Jason Cross - Director
Jason has worked as an Artistic Director, theatre director, physical performer and creative producer.
From the early 1990’s Jason worked as an independent freelance theatre maker and director working independently and with companies such as Anthill, Playbox, Five Dollar Theatre and La Mama. In 1995 Jason was a founding member of the celebrated physical performance company 5 Angry Men who he worked and toured with extensively until 2002.
Jason has realised commissions for major national arts festivals including Melbourne International Festival of the Arts - Concrete Mountains (1995) and Rice Paddies (2001) - and he has written and directed independent theatre works including The Congress and Ereshkigal.
From 2001-2005 Jason was the Artistic Director of Big West Festival (Melbourne, Victoria) one of Australia’s leading multi art form festivals combining professional and community participation arts projects and creating a range of projects specifically for young people.
Jason was the Artistic Director of the 16th ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival in 2008 and was the Artistic Director of the2009 Australian Festival for Young People - Come Out 2009. He is currently the Senior Program Manager for 2010 Adelaide Fringe.
Lee Cumberlidge – Director
Lee Cumberlidge is a producer and event manager with a range of performing arts experience from large scale festival management to the small to medium company sector. Lee worked with Arts Projects Australia from 1999-2008 in both Adelaide and Melbourne on various projects in key programming, operational and strategic development roles.
In his time with APA, Lee took a key role on the Commonwealth Games ‘Festival Melbourne 2006’ and the FINA Festival 2007 where he was responsible for managing the programming process and the development and management of the large festival budgets. Both festivals presented hundreds of free performances across street theatre, circus, music, and dance from local, national and international artists. Festival Melbourne 2006 attracted 2 million people over 10 days and won a Helpmann Award for Best Special Event.
Lee has also been heavily involved in the management of WOMADelaide (1999, 2001, 2003), the Australian Performing Arts Market (2000, 2002), and producing touring productions to various major festivals and venues in the Asia Pacific region including House of the Holy Afro (South Africa), Children’s Cheering Carpet (Italy) 12 Angry Men (UK), 100 (UK), Horse Country (USA), Cincinnati (USA), Pandora 88 (Germany).
In the small to medium company sector, Lee has championed the work of several Australian artists and companies. He was a founding director of Fresh Track Productions, a company of producers set-up to develop and present the work of independent artists.
In 2006 with APA, he was one of four recipients of the Australia Council’s Developing Independent Producer’s Initiative, a program which allowed him to provide the services and experience of APA to a number of independent Australian theatre companies in the creative development and presentation of their work in Australia and overseas. The highlight of this period was producing an 8 week tour of Gilgamesh by Uncle Semolina (& friends) to the Barbican Centre, London; the Festival of Australian Theatre in Beijing; the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre; and the Sydney Opera House.
Elena Vereker – Director
Elena Vereker has built a reputation as a unique artist conceiving, developing and producing mid/ large scale, site specific, high impact artistic events. “It is vital to create experiences that nurture, develop and expose exciting, inspired and creative works for a city and its public.”
As a creative director, Elena conceives distinctive projects which present spectacular physical and aerial theatre combined with striking installations that engage artists, community and audiences in unforgettable ways. A graduate of NIDA (1997), she has worked for the past 12 years with companies including; St Martins, Playbox, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Next Wave Festival, Adelaide International Festival 1998, Geelong Courthouse, WestSide Circus and La Mama. Her large event credits include: Advent Calendar (Fed Square 2006, 2007, 2008 Green Room Award winner Best Direction, Best Production, Best Design), Human Momentum - a large bamboo playground with aerial and circus performance (Melbourne Fringe 2005, Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival 2006), The Moon Lantern Festival Finale (2002, 2003), and as the creative consultant for the aerial event ‘Colony’ set on the Victorian Arts Centre spire Next Wave Festival, (2002), Victoria schools spectacular SHINE (concept and direction of stadium performance with 3000 performers at the Rod Laver Arena, 2001), Flamma Flamma (Assoc Director to Nigel Jamieson for opening event for Adelaide Festival, 1998).
From 2004-2005 she was the Creative Producer of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, re-conceptualising the festival to generate new works for artists and create free, high profile events as a central aspect to the festival. She went on to become the inaugural Creative Producer of Federation Square Melbourne in 2007-8, where she created, directed and/or produced more than 40 events including the iconic Advent Calendar, interactive light performance installation DreamSeed - (a collaboration with Kyota Takahashi engaging over 2000 students from Victoria and Japan) and 1001 Cranes where she received acknowledgement from the Mayor of Hiroshima for this work representing the ongoing global peace message against nuclear war.
In 2008 she co-founded Insite Arts as the Creative Director and in 2009 she was the Creative Producer of the outdoor public program for the Brisbane Festival creating and producing 11 large scale events.
Victoria Raywood – Director
A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Victoria has worked as a theatre maker – director, administrator and general manager. In 1995 Victoria was a founding member of the Victorian based performance company 5 Angry Men. Victoria was the General and Operations Manager from its inception until 2000. Victoria also tour managed 3 European tours (across 50 festivals) and the development of the company’s new works. As well as administrating the company’s activity, Victoria contributed to the creative realisation of the 5 Angry Men shows including the Bells and Stigmata.
Victoria has worked as a close collaborator (conceptual development/dramaturgy) on a number of projects with Jason Cross including Concrete Mountains and Rice Paddies for Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, Ereshkigel (dance house) and The Congress & The Shed for La Mama/Fringe. As a director and dramaturg Victoria has made 4 independent productions at La Mama including Mourning’s and Beautiful Mutants after Debra Levy. Victoria was the General Manager of the biannual Big West Festival in 2001, 2003 and 2005. In 2006 Victoria oversaw the successful transition of Big West becoming an annually funded festival via Arts Victoria. On moving to Adelaide in early 2007 Victoria was appointed to the position of Secretariat Manager, Australian International Documentary Conference Ltd produced by Arts Projects Australia. Victoria has had extensive overseas travel through Asia, Europe and North America.