Dorita Hannah

Dorita Hannah studied at New York University. Katherine Braatvedt is recorded as having studied under Dorita Hannah. The recorded working language is English, Italian and French. The field of work recorded is architecture, scenography and performance artwork. Employment is recorded with University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology and University of Surrey. Distinctions recorded are Costume Designer of the Year and Set Designer of the Year.

• Name — Dorita Hannah • Occupation — Architect Adjunct professor Visual artist • Education — University of Auckland New York University • Awards — Costume Designer of the Year 1994, Set Designer of the Year 1996 • Significant Projects — PhoneHome 2018, Fluid States 2015, Flood 2015, Now/Next: Performance Space at the Crossroads 2011

Hannah trained in architecture, receiving her BArch (hons) at the University of Auckland in 1984. She received two postgraduate degrees at New York University: a Master of Arts with Distinction in Performance Studies in 2000, and a PhD with Distinction from the Tisch School of the Arts in 2008.

Hannah had an architectural practice with Felicity Wallace called Hannah Wallace Architects. They designed the Watershed Theatre (1991-1996) on Auckland's waterfront. This happened twice: the first completed in 1991 was demolished, and was located where the New Zealand Maritime Museum currently is; the second was completed in 1993. Since 1986, Hannah has taught architecture, design and visual arts, undertaking academic research at Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University in New Zealand, and has held a positions at international universities in Australia, Serbia, the Netherlands, China, USA, and Finland. She is a "self-professed nomadic professor" whose work embraces diversity and the marginalised. Hannah's practice and research focus on performance space and spatial performativity, spanning the spatial, visual, performing and culinary arts. She specialises in theatre architecture and performance space, and her designs "incorporate scenography, interior, exhibition and installation design".

• Architect for the Watershed Theatre, Auckland, 1991 and again in 1993. • Set designer for Hone Kouka's play Nga tangata toa – the warrior people, at Auckland's Watershed Theatre in 1995. • Exhibition curator and designer of Now/Next Performance Space at the Crossroads in 2011. • Co-curator and director of design for Fluid States at Performance Studies International PSi #21 in 2015. • Architecture and performance designer for Flood in 2015. • Design director and co-curator, PhoneHome exhibition, Architecture and Urbanism Biennial in Valparaíso, Chile in 2017. • Scenographer for Emily Perkin's play The Made, at Auckland Theatre Company in 2022.

Hannah is author of the 2018 book, Event-Space: Theatre Architecture and the Historical Avant-Garde, described by scholar Jan Smitheram as "exceptionally engaging, and [offering] thoughtful speculations about the negotiation of theatre and architecture." Her book is based on her PhD in Performance Studies of the same name. * * *