Performance today holds the mirror up to a diverse and changing world. English speaking performers must have the skill and ability to acquire any accent or dialect (a regional variety of an accent) with the specific lilt, rhythms, intonations and sound changes intrinsic to each individual region a character represents. In order to do this, the performer must have access to authentic sources for hearing and seeing the gestural aspects of accent and dialect.

The Visual Accent & Dialect Archive (VADA) is an archive of video clips from around the world, providing both aural and visual information about a dialect or accent. Other academic speech/accent libraries and archives on the web offer only the aural aspect of learning an accent.