As a child she wanted to be an astronaut.  Now in the 21st century she can become a space tourist…

Driven by this lifelong passion Niki takes us on an epic expedition of extraordinary moments from history and her imagination. As the moon beckons, ambition exceeds logic and men risk their lives to touch down in a tiny tinfoil spacecraft. But when you achieve this astronomic goal and see the earth from outer space, what do you do with the rest of your life?

This spectacular show promises to engage from ignition to landing unpicking our astonishing journey to the heavens since 1957. Following research at Star City, the Cosmonaut Training Centre in Russia, meeting an Apollo astronaut and an endorsement from Arthur C. Clarke, award-winning performer Niki McCretton brings together an outstanding team of performers, filmmakers, musicians, writers and animators to present this milestone production.

As part of the 50 year commemorations Norwich Arts Centre is asking for people to send in their memories of significant moments of man’s journey into space; what you felt when Sputnik 1 sent back its eerie signal, when Yuri Gagarin went into orbit or where you were when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. These stories will be collated into a short book and will be available at the performance. Please send them marked ‘SPACE 50’ to Norwich Arts Centre, St. Benedicts Street, Norwich, NR2 4PG or email to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

“Our human achievements in space over the past half-century should be marked by a celebration that reflects such innovation and exhilaration. Space 50 will, I’m sure, present audiences across the globe with an lasting experience that draws them into the joy of exploration and enables them, as space travel does, to reflect on their own humanity and the beauty of our unique planet” - Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Devised and performed by Niki McCretton and Jamie Wood
Directed by Guy Dartnell
Animations by Susan Sloan and Adam Venner
Text by Andrew Smith, Author of Moondust
Research Support by Piers Bizony, Author of Space 50
Music by Paul Riordan
Films by Kathy Hinde

Commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary and Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Bath.

With support from The Brindley Arts Centre, Take Art, Merlin Theatre, Activate, Arts Council England, Bournemouth University and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
Sponsored by PBC&T and Bellingham International

Niki McCretton is an award-winning independent artist with a reputation for creating works that are experimental and accessible which tour internationally. She is Associate Artist at Lighthouse Centre for the Arts, Poole following an associate ship at the Merlin Theatre, Frome, and is currently one of their Affiliated Artists. As an independent performer/producer, she has worked as a performer and artistic director for 16 years. She trained in physical theatre at Fooltime and went on to specialise in trapeze in Paris and later in contemporary dance at Coventry University.

Her debut solo Worm-Hole received acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe 2001 and toured to sell-out audiences in Canada and the USA in 2002, receiving the award for the Best Physical Theatre Production at the Victoria Fringe Festival, British Columbia. Niki received scholarships to attend the Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival in 2002 and 2003, awarded to her as an artist who is willing to take risks with her work. She received a Year of the Artist Award for ‘The Dance Challenge’ collaboration with Bridgewater Arts Centre. Following a Commissions Fund Award from South West Arts, Niki created her second solo production Heretic, in collaboration with Guy Dartnell. Heretic toured nationally, went on to the Prague Fringe Festival followed by a four-month tour of North America and won Best Physical Production at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.

In March 2003 Niki completed work on a commission for the Prague Children’s Festival, creating Throw Me a Bone, touring across the UK and to Prague, Canada and the USA. Her second show for children, Muttnik the First Dog in Space, has toured throughout the UK and abroad, including the 2006 Edinburgh Festival. Her recent production Relative was developed via a commission from the Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster in collaboration with artist Kathy Hinde and has toured the UK and abroad.

Text by Andrew Smith

Writer and journalist Andrew Smith began in at The Face, moving on to the Guardian, Sunday Times and Observer. He has spent time on Icelandic trawlers, flying with the Red Arrows, and recently wrote a three-part series for Radio 4 on the lives of submariners, spending a week under the Atlantic on a nuclear submarine. His first book Moondust, recounts his search for the nine remaining men who walked on the moon, is his first book. It stayed on the Sunday Times Bestsellers list for four months and was nominated for two 2006 British Book Awards. This is his first project with performer Niki McCretton.

Directed and co-devised by Guy Dartnell

Guy Dartnell is an award winning director and performance artist whose work spans the realms of theatre, music, dance, circus and film. He has set up and collaborated on a number of inter-disciplinary projects and has made four solo shows including Unsung, Bottle, Travels With My Virginity, which he is currently developing for film, and the Time Out Live Award winning Would Say Something. He is a long time associate artist with Improbable Theatre, his work with them includes 70 Hill Lane which won a New York OBIE Outstanding Achievement Award. He is an internationally acclaimed teacher, an affiliated artist at BAC and Merlin Theatre Frome, and a member of the Choreographic Lab at University of Northampton researching voice-movement work on video and exploring issues around documentation.

Concept and Research Piers Bizony

Piers Bizony has written about space and cosmology for a wide variety of magazines in the UK and the US, including Focus, Omni, Wired and The Independent. His award-winning book on the making of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey has become a standard reference work for the movie's many fans round the world. In 1997, The Rivers of Mars, his critically acclaimed analysis of the life-on-Mars debate, was nominated for the Nasa/Eugene M. Emme Award for Astronautical Writing. Starman, produced as a book and BBC film in partnership with TV producer Jamie Doran, told the story of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin for the first time. Piers also worked on the successful £25 million Millennium Fund bid for the @Bristol multimedia complex, and was creative consultant for the Cosmic Voyage planetarium at the Futuroscope educational park in Poitiers. His recent book Space 50 (Harper Collins) is a pictorial journey of the human moments of space travel with images from NASA and Russian archives that have not been seen in print until now. He lives in Bradford-Upon-Avon.

