Kid Koala (Creator, Director, Musical Score)
Eric San, a.k.a. Kid Koala, is a Montreal-based scratch DJ, film composer, theater producer and visual artist. He has released 6 solo albums, and worked on multiple collaborations and soundtracks. He has toured with Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Beastie Boys, and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. He has collaborated with Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, producing the Music To Draw To album series featuring vocalists Emilíana Torrini and Trixie Whitley. He has composed music for The National Film Board of Canada, Cartoon Network, Sesame Street, Adult Swim, The Winter Olympic Games, and contributed to musical scores of several films including The Great Gatsby, Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and Looper. He has created music for several video games, including the complete soundtrack to the award-winning multi platform video game Floor Kids. He has written and illustrated the award-winning graphic novels, Nufonia Must Fall and Space Cadet.
Corinne Merrell (Art Director)
Corinne Merrell creates work as an art director for film, stop-motion animation, theater, and live performance. Her handcrafted sets create environments and spaces for storytelling. Credits include stop-motion art director on the award-winning animated feature The Little Prince, directed by Mark Osborne, as well as art director on Space Cadet, the animated feature adaptation of Kid Koala’s graphic novel. Ongoing works with Kid Koala have incorporated set design and miniatures into live theatrical cinema experiences. For nearly 20 years, she has helped develop, design, and build performances that continue to tour across the globe. Corinne studied architecture at McGill University and holds an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Patrick Martel (Puppet Designer)
Patrick Martel is a puppeteer, puppet designer, set designer and theater director. He designed many theater productions and television series, most of them involving different styles of puppetry. He has collaborated with a number of companies, including the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Monlove and 4Darts (Lemieux/Pilon). He enjoyed a 25 year long collaboration with Théâtre de l’Avant-Pays, where he designed over a dozen productions, many of which he also performed in. With this company, he recently directed and designed sets and puppets for Mémoire de Lou. In 2004, The Arlyn Award Society awarded him a commendation for his puppet design work on À nous deux!, another production from this same company. Recent engagements as both puppet designer and puppet coach include: the opera production of Die Zauberflöte for the Glyndebourne Festival, Nezha the Pirate Child, with Cirque Éloize, and Toruk – The First Flight, with Cirque du Soleil. Since 2000, he teaches at Université du Québec à Montréal, to BA students and for the post-graduate diploma in contemporary puppet theater. His first collaboration with Kid Koala was as puppet designer, puppet technical designer and puppeteer for Nufonia Must Fall.
AJ (Director of Cinematography)
AJ is a maniacally multi-tasking Montréal-based digital media artist. A compulsive creator, his practice blends video, animation, design, and photography into unique and bizarre creations. His work spans short films that have screened internationally and have been broadcast on the CBC, music videos with beloved Canadian bands like Stars and The Dears, award winning public service campaigns for organizations such as Global Zero and the CSN labour union, two acclaimed live touring shows created in collaboration with Kid Koala that have wowed audiences around the world, and an ongoing stint as the resident graphic designer for Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, one of Montréal’s most important theater companies. He is known across social media as AJMAKESTHINGS because of his seemingly endless output of multimedia experiments. He will befriend your dog.
Vid Cousins (Musical Director)
Since composing his first string quartet at the age of fourteen, Vid Cousins has had a varied career in music as a composer, musician, producer, arranger, and engineer both in-studio and live. Beginning his career in London, UK, working alongside engineers and producers including Al Fisch (Bjork, The Art of Noise), Charlie Francis (REM, Hi Llamas), Brian Rose (Robbie Williams, Longview), he relocated to Montreal as a musician and Musical Director on Spek’s Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff tour. He has since spearheaded the audio production of numerous international tours such as Amon Tobin’s Foley Room 7.1 surround sound tour, and worked with artists on the road such as Squarepusher, Bell Orchestre and of course Kid Koala with whom he has collaborated on numerous live tours as well as records and scores as producer, engineer and composer and musician. His work has been featured in the scores of a number of National Film Board films and he provided the original score to the Oscar shortlisted animated film Requiem for Romance.
Ryhna Thompson (Producer)
Over the course of the last 2 and a half decades, Ryhna has been an artist, manager, entrepreneur, leader, and change maker in the cultural and creative industries. Under the banner of Envision Management & Production, Ryhna works with artists to conceive, develop, produce, manage, and share musical projects, often in the realm where music intersects with film, animation, theater, literature, and interactivity - and all in the context of building authentic, long-term careers. Projects have ranged widely from Kid Koala's Nufonia Must Fall to Richard Reed Parry’s Quiet River of Dust Dome Show to Bell Orchestre Sound House to The Pathwaves Digital Literacy Incubator. Kid Koala's The Storyville Mosquito is one of her latest works as a multi-disciplinary producer. Ryhna has produced tours on 5 continents. Always keen to contribute to her communities, Ryhna has sat on numerous non-profit boards and committees to support a healthy, sustainable, positive, and innovative creative economy.
Envision (Partner)
Envision is a producer and connector that shapes and engages in mutually beneficial partnerships to support the realization of artistic visions. It supports the creation and spearheads the dissemination of artistically ambitious projects around the world, all while respecting the work of the artists and the art involved. For over 20 years, it has supported many dozens of artists in building careers, award-winning records to be launched, and shows to be presented on tours making stops at prestigious locations around the world from Lincoln Center (USA) to the National Concert Theater (Taiwan). On any project, Envision seeks resources to make work possible, pursues partnerships to meaningfully connect artists, and works with audiences while fostering relationships that nurture long-standing relationships.
