Joan Mills

Fellow in Voice and Performance
BA Joint Hons, Drama and American Studies, University of Hull; PGCE Kingston upon Hull Photograph of Joan Mills.

Contact

Email: jnm@aber.ac.uk
Office: FG2, Parry-Williams Building
Phone: 01970 628576
Fax: 01970 622831

Responsibilities

Teaching practice within the field of dram, theatre, performance, and voice; directing plays and devising new work within this teaching context; contributing to the development of the Department’s profile and standing within this field through third mission and practice research events; providing an expertise in the field of voice at national and international level; module co-ordination; personal tutor.


Research

Voice and performance; actor and director training: Director of Giving Voice, the international voice festival, for the Centre for Performance Research, Aberystwyth.

Biography

Joan Mills has worked as a theatre director, voice practitioner and performer for more than 40 years. Her theatre work encompasses a number of years as Director of the YPTS at the Royal Court Theatre, Artistic Director of Theatr Powys in mid-Wales and Associate Director of Cardiff Laboratory Theatre. She has directed well over 150 plays and projects both within these companies and freelance, throughout the UK. Joan has directed and taught within a wide range of organisations and educational institutions both in the UK and abroad, including the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where she taught for eight years (including four as Director of Voice and Movement), and Dartington College of Arts, where she was a senior lecturer.

She has acted as a consultant on voice matters and the arts for a number of organisations, including the Arts Council of Wales and the BBC, has mentored a recipient of the Dreamtime Fellowship for NESTA. Joan’s practical research into voice techniques from around the world has helped her in developing a supportive, physically grounded approach to voice, which encourages flexibility and range in both speaking and singing. As Voice Director for the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth, she has curated its renowned international biennial festival, GIVING VOICE since its inception in 1990 and completed the tenth session: Breath, Inspiration, Voice in 2008 and the 11th session Harmonic Accord in Wroclaw, Poland 2009. Future editions are being planned and may include Southern India as well as further meetings in the UK. Joan also applies her professional skills as teacher, director and voice practitioner in the context of Enterprise, Knowledge Transfer and Consultancy for the University. Recent commissions have included a voice week for the Drama Association of Wales Summer School and refresher courses in voice and acting work with professional actors working in North Wales through CULT Cymru.

Teaching

Module Coordinator

TP 21720 Devising Theatre:
TP 24620 Voice in Performance

Lecturer

TP 10520 Performance Workshop
TP 10640 Production workshop
TP 21220/320 Performing Dramatic Texts
TP 21720 Devising Theatre
TP 24620 (New Module for 2012/13) Voice in Performance
TP 33940 Advanced Production
TP 34240 Applied Theatre

Publications

  • Contributing Author: About Churchill, The playwright and the work, by Phil Roberts (Faber and Faber September 2008 )
  • Essay: A Family Affair in A Performance Cosmology (Published by Routledge, Taylor and Francis, Sept 2006 )
  • Editor: 99 Georgian Songs: A collection of traditional folk, church and urban songs from Georgia: recorded in parts for community choirs (Black Mountain Press 2004)
  • Contributing Author: Well Tuned Women : ed Frankie Armstrong and Jenny Pearson (Women’s Press 2000)
  • Keynote Address: in Voice in British Actor Training ( proceeds of conference, Central School of Speech and Drama 2000)

CDs recorded in collaboration with Frankie Armstrong:

  • The Garden of Love : Fellside Recordings 1999
  • The Fair Moon Rejoices: Harbourtown Records 1997
  • Ways of Seeing: Harbourtown Records 1996

Teaching CDs:

  • 99 Georgian Songs: (Black Mountain Press, 2006 ) ten examples of Georgian singing in three parts
  • Heartsongs One: nine a capella songs for community choirs including traditional from UK, Georgian Table songs; Shape Note songs

Additional Interests

Joan has been a significant influence in the development of the community choir movement in Wales through projects created at CPR such as Local Voices, Worlds of Song, and The Traveller which commissioned Karl Jenkins to compose a new work for 100 singers. She founded the Aberystwyth community a cappella choir Heartsong which she led for eight years, and still teaches when her schedule allows. She has recently created a new ensemble The Enthusiasts singing harmony from the Republic of Georgia, as well as other folk styles, and she also sings with her own small a cappella ensemble, Bright Field. Their CD, Different Kinds of Laughing, a collection of a cappella songs from folk tradition and modern sources, was released in 2009.

As well as collaborating with renowned traditional singer Frankie Armstrong on three albums, Joan has made two teaching CDs of a cappella harmony and edited Edisher Garakanidze’s workbook for singers in the west, 99 Georgian Songs. She is a contributing author to a number of publications including Well Tuned Women, Growing Strong Through Voice Work (Women’s Press 2000), A Performance Cosmology, and Phil Roberts’ recent book about the playwright Caryl Churchill (2008). At the University of Aberystwyth Joan has devised about a dozen original scripts for theatre students, all of which have the voice and communication as their focus.

Joan was External Examiner: Central School of Speech and Drama MA in Voice Studies 2008-11 and advisor to the International Centre for Voice.