Intermittently from 1977 to 1993, Maud Robart and Jerzy Grotowski worked together through the Polish director’s various post-theatre phases. Archival research reveals a rare professional collaboration that went beyond the relationship Grotowski had with other students. Robart and Grotowski created a reciprocal relationship that allowed them to be simultaneously student and teacher to one another. Exchanging singing and dancing with acting techniques, they crafted a unique performance training.

New theatrology is a field of research not in two dimensions (theory-practice) but in three: theory-history-practice. “Theory” can refer to two genetically different metadiscourses: the theory of the theatre that artists create through their work; and the theory about the theatre made by scholars and critics. New theatrology attempts to account for both. While new theatrology and performance studies share several presuppositions, the notion of performance needs to be better defined, especially from a historical point of view.