Biography

Liz Lavender is a freelance arts manager working predominantly in outdoor arts, circus, community and cultural engagement. After successfully completing a degree in Geology at Oxford Polytechnic and obtaining a P.G. Certificate of Education at Bath University she started a careers in teaching.

Liz had her first encounter with Contemporary Circus in 1988, applying her pastoral creative skills to costume and set making for Circus Burlesques show ‘The Brilliant Boffio’s’. From a field in Somerset a relationship with the arts took hold and grew into a lifelong career.Liz went on to tour with Circus Burlesque’s Alice tour in 1990 (as schoolteacher to seven children) followed by tours with Abzurdicus Circus and Arts Play Umbrella/Cirque du Pays de Galles. Liz was part of the Nofit State Circus company for over 15 years working on touring shows, large scale community engagement projects, corporate contracts and being part of the team that saw the company develop into on of the UK’s leading contemporary circus companies. Completing a P.G. Diploma from Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 2005 and the European Mela Network Cultural Leadership Programme during 2008-2009, Liz has since worked for, produced events, commissioned new work and project managed for a variety of organisations including Swindon Borough Council, Bath Children's Art Festival, Bath Fringe, The Trowbridge Song Project, Arts Together, Desperate Men, InBetween Time, Swindon Mela, Devizes Outdoor Celebratory Arts, Artist Joe Rush and The Mutoid Waste Co. Addtionally, she played a pivotal role in the HLF funded Nofit State Archive Project documenting thirty years of the company’s history.

In recent years Liz has been researching and preserving the history of the 1980s-1990s period circus in the UK.