Dr. Geraldine Connor - Bio - Women in Pan

Geraldine Connor

Geraldine Connor was born in London, in 1952, to Trinidadian parents and Caribbean cultural ambassadors Edric Connor, singer, actor, folklorist and film-maker and Pearl Connor, cultural activist, theatrical agent and black theatre consultant.

Geraldine Connor is a freelance Theatre Director. An ethnomusicologist by profession, she was a senior teaching fellow at the University of Leeds (1992 – 2004) and holds a MMus (London)., LRSM, Dip. Ed. She held a two year appointment as Associate Director (Music) at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (2001 – 2003). A composer, performer, musical director and vocal animator specialising in mainstream rock and pop, Caribbean carnival, Caribbean folk and African American Gospel, Jazz and Blues styles, she conceived, composed and directed Carnival Messiah , a radical theatrical reinvention inspired by George Fredrick Handel’s Messiah (1999 and 2002, West Yorkshire Playhouse: Port of Spain, Trinidad 2003 and Carnival 2004), and also directed the acclaimed premiere co-production between the West Yorkshire Playhouse and Adzido Pan African Dance, Yaa Asantewaa, Warrior Queen, which successfully toured Britain and Ghana, Africa, in 2001/2002. This year she has directed Carnival Messiah (Queen’s Hall, Trinidad and Tobago), Blues in the Night (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Vodou Nation (UK Arts and West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Performance Poet Ras Anansi-I for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

She is the recipient of the second highest National Award of Trinidad and Tobago, the Chaconia Medal Gold, for outstanding and meritorious service to that country, and is also regarded as probably one of the most influential Black female theatricians to emerge in 21st century Britain, where she specialises in creating epic, live, large-scale spectacular, ethno-culturally diverse, carnivalesque musical and dance theatre events.

click to read - Dr. Connor in her own words