Practitioner focus: Julie Taymor

Julie Taymor is most celebrated for her award-winning direction and design on Disney's stage adaptation of The Lion King, however her work extends across theatre, opera and film. Strongly influenced by the theatrical traditions of Indonesia, where she lived and developed a mask-dance company for four years, her work often incorporates puppets, and she is renowned for her ability to blend the lines between the actor, the puppet, and the costume.

Taymor is cited as having had a strong interest in theatre from a young age, putting on shows at home as a young child, and later taking on roles with the Boston Children's Theatre. In her mid-teens a cultural exchange programme took her to Sri Lanka and India, and she spent time after high school in Paris, training in mime at the Jacques Lecoq school. After completing studies in folklore and mythology at Oberlin College (one of the U.S.’ top liberal arts colleges), a grant offered her the opportunity to travel and study theatre. She chose Indonesia, alongside Eastern Europe and Japan, and though she had intended to stay there for only a few months, she stayed for several years.