New Works XR

New Works XR (NWXR) supports new voices in the development of creative technologies and embodied practice. XR (Extended Reality) is an umbrella term encompassing augmented (AR), virtual (VR), and mixed reality technologies. First developed in 2021 between New Works, dance artist Erika Mitsuhashi, and a team of consulting artists and technologists, the program was envisioned as a process-focused space to explore, learn, and expand individual practices on and off screen.

Since that inaugural season, the program has continued to develop and evolve as a residency, learning, and community building space that has remained responsive to the needs and interests of artists. In the shifting landscape of new technologies and practices, the program remains curious, investigative, and artist-led.

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opaqueREFUSALS Work in Progress

by danielle Mackenzie Long

Tuesday, Oct 29 | 6pm
Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver)
Free. RSVP required.
Learn more & RSVP

About the event:

You're invited to an Open Showing of a Work in Progress — come witness and discuss how dance and technology can interact together.

Bubble wrap represents a restrictive binary structure that is meant to be disrupted. danielle Mackenzie Long is drawn to the way in which the material evolves through deflation and puncturing in order to provide safety to a delicate object, just as bodies evolve in various ways to support gender affirmation of trans people. Playing with the transparency of bubble wrap in both live and digital spaces, danielle uses it to conceal, distort, and ultimately reveal the complexity of intersecting genderqueer identities.

opaqueREFUSALS is a slowly developing two-part work; one part live performance, one part interactive online animated visual "zine." Its creation process embraces the intimacy required of pursuing dances working in relation to technology, and what emerges from digital glitches that occur.

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*More details about upcoming XR events and offerings will be shared here soon.

Meet the XR Team

NWXR has been generously stewarded by a diversity of voices who have helped to shape, push, and lead the XR program since it’s inception.

Alexandra Caprara - XR Program Coordinator 2024

Bio
Alexandra Caprara (she/her) is a queer interdisciplinary artist from Tkaranto, Ontario whose practice is grounded in performance making and design, with a focus on devised processes, movement, interactivity, and design lead creation. Her work often centers themes of femininity, autonomy, somatics, and queer ecology, and believes in making and producing work that center queer joy. She has worked internationally as a director, performer, and designer for lighting and video projection, and has presented her work across Canada alongside companies such as WorkMan Arts, Factory Theatre, Theatre Replacement, and Good Woman Dance. She is currently concluding her MFA at Simon Fraser University, where her research focused on developing devised methodologies that centered harmonious relations with technology, performance interactivity, and ways technology can embrace the organic in both form and content. You can find out more about her work at alexandracaprara.com. She is thrilled to be a part of the New Works team! // Photo by Chelsey Stuyt

Gemma Crowe - XR Program Director 2023-24

Bio
Gemma Crowe is a new media artist and recent graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s full-residency MFA program. Crowe holds a bachelor’s degree in contemporary dance and has ten years of professional experience in filmmaking and video art, which influences how she approaches an audience of viewers and listeners. Her thesis research is concerned with the illusory potential of sound and the sensory apprehension of movement. Crowe received Canada Council and British Columbia Arts Council funding for her research into spatial sound and the bodily experience as well as a research award through Emily Carr University. Crowe completed a residency at Lobe Studio working with world-class 4DSOUND spatial sound software and delivered a presentation on embodied sonic design at the 2022 International Seminar on Sonic Design. Crowe will continue her research in embodiment, virtual theory, and audience perception in her role as New Works XR Program Director.

Sierra Megas - XR Program Manager 2022-24

Bio
Sierra Megas is an artist and arts administrator grateful to be living on the traditional and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her practice attends to physical materials through dance, embodiment, and improvisation and has recently involved list making, long-distance friendships, collecting foods and trinkets to connect with ancestors, making ephemeral sculptures, and observing minutiae in natural environments. As an extension of her practice, Sierra seeks to work meaningfully towards greater sustainability for artists through community programming, producing, curation and outreach. She has worked with Still Moon Arts Society, The Dance Centre, Vancouver New Music, Dumb Instrument Dance, Mascall Dance, and EDAM Dance. Alongside Francesca Frewer, Erika Mitsuhashi and Antonio Somera Jr., she is a co-producer-curator of Here For Now Collective. Together they produce the bi-annual, multidisciplinary art showcase Here For Now, and co-manage the beloved DIY performance venue, Boombox. Sierra has been supporting New Works XR since its Pilot program in 2021 and is delighted to continue creating spaces for dance and movement artists to experiment with new technologies.

Erika Mitsuhashi - Program Founder 2022

Bio
Erika Mitsuhashi is an interdisciplinary artist and performer living and working on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied, traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nations of the Coast Salish peoples, known as Vancouver, British Columbia. She studied at Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts receiving a BFA (hons) in dance.
She has had the pleasure of interpreting the work of dance artists including Justine A. Chambers, Ziyian Kwan (Dumb Instrument Dance), Sasha Kleinplatz (Wants&Needs Danse), Rob Kitsos, Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance) and Judith Garay (Dancers Dancing) in festivals and platforms such as Vancouver International Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge Festival, Re-FUSE presented by the Vancouver Art Gallery and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival 2020. Erika’s work has taken the form of performance for stage, installation, experimental film, site specific/responsive performance, scenography and projection design. Most recently she has been experimenting with live-stream video and digital spaces as sites for intimacy and choreography of attention. Her work and collaborative projects have been presented locally and internationally by PAUL Studios Berlin, Powell Street Festival, Toronto Love-In’s PS:We are All Here series, Surrey Art Gallery’s InFlux, Kinetic Studio’s Open Studio Series, Shooting Gallery Performance Series, Upintheair Theatre’s rEvolver Festival and La Serre's OFFTA festival of live art. She has been supported by organizations including New Works, SummerWorks, VIVO Media Arts, plastic orchid factory, Dance West Network, Boca De Lupo, Theatre Replacement and Company 605 in the creation and development of her works to date.

Past Seasons

NWXR 2023-24
NWXR 2022-23
NWXR 2021-22


NWXR activities have been supported by mentors, workshop leaders, panelists, community partners and audience in residence members including :


2023-2024

Alexandra Caprara - XR Program Coordinator

Caroline MacCaull - XR Artist 

Chimerik 似不像 Collective - XR Artist 

danielle Mackenzie Long - XR Artist

Freya Björg Olafson - XR Artist 

Gemma Crowe - XR Program Director 

Nancy Lee - XR Artist 

prOphecy Sun - XR Artist 

Sarah U - XR Artist

Simran Sachar - XR Artist 

Sierra Megas - XR Program Manager 


2022-2023

Carey Dodge, Boca del Lupo