Paul Allain, Professor of Theatre and Performance in the School of Arts and Dean of the Graduate School, has featured in the podcast Search: Stories from the Eastern West from the  Culture.pl website.

Culture.pl is produced by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, a national cultural institution promoting Poland and Polish culture worldwide.

Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999) was a Polish theatre director who developed a form of intensive training for actors to master the body, movement and voice.

In the podcast, Paul explains Grotowski’s life, work, and his important influence on the world of the performing arts. In particular, he describes the purpose of Grotowski’s training techniques to remove psychological and physical blocks: ‘Sometimes he’d use physical tests in the actor training – like jumps and leaps ­that were incredibly sophisticated and demanding physically – to get people over their fear of the challenges he was throwing at them.’

To listen to the full podcast, please see the page here.