Ian Pidd is a freelance director of theatre and festivals.
His practice veers between programming festivals (The Lost Lands/ The Wanderer), directing theatre (Passenger) and participatory “things” (Unconformity’s The Rumble, and Dark MOFO’s Ogoh Ogoh). Ian’s collaboration with Bec Reid and Kate Baggerson for Everybody Now, has created social dance works all over the country, including a large scale commission for the Commonwealth Games Festival 2018.
His work tends to be musical, accessible, playful and genre hopping, and is regularly seen throughout Australia and in Europe and Asia. Ian directed Sam Halmarack and JOF’s ecstatic participatory music work We Are Lightning which garnered a Green Room nomination and toured the UK in 2018. He was the project director on Polyglot’s First On The Ladder project- a three year creative collaboration with two leading indigenous regional sporting clubs: Rumbalara Football Netball club in Shepparton (Yorta Yorta country) and The Moree Boomerang Rugby League club on Kamileroi Land.
Previously he held a four year Artistic Directorship of Back To Back Theatre and ten years directing the majority of works at Snuff Puppets, where his productions traveled throughout the world. Ian has directed for The Business, MRPG, Barry Morgan, Polyglot Theatre and many others.
Ian has been the artistic director of festivals as diverse as Moomba and The Works (Glenorchy, Tas) and was for 6 years the Chair of Melbourne Fringe. For ten years he was co-artistic director of boutique festival The Village and was founding Artistic Director of Junction Arts Festival (JAF) in Launceston.
Ian has sat on the boards of Back To Back, Snuff Puppets, Arts Access, ASIALINK, The Village Inc, Junction Arts Festival, Melbourne Fringe (Chair), as well as five year stint on the City Of Melbourne’s Culture And Arts Advisory Board.
Kate Baggerson (nee McDonald) is the Co-Artistic Director / Executive Director of Everybody NOW.
She is an experienced Creative Producer and Maker of large-scale community-engaged performance works and has managed many complex and layered community cultural development projects and multi-art events over the last 15 years.
Kate has guided Everybody NOW, through a highly successful period of growth since the company was founded in 2015, reaching over 46,000 people in 200 communities across five states of Australia between the ages of 3-100 years young.
She has worked across Australia for leading arts organisations such as MONA FOMA, Salamanca Arts Centre, the Woodford Folk Festival, HOTA Home of the Arts and the Gold Coast’s Bleach* Festival as Associate Director.
Kate has a passion for site-specific works, community storytelling and creating participatory art where audiences are co-creators of their creative experience. As a Gold Coast girl, Kate studied a Communications Degree at Griffith University majoring in Theatre and writing. Having witnessed, and been a part of the Cities extraordinary cultural growth over the last decade she is so proud to be leading a local organisation that she loves, in her local community that she loves.
Bec Reid is an Australian based performer, producer, director, choreographer and engagement specialist.
Bec encourages people to see their world in new ways through highly physical, participatory, practical, collaborative and celebratory actions. For 20 years, Bec has passionately worked in the space where professional artists and communities of interest meet; collaborating with communities and artists nationally and internationally.
Together with Tristan Meecham, Bec leads All The Queens Men, and is a founding Director of Everybody NOW! with Kate Baggerson and Ian Pidd. She also regularly collaborates with acclaimed artists Madeline Flynn and Tim Humphrey.
In 2017-18, Bec was a Fellowship recipient from the Australia Council for the Arts.
Bec has continually served on arts boards and regularly mentors young and emerging artists formally and informally. Bec’s true loves are Staffordshire Bull Terriers Italo Disco, Ceilidhs and dancing
