Songs of tradition as training in higher education?

What can be the benefit of working with traditional song in the context of a university or conservatory? Who is qualified to teach this practice, what are the needed conditions for successful transmission, what are the ‘skills’ that a student might learn from this work and are they relevant to a contemporary performer? This is a transcript of an ongoing dialogue between two artist practitioners who have worked in this area over the last fifteen years. Ditte Berkeley is a founding member of Teatr ZAR, a company that has conducted deep research into songs of tradition as well as their application within performative contexts. Electa Behrens, also with a background working with traditional song, now teaches at the Norwegian Theatre Academy, an international experimental conservatory, where she teaches and researches voice training and its relation to emerging, often post-dramatic, performance forms. This dialogue offers insights regarding the underlying principles of performance that these methods, insightfully applied, can offer, and invites further conversation on the topic.