Fierce Festival appoints new artistic director

Featured Image Credit: Clayton Lee by Beverly Leung 

Clayton Lee will be joining Fierce Festival’s team as the new artistic director after Aaron Wright left in the spring to become Head of Performance and Dance at the Southbank Centre, London.

Clayton will start his role in October 2023, a year ahead of the festival in October 2024, working alongside the newly structured leadership team Catherine Groom as Operations Director, and Pippa Frith as Producing Director.

Clayton is a Canadian curator, producer, and performance artist who, since 2019, has been the Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s Rhubarb Festival, which is Canada’s longest-running festival of new and experimental performance. During this time, he delivered four festivals. Clayton has also worked as Creative Producer on Jess Dobkin’s projects, including You’re Divine as part of Fierce’s Healing Gardens of Bab programme and For What It’s Worth, her large-scale commission at the Wellcome Collection. Further information on Clayton’s work can found on the Fierce Festival website.

Of his appointment, Clayton said: “Fierce has long captured my imagination, introducing me to the cutting edge of practice and shaping my curatorial interests. To join the Fierce constellation in this moment with this team as Director (Artistic) is as thrilling as it is surreal. As I begin the move from Canada to the UK, I cannot wait to dive into the Birmingham and the Midlands contexts, while continuing to forefront Fierce’s values of Trust, Joy, Disruption, and Rigour as we collectively interrogate and explore what a Festival can be.”

Paul Burns, Fierce’s Chair, added: “The board and I are thrilled to welcome Clayton to the Fierce team. We had an exceptional range of candidates from across four continents apply for the role of Director (Artistic), reflecting Fierce’s strong reputation in the international performance sector. Clayton impressed us with his strong values, extensive experience and clear passion for Fierce’s work. His enthusiasm to more deeply get to know Birmingham and to start to make plans for the 2024 festival has already demonstrated to us that we’ve made a great choice.

“Clayton’s appointment into our new organisational leadership model, alongside Catherine and Pippa, offers an opportunity to build on a significant last 18 months, that saw us engaging with some exceptional artists and a range of new audience members, through our 25th anniversary festival and major projects in Birmingham and across the UK.

“We’re excited to see how Clayton’s infectious energy and vision will create many more opportunities for audiences to experience extraordinary and transformational performance in the coming years.”