Orit Azaz
Artistic Director
Orit is a theatre maker, artistic director and facilitator, with a passion for creating large scale outdoor performances and events that bring together communities to share new experiences and conversations and uniquely respond to their context and setting.
Orit was creative director of ‘Portrait of a Nation’ for Liverpool Culture Company and Heritage Lottery Fund in 2008, a high profile 2 day event and performance at St George’s Hall in Liverpool, celebrating what it means to be British as seen through the eyes of young people and providing a fitting culmination to the European Capital of Culture programme.
Orit was creative director of Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations 2009 for Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the RSC, where she invigorated the 200-year-old tradition of celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday in Stratford-upon-Avon. As artistic director of ‘Something Good’, celebrating the 300th anniversary of Birmingham Cathedral in 2015, she brought together artists working in different disciplines and from diverse cultural and faith backgrounds.
Orit also has a longstanding collaboration with Nofit State Circus, leading the development of a new language of large scale, open air, contemporary circus performance in collaboration with partners and communities across the UK and France.
Dan Potra
Designer
Dan is a designer across the full spectrum of the arts, designing sets, costumes, concepts and animation for opera, theatre, large scale events, dance and film. Dan has received five Helpmann Award nominations for his design work in opera and theatre in Australia of which he has won three, including Best Scenic Design in 2008 for Dead Man Walking at the State Theatre in Sydney.
International opera and theatre productions include The Portrait for Opera North and Opera de Lorraine, Idomeneo directed by Graeme Vicks at Coruna Festival in Spain, Cyrano de Bergerac for the National Theatre of Greece, Sweeney Todd at Southbank London, The Barber of Saville for Houston Grand Opera, A Streetcar Named Desire and Norma for St Gallen Opera in Switzerland, La Bohème at Staatsopera in Berlin, Idomeneo with Pinchgut Opera.
Dan has designed many large-scale sporting and cultural events, include designing the now famous Deep Sea Dreaming and Tin Symphony segments in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony for which he won the 2001 Helpmann Award for Best Costume Design. He also designed the opening and closing ceremonies for both the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, production design for the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the 2008 opening and closing ceremonies of the Liverpool European Capital of Culture directed by Nigel Jamieson and City of the Unexpected in Cardiff, celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Roald Dahl.
Dan designed the costumes and projections for the Global Creatures / Dreamworks US stage adaptation of How To Train Your Dragon; designed a new opera by Phillip Glass: The Perfect American for English National Opera/Teatro Real de Madrid; designed the ingenious touring set for Nofit State Circus’ Barricade and has designed the Theatre Republic precinct as part of the 2014 Brisbane Festival.
Corey Baker
Choreographer
Corey is an award-winning choreographer and filmmaker, celebrated for his innovation and commitment to driving dance into the 21st century. With a passion that dance is for everyone, Corey takes dance out of traditional settings and puts it into parks, playgrounds, stadiums, shopping centres, rugby fields, on TV & film and even Antarctica. Corey is also renowned for highly-designed, inventive and relevant contemporary and ballet.
Originally from Christchurch New Zealand, Corey trained as a classical dancer in Christchurch and Sydney before moving to Switzerland to dance at Ballet Theatre Basel. Corey relocated to the UK in 2008 to join BalletBoyz and has continued to dance for many acclaimed companies and choreographers. Corey started Corey Baker Dance in 2010 to create and produce his own work, including Phonebox, A Haka Day Out, Secret Encounters, Headphones and Spill.
Alongside the company, Corey has also collaborated on many projects as rehearsal director, choreographer, teacher, movement director and mentor. Corey was Associate Artistic Director of Birmingham Weekender in 2015, and continues to develop his directing and curatorial roles through several new initiatives.