Performed and co-devised by Jamie Wood

Jamie Wood studied Fine Art and Drama in Liverpool. After graduating he studied mime with Desmond Jones, clown with Philippe Gaulier and body weather and butoh with Min Tanaka and Masaki Iwana. In 2001 Jamie co-founded Petra's Pulse with Selina Papoutseli, they will present their new show, Donkey Shadow in May at Camden People's Theatre. Other recent performance work has been a tour of 21 Tales with the Fionn-Barr Factory, Homemade and Escapology with Signal to Noise with whom Jamie will work on their next project Longwave for a tour of the South-West in the Autumn.

Film-maker Kathy Hinde

Kathy is a graduate of Bath Spa University College, 1994-1997, specialising in Art and Music. Kathy shows artwork publicly in a variety of contexts: video, sound and site-specific installations, multi-media performances, theatre and dance productions, exhibitions, and privately and publicly commissioned work. She regularly collaborates with pianist, Joanna MacGregor and sound designer Matthew Fairclough. She has performed in Ireland, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Macedonia, Serbia, Colombia and numerous UK venues including Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. In October 2002, Kathy collaborated with Jin Xing’s Contemporary Dance Theatre for a tour of China. She has created visuals for Paco Pena’s Flamenco Dance Company’s show Musa Gitana for a tour of Holland, 2001, Germany 2002, Hong Kong and Macau 2003.

Kathy regularly collaborates with artists working in different disciplines including dirty:theatre tour, Spring 2004, and Company Q, autumn tour 2004. She is also a member of Bath-based arts company Eshoda Arts, who create interdisciplinary work that combines contemporary dance, visual art, text and sound. Kathy has created two public sculptures for sites in Birmingham, gives lectures, seminars and workshops at a variety of venues. Kathy is based in Bristol.

Animators Susan Sloan and Adam Venner

Susan Sloan is a visual artist, lecturer and researcher at the National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University. Her practice ranges across a wide variety of media including sculpture, installation, video, 3D animation, photography and theatre design.  Recently, she has exhibited work and presentations at SIGGRAPH Art Gallery 2003 San Diego, International Symposium on Computer Generated Animations and Visual Effects 2003, London, International Symposium for Non-Photorealistic Rendering Conference, Annecy Animation Festival 2002, France; The Atrium Gallery, Bournemouth University; The Russel-Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth; European Council for Educational Research, Slovenia; Louisiana Children’s Museum, SIGGRAPH, presented by collaborator Chris Rowland (Duncan of Jordanstone, University of Dundee), The Collins Gallery, Glasgow, Glasgow Film Theatre, Dundee Contemporary Arts. She was recently invited to exhibit her work at the Kunstihoone Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia, as part of the Invisible Fields Scottish Video Art exhibition, funded by the British Council. The exhibition has also toured Yokohama Art Museum, Japan; An Tuireann, Isle of Skye; Street level Gallery, Glasgow International Festival; Angus Digital Media Centre, Brechin and Bunkier Sztuki Gallery, Krakow Poland, 2006.

She has been artist in residence for: District of Columbia Schools, Washington DC; Scottish Trade Union Council, Glasgow; Coates Threads, Glasgow; Royal Scottish Academy six month residency in Florence and The National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University 2002-3.

Adam Venner

Adam Vanner is currently a full time lecturer in Computer Animation at Bournemouth University. He has contributed to a wide range of successful projects from music promos for Coldcut (Music for Mo Musicians remix, 1996) and Higher Intelligence Agency (Mushroom Jellyfish, 1996), to internationally renowned simulator rides (Mission to Mars, NASA Hall of Fame, Florida, 1997). He was also an animator on two award-winning shorts by director Nico Clark, a sting for MTV Europe (MTV/Greenpeace, 2002) and Summertime (2003). Adam’s most recent works have been collaborations with artist Susan Sloan on two pieces, Mel As Me, (2005) and Three Way Conversation (2002). His recent work has concentrated on computer programming real-time 3d graphics, most recently AVO Viewer, the program used to display and create Mel As Me. In development of this software, Adam has pioneered new approaches to real-time rendering of 3d graphics.

Original score by Paul Riordan  

Paul started his musical career playing bass guitar with the now cult 60s psychedelic band Mandrake Paddle Steamer. After Mandrake, Paul worked as a session musician for Pye records and EG management - touring as a support act with major bands - Kings Crimson, Roxy Music, Randy Newman and many others. In the early 1980s he worked for Pink Floyd’s Studio, then started his own studio, becoming involved in recording and composing music for television, and music production. In the year 2000 Paul teamed up with performance artist Ivan Rados, and created a system of non repeating loops, with a sound system that would continuously play 4 pre-recorded CDs, so never playing the same loop twice. Due to an overwhelming request for copies, Paul set about producing a complete album – Rados The Transparent Man was a success in the ‘ambient dance’ genre, and within the Dance / Trance remix world. My soul is at the end of the Universe’ was included on many dance compilations. Paul has also composed theme tunes for many satellite TV channels. He has more recently been commissioned to create the music for the New Look Viasat TV3 broadcast in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany. Paul recorded 2 albums for 3 Library Music Production Companies.