About Us
Born in a Taxi is one of Australia’s most highly regarded artist-led independent theatre companies; now in its 4th decade, it occupies a unique place in the Australian ecology.
Recognised nationally and internationally for producing highly physical, contemporary and participatory works in wide-ranging performance contexts, from theatres, site-specific and public spaces and festival contexts that focus on real-time co-creation. Born in a Taxi is renowned for combining the experimental with the accessible, masterfully mixing serious intent with humour, and sophisticated clowning with contemporary performance with a focus on real-time creation.
Led by Co-Artistic Directors Penny Baron and Carolyn Hanna, Taxi collaborates with a diverse team of artists, production staff and a pool of performers trained in the company’s performance methodology, Ensemble Movement Improvisation (EMI) on any given project. EMI underpins the company's process, performances and ethos.
Taxi is increasingly turning their attention to social impact projects through deep engagement with a mission to unite audiences and participants in the spirit of play!
“Born in a Taxi has the best name in the business!”
As seen at:
World Theatre Festival Powerhouse Brisbane (AUS)
Perth International Festival (AUS)
Enlighten Festival Canberra (AUS)
Dark MOFO Hobart (AUS)
Manchester Commonwealth Games (UK)
Gwacheon Hanmadang & Goyang Lake Park (Korea)
Sziget Festival (Hungary)
Oerol Festival & Theatre Festival Boulevard (Netherlands)
ISTF Ghent & Chasspierre (Belgium)
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Flint International Children’s Festival, Discovery Green Texas & Ann Arbour Summer Festival (USA)
New Taipei Children’s Festival (Taiwan)
Civic and District Festival & Children’s Museum (Singapore)
plus many more!
People of Born in a Taxi
Carolyn Hanna | Co-Artistic Director
Carolyn Hanna is an internationally recognised performance maker, director, and Co-Artistic Director of Born in a Taxi, where she has shaped pioneering physical theatre and collaborative performance for over 25 years. Her work spans improvisational performance, public space activation, participatory theatre, and cross-disciplinary collaboration, presented nationally and internationally at festivals, civic spaces, museums, and educational institutions.
She has led critically acclaimed projects with Co-Artistic Director Penny Baron, including the long-running improvisational series NO FORMER PERFORMER HAS PERFORMED THIS PERFORMANCE BEFORE, VELVETEEN RABBIT, THE CURIOUS GAME, The CUBE and WHALE’S TALE, touring extensively across Europe, Asia, North America, and Australasia. Carolyn’s practice integrates embodiment, audience interaction, ecological and social awareness, and experimental systems of collaboration.
In addition to her artistic practice, she is a guest lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts and Monash University, mentoring the next generation of performers in collaborative devising, improvisation, and site-responsive performance. Her work has been recognised with numerous national and international awards.
Penny Baron | Co-Artistic Director
Penny Baron is Co-Artistic Director, key Performer, and core Co-Creator of all Taxi works, with 3 decades of experience in performance making. Now in her 30th year with Born in a Taxi, she has created a vast body of work as a director, performer and collaborator. Penny has accumulated 10 awards for her work. Highly regarded as a visionary artist with a heightened instinct for real-time performance, her practice has evolved around inquiry into the alchemic relationship between performer and audience.
Penny co-conceived THE CUBE, a demountable venue and vehicle for public presentations of high-quality ambitious artistic work in the public realm. Penny has directed many of Taxi’s theatre works including THE ENORMOUS CLUB, NOT DEAD YET and THE WAITING ROOM. In 2018 she co-created CHILDREN OF THE EVOLUTION, an interactive talk show by children to voice their concerns about the world they are inheriting. Penny teaches and directs work for VCA, Monash University and John Bolton Theatre School. Penny has worked with Bell Shakespeare, Polyglot, Rawcus, Weave, Dislocate, The Dream Masons, Shaken and Suspicious, The Grimstones, CreatAbility, and Company 13.
Nick Papas | Founding Member and Performer
Nick Papas is a founding member of Born in a Taxi. He has trained in Improvised Movement, Clowning, Butoh and Contemporary Dance and is an original member of The Urban Dream Capsule, (a 2 week durational performance living inside shop windows) which toured worldwide for ten years after its inaugural appearance in the Myer Melbourne windows for the 1996 Melbourne Festival.
Nick has also performed with theatre groups Melbourne Playback Theatre Company, The Blue Project, The Great Melbourne Accordion Orchestra and The Omnibus of Dreams. His directing and teaching skills have led him to teach numerous workshops on the Born in A Taxi improvisation technique to theatre and dance peers as well as disability groups like Back to Back, Weave, Just Us, Monkami and Rawcus along with youth groups such as City of Kingston.
In 2009 he created and directed Storming; an outdoor dance performance in three different locations combining 40 people from the Shire of Yarra community. In 2014 he directed Voice Mob, a street theatre project involving voice, movement and flash mobbing with singing groups from the Yarra Ranges. At age 67 Nick continues to perform with Taxi and run regular workshops on the art of Improvisation and the Taxi Technique.
Key Collaborators
Michael Havir | Sound Composer
Michael is a musician, composer, sound designer and performer with a broad multidisciplinary practice focusing on collaboration with animators, dancers, physical performers, theatre makers, VJ's and music ensembles.
Working with artists as varied as Yothu Yindi, Toni Childs, Born in a Taxi, The Village People, Andrew Morrish, Tony Yap, Yumi Umiuare, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Danceworks, Polyglot, Chamber Made Opera, Queensland Theatre Company, NICA, Playback, SBS-TV and the ABC, he has built a practice combining versatility and adaptability with a strong sense of theatre. Using improvisation as a performance and compositional tool he has developed a special interest in using recorded and live text, looping and audio processing to create narrative threads in performance.
He is the recipient of an ARIA award (2016 and 2019) with the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, an ATOM award, and was Australia’s entrant at the MILIA festival France for Three Mile Creek (with multimedia artist Alyssa Rothwell) Invited workshops include with avant garde vocal stylist David Moss, David Hykes of The Harmonic Choir and Tran Quang Hai (Le Musee de L’Homme France) in harmonic singing.
David Murphy | Designer, Sculptor & Builder
David Murphy is an award winning, multidisciplinary visual artist who often works at the mysterious juncture of art and science. He has worked extensively in the public art realm, as well as producing a range of ephemeral and performance based works. With wide roaming interests, his arts practice extends to architecture, theatre design, community art as well as cutting edge carbon negative bicycle design and the design of new and hybrid musical instruments.
He has a Fine Arts Degree in painting from RMIT and a Post Graduate Diploma of sculpture from the VCA, as well as studying music extensively in West Africa. In 1996 he established Down Street Studios as an artist run, public art partnership with Cameron Robbins and Anderson Hunt. He has a number of permanent artworks commissioned by Frankston City Council, Hobsons Bay Council and Bass Coast Shire Council, as well as work in numerous private collections. He has made ephemeral and event based works for the City of Melbourne, Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, Queensland Festival of Music and the Woodford Festival to name a few.
Bryony Anderson | Designer and Builder (Boat of Faith, Whale in Whale’s Tale)
Bruce Ramus | Lighting Designer (Enlighten)
Laurel Frank | Costume Design and Maker (Garden Party, Angels, Zebras, Bandicoots, Cats, Higher Order)
Nick Barlow | Costume Design and Maker (Velveteen Rabbit)
David ‘Splatt’ Rosenblatt | Set Design and Creation (Velveteen Rabbit)
Robert Brown | Lighting and AV Designer (Velveteen Rabbit)
Vanessa White | Animation (Velveteen Rabbit)
Performers
Taxi has a growing pool of brilliant performers/ independent theatre makers versed in the company’s style that work regularly with the company on any given project, bringing their own rich performance history to the ensemble.
Dagmara Gieysztor
David Wells (Founding Member)
Photographer Acknowledgment
Taxi would like to acknowledge all the photographers whose incredible photographs have made this website look great.
Emma Jane Pirvel-Collins
Paul Dunn
Vanessa White Media
Stephen A ‘Court
Tomek Sikora
Jeff Busby
Tim Sneddon (videographer)
Colin Hanna
Frankie the Creative
Shot by Moz
Bryony Jackson
Kerrie Geier
Emma Byrnes
Birgitta’s Photography
Mark Gambino
Renata Filippi
Tashi Hall
Aaron Claringbold
Mauro Trentin
Sunlee Khan
Anthony Caffery
Catherine Smith
Jess Stephens
Vicki Jones
Stephen A ‘Court
Leo Dale
Robyn Cambell
Ponch Hawkes
James Penlidis
Jess Stephens
Sarah Walker
“With their jump-or-die approach to art, Born in a Taxi are a captivating group of performers for two reasons: their theatrical skills are so finely tuned they’re like reflexes, and you never know what they’ll do next”
Art for Social Impact
Since 2014, Taxi has increasingly turned its expertise to longer-term social impact works that address big issues through deep community engagement.
Training & Workshops
Born in a Taxi has a refined and unique methodology for teaching and performing ensemble improvisation and physical theatre.
Commission Us
Born in a Taxi have a gift for nurturing true collaborative relationships with other organisations, artists and events.