Kate Craddock

Performer, Director, Academic, Director of GIFT and co-director Mouth to Mouth, BA, MA, PhD

 “Since graduating from the MA in Performance Making in 2004, I have continued to pursue a career in the field of performance making via a number of avenues. Initially I undertook an apprenticeship as a performer working with Northern Stage in Newcastle, whilst simultaneously co-founding mouth to mouth- a globally dispersed performance collective with fellow graduate Lynnette Moran from the MA. We went on to create performance work and carry out residencies in a range of organisations and festivals including BAC, LIFT, Dublin Festival Fringe, and more recently we have performed at Arnolfini in Bristol, and Wunderbar Festival, Newcastle. Much of the performance work created with mouth to mouth informed my practice-based PhD research into the notion of 'Collaboration' in performance practice that I carried out in my role as Graduate Tutor at Northumbria University (2005-2008) before taking on my current position as Associate Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Theatre at Leeds Metropolitan University where I have been in post since 2009. Alongside this I have developed a solo practice, and my one woman show ‘Hand Me Down’ had an acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe and subsequent performances at Newcastle's Live Theatre, Sibiu Festival in Romania and a London run. Recently I have worked in a number of international theatre festival contexts in Spain, Romania and Croatia as a performer, director and facilitator. These experiences inspired me to establish GIFT- Gateshead International Festival of Theatre of which I am the Festival Director. In September 2011 I will start a full time post as a Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University.”