The buzz (testimonials and awards)

 

In The Press

November 2021

Nina’s work on The Shark Is Broken has been nominated for a WhatsOnStage Award.

April 2020

Nina has been awarded ‘Best Set Design’ along with Mark Walters in the Great British Pantomime Awards for their work on Cinderella at Fairfield Halls. Here’s what Broadway World had to say about the work:

Cinderella is the offer this year and it mixes the old and new perfectly […] The new comes with some spectacular video work from Nina Dunn, Luigi Sardi and Harrison Cooke, the best I’ve seen in Pantoland

June 2019

Nina’s work on The Assassination of Katie Hopkins was selected to represent the UK in the Prague Quadrennial.

September 2018

Nina’s Video Designs for The Assassination of Katie Hopkins gained her a WhatsOnStage Award nomination: The piece also won Best New Musical at the UK Theatre Awards in 2018.

January 2017

Nina has been named one of six designers to watch in 2017 in an article by Matt Trueman from the Stage.

A designer with a real feeling for space, as her site-specific work on Alice’s Adventures Underground and Secret Cinema proved, Dunn also has a rare sense of scale. Working in opera has led to a clean and commanding style that is never overbearing. Her New Jersey shipyards were eerie in Arthur Miller’s The Hook; the cartoon landscapes of Usagi Yojimbo, cute and playful.

Read the full article here

2016

Stephen Brimson Lewis’ solidly realistic drawing room set is poetically offset by Nina Dunn’s projections of nearby Hampstead Heath where the two men meet, making for a stylish and spell-binding production.

Mark Shenton – The Stage – ★★★

…an outstanding video projection designed by Nina Dunn. A wood, realistic in every detail, with leaves rustling in a breeze, dissolves to reveal a circular room in a plush country house. It’s a stunning device – reminiscent of the opening of Dante’s Inferno

Alan Payne – The Derbyshire Times

Working with the projection team, and the completely wonderful Nina Dunn was a real highlight of the show. A visual artist who, with the added dose of mysterious tech, and second language of lumens and lux levels, transcended from artist into magician. 

Samuel Wyer – Designer, Alices’ Adventures Underground – interviewed by Creative Review

“The stage picture […] is a triumph. Christopher Giles’s white walls and central staircase are wonderfully elegant in their own right, while Nina Dunn’s video projections seamlessly evoke the sense of place with a brilliantly delicate touch.”

The Times on Northern Ballet’s Cleopatra

Nina Dunn’s magical line-drawn projections […] are a nice nod to the source material and mix beautifully with the live action.

Time Out

brilliantly evocative video imagery

Faye Courtenay – Opera Britannica on ENO’s Flying Ducthman

incredible, cinematic sets incorporating multimedia to great effect

Susi Wilde – The Stage on WNO La Bohème

Awards and Nominations

2017

Alice’s Adventures Underground has been shortlisted among finalists in the AV Awards Project

Nina Dunn and David Howe have been nominated for an Off West End Award for Best Lighting for their work on ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl‘ at Southwark Playhouse.

2016

Stephen Brimson Lewis and Nina Dunn have been nominated for a Broadway World UK 2016 award for Best Set Design for a New Production of a Play or Musical for the design of No Man’s Land at the Wyndham’s.

Alice’s Adventures Underground received an Olivier Award Nomination in the category of Best Entertainment & Family

The Damned United was voted one of the Guardian Reader’s favourite stage shows of 2016.

2015

Knight of Illumination – Winner: Video electronic content for Concert and Touring Events – Alice’s Adventures Underground

Lumen Prize – Shortlisted and selected for the global touring exhibition

2014

Off West End Award – Usagi Yojimbo – Best Set Design with Ele Slade

Outstanding Achievement in Education – Technical Theatre Awards – Nominated

2011

IVCA Award for events – Nominated

 

Testimonials

[…]how really thrilling and evocative the projections were. […]you gave us a really rich, dream-like, complex visual narrative.

Jonathan Kent – Director on Mariinsky’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten

A HUGE thank you to all the team for pulling off what my MD and many others thought was the best integration of gfx, sound, performance and stage they’ve ever seen. I still found myself blown away when watching the show go out.

Adam Doherty – Jack Morton Worldwide on Wella ITVA

Just a quick email to let you know that The Damned Utd is a complete hit up here in Leeds. It is without doubt the most successful show in Red Ladder’s long history and looks set to totally sell out the entire four week run! The success is very much thanks to a truly brilliant set design working with superb projection and sound designs. Everything fits beautifully and I watch every show in awe. Thank you so much for working with me on this project and helping this to be such a triumph.

Rod Dixon – Artistic Director, Red Ladder Theatre Company

Thank you so much – it’s been brilliant and it would be great to work together again sometime. 

Edward Kemp – Artistic Director – RADA

I never really got the chance to thank you for all of your hard work, help and guidance on Volpone so thank you I have learnt a great deal about LED screens, servers, hand held wireless cameras and live filming, small auditorium cameras, projection, temperature, noise and how much money to logically budget when the sort of show requirement is required again in the future.

Mark Graham, Production Manager – Royal Shakespeare Company

“Previously I have not understood the use of projections [in Opera] but on this show they work with great effect.”

Valery Gergiev, Artistic Director, Mariinsky Theatre

I wanted to thank you for your beautiful work on SC 21, its so beautiful and I am so lucky to have met you.

Fabien Riggal, Artistic Director, Secret Cinema

It’s very rare to find a video designer as able to deliver the technical aspects equally as well as the creative as you do.

Natasha Chivers – Lighting Designer

“[Cameron] thought your work was fabulous and didn’t look or feel like projection”

Paule Constable, Lighting Designer on Cameron Mackintosh’s Phantom of the Opera UK Tour

In Education:

Hi Nina,

Just emailing to say thank you for all your help. […] all of us agree that [the production] was a huge success. I am happy to have been part of the finished product, and I surely couldn’t have done it without your advice and examples – thanks to you I was able to convince the rest of the design team that video was a worthwhile thing to include, and in the end the show wouldn’t have been anywhere near as visually dynamic without it. 

Again, thank you for all your help over the last handful of months. I hope to get the opportunity to meet/work with you in the future.

Guy Spedding – Mentored Student


@ThatsOllieLast: On reflection, @nina_pixelpixie is my favourite person this week. You’re a photoshop wizard, and I thank you for teaching me great things ??

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