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  • New Zealand Listener

    Leaps & bounds

    Jul 17, 2022 8 minutes
    by LOUISE CHUNN

    Truly creative people are phenomenal. They build stories out of air, music out of silence, artworks out of base elements. As American novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote, exhorting others to join him with a career in the arts: “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” It’s exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure.

    At least that’s how it seems, talking to British-based Kiwi choreographer Corey Baker on a Zoom call. At first, he’s in his office at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, one of the main venues for the Commonwealth Games. He is choreo-graphing the opening ceremony, which will be screened in New Zealand on July 29 (see our Commonwealth Games on TV guide, p66).

    Next, he’s walking around the athletic track, and then on his way to a meeting. He’s never less than present with me on the call, but he’s also on to the next thing, simultaneously.

    “I feel I am like a persistent toddler – I do lots of things at the same time, and I don’t give up,” Baker says. “I suppose that’s tenacity. I don’t see any other way than the way I want it to be.”

    This may be how, in 2020, he managed to create, without ever meeting the participants, a short film featuring a

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