01 Aug 2023
The Edinburgh Festivals are starting this week in Scotland’s capital, with both the International Festival and the Fringe Festival opening on the 4th of August, and 17 New Zealand artists will be there to be part of the Edinburgh experience.
Flying to Scotland as part of Creative New Zealand and the British Council for New Zealand and the Pacific’s Festival Intensive programme are: Alice Canton, Amit Noy, Ana Scotney, Arlo Gibson, Cian Parker, Eddie Elliott, Sherilee Kahui, Vanessa Immink, Helena-Jane Kilkelly, Joel Baxendale, Julia Croft, Karin McCracken, Leo Gene Peters, Sacha Copland, Stella Reid, Claire Mabey, Taarati Taiaroa.
Amanda Hereaka, Creative New Zealand’s Manager International, who’s travelling to Edinburgh says the opportunity will give the group of performing artists, visual artists and writers the chance to connect with an international network of practitioners and producers.
“It’s great to be able to support New Zealand artists to join with their international peers, to share ideas, talk and be buoyed by the energy of Edinburgh’s world-renowned festivals.”
Creative New Zealand, alongside the British Council for New Zealand and the Pacific has supported the mixture of teina (first-time) and tuakana (experienced) artists to attend.
Teina
- Alice Canton
Alice Canton (White_mess) is an award-winning theatre-artist and producer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her work explores identity, culture and community through live theatre and performance. Notable works include ORANGUTAN, WHITE/OTHER, BREAK BREAD (Silo Theatre), and the live documentary theatre project, OTHER [chinese].
- Amit Noy
Amit Noy is a tauiwi choreographer. He grew up in Oahu, Hawai‘i and Te Whanganui-a-Tara to Latine and Israeli parents. In 2022, Amit received the Pina Bausch Fellowship for Dance and Choreography, and he was recently named a 2023 Springboard Awardee by Te Tumu Toi: The Arts Foundation. In Hebrew, ‘Amit’ means good friend.
- Ana Scotney
Ana Chaya Scotney (Ngāi Tūhoe) is an actress and multimedia storyteller from Te Whanganui-A-Tara. She is training to direct cinema with Dame Jane Campion at film intensive, A Wave In The Ocean, and has acted in films Millie Lies Low, Cousins and The Breaker Upperers. Her solo show, ScatterGun: After The Death of Rūaumoko won multiple awards at the NZ and Sydney Fringe festivals.
- Arlo Gibson
Arlo Gibson is a neurodivergent Tāmaki based multi-disciplinary artist and creative who has been working in film, television and theatre over the last 10 years. Arlo prides himself on selecting and creating projects that push the boundaries of theatrical form, his own work explores themes of isolation and success under capitalist structures.
- Cian Parker
Cian Parker (Ngāpuhi) is an award-winning performer, writer, theatre maker, and producer. Her multiple awards include the Ngā Manu Pīrere award, ‘Most Promising Emerging Artist’ at the New Zealand Fringe Awards, The Arts Foundation’s 2021 Springboard Award recipients, At the 2021 Wellington Theatre awards she received the ‘New Playwright Award’.
- Eddie Elliott
Eddie is from Manurewa, and has danced with leading arts companies including Atamira Dance Company, Black Grace, Okareka Dance Company, Auckland Theatre Company, Douglas Wright and The New Zealand Dance Company and Canada’s Red Sky Performance. He’s also choreographed works for The New Zealand Dance Company, Atamira Dance Company and Red Sky Performance.
- Sherilee Kahui
Sherilee is an indigenous theatre maker and graduate of Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. After becoming a māmā, Sherilee continued to tour work, both around Aotearoa and abroad. Sherilee is passionate about using story-telling in the prevention of violence and promoting re-indigenisation.
