Meet our students: Yanik Riedo

Before starting my MA at RADA and Birkbeck I performed in the theatre and worked on music and sound design projects. However, I originally studied history and linguistics, so I also have a scientific background. To me, the performing arts are primarily a platform to experiment, to test the possibilities of new worlds. I applied to the MA Text and Performance to add some theatre craft to this experimentation.

The organic nature of the course has helped me grow as an artist and as a researcher. It is not a classical vocational course, but rather a course that nourishes and complements the interdisciplinary approach I bring to the table.

RADA has enriched my background with its immense vocational knowledge. It has given me the tools to refine my ideas and the guidance of industry professionals to realise them. While it helped in polishing my performance practice, it also added skills such as playwriting and dramaturgy to my creative process.

The Birkbeck element of the course has helped me retain the scientific spine I aim to keep in my work. It has made me reflect on my artistic choices and has broadened the scope of my research. Together, RADA and Birkbeck have helped me grow organically in a direction that is most natural for me.

The course culminates with each student creating a dissertation project. Finding my own way of navigating that task and working with a motley crew of cabaret dancers, actors, opera singers, writers, journalists and directors along the way is challenging, but it has only benefited my practice. It is a very distinctive course, but just the course for me.

Yanik Riedo, MA Text and Performance 2018-19