the use of her own voice work, rooted in George’s technique, as a medium of rehearsal in professional theatre. She is one of the first accredited teachers with Voice Studio International. She was awarded Fellowship of the Academy in 2008.

 

Research interests

She continues to study her work in professional performance contexts, currently undertaking practice-based research into the role of the voice work within the director’s creative process in conjunction with the National Theatre of Scotland and the Traverse Theatre. She was appointed the first visiting scholar to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in 2011 where she contributed to the research work of John Tiffany, former Associate Director of the National Theatre of Scotland and currently Associate Director of the Royal Court Theatre, London, during his time as a Research Fellow of the Institute.

She is an Associate Editor of the International Dialects of English Archive and regularly guest lectures in Europe, particularly for Athanor Akademie, Germany. She recently delivered a seminar on the artist-researcher for Luleå University, Sweden, and is scheduled to speak on The Researcher’s Voice; Speaking up for artistic research, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2014. She is in regular demand as a voice consultant for Theatre, Film and TV throughout the country.

Publications include: Helena, Hitler and the Heartland , Seein Oursels As Ithers See Us and What We May Be: the integration of Lecoq movement and George voice work at the RSAMD with Joyce Deans for VASTA, USA, Teaching Voice in the New Millennium, a keynote address for ICV, Co-Direction: How Creativity is Translated Educationally In a Moment of Rehearsal with Joyce Deans for ELIA, Double-hinged Doors: the RSAMD’s voice work in Training and Theatre with Bill Wright, and Strange Geometrical Hinges for the CDS conference held July 2009. Her most recent research paper, Earthing the Electric: voice directing the directors was published in Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Routledge, in 2012.

This is extraordinary work and Ros is an extraordinary practitioner and it was a great privilege and delight to have her work as a key part of this course.

(Anna Newell, Artistic Director, Centre for Excellence in the Creative and Performing Arts, Queen’s University, Northern Ireland.)