Anna-Helena Mclean |
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Anna-Helena McLean is a multi-disciplinary music, voice and theatre artist, director and researcher. When she is not working through MOON FOOL directing international artistic exchange and education, Anna-Helena is a freelance music theatre director as well as a doctoral researcher at Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She most recently ran the voice practices for the BA Acting Studies course also at Guildhall School and directed A Voice Lesson (Orla Descends) commissioned though two Britten Pears Arts Residencies (2022 and 2023).
Brought up in a travelling theatre company to a violin maker Father from Copenhagen, Anna-Helena found her way to Poland after graduating in Music, Theatre Studies and Drama (Performance) at Royal Holloway in 2000. Further to initial collaboration with the Song of the Goat (Piesn Kozla) Theatre in Wroclaw, she went on to become the principal in Wlodzimierz Staniewski's interpretation of Euripides' 'Electra', touring extensively with the Gardzienice Theatre Company and leading its training around the world (Yale, New Haven; MIT, Boston; Columbia Uni, NYC). She was living and working in the rural Gardzienice village on the border between Poland and the Ukraine from 2000 to 2007 acting as a senior voice coach within the legendary company and taking a position as lead practitioner in the Ancient Greek Orchestra and Academy for Theatre Practices.
Anna-Helena started bridging the means to return to the UK in 2004 and founded MOON FOOL as a platform for International Theatre and Music Exchange (with Dr. Rebecca Loukes and Cassie Friend at South Street Theatre in Reading). She began working with an arts and health organisation, the 'Awake Projects' Ensemble, Love Orchestra and Youth (2006-2012) while also developing her Polish experience through teaching and directing posts at Drama Schools (Rose Bruford College, Volda University College Norway, Edinburgh College), Conservatoires (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Central School of Speech and Drama, National School of Drama Delhi, Yale School of Drama NYC), Universities (Exeter, Winchester, Huddersfield, Plymouth, Northampton, Falmouth, Sonoma State California) and with prominent artists (incl. Pamela Prather, Kathryn Hunter, Kirsty Housley, David Zakowski) and ensembles the world over (incl. Jocelyn Pook, National Theatre of Scotland, Walkabout Theatre Chicago, Penny Dreadful Productions).
In 2009 Anna-Helena evolved the ACTOR-CHORUS-TEXT (ACT) INTERNATIONAL Voice and Performance Practice. In 2014, she built her critically-acclaimed solo cabaret 'TITANIA' and in 2015, she generated MOON FOOL's first full-scale production using the ACT method; ‘STORM’ is an urban, music-led retelling of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ seen through the eyes of climate change (funded by ACE, Vaults Festival London and MacArthur Foundation USA). She is currently developing recent work-in-progress on 'A Sonic Return to the Source - Inanna' and 'The Voice Lesson - A Performative Essay' into a split stage Opera supported by Britten Pears Arts. The final work will premiere in 2025 with a new libretto by Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh (Guildhall School, ROH) and original score composed by Anna-Helena.
In 2019, Anna-Helena began a Practice as Research PhD at Guildhall with supervisors Dr. Alex Mermikides (Former Research Programme Leader, Guildhall School and currently leading the Arts and Medicine programme at Kings College), Dr. Rachel Hann (Leader in the field of Trans Performance Lead at Northumbria University), Niamh Dowling (Principal of RADA) and Andy Lavender (Guildhall School). In her research she is navigating questions around feminist ethics, intensity and interpretation in the field of post-Grotowskian laboratory practices with a specific focus on the role of physiovocality as a feminist ethical tool for progressing inclusive approaches to acting training more broadly. Building on 20 years at the forefront of British practitioners progressing Grotowski’s legacy, she has resolved to cultivate a practice-based means for women and other marginalised identities to discuss and communicate their contribution to - and creative agency within - the largely male director-dominated, binary bound, hierarchical canonic tradition.
Brought up in a travelling theatre company to a violin maker Father from Copenhagen, Anna-Helena found her way to Poland after graduating in Music, Theatre Studies and Drama (Performance) at Royal Holloway in 2000. Further to initial collaboration with the Song of the Goat (Piesn Kozla) Theatre in Wroclaw, she went on to become the principal in Wlodzimierz Staniewski's interpretation of Euripides' 'Electra', touring extensively with the Gardzienice Theatre Company and leading its training around the world (Yale, New Haven; MIT, Boston; Columbia Uni, NYC). She was living and working in the rural Gardzienice village on the border between Poland and the Ukraine from 2000 to 2007 acting as a senior voice coach within the legendary company and taking a position as lead practitioner in the Ancient Greek Orchestra and Academy for Theatre Practices.
Anna-Helena started bridging the means to return to the UK in 2004 and founded MOON FOOL as a platform for International Theatre and Music Exchange (with Dr. Rebecca Loukes and Cassie Friend at South Street Theatre in Reading). She began working with an arts and health organisation, the 'Awake Projects' Ensemble, Love Orchestra and Youth (2006-2012) while also developing her Polish experience through teaching and directing posts at Drama Schools (Rose Bruford College, Volda University College Norway, Edinburgh College), Conservatoires (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Central School of Speech and Drama, National School of Drama Delhi, Yale School of Drama NYC), Universities (Exeter, Winchester, Huddersfield, Plymouth, Northampton, Falmouth, Sonoma State California) and with prominent artists (incl. Pamela Prather, Kathryn Hunter, Kirsty Housley, David Zakowski) and ensembles the world over (incl. Jocelyn Pook, National Theatre of Scotland, Walkabout Theatre Chicago, Penny Dreadful Productions).
In 2009 Anna-Helena evolved the ACTOR-CHORUS-TEXT (ACT) INTERNATIONAL Voice and Performance Practice. In 2014, she built her critically-acclaimed solo cabaret 'TITANIA' and in 2015, she generated MOON FOOL's first full-scale production using the ACT method; ‘STORM’ is an urban, music-led retelling of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ seen through the eyes of climate change (funded by ACE, Vaults Festival London and MacArthur Foundation USA). She is currently developing recent work-in-progress on 'A Sonic Return to the Source - Inanna' and 'The Voice Lesson - A Performative Essay' into a split stage Opera supported by Britten Pears Arts. The final work will premiere in 2025 with a new libretto by Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh (Guildhall School, ROH) and original score composed by Anna-Helena.
In 2019, Anna-Helena began a Practice as Research PhD at Guildhall with supervisors Dr. Alex Mermikides (Former Research Programme Leader, Guildhall School and currently leading the Arts and Medicine programme at Kings College), Dr. Rachel Hann (Leader in the field of Trans Performance Lead at Northumbria University), Niamh Dowling (Principal of RADA) and Andy Lavender (Guildhall School). In her research she is navigating questions around feminist ethics, intensity and interpretation in the field of post-Grotowskian laboratory practices with a specific focus on the role of physiovocality as a feminist ethical tool for progressing inclusive approaches to acting training more broadly. Building on 20 years at the forefront of British practitioners progressing Grotowski’s legacy, she has resolved to cultivate a practice-based means for women and other marginalised identities to discuss and communicate their contribution to - and creative agency within - the largely male director-dominated, binary bound, hierarchical canonic tradition.
