Sums Selvarajan

Festival Producer

Sums Selvarajan is an arts administrator with a law degree and experience in producing, theatre production management, stage management, arts administration, public relations and project management.

She currently freelances for various arts organisations in various roles, including Incoming Executive Director for The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts, Event Producer for Chromacon (an Illustrators and Comic Artist event & symposium), Line Producer with Auckland Arts Festival 2015, Forum Coordinator at Documentary Edge Festival and is a director at arts and tech consultancy WhySquare Limited. Previous roles include Senior Executive, PR & Projects at an international trade events company, General Manager for a Malaysian youth theatre company, School Administrator for The Performing Arts School of New Zealand and Administrative Coordinator for The Documentary New Zealand Trust. Sums

Previous roles include Senior Executive, PR & Projects at an international trade events company, General Manager for a Malaysian youth theatre company, School Administrator for The Performing Arts School of New Zealand and Administrative Coordinator for The Documentary New Zealand Trust. Sums was part of the original team that established Short+Sweet Auckland in 2010 and served as Production/Stage Manager for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 festivals. She is very proud to step into the role of Festival Producer since the Short+Sweet Auckland 2013 season.

Sums Selvarajan is an arts administrator with a law degree and experience in producing, theatre production management, stage management, arts administration, public relations and project management. She currently freelances for various arts organisations in various roles, including Incoming Executive Director for The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts, Event Producer for Chromacon (an Illustrators and Comic Artist event & symposium), Line Producer with Auckland Arts Festival 2015, Forum Coordinator at Documentary Edge Festival and is a director at arts and tech consultancy WhySquare Limited. Previous roles include Senior Executive, PR & Projects at an international trade events company, General Manager for a Malaysian youth theatre company, School Administrator for The Performing Arts School of New Zealand and Administrative Coordinator for The Documentary New Zealand Trust. Sums was part of the original team that established Short+Sweet Auckland in 2010 and served as Production/Stage Manager for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 festivals. She is very proud to step into the role of Festival Producer since the Short+Sweet Auckland 2013 season.

Bea Lo

Assistant Producer

Bea is an arts administrator passionate about working with others to facilitate story telling across all performing arts mediums. She is particularly interested in telling the experiences of marginalised and diasporic identities through the arts.

Since graduating with a BA with a double major in Film & Media and English, Bea has worked in arts production and coordination for local cultural events and independent film companies. Most recently, Bea was the Festival Coordinator for Chromacon Arts Festival and the Documentary Edge Festival.

Currently, Bea is an arts administrator for boutique arts and tech consultancy WhySquare Ltd, the Modern Māori Quartet and The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts assisting with production, administration and event coordination.

Bea is looking forward to returning to Short+Sweet this year as the Assistant Producer.

Yee Yang ‘Square’ Lee

Associate Producer

Square is a creative entrepreneur with qualifications in Law, Arts Management, Theatre, Film and as a Chartered Secretary. He freelances as an arts manager, producer, director, designer, web developer and consultant for a diverse range of arts and not-for-profit clients through his consultancy WhySquare Limited.

Having recently stepped down from a 7-month assignment as Acting General Manager for The New Zealand Dance Company, he is currently Founding Trustee & General Manager of The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts, Trustee of the Asia New Zealand Film Foundation Trust and an Organising Committee Member of the Auckland Performing Arts Forum. He has a special interest in governance in the not-for-profit sector and completed his Masters with a thesis investigating the state and standard of governance in the New Zealand arts sector.

Square was involved in the establishment of Short+Sweet Auckland in 2010 and is very pleased to reprise his role as Associate Producer for Short+Sweet New Zealand since 2013.

Ahi Karunaharan

Artistic Curator

Ahi Karunaharan is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington and Toi Whakaari, New Zealand School of Drama and has been working as an actor, writer, tutor, pianist and director. He has performed both nationally and internationally and continues to develop his craft through collaboration with various companies and artist from across the globe. As a tutor Ahi has been working with Youth Theatre companies such as Youth Theatre works and Prayas Youth Theatre to develop emerging actor’s skills and craft.

Ahi is also an associate producer for Tawata Productions and has stage managed and production managed on the New Zealand International Festival of Arts season of ‘Tu’ by Hone Kouka, The multi award winning ‘I,George Nepia’ ,‘Sunset Road’ by Miria George and the ‘The Prospect’ and The Matariki Development Festival.

Ahi has worked with a diverse and dynamic range of practitioners and Multi Award winning independent production companies such as Prayas Theatre, The Chapman Tripp award winning Mates and Lovers for Fabulous Arts Aotearoa New Zealand and Pirates Vs Ninjas for Gypsy Wife Productions and has also collaborated various organizations such as Banana Boat, Pasifica Playwrights Forum, Pillai Productions, Subcontinental Artist Guild and Playmarket.

Ahi is the founder of Agaram Productions, which curated and produced the first ever South Asian Writers Festival as well as produce and direct the critically acclaimed production of ‘Mumbai Monologues’ for the Auckland Pride Festival. In 2014, Ahi will be further developing his new play ‘Tea’, along with a development season of 2 new works and an Auckland season of ‘The Mourning After’.

Ahi is very happy to join the Short+Sweet family and is looking forward to being in the driving seat of his first Short+Sweet Theatre season!

Jessie McCall

Artistic Curator

Jessie is a freelance dancer, choreographer, teacher, producer and filmmaker living in Auckland. She graduated UNITEC with a Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts majoring in Contemporary Dance, and studied contemporary technique and choreography at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the USA. She has choreographed and performed in various festivals including Short & Sweet, Tempo, NZ Fringe, The Producing Project, and received a Tempo Dance Festival award for choreography in 2010. As a performer she has danced in work by artists including Katie Burton, Kelly Nash, Michael Parmenter, Shona McCullagh, Malia Johnston & Sarah Foster-Sproull. Jessie is the founder of All You Can Eat Productions and current Artistic Director of Pointy Dog Dance Co. She particularly enjoys glitter, marshmallows, depressing documentaries and 80s music.

Jessie is stoked to be Artistic Curator for Short+Sweet as the diversity of the artists involved grants a rich opportunity to curate cohesive and engaging evenings of dance.

Michael Craven

Lighting and Technical Coordinator

Since graduating from the UNITEC School of Performing and Screen Arts in 2007, Michael has enjoyed a busy career as a lighting designer and multi operator. Highlights include working with The Dust Palace as their resident designer on various touring productions as well as a brief stint in the movie business working as the main unit operator for ‘The Warrior’s Way”, a joint Hollywood/Korean production. After spending nearly three years as the technical manager of TAPAC, and a return to freelance designing. Michael is back at UNITEC as staff, this time inspiring the next generation of technical students to greatness.

Nicolette Sankaran

Nicolette is an aspiring arts manager from sunny island Singapore. She is a fresh graduate with a BA (Hons) in Arts Management. During her course, she took on multiple visual arts assignments in galleries and worked on several community and cultural arts projects.

Since graduating, Nicolette worked as a project executive in a non-profit arts organisation called GenerAsia where she worked mainly on sponsorships and funding. Her most recent job was at a public relations company called Phish Communications, where she worked closely with arts clients from both visual and performing arts companies.

Nicolette is interested in festival programming, marketing and public relations. She looks forward to hone her skills in planning, organising and communicating in the arts.