Rafał Habel-Bloodgood is a performer, musician, composer and theatre educator with over thirty years of professional and artistic practice. His work has developed through ensemble-based, music-driven physical theatre and explores the relationships between movement, voice, rhythm, live music and sound.

His artistic path developed through sustained ensemble work as an original member of the Polish company Song of the Goat Theatre (1996–2018). More than two decades of collective creation and international performance shaped his approach to physical listening, voice–body integration and musical dramaturgy, and continue to inform his independent work.

Music has been an integral part of his performance practice throughout his career. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer, he works with traditional instruments including kora, birbynė, psaltery, flutes and percussion, as well as self-built instruments, found objects, contact microphones and live electronics. His work often develops through improvisation and attentive listening, treating the body, other performers, objects and the performance space itself as musical partners.

Since 2019 Rafał has focused on international collaborations combining performance-making, music and artistic research. His projects include Uninteresting Scream (2019–2022), Body Without Body / Bacchae (2020), Species of Spaces (2021), AISO – Άϊζο (2023), SACRUM (2023), J (2024), βαδίζοντας / Walking (2025) and ELEGIA² (2026).

These works increasingly bring his performative and musical practices together. In Species of Spaces, scenographic elements became sound sources through strings, contact microphones and metal components. In Walking, he performed while creating a live soundscape, integrating instruments, voice and processed sound into the action. In ELEGIA², his work combines performance, original music, traditional and self-built instruments, improvisation, polyphonic singing and spoken text.

His international practice has developed particularly through long-term artistic relationships in Greece, including collaborations with artists and institutions in Athens and participation in the International Laboratory of Ancient Drama. He has also developed work in Slovakia, including SACRUM and collaborations with Rádio Devín.

Alongside his artistic work, Rafał maintains a long-term pedagogical practice. He taught on the MA Acting Programme organised in cooperation with Manchester Metropolitan University (2004–2012) and has led workshops and masterclasses across Europe and the United States. His teaching focuses on ensemble awareness, attentive listening, improvisation and the transmission of embodied knowledge.

Across performance, music and teaching, his practice is grounded in listening — to the body, to other performers, to sound and to space.