Dance Magic, Dance – Corey Baker
Kiwi work ethic and a love of performance has seen Corey Baker’s résumé grow from shovelling horse poo to choreographing the Commonwealth Games.
With stiletto nails to match the stiletto heels on her thigh-high boots, drag queen Lady G struts onto the racetrack in a swirling black and orange bodysuit, chequered flag across her shoulder, and taps out a message on her phone. ‘On your marks, get set, go!’
A few kilometres above, two skydivers leap from their plane, pirouetting through the sky. A few kilometres away, two classical ballerinas at the barre dance out of their class. At a skate park an acrobatic BMXer and a parkour athlete leap into action. And at the famed Strictly Come Dancing ballroom, two glittering pros twirl their way into a Ford hatchback. The Dance Race is on.
When Corey Baker began ballet lessons as a teen in Christchurch to help pass his high school English class, he had no idea he’d one day be choreographing dancers and skydivers – not to mention ‘car-eographing drivers’ – in a visually stunning short film for the BBC.
Dance Race is four and a half minutes of overflowing creativity, joy and spectacle, helping showcase the Beeb’s two-month-long celebration of world-class dance earlier this year.
And it was merely the beginning of a packed year for the 31-year-old Kiwi, who in February was named UK New Zealander of the Year for his work promoting New Zealand and Māori dance and culture, and dance in general, to a wider audience. When the Commonwealth Games kicks off on 28 July in Birmingham, a television audience of up to a billion people worldwide will witness a spectacular Opening Ceremony, choreographed by Corey.
‘It’s a crazy time because there’s just so many projects on right now,’ says Baker, who’s flying to LA for a secret TV project two days after we talk. ‘I think I’ve hit that sweet spot in my career, and there’s a backlog of activity from the last 18 months with Covid that we’re all trying to deliver at the same time. I haven’t had a day off in a month, and that’s totally fine. I’m not going to complain, ever, about that, because I clearly remember a time where I didn’t have a day of work in a month. So I’m very happy for it to be this way around.’
Not that Corey was idle during the long UK lockdowns. In fact, it was one of his personal projects where he embraced what the world was living through that may have led to him being offered the Commonwealth Games gig.
‘We made a film called Swan Lake Bath Ballet , which connected ballet dancers around the world with a Swan Lake I made in their bathtubs,’ he says. ‘It was for the BBC, and it went viral. It was in Vogue and Vanity Fairs all over the world, and had like 20 million views in a week, and it was kind of a weird moment – because I was just making it for fun – but I think it was serendipity because they just saw that at the right time while they were looking for choreographers for the Games, and they reached out and we had an informal meeting.’
Despite being approached by the organisers, Corey says after the meeting he still thought ‘there’s no way I’m choreographing the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, no way that’s happening’. Yet several months later, after a few more chats, the gig was his.
With 1,800 performers putting on a three-hour show, an eight-figure budget and a massive TV audience, it’s a huge canvas for a kid from Hei Hei who went to Yaldhurst Primary School and fell in love with the performing arts almost 25 years ago in Hagley Park.
Looking back now, says Corey, his Canterbury childhood almost seems like a good film; a different world without cell phones and deadlines, running around barefoot, enjoying nature, and the safety of it all. But if Corey’s life was a film, then Sinbad is the ‘inciting incident’.
‘The first show I went to is the reason why I have the career I have, I suspect,’ he says. ‘I remember being like seven, and we went to Hagley Park and I saw Sinbad. It was on these big containers plunked in the middle of the park. It was free, and it was amazing.’
Entranced, Corey made his mum, who raised him alone, take him every single night. ‘I saw this world come to life, the magic of performance,’ he says, the emotion still clear more than two decades later. ‘I saw that we as a community of audience connected through that experience. I was hooked. I mean at seven years old I had a transcendent experience which I’ve basically been trying to recreate ever since. So, I tried to carry on finding that feeling or being in that feeling as a performer and now I’m trying to create that as a creator.’
Corey played many sports throughout his childhood – he still loves netball – but found his home with performing arts: community theatre, musicals, magic, tap dance then ballet. ‘I always wanted to be a magician,’ he confesses. ‘So I was doing magic shows for school kids’ parties and retirement homes. And I think that has really translated into the work that I still do now. Because I’m obsessed with giving audiences “wow moments”, I love it.’
As a teen, Corey followed his ballet education from Hagley College to ballet school in Australia, and then Switzerland. He danced with Theater Basel for two years, before moving to the UK as a 20-year-old. It was a struggle at first, but Corey’s passion and creativity, along with his work ethic and openness to opportunity has seen his career skyrocket.
He remembers shovelling horse poo for $5 an hour in his first job as an adolescent, and says that idea of labour is still in him, even if he’s now ‘in glossy show business’. Corey’s the first up in the morning and the last to go to bed, ensuring everything gets done.
And now, at just 31 years old, this Canterbury kid is responsible for the Opening Ceremony of the biggest sporting event in the UK this year, a global extravaganza – the Queen’s Games, being held the year of her Platinum Jubilee. He can’t share much, but he’s excited.
‘I can tell you it’s going to be mind-boggling. There’s a lot of dance in it, but not in a boring way. I mean, I can get bored watching dance and I do it as a profession. So it’s a thrill to create something on a stadium scale, to have all that resource and imagination to hand. If we say, “We’d like to fly a hippo across the stadium,” there’s a whole team of people who go and figure out if we can fly a hippo and make it happen. Spoiler alert: there’s no flying hippos.’
