Janet de Vigne
Teaching Fellow
- Moray House School of Education and Sport, ILE
- University of Edinburgh
Contact details
- Email: janet.devigne@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Moray House School of Education and Sport, CH 2.04
- City
- University of Edinburgh (Holyrood Campus)
- Post code
- EH8 8AQ
Background
Janet de Vigne is an actor, singer and academic based in Edinburgh. She has been teaching at the University of Edinburgh for 10 years.
Janet teaches on the MSc TESOL and on various ITE programmes in the disciplines of creativity, the expressive arts, drama, language education, social justice and research methods.
Janet’s interest in drama and the education curriculum includes an active research interest in embodied learning. Her PhD (in corso, Lancaster University) entitled ‘Towards a Literacy of the Learning Identity’ explores the lived experience of Returners to Academe (RtAs) whose experience of secondary schooling was less than satisfactory (in their terms).
As an actor, Janet won the Leon Sinden award at Pitlochry Festival Theatre for her portrayal of Mrs Fraser in Stepping Out, a role she reprised in the nationwide tour of 2010. IN 2008, Janet played the roles of Ada the German tourist and Mrs Mac (voice only) in the multi Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle. She has appeared in other films, notably the cult horrors Grader (2012) and Baobhan Sith (2014) directed by David Hutchinson.
As a singer, Janet trained as an operatic soprano at the GSMD London. She has sung title or lead soprano roles in Aida, Nabucco, Turandot, Clemenza di Tito, Cosi fan Tutte, Walkure (Sieglinde, Wagner) etc. Premieres include: The Saint of Bleecker Street - Scotland (Menotti, cond. Richard Lewis) and Das Lied der Nacht, UK (Gal, cond, Robert Dick). She is currently working on Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos, Strauss).
Janet enjoys theorising about education in different contexts and was the Programme Director of the Masters in TESOL at Edinburgh from 2020-22.
Project activity
Die Schritte Nemesis: world premiere of Nicolai Evreinov's play of the same name, sponsored by the University of Zurich: a study in betrayal based on the show trials held by Stalin in the 1930s. Role: Nemesis, staged: Staatstheater, Braunschweig, Germany in June 2022
Playing Beyond CLIL: Prof Do Coyle (lead) 2019-2021 (Erasmus)
The Last Days of Mankind: 2014-18 4 year exploration (dramatic, embodied) of Karl Kraus' Die Letzten Tagen der Menschheit ( chronicle of the first world war) culminating in performances in Leith, Katowice and Bielefeld with Teatr Apart (Poland), Theatre Arsene (France), Theaterlabor (Germany), Plavo Pozoriste (Serbia), Smashing Times (Ireland) artists from the Ukraine and the Tiger Lilies.