Lance Dann is a British

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

ist, audio drama producer, presenter and writer working for international theatre and radio since 1994.

Life and work

Dann is the founder of Radio Art group Noiseless Blackboard Eraser (1994–2007) and former Associate Member of

The Wooster Group The Wooster Group is an experimental theater company based in New York City known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group (1967–1980) during the period from 1975 to 198 ...

. He studied Radio at

Goldsmiths' College Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by ...

and gained his doctorate at

Bath Spa University Bath Spa University is a public university in Bath, Somerset, Bath, England, with its main campus at Newton Park, about west of the centre of the city. The university has other campuses in the city of Bath, and one at Corsham Court in Wiltshi ...

. As a radio artist he has worked extensively with composer

Rohan Kriwaczek Rohan Kriwaczek is an English writer, composer and violinist. He studied under Peter Maxwell Davies, Oliver Knussen and Judith Weir, and has written classical works, scores for theatre, TV, and radio. He worked with Ken Campbell in 1995 on a BBC ...

on a series of works for

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

and independent stations internationally. Their collaborations included a long-running series of live radio performances and a trilogy of experimental plays for radio (''If on a Summer Night a Listener''..., ''Ho! Ho! The Clown is Dead'' and ''Glowboys''). Between 1996 and 2000 he worked with

as producer of a sequence of plays for

(''

The Emperor Jones ''The Emperor Jones'' is a 1920 tragic play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill that tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed ...

, Phèdre'' and ''The Peggy Carstairs Report''). He worked as sound designer for the company during the development of ''To You the Birdie'' and through performances of ''House/Lights''. In 1999 he recorded two documentaries with

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York ...

for BBC Radio 3, the first time she'd spoken at length to the British media for over 20 years. In 2001 he wrote a serialisation of

John Wyndham John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (; 10 July 1903 – 11 March 1969) was an English science fiction writer best known for his works published under the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his name ...

's ''

The Day of the Triffids ''The Day of the Triffids'' is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. After most people in the world are blinded by an apparent meteor shower, an aggressive species of plant starts killing people. A ...

'' for the BBC WorldService. His 2009 transmedia audio series ''The Flickerman'' was serialised on ABC National Radio (Australia), VPRO (Holland) and WFMU (New York). His work in radio and theatre has earned a number of awards including two

Sony Radio Academy Awards The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academy ...

, a Prix Marulić and in 2014 his independently produced drama ''The Hungry Earth'' was nominated for a Radio Academy Production Award. In 2017 he created the multi-part audio drama series ''Blood Culture'' which won the Gold Award for Best Drama Producer and the Bronze Award for Best Sound Designer at the 2018 Audio Production Awards, the Silver Award for Fiction at the 2018 British Podcast Awards, was nominated for a

Radio Academy The Radio Academy is a registered charity dedicated to "the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production". It was formed in 1983 and is run via a board of trustees, with a chair and a deputy chai ...

ARIAS award, and was for nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award. Between 2021 and 2023 he series produced three series of ''The Rez','' a children’s audio and multimedia project, the podcast parts of which were distributed by Gen Z-Media and

Wondery Wondery is an American podcast network and publisher of podcasts including ''American History Tellers'', ''Dr. Death (podcast), Dr. Death'' and ''The Shrink Next Door''. Wondery was founded in 2016 by entrepreneur and media executive Hernan Lopez ...

. The series won him the Gold Award for Best Entertainment Producer and the Silver Award for Best Comedy Producer at the 2021 Audio Production Awards, a Bronze British Podcast Award, a Bronze ARIAS award for drama, a Bronze Signal Award, and a Bronze Lovie (it was also nominated at the

Webby Awards The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

, and the British Podcast Awards). In 2022 he created and produced ''The Day the Earth Didn't Die,'' a comedy drama series distributed by Audible. He has also presented documentaries and podcasts for the BBC and other audio networks, these include the 2017 Radio 4 documentary ''Art in Miniature'' and the 2020 Radio 3 documentary ''Diorama Drama''. With Martin Spinelli he co-authored Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution, the first critical analysis of the emergent form of podcasting. It was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2019, and was a finalist of the American Association of Publishers Prose Awards.

References

External links

Blood CultureThe Rez
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dann, Lance British sound artists Living people 1960s births Year of birth uncertain People educated at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of Bath Spa University