ABOUT ILLUMINATI CREATIVE SERVICES

homepage
Dorian Kelly's CV

ABOUT ILLUMINATI
Click here for profile article from L&SI
For a glimpse into my philosophy and process of lighting design read this

Since 1964: A professional stage lighting designer, festival director, artist booker, exhibition designer, community projects leader, theatre director, as well as theatre consultant, stage and architectural lighting designer, sound designer, scenic designer, production electrician, chief electrician, pyrotechnician, water effects designer scriptwriter, rigger, lecturer on theatre technology and performance art,. Loves arts, theatre and show business, and accepts no substitutes for quality and innovation. Professional grade member of: The Association of Lighting Designers, Association of Theatre Technicians, serving on the association council for a term of office , member of the Association of Event Organisers. Director of Illuminati and Theatre Despatch Ltd. Founder member of Slack Space, Artistic Director of Colchester Carnival and Interim Chair of Colchester Culture Partnership. He is director of The Guerilla Shakepeare Company, which specialises in bringing the works of the Bard to all in an accessible and above all, fun way,. As an artist his technology work has been seen in The Hayward Gallery, the Cornerhouse Manchester, MOMA Oxford and in Colchester He is much in demand as a speaker and has delivered keynote speeches from one extreme to another- at the highest level at international conferences for Stage Lighting Designers,. at top drama schools and locally as a Colchester theatre historian. To cap it all he is an experience outdoor events director, with many events to his credit,

Dorian is occasionally available for tours, pantos, lighting design, and wicker-bottom chair repairing .... But be warned, working with Dorian can be seriously interesting. It never works out quite how you expect - but always better than you hoped!

Dorian is occasionally available for tours, pantos, lighting design, and wicker-bottom chair repairing .... But be warned, working with Dorian can be seriously interesting. It never works out quite how you expect - but always better than you hoped! , Dorian formed Illuminati with his brother Simon in 1980, drawing upon the strengths of each to create a business which now operates internationally - if intermittently - with a client backlist which reads like who's who.

We also employ visual and multimedia artists, an unemployed opera singer and assorted experienced technicians. And lots of actors. Sometimes we even pay them properly ( joke!)... When he is not directing Shakespeare and largish festivals, Dorian also lectures worldwide on the subject of smoke, fog and atmospheric effects - a subject on which he can talk (and does if you are not careful) for three days on end, never once repeating himself.

For a glimpse into my philosophy and process of lighting design read this

 

DORIAN KELLY
CURRICULUM VITAE:

LIGHTING DESIGNER, THEATRE DIRECTOR,  FESTIVALS DIRECTOR,
ARTS BUILDINGS CONSULTANT  AND TECHNOLOGY CHAMPION

“ Hire Dorian Kelly and you get something original, something thoughtful, something unusual. But you get  something maybe you don’t expect and its always likely to amaze…… indefatigable and innovative….”   article ,  Cue Magazine,1997
 “The best planned pub theatre in London” (The Act Inn, Brewer Street) Time Out magazine- Theatre equipped and co-run by Dorian Kelly
“Can this boy do the biz or what?” – Leslie Pringle,  Wildfire Productions,  Venice Beach California on the subject of patented design ideas.
 “Sure can make Chicken Soup outa chicken sh*t” – Brookie Starduz , principal dancer, Chicago Dance Co.
 “The minute I sat down with him, I knew this job was going to be…fun! Cracking stuff! ” Ken Campbell.
“Extraordinarily impressive” (most of Greenwich) on the subject of the largest themed bonfire in the world and accompanying firework display.
“Thanks its exactly what I wanted “ ( The designer of a "theatrical millionaire"s £19m Belgravia home about hidden electroluminescent and fibre optic lights in a crystal staircase)

"..Who was inspired enough to invite Dorian Kelly to speak of the poetics of light with such passion? A man who was able to put into words so elequently what we, who care about light and lighting,feel. More than a few had tears in their eyes..." John Watt, reviewing Showlight Conference 2009

" .. Dorian's seminar was incredibly emotional and was a thrill for everyone to hear. I hope he repeats it again so more can hear it. It truly represented the spirit of Showlight." Gary Fails CEO City Theatrical, Canada

"Dorian, thanks so much for your help and support with the carnival. You have been a joy to work with and should take the lion's share of the credit for the triumph that was the procession". Dan Woodruff Secretary Colchester Round Table 2011

DORIAN KELLY 3 GLADSTONE ROAD, COLCHESTER CO1 2EB dorian@theatrearts.biz http://www.theatrearts.biz

CURRENT POSITION • Freelance: Deviser and integrator British artistic events - UNESCO International Year of Light 2015

Director Of Illuminati Creative Arts / Illuminati Creative Technology / The Guerrilla Shakespeare Company

OTHER DIRECTORSHIPS ETC • Associate Director Slack Space Colchester, Britain's first and still the best voluntary arts centre using meanwhile spaces.

• Director of Theatre Despatch: London’s first and best arts publicity distribution service

• Associate Director of New Route Theatre

• Trustee - Walk Colchester

• Trustee and committee member, The Association of Theatre Technicians ( retired by rotation)

MEMBERSHIPS, Professional Organisations

\• The Association of Theatre Consultants - full member

• The Association of Theatre Technicians - full member

• The Association of Lighting Designers - - full member

• Festival Organisers Association - associate member

CAREER IN THEATRE ( a snapshot)

• "A Star Danced" ( And Under that was I Born) , written Directed and performed by Dorian Kelly and Performed at Colchester Mercury Theatre 2013

• "The Day that Shakespeare Died" Illustrated novel ( in preparation) to be published early 2016

• "Twelfth Night" -Directed and Produced • "A Midsummer Nights Dream" - New Route Theatre Company

• "Much Ado about Nothing" New Route Theatre Company • "Cymbeline" - Guerilla Shakespeare

• "The Tempest": a multicultural version for Chinese and other non- English speakers.

• ""Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare" a compliation of the best bits of Shakespeare. performed at SlackSpace Colchester and at the Bankside Rose 2010

• Assistant Director, various semi-pro Sunday productions at Leicester Phoenx

• Director: 'You Touched Me' and "Live like Pigs' : Dundee Rep

• Director "Venus Observed" at Bournemouth

• Director: Community Opera for Farnham

• Director" Festival of Lights" Bournemouth Council

• Video design and production manager :

• Yolanda Garcia productions “ Inside Macbeth” Colchester Mercury studio

• Colchester Repertory Theatre: Lighting Designer

• Dundee Repertory Theatre: Lighting Designer and Chief electrician

• Leicester Phoenix:Lighting Designer and Chief Electrician

• Bournemouth Palace Court Theatre: Ch.LX and LD

• Glyndbourne Opera : Electrician

• The Mermaid Theatre: Chief Technician and Lighting designer

• Assistant to Joe Davis at H.M. Tennant.

• Greenwich Theatre: Chief Electrician And lots of others

FRINGE and small scale theatre

• 1972 Set up Pub Theatre with Amos Mokadi, Israeli director: The Act Inn, at the Duke of Argyll in Brewer Street, Soho. Described by Time Out as "the best fringe theatre in London: ran for three years with many well known performers

• Edinburgh, Various years since 1964,

• The Roebuck Theatre Tottenham Ct Rd , The Kings Head Theatre , The Orange Tree Theatre

• The Finborough Theatre,

• The Old Red Lion, Islington ,

• Riverside Studios ,

• Creek Rd Studios

• The Barn, Sidcup ,

For Ken Campbell:

• "The Warp" (30 Hr marathon performances) ,

• "The Pidgin Macbeth"

Large tours with:

• Harold Fielding Ltd.

Pola Jones Ltd.

Chinese State Circus

• Welsh National Theatre (In English) Cwmni Theatr Cymru (in Welsh)

• Irish National Opera,

Illusionists, various, Various rock bands

National Tours of West End

• The Ralph Richardson Repertory Co. ( The Rivals, Lady Widemere's Fan, Heartbreak House) (Tour Lighting)

• "My Fair Lady" No 1 tour, (with the great HM Tennant Team)

• "Canterbury Tales"

• "Marlene Deitrich" Live ( personal followspot operator)

• "My Fair Lady" (revival) ( production electrician)

• "The Biograph Girl" ( Sound operator plus )

• "Beyond the Rainbow" (do plus special rainbow effects)

• "Singing in the Rain" ( water and effects tech)

• "The Two Ronnies" (3 seasons) (Built the whole damn thing for the first season (thousands of chaser lights) at ten days notice

• "Swan with Topping"

• "Irene"

• "Hans Christian Andersen" ( Production elecs and sound op. with Tommy Steel.

• "Charlie Girl" Fantastic special effects design and build)

• "On the Twentieth Century" (Sound Operator, mixing twenty radios and forty musicians plus effects and foldback)

• "Zeigfield" ( amazing effects design and build)

• "The Tommy Steel Show" ( 10 Sundays of pure wading through treacle)

• ... plus about 50 bands and groups, lights, sound and video specialities) .

• Freelance work for various TV companies in various capacities. Provision of special effects, electroluminescent and fibre-optic specialties

FESTIVALS organised and / or curated

• Artistic Director, Colchester Carnival 2011- date . Themeing of the carnival and overall control of procession artistic quality

• Programming "Tent of World Deams"

• Artistic Director "Colchester's Global Heritage", part of the "Gift Project" - Two day street festival for Colchester Mercury Theatre, The Arts Centre and other professional Arts providers. Over 800 performers over 2 days

• Deviser and producer: Colchester Festival 2000 – 2006 - Responsible for devising the full festival, including street entertainments and performances, historical and dance days, booking performers and artistes, budgeting and finance control, fundraising, licensing and permissions, risk assessments, Health and Safety, parade design and control, "The Great Samba Ramble" "The Fair and Funky Market", Schools workshops and commissions. “Festival Times” editor in graphics and layout, author/ director of “ The Promenade Plays... and more… in fact pretty well everything associated with a large successful festiva

l • Hadleigh Festival and Mannningtree Festival

,• Programmer, outdoor events in local shopping centres: • Shakespeare Street Festival organisation, Bankside, London for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

VISUAL ARTS - Exhibition of one or more of my own works

: • Hayward Gallery, London, Video art for Naim Jun Pak, Eistenstein exhibition, also made large scale wood and metal artwork representing his life and work from archive and replica materials.

• Museum of Modern Art, Oxford - Eistenstein as above

• Cornerhouse Manchester - Eistenstein as above

• Berretts Gallery Southwark ( Fibre Optic art)

• Rose Theatre Southwark underwater replicas (Illuminated) of the archaeological finds

• Slack Space Gallery, Colchester ( Lightworks- nine various pieces), also the "Colchester Globe"

INNOVATIONS

• Illuminati was the first in Britain to use large scale fibre optics in a theatre production

• Illuminati was the first in Britain to use Electroluminescent lighting

• Illuminati was the first in the world to use pioneering underwater display lighting technology

• Illuminati was the first in Britain to design and use miniature chainable strobe lighting fittings ( ten years before they became common)

• Illuminati was an early adopter use of LED in costumes and elsewhere

VARIOUS

• IT Consultant ( Apple mac) University Of Essex -Installation and contractual upgrade of applemacs in the university.

• Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre Archeological Preservation Exhibition:

• Interpretation and underwater electroluminescent lighting design: video, Peppers Ghost, sound

• Christmas Public Lights design, build and fit, Colchester town centre.

• “Firefighting” putting right (other peoples’) problem lighting designs at a well-known “Theatrical Millionaire’s” home, London

• Suffolk Fire Service; Design and build: Two interactive simulators for “Crucial Crew” children’s safety training • Website and social media designers and implementers

• Graphic Design and newspaper origination.

OLDER PREVIOUS PROJECTS

• Major Bonfire and Fireworks event: London’s Blackheath with Emergency Exit Arts

• New Theatre For Oaklands College: Full auditorium design.

• Studio Theatre, Middlesex University: small feasibility study for refurbishment.

• St Edmunds Church Southwold: lighting design

• Elizabethan House Museum, Great Yarmouth: theme and design work

• New Theatres For Rose Bruford College: Major theatre systems design and engineering

• Specialist luminaire design work For special projects.

• Consultancy for waterworld aquarium; specialist lighting

• Outdoor film event season with live orchestra: Full consultancy and technical and event design

• Son Et Lumiere And Performance Art Project: London.

• St. George’s Hall, Old Rep Theatre, Colchester: Feasibility Study

. • Grand Theatre Of Lemmings: Show Design, International Tour.

• Studio Design, Marrell Recording Studios, Perth W.A.

• Theatre At Walabi, Wavre,. Belgium - Mexican Show

. • Theatre Despatch Ltd; Warehouse Conversion Into Office Space.

• Numerous Theatre, Tv And Film Projects Involving Design And Effects.

• Theme Park Attraction Design and fit, Chessington, Tamworth, Bobijeanland, Holland, Hong Kong, Finland And Franc

e • Restaurant And Retail Space Design And fit: Many Projects.

Teaching at:

• Central School of Art, (Visiting lecturer).

• Central School of Drama (V.L)

• Rose Bruford College (V.L)

• Middlesex University (VL)

• Various Video training courses, including Interactive video at Essex University

• Teenagers Summer Courses, eight years

• Masterclasses for Amateur Lighting Designers

• Light and Sound college, Tampere, Finland: • Atmospheric effects course

• Norway association of Lighting designers: atmospheric effects course