Meet the Dragon’s
Neil Butler (UZ Events):
Neil Butler is an artist, cultural strategist and creator of festivals and
events. In the 80¹s he founded the Brighton Zap Club, curated programmes at the ICA and directed shows for the South Bank in London. He worked as an artist and performer in several performance and music groups and toured with them around the Europe. In 1988 he was invited to Glasgow to create festivals and events as part of a programme to prepare the city for being European City of Culture in 1990. In 1994 he founded UZ Events with directors from Unique Events and Zap Productions and became a specialist in closing down cities to create venues. In 1999 he created signature events for Glasgow when it was UK City of Architecture and Design. Butler was Event director of the STUC Centennial celebrations and Glasgow¹s Millennium Hogmanay.
In 1999 his art-work Wrap the World involved simultaneous events in
Johannesburg, Delhi, Sydney, New York, Porto and Glasgow and was broadcast worldwide by the BBC. The work was exhibited at Gallery of Modern Art Glasgow and toured Scotland in a travelling exhibition. Butler has always been interested in exploring the line between art and entertainment and the tension between the instrumental use of art and ³art for art¹s sake². His current work focuses on the nature of identity.
He has devised and presented cultural programmes for the Scottish Government in Europe, USA and Canada. In 2009 he was appointed Director of the event that will open Scotland¹s ³Year of the Homecoming²
Neil Butler is Festival Director of Glasgow’s Merchant City Festival and Big in Falkirk Scotland¹s National Street Arts Festival. He is the British
representative of In Situ a pan-european network that funds the commissioning of major cross border arts projects. He is also the Chairman of the Hikkaduwa Area Relief Fund a Scottish charity created to support an area of Sri Lankan following the tsunami. In 2006 he established the Chandrasevana Centre in Dodanduwa as a local arts centre and community resource that also offers a residency programme for international artists.He was responsible for brokering and directing a multi faith peace concert in Sri Lanka in January 2007 at a time of increasing hostility and violence.
Brigitte Orasinski (Strange Cargo):
Strange Cargo is a highly evolved arts organisation, whose ability to respond creatively and professionally to an increasingly broad range of creative opportunities and challenges has led to the company occupying an exclusive position in the arena of cultural provision.
Our core aims are Access, Participation & Excellence with a broad
programme which includes Public Art, Celebratory Arts, Gallery based
projects and exhibitions, Training and Education. We deliver high
profile creative projects, often incorporating large-scale participation
as central to delivery. High production values underpin everything we
do, and the legacy value for participants within our programme is
exemplary. The diversity of our creative team enables us to deliver
unique responses to commissions, often working with significant numbers of participants. We devise and coordinate large, complex projects, employing professional expertise to support the programme.
2008 National and International Awarding bodies include RTPI, Charity
Awards, Arts & Business, European Urban Prize for Public Space.
Brigitte is Artistic Director of Strange Cargo and a Fellow of the Royal
Society of the Arts. She studied Fine Art at Kent Institute of Art and Design Canterbury, before embarking upon a professional creative career which has involved developing strategies for engagement in the arts, including large scale celebratory programmes, the development of Georges House Gallery, Folkestone and creating award winning public realm artworks.
Bill Gee (Bill Gee Associates):
Bill Gee has worked in a variety of roles, art forms and contexts for the past 20 years, most recently as a creative producer working with a diversity of art form practices for diverse audiences, particularly presented in outdoor and public realm contexts. He is supported by ACE, London as an RFO for his development time on new projects, his advisory work to emerging and mid-career artists and his leadership role within the Outdoor sector and advocating for the continuing support of Independent Producers.
He operates through a combination of programming seasons or festivals and directly producing artist’s projects. Whilst specialising in outdoor and public realm work, Bill continues to work with artists from a range of art from disciplines and through the years has worked with theatre, dance, music, visual arts, live art, spoken word, participative arts, film and video. Recent projects include the Inside Out festival in Dorset; Nutkhut’s Movieplex; Theatre Consultant Programmer for the National Theatre’s Watch This Space programme and touring work by Dutch theatre maker Dries Verhoeven. He is an Associate Producer with Artsadmin.
As the inaugural Coordinator of the Independent Street Arts Network (ISAN), Bill was responsible for developing between 2001 and 2004 a series of influential symposia, conferences and subsequent publications on street arts and outdoor work. Directly influencing the 2003 Licensing Act to promote local authorities to licence public space for cultural events. He has developed and chaired high level discussion panels as part of Artichoke’s Larger than Life conference; XTRAX international showcase Manchester and Festival aan de Werf, Utrecht.
He has recently become a Board Member of ISAN and a member of the Regional Council for ACE East Midlands.
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