Aden Date

Aden Date is a Perth/Boorloo-based performing artist and creativity expert. He runs Only the Human, a community that uses comedy to promote well-being and social connection, and is also the author of Yes, But, a bestselling book about what improvised theatre teaches us about building creative communities and innovative businesses.

Aden has studied and performed improvised theatre in Canberra, New York and Chicago. His background as an artist and improviser means he brings a unique perspective to organisational innovation. He sees creativity as a distributed cultural practice that emerges when teams and individuals can be flexible and informal, and shift hierarchies and structures as needed.

He works with high-performing teams in complex environments to provide experiences of creativity and connection that re-centre the intuitive mind, the body, and interpersonal relationships as the main drivers of creativity. He has embedded these practices in his own social enterprise, which uses a mixed co-operative and social enterprise governance model to distribute leadership throughout a network of 50 member-artists.

A sought-after independent researcher and evaluator, Aden has worked with the ABC, Creative Australia, and a wide variety of arts organisations across Australia.