'Full of surprise and magic' – Dawn Taylor on her plans for Manipulate 2021

Ariel Doron in Unboxed PIC: André Wirsig

Dawn Taylor is talking to me from her home in Falkirk, not from the Puppet Animation Scotland office at Summerhall in Edinburgh. Scotland, after all, has been in some degree of lockdown ever since last June, when she was appointed artistic director of the organisation, and therefore of its annual international festival, Manipulate, which opens its online 2021 edition this weekend; and her job since then has been the difficult one of getting to know her small team – two full-time staff, two part-timers, and an artist in residence – and making sure they work well together, during a time when they have barely been able to meet at all, in the real world.

Taylor seems undaunted, though, not only by the pandemic situation, but also by the unique challenge of taking over as boss of an organisation so closely associated with the achievement of one man, its previous artistic director Simon Hart, who founded Puppet Animation Scotland in 1995, and Manipulate in 2008, and worked for over 25 years to transform Scotland’s visual and “object” theatre scene. “The thing is,” says Taylor, who has built up an impressive career as a creative producer in the dozen years since she graduated from Glasgow University, “that like most producers, I’m really a fan. I see theatre-makers doing work that I love, and that I find really inspiring – and even in difficult times, I just can’t wait to support them in developing that work, and getting it in front of an audience.”

Taylor grew up in Perth, where her mother was deeply involved in the amateur drama scene; and when she went to Glasgow to study philosophy, she quickly became involved in student drama there. She soon realised that she wanted to be involved in the whole process of staging a show, from its inception to the moment when the lights go up; and after graduation, she landed something of a dream job as a creative assistant to Vicky Featherstone, then artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland.

“I just learned so much,” says Taylor, “and I think right from the start I knew that the two things that excited me most were artist development – working with artists, making space for them to do their best work – and visual theatre, which I just found thrilling. I remember Graham McLaren’s 2011 production of A Christmas Carol, at Film City in Glasgow, which involved some amazing puppetry and scenic effects; it was just so full of surprise and magic, and that’s how I love theatre to be.”

After two years at NTS, Taylor moved south, and worked freelance in London – where she programmed the Almeida Theatre’s summer festival, and began to develop a strong interest in festivals as a creative focus – as well as at the Nuffield in Southampton. In 2016, though, she returned to Scotland, working with the young Scottish-based visual theatre company Tortoise In A Nutshell, and – just before her son was born in 2017 – with the Lyceum in Edinburgh. After that, it was a short hop to the Edinburgh International Festival’s groundbreaking You Are Here programme of 2019, where she worked with the programme’s director Kate McGrath on a season designed to bring previously little-heard voices from across the planet to the heart of the Edinburgh Festival.

When Simon Hart stepped down from Puppet Animation Scotland early last year, though, to take on a new job in the Hebrides, Taylor was immediately drawn to the idea of a job that so perfectly combines her three loves of visual theatre, festival programming, and a profound commitment to artist development. And despite the constant adaptations to the programme made necessary by the ever-changing pandemic situation, Taylor is excited by the week-long online version of the Festival which is set to start on 29 January.

“Not everyone wanted to take up the challenge of moving to online work, of course,” says Taylor, “and I fully understand that. It was also frustrating that because of Covid restrictions, we had to postpone the programme of real-world installations, Restless Worlds, that was supposed to accompany the Festival. I’m really thrilled, though, to be presenting shows like Ariel Doron’s Unboxed, from Israel – which is a real pandemic variation on his acclaimed show, Boxed – and Ballad Of The Crone, by young Scottish-based artist Leonor Estrada Francke. And there’s a terrific Animated Women season, curated by Melanie Purdie, that aims to shift the perceived gender balance in the traditionally male-dominated world of animated film.”

Taylor is also pleased that a clear majority of Manipulate shows are now created by artists based in Scotland – a tribute, she believes, to the success of Hart’s long-term aim of using international shows, which once dominated the festival, to inspire the growth of a strong visual theatre scene here in Scotland. About her own long-term goals, though, Taylor is a little more cautious.

“Let’s just say that at the moment, I’m doing a lot of listening. I think in the years to come, some decisions will be made for us, in the world of international festivals. Internationalism will always be a key part of our approach, but factors like Brexit and climate change will inevitably impact what we do, and how we can do it. For me, though, it’s always primarily about listening to the artists themselves – working out what inspires them, and what they want to do next, and then trying to make that happen. And no matter what the situation, working with artists in that way is always exciting and hopeful – which is probably why I love this job so much.”

Manipulate 2021 runs from 29 January to 7 February; online tickets available at https://www.manipulatefestival.org

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription at https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions

Joy Yates, Editorial Director