The Team

Dr Jane Ali-Knight 

Professor in Festival and Event Management at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland and Visiting Professor at Curtin University, Australia

Jane is leading and developing the festival and event subject area, lecturing at Universities internationally and facilitating professional training and development. Her core activities fall into three areas: event and festival-related programmes; research and publications and conferences and professional events. She is a board Director of BAFA (British Arts and Festivals Association) a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Royal Society of the Arts and is also an experienced practitioner working on and delivering festivals and events, both in the UK and overseas.

Josephine Burns 

Independent Chair of Without Walls and Founder of BOP Consulting 

Working closely with XTRAX, she was appointed by and is accountable to the directors of the company. Over this time, Without Walls has grown significantly in reputation, reach, ambition and activity.

Josephine is a highly experienced consultant, specialising in arts, culture and the creative economy with over 40 years’ experience. After leaving the Arts Council in 1991, she established BOP Consulting in 1997 with Paul Owens. At BOP, Jo led on a wide range of projects including the Edinburgh Festivals Impact report and work with companies such as Glasgow Citizens Theatre, LIFT, Streetwise Opera and the review of the talent development programme funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.

Andrew Comben

Chief Executive of Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival

Andrew began his UK career at Wigmore Hall in 1994, moving to Artist Manager for the Young Concert Artists Trust and Music International. He then became Director of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, returning to Wigmore Hall as Head of Artistic Planning in 2003. Andrew joined Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival as Chief Executive in 2008, establishing the Guest Director model for Brighton Festival (with artists such as Anish Kapoor, Laurie Anderson, Kate Tempest and David Shrigley) and developing a new vision for the organisation as a year-round centre of artistic activity. The Brighton Dome Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre are currently undergoing a £21m major redevelopment.

Mark Denbigh,

Head of Production & Programme for Norfolk & Norwich Festival

Norfolk & Norwich Festival is the East of England’s flagship annual arts festival. Each year the festival commissions and produces new work across a spectrum of artists and practices, as well as presenting the best in theatre, performance, dance, classical and contemporary music, circus, cabaret, literature and outdoor work for an audience of 80,000 people.  NNF is also a member of IN SITU, a Creative Europe funded network for the creation and promotion of art in public space. Mark is on the IN SITU Steering Committee and is also working with FAI-AR who are creating a MOOC on art in public space, which is due to go live in 2019. Mark has worked for more than 10 years in festival production for organisations including BBC, Royal Opera House, Wildworks, SeaChange Arts and LeftCoast.

Darren Grice,

Deputy Chief Executive of the Rochdale Borough Cultural Trust.

Darren is responsible for cultural development, partnerships and cultural services including museums, galleries, live venues, outdoor events and festivals.

He is a member of the Greater Manchester Culture and Heritage Board, Community Leisure UK Culture Board and is a grants assessor for Museums Development North West. He relocated to the North West, having previously worked in the East of England. In the course of his 16-year career in the creative sector, Darren has worked in creative education, visual arts, music education, dance and theatre and has produced creative projects, events and festivals with a range of partners including The National Theatre, The Natural History Museum, Arts Award, Arts Council England, UK CC Skills and many others.

Lew Hodges

Chartered Accountant

Lew is an experienced trustee and senior manager, a qualified Chartered Accountant with a strong track record in governance, human resources and financial management.

After graduating in Classics, he later gained an MBA from the London Business School, and a Coaching Diploma from AoEC

After brief spells at the Roundhouse and Cooney March Theatres, he qualified as a chartered accountant (now FCA) before moving to the Arts Council.. His subsequent career has focused on charities and not for profit organisations, and has included Finance Director/Chief Operating Officer roles at Arts Council England, the Sports Council, the National Theatre, London Arts, Arts & Business, the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and ACEVO. He was also a Founding Partner of the arts consultancy Counterculture.

He is now retired from employment, with a portfolio of non-executive trustee/governance roles in arts and higher education organisations. Current Board Memberships include the Guildhall School Trust, Protein Dance, and Wac Arts, and Lew has previously been a Board Member for GDIF, the National Youth Jazz Collective, English Touring Theatre, Artsadmin, LAMDA, and Space Studios. Aside from his arts work, Lew is an avid league table tennis player and acts as Chair of Wickham Park Table Tennis Club.

Richard Holt

Head of Global Cities Research for Oxford Economics

Oxford Economics an international economic consultancy, and is a specialist in understanding what makes some places more successful than others, and how policy can help to improve people’s lives and opportunities. He has a particular interest in the creative and cultural sectors, and in local economic development generally. He has helped various city and borough councils in the UK to develop strategies and advises the real estate sector in particular on the prospects for cities across the world. Formerly, Richard has worked as an economist for a range of organisations, including in London and New York. For several years he was a non-executive director of creative industries specialists BOP Consulting, as well as a Visiting Research Fellow for the UK Commission on Employment and Skills.

Andrew Loretto

Hat Fair and Playmakers Director

Originally from Belfast, Andrew Loretto is an internationally experienced director, writer, dramaturg and producer for outdoor, indoor and site-responsive performance and theatre. Most recently Director of Hat Fair, Winchester and Right Up Our Street – Doncaster’s CPP programme, including establishing the DNweekeND festival. Recent directing projects include ‘No Horizon’, ‘Ikebana’, ‘The Great Big Donco’, ‘The Wakefield Mysteries’ as well as Dramaturg for most of Company Chameleon’s main touring shows over the past decade including 2019’s ‘The Shadow’.

Anthony Missen

Co-Founder of Company Chameleon

Anthony is a Clore Fellow, member of the Greater Manchester Culture Steering Group, founding Director of New Movement Collective and Co-Founder of Company Chameleon. He received formal training at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and went onto dance with companies including Scottish Dance Theatre, Mad Dogs Dance Theatre, Cie. Willi Dorner (Vienna), and choreographers including Rui Horta, Didi Veldman and Liv Lorent.

Anthony has taught in most major British contemporary dance institutions, to several professional dance companies and in many countries including South Africa, Ethiopia, Israel, Trinidad, Morocco, Sweden, Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Austria. He has led many Choreographic and skills-based Residencies. Anthony is a founding Director of New Movement Collective. He co-founded Company Chameleon in 2007, producing and choreographing critically acclaimed performance works both for the stage and outdoor contexts. He has developed many successful educational programmes in different countries, with a particular focus on young men, disadvantaged children and children at risk. Anthony has made touring works for La Mov (Spain), Norrdans (Sweden) and most recently Ballett-Theater Chemnitz (Germany).

Gemma Thomas

Appetite Director and Special Projects Producer at the New Vic Theatre

Appetite is Stoke-on-Trent’s Creative People and Places programme funded by Arts Council England, and Gemma has been the programme’s Creative Producer since 2012. As Special Projects Producer for the New Vic, Gemma developed and is currently delivering an Ambition for Excellence-funded project, Circus Past, Present and Future, a celebration of Philip Astley in his Newcastle-under-Lyme birthplace, with many partners locally, nationally and internationally.

Gemma has worked on multi-artform projects for over 10 years in non-traditional arts venues including parks, shops, town centre streets, disused factories, train stations, canals and many more. Other organisations she has worked with include DanceXchange, International Dance Festival Birmingham, Royal Shakespeare Company, Audiences Central and Fierce Festival.

Ivan Wadeson 

Executive Director of Manchester City of Literature

Ivan has over 20 years’ experience at a senior level in the cultural sector, working across many art forms on strategy, vision, business planning, organisational development and audience engagement. Ivan is currently the Executive Director of Manchester City of Literature, leading on maximising the benefit of the UNESCO designation for writers, publishers, residents and stakeholder organisations in Manchester through local and international partnerships.

Until October 2019 he was Partnerships Director at Dance Consortia North West, working with venues, dance agencies, universities, dance companies and independent artists on programmes to develop a flourishing dance ecology across the region. Ivan also draws on the experience of working for the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arts about Manchester, All About Audiences and The Dukes in Lancaster, and of driving the formation of national charity The Audience Agency in 2012. Ivan is a Trustee of cultural education charity Curious Minds, a Governor at Essa Academy in Great Lever, Bolton and a Fellow of the RSA.

Caron Wint

Investment Administrator/Project Manager/Arts Officer

Caron worked in the arts and cultural sector for many years – decibel Officer and Assistant Social Inclusion Officer, Arts Council England (decibel was an initiative to raise the profile and support culturally diverse arts and artists in England through a programme of activities and annual showcases); Project Manager for Manchester International Arts specialists in large-scale outdoor festivals and spectacular events and Arts Administration Officer for Stockport Council. She began her career as an actor, in theatre and film, then transition to be a producer of theatre and film. She also participated in Clore Leadership (emerging leaders) and the Eden Project Community Camp (community change leaders) residential courses.

Caron has previously worked in a diverse range of sectors – financial/investment (Fidante Partners, Big Society Capital, Invesco and Willis Towers Watson); legal (Legal Aid in Vancouver, Canada) and higher education (Pearson, Goldsmith University, Queen Mary University in London and Emily Carr Art & Design University in Vancouver, Canada). For several years she was also a non-executive director of Feelgood Theatre Productions – a Manchester-based arts organisation specialising in open-air, immersive, site-specific and indoor productions.

Rachel Wood

Arts Development Officer for Oldham Council,

Rachel has worked for Oldham Council for over 20 years, starting as a box office assistant and rising through the ranks from Assistant Arts Officer, secondment to the delivery of two European funded projects, to her current role as Arts Development Officer.

With strong local knowledge and great communication skills, Rachel is aware of and responsive to the needs and aspirations of her communities, partners and local artists. She works in a collaborative manner to devise and deliver programmes of work which reach across communities and which deliver impact for people of all ages and abilities. The quality and success of her work on the European Regional Development Funded Carnival Arts project, working on a skills development programme with women from priority neighbourhoods, was recognised with Oldham Partnership’s receipt of the Award for Sustainable Communities for Arts Participation in 2007.

For over fifteen years, Rachel has developed Oldham Council’s in-house theatre company for people with learning disabilities. Chrysalis meets weekly and works with a range of artists to create performance pieces which are showcased locally. In 2012 their project “A Star Supper’, which toured to local primary schools, received an Inspire Mark as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad programme.

Rachel has worked on community initiatives including, for example, the Limehurst Arts Society, a new model for delivering grassroots community arts in partnership with Regenda Housing and the Chapatti and Chat project with Oldham’s Public Health team and the CHAI women’s group. This latter project aimed to raise awareness and educate in the prevention of diabetes in adults from South Asian communities through the development and production of a healthy cookbook inspired by traditional Pakistani and Bangladeshi recipes.