Ruth Hellier-Tinoco

Ruth Hellier (sometimes Tinoco), Ph.D. is a performer, scholar, and creative artist, who researches and teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Growing up in the United Kingdom (Chelmsford), she trained at the Guildhall School of Music Drama (Junior scholarship, piano and violin), studied Music, Drama and Dance at Birmingham University and went full steam ahead into an acting career, which ranged from the Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre to BBC's Nice Work and Howard's Way; from Snow White in panto to Theatre of the Gorge.

She was briefly Head of Music at St. Thomas Aquinas School and Bishop Challoner School in Birmingham (a wonderful experience), before being part of the Leicestershire TIE company, creating and performing Aztec. So began her life with and in Mexico. She moved there in 1994, living in Morelia, Michoacán, and the Lake Pátzcuaro area, playing violin for La Danza de los Viejitos - the Dance of the Old Men, with an amazing ensemble from the Island of Jarácuaro.

In 2001 she completed her Ph.D. on Mexican postrevolutionary cultural politics and the Dance of the Old Men, through Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, and started on an academic career at the University of Winchester, teaching experimental performing arts.

After big life changes in 2008, she migrated to the U.S.A.and lives in beautiful Santa Barbara, with her husband Tim (Cooley - scholar and surfer), in a 100-year old farmhouse.

Currently she is writing about the extraordinary Mexico City-based company La Máquina de Teatro, directed by Juliana Faesler and Clarissa Malheiros, and their Trilogía Mexicana/Mexican Trilogy. Coming soon!!!! Watch this space.