- Vanessa Immink
Vanessa Immink (Ngāti Hauā, Ngā Wairiki Ngāti Apa) is a theatre-maker and producer from Aotearoa. Her experience ranges from solo shows (Talofa Papa) to commercial productions (Hamilton, Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group). In 2022 Vanessa was selected as one of 25 emerging BIPOC producers for the Theatre Producers of Color programme (NYC) and was also selected as a 2023 Global ISPA Fellow.
Tuakana:
- Helena-Jane Kilkelly
H-J Kilkelly is an Ōtepoti-based producer, with a passion for the development of new works from New Zealand and decolonisation through performance. She is the co-director of Prospect Park Productions, and its professional development platforms Ōtepoti Theatre Lab and Ōtepoti Writers Lab, and an independent contractor across multiple projects.
- Joel Baxendale
Joel is the the Creative Director of Binge Culture, a new-form theatre company, established in 2008 and based in Pōneke. His creative practice revolves around ways to activate the audience and make them agents within an experience, with a recent focus on utilising digital technology.
- Julia Croft
Julia Croft is a live artist and performance maker based in Auckland, New Zealand. Julia’s practice draws on a wide variety of critical theory to create performance works exploring matter and materiality through a feminist lens. Since 2015 she has created 10 full length works including 4 solo works: If There's Not Dancing at the Revolution, I'm Not Coming, Power Ballad, Working On My Night Moves and Terrapolis. These works have toured extensively throughout NZ and internationally including to the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Mexico and Singapore.
- Karin McCracken
Karin McCracken is an award-winning theatre artist and writer based in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the Co-Artistic director of EBKM alongside Eleanor Bishop; together they have co-created the works Yes Yes Yes (Excellence for Overall Production, Auckland Theatre Awards 2019, Outstanding Performance, Wellington Theatre Awards 2019), Body Double (Production of the Year WTA 2017, presented by Auckland Arts Festival/Silo Theatre 2018), Jane Doe (Critics Choice Award Sydney Fringe 2018) and the forthcoming large-scale adaptation of Chris Kraus’ novel Gravity & Grace (Dean Parker Award for Best Adaptation, NZ Play Awards 2021).
- Leo Gene Peters
Leo is the founding Director of A Slightly Isolated Dog. MTA (Directing) Degree from Toi Whakaari & VUW (2004). For nearly 20 years he has consistently produced and directed innovative, award-winning, and highly acclaimed NZ Theatre. He’s currently directing Don Juan, Jekyll & Hyde, The Trojan War and Safety In Numbers which continue development through touring.
- Sacha Copland
Sacha Copland founded Java in 2003, choreographing 24 full length cutting edge dance theatre works and touring to Singapore, Australia, China, South Korea and the UK. Sacha is a Creative NZ Choreographic Fellow, a distinguished graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance graduate and 2022 Arts Wellingtonian of the Year. She has performed on a moving bus all over the world with Java's popular Back of the Bus and created the award winning Artisan Series from 2011-2019.
- Stella Reid
Stella Reid (Pākehā) is a director, writer, actor, and somehow both a lover and a fighter. Her work has toured NZ, Australia, and the UK, and won her a Fringe First and Stage UK Acting Excellence. Her films have screened in Show Me Shorts and Melbourne Women in Film Festival.
Momentum
- Claire Mabey
Claire Mabey is a writer (working on middle grade fiction, and creative non-fiction); books editor of The Spinoff; founder of Verb Wellington; and co-curator of the writers programme for Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts.
- Taarati Taiaroa
Taarati Taiaroa is Ringahāpai Kaitakatū Ngā Toi Māori | Assistant Curator Contemporary Māori Art at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre. Previously Taarati was Assistant Curator Māori Art for Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art at Toi o Tāmaki and in 2021, she was the Blue Oyster Art project Space 2021 Summer Resident in association with the Dunedin School of Art. Recent written contributions can be found in Crafting Aotearoa (2019), Art New Zealand (Summer 2021-22), Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art (2022) and Robin White: Something is Happening Here (2022).
Read more about the Festival Intensive programme
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