Leaps & bounds

Kiwi choreographer Corey Baker has built an international career on bold moves. His next step is the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.

- 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 choreographing 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 host of international ballet dancers from around the world.

Made for the BBC, it was shot in the dancers’ own bathtubs, as they performed to the instantly identifiable tones of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. At just over three minutes long, it was one of the viral video hits of the pandemic.