Rafael Lopez-Barrantes, a performer, voice teacher, and co-founder of Archipelago Theatre France as well as Archipelago Theatre USA, has been acting, directing, and teaching with the Roy Hart Theatre in France since 1974. His research in Traditional Japanese Performing Arts and Flamenco singing has extensively shaped his approach to voice, body, and performance training. He was the Voice Chair at the National School of Puppetry Arts in France (1984-1992). He has taught in Japan, Mexico, and Europe, notably the Riksteater of Norway and the French National Conservatories of Dramatic Art. For fifteen years, he held a position at the Theatre Studies Department of Duke University, where he directed several performances for the main stages (Kaspar, King Ubu, Blood Weddings, The Tempest, Don Juan, House of Desires, etc.).
Between 1992 and 2015, he was a faculty member at the American Dance Festival. He established Celebrations Inc. in 1996, a very successful business venture addressing design, theatrical, and production needs in the special events industry (for such notables as President Bill Clinton, Yo-Yo Ma, Luciano Pavarotti, Michael Jordan, etc.). He collaborated as Assistant Director for the Opera Company of North Carolina in 2003 and 2004. Between 2002 and 2007, he was officially appointed Honorary Consul of Spain in North Carolina. In May 2008, he directed Rameau’s opera Platee for CalArts. In the Summer of 2016, he taught and conducted his research in Spain, Argentina, and Japan.
Since 2007, he has taught Voice as a full-time faculty member in the CalArts School of Theater, serving as Associate Director of Performance from 2008 to 2016. In 2018, he conceived House of Voices, a CalArts School of Theater initiative that presents and explores ancestral voice practices to create a dialogue between practitioners, students, faculty, artists, scholars, and scientists. His book Voice Made Visible, Multi-Octave Voice Training and Techniques for Performers, was published by Routledge in 2023. The book represents the outcome and culmination of his pedagogic career: the Barrantes Voice System.
