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Biography
Designer - Set, Costumes and Jewellery
Catherine Hahn is one of Canada's most intriguing and original designers. Her thirty-five year career has spanned theatre, dance, film, television, multi-media, painting, advertising, prop-design, teaching, and now jewellery. Hahn worked for ten years as one of the resident designers of the Caravan Stage Company, Canada's first and probably only horse -drawn theatre company originating in the North Okanagan of British Columbia. As a result of that association she became a leader in the development of outdoor theatre and spectacle design. From Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theatre in Vermont to EXPO '88 in Australia, her own production company honed a unique and fantastical style; its trademark bizarre and unusual masks, giant puppets and elaborate painting. She was the project designer for the Vancouver Children's Festival "Winterfest"-- a four-acre winter festival and adventure playground in BC Place stadium. She has designed theatre sets, events, costumes and parade floats in art galleries, parks, football fields, rivers, forests, three world's fairs, two major international theatre festivals, sky scrapers, living rooms and vacant lots all over the country.
A talent not to be pigeon-holed, she soon directed her energy into film and television both as designer and producer. Her art direction of 13 episodes of "Take Off" , a half-hour TV series for children garnered a Gemini nomination. Her own documentary film on a BC potter , "Painting With Fire" has been broadcast widely across Canada and the US.
For the past several years, Catherine has juggled dozens of projects in the performance and visual arts in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, New Orleans, Kelowna, Nanaimo, and the modest hamlet of Armstrong, home of the Caravan Farm Theatre. While working most of the time as a stage designer, she still managed time to paint and was part of a Vancouver mural painting group called "Arts in Action". In the late 90's, she became part of the stable of artists of the original Headbones Gallery in Vernon, BC.