2021 Jack King Award

Announcing the

2021 Jack King Award

Toronto, October 14, 2021 — The Associated Designers of Canada is thrilled to announce the 2021 recipient of the $1,500 Jack King Award. The Award is presented annually to a Canadian live performance designer in a pursuit of personal artistic development.

The jury was unanimous in selecting Haui as the 2021 recipient of the Jack King Award, noting:

The jury appreciated Haui’s initiative in creating this opportunity and making the connection with Andy Moro as mentor. Haui’s proposal had very specific and clear goals as he customizes his professional development and learning journey. Haui is working to connect elements that are very relevant in performance design today and the jury is pleased to be able to support this application.

About Haui

Haui is a mixed media artist creating work that is the synthesis of many artistic forms. Career highlights include his recent feature-film debut, MIXED↑, which Stir Vancouver called “a bold mix of documentary, confessional, strident manifesto, and arthouse experiment. It defies categorization, a lot like the artist at its centre”. The film was produced with trans filmmaker Jack Fox and in association with OUTtv.

Upcoming, Haui’s work will be seen as the video and projection designer for GUIDED BY STARLIGHT – Exploring Toronto’s Musical Galaxy produced by Luminato Festival. It will feature artists such as Sate, TiKA, and Zaki Ibrahim. He is currently an artist-in-residence with Wildseed Black Arts Fellowship – Black Lives Matter Toronto, a twenty-month residency bridging arts and advocacy and is developing his first opera about Portia White, created with Sean Mayes and Neema Bickersteth, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Canadian Opera Company.

His art is mixed, like his DNA. This fusion will continue to inform how he sees the world and creates within it. His aesthetic and experience in video and projection design and his heritage have given him a greater understanding of the correlation between theatrical and cultural dramaturgy and its importance in pursuing authenticity and truth in storytelling. His goals are to use the skills he has accumulated to keep designing and transition into directing narrative forms of storytelling in long-format film, theatre, and operatic mediums.

Former Artistic Director of Black Theatre Workshop Quincy Armourer said, “in four short years, Haui has quickly risen to being Canada’s first Black video/projection designer (“firsts” being a title we often hold as Black artists); therefore, his work demands nurturing. We need his art, his artistry, and his voice. I respect all artists who want to further their practice and enrich their skills, and resist being siloed as one thing; Haui continues to sharpen his tools as an artist who is truly a master of many talents. He has the potential to become a leading voice in the arts scene.”

Visit: http://www.haui.ca

This Year's Selection Committee

Carmen Alatorre

Set and Costume Designer

Originally from Mexico, Carmen is a Latinx artist who earned her MFA degree in Theatre Design at UBC (2010) and lives in the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver) since 2006. Some of her recent design credits were seen in companies such as: Arts Club Theatre Company, Bard on the Beach, Globe Theatre Regina, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Citadel Theatre and Electric Company. Carmen has taught at UBC and is currently a sessional instructor at UVic. She is also a recipient of three Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. For more information visit: carmenalatorre.com

Rachel Forbes

Set and Costume Designer

Rachel is an award-winning set and costume designer creating for theatre, dance and film. Her work has been seen across the country on stages big and small including the Shaw Festival, Buddies in Bad Times, Obsidian Theatre, Neptune Theatre, Young People’s Theatre, Centaur Theatre and many more. Rachel received a Dora Mavor Moore award for her costume design for The Brothers Size (Soulpepper 2019) and a Merritt Award for her set design for The Bridge (2B/Neptune 2019). She has designed, mentored and taught at Ryerson University and is currently serving on the board of directors of the Associated Designers of Canada. Rachel is invested in exploring the artistic expressions of the African diaspora in North America and she is dedicated to the creation of new works and interdisciplinary explorations. Much of her work has focused on where these intersect.

Shawn Kerwin

Set and Costume Designer

Shawn Kerwin is a multi-award winning designer of sets and costumes for theatres across Canada as well as in England and the United States. Her work includes designs for new plays, classical plays, opera, musicals, dance, and film. She has also worked on interior and exterior site-specific installations, including Choral Canada’s 2018 project float, spread over a 60-acre farm in St. John’s Newfoundland. For over 6 years she designed windows for Tiffany & Co.’s Toronto flagship store in Toronto. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of theatre at York University, where she served as department Chair between 2003-2009.

Camellia Koo

Set and Costume Designer

Camellia is a Toronto based set and costume designer for theatre, opera, dance and site-specific performance installations and collaborations. Recent designs for theatre include collaborations with Cahoots Theatre Projects, Factory Theatre, The National Arts Centre, Soulpepper Theatre, The Shaw Festival, The Stratford Festival, Tarragon Theatre and Why Not Theatre. Recent designs for opera and ballet include collaborations with Against the Grain, Banff Centre, Boston Lyric Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Edmonton Opera, Helikon Opera (Moscow), Minnesota Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, Santa Fe Opera, and Tapestry New Opera. She is a graduate of Ryerson Theatre School and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (U.K.). Camellia has received six Dora Mavor Moore Awards (Toronto), a Sterling Award (Edmonton), a Chalmers Award Grant, 2006 Siminovitch Protégé Prize, and the 2016 Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award for Costume Design. www.ckoodesign.com

Ed Kotanen

Set and Costume Designer

Ed Kotanen is a set and costume designer whose long career has taken him from coast to coast in Canada and into the United States. He has been an ADC member from the beginning and served as president in the 1970s. His connection with the Jack King Award also dates back to the beginning, when he was a member of the jury for several seasons. In recent years his work has mostly focussed on opera and musical theatre, most recently as costume coordinator for the Brott Festival in Hamilton.