belinda ackermann was born in malawi, lived in mauritius, and moved to the u.k. when she was nine. she trained as a designer at central st martins, and won an arts council bursary to work at west yorkshire playhouse as a theatre designer.
she has worked as a designer extensively all over the U.K. in theatre and dance, and all over the world in corporate events. belinda works as an animator/videographer, and has a ever broadening range of digital skills (most recently wordpress webdesign).
her work is distinguished by a passion for the imaginative use of colour, she takes pleasure in fusing all design elements into a coherent whole and in crafting a space within which a story can unfold with beauty, truth and simplicity.
her commissions include:
theatre
- “a midsummer night’s dream” for derby playhouse
- “hijra” for west yorkshire playhouse
- “the resistible rise of arturo ui” for derby playhouse
- “aeroplane man” for jonzi d at the festival hall and tour
- “love bites” by anthony minghella for derby playhouse
dance
- “rumours visions” for richard alston dance company at aldeburgh festival
- “beneath the skin” by jonathan lunn for london contemporary dance
- “romance with footnotes” for shobana jeyasingh
- “the event” at three mills island for circus space
- “crazy spirit” for phoenix dance/rjc dance peacock theatre and tour
corporate events/parties
- “wimbledon winners dinner” intercontinental hotel, hyde park
- “zurich incentive conference” mauritius
- “more” philips 4 day team-building event, shanghai
- “ford mondeo” launch, paris motor show
- “shift-circus” nissan, highclere castle
teaching contracts include
- corporate team building workshops with: EON, rightmove and pfizer.
- central st.martins; 4 years as tutor on theatre design degree course and 6 years as foundation course leader, RADA, guildhall, goldsmith, trent university
additional information
- resident designer west yorkshire playhouse, leicester haymarket, bristol old vic
- head of design derby playhouse
- designed 54 shows in these 4 venues including 12 premiers of new writing- ‘love bites’ by the late antony mingella as well as numerous classics like ‘the country wife’ and ‘julius caesar’
- as a freelancer belinda has designed many plays and musicals for a variety of theaters including; west yorkshire playhouse, plymouth theater royal, greenwich theater, liverpool playhouse, leicester haymarket, manchester library, nuffield theater southampton, rada, guildhall school of music and drama, arts education to name but a few!
- dance and aerial credits include many shows at saddlers wells, the purcel rooms, queen elizabeth hall and the place, for companies as diverse as RJC, kokuma, shobana jeyasingh, richard alston dance co., london contemporary dance, yolande snaith dance, imlata, janet smith and dancers, jazz exchange, rap artist jonzi d, kwaesi johnson, bharata natya dancer nina rajarani, hip hop collective, lindy hopper tenujin gill ( co-choreographer for the olympic opening ceremony), circus space, candoco, scarabeus as well as cirque bijou.
- design and creative direction on over 150 corporate events. corporate clients include toyota, renault, opel, ford, nissan, whirlpool, EMI, halifax, standard life, zuric, sunlife, motorola, vodafone, orange, BT, NTL, JMC, B&Q, xerox, masterfoods, evans, mckinsey, dorothy perkins & burton group, EON, rightmove and pfizer