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Lisa Marie Trump, Chief Executive for the UK Centre for Carnival Arts, on who has inspired her most in her career. 

Robert Lepage
I’ve chosen French-Canadian director Robert Lepage as my first Guru because it was his work which first introduced me to performing arts experiences that genuinely change you. In 1996 I was studying costume design at Wimbledon School of Art when the National Theatre was presenting Lapage’s ‘Seven Streams of the River Ota’. The production brought together drama, puppetry, Noh theatre and a host of other creative and technical disciplines to tell tragic and witty human stories in different languages. By the end of the saga I’d not only been emotionally overwhelmed by the performances, the humour and the measured, powerful staging; but the inventive combination of traditional theatre skills blended with technology had also overwhelmed my senses – seemingly breaking many of the ‘theatre rules’ I’d been learning while studying. I left the auditorium elated and slightly stunned, a little more grown up than I went in, and with a stronger fervor for the industry I was soon to be working in. 

Full Tilt
I got my first break as a designer in Brixton, with a stilt-walking-circus-acrobat-street arts-carnival group called Full Tilt (yes, they really were all those things). Full Tilt was a quirky, imaginative, risk-taking performing arts company that used stilts, audience engagement and acrobatics in their work. They commissioned me to design and make the costumes for their European tour of the street arts piece ‘Pan Bites Back’. Not only was this my first real commissioned project, but it had no limitations in terms of the rules of costume design or period – bringing together inspiration from mythology, 60s kitsch, circus and even a cross-dressing bagpipe-playing Medusa on stilts! Perhaps if my first commission had been a sensible period play, my career would have taken a more traditional theatrical design direction. As it was, having Full Tilt in my portfolio led to me designing a host of unusual projects, and I’ve been enjoying the craziness ever since.

Athina Vahla
I first encountered Athina Vahla’s work at Laban. I worked with this contemporary dance choreographer on several projects including ‘Wrestling An Angel’ – a piece set in an old derelict abattoir in London. One of the things that I find inspirational about Athina’s work is how she creates private vignettes, powerful solos or huge rhythmic formations en-masse that can be beautiful, haunting, aggressive, aloof or almost domineering. I suspect no two audience members walk away from Athina’s productions having felt the same experience.

Unlimited Festival
Working with 29 different disabled artists and disability-led arts organisations, Unlimited was a three-year development of national and international collaborations resulting in circus, theatre, dance, visual arts, Samba, film and digital works. Particularly inspirational were artist Rachel Gadsden and the creative activists called the Bambanani Womens Group, from South Africa. Their project ‘Unlimited Global Alchemy’ resulted in a series of sketches, paintings and portraits in film shot on location in Cape Town, reflecting on the personal and political experiences of the group. Imaginative, sad and witty, Rachel and the group went on a journey of discovery, literally and figuratively. These are artists and activists who embrace creative risk-taking, and that is something I admire.

Mahogany
There were several outstanding examples of inventiveness in this year’s Notting Hill Carnival, but one group that stood out for me was Mahogany. The sculptural quality of their costumes and the great performance they put on gave me one of those goose-bump moments, as the crowd’s excitement perceptively lifted. Although not afraid of using bold colours, it was the dynamic black and white costumes that really caught my eye. Contrasting from the highly-coloured costumes that came before, their music-inspired wired capes and spiraling piano-keys swept through the procession in a performance which really brought home to me how Carnival at its best is a truly multidisciplinary artform – where dance, costume, showmanship, music, tradition and innovation combine to excite the audience and showcase real artistic excellence. Mahogany blazed a brave and pioneering trail through the streets of West London this year and reaffirmed the place Carnival has alongside other innovating artforms.

Lisa Marie Trump is Chief Executive at the UK Centre for Carnival Arts.

http://www.carnivalarts.org.uk/Home.aspx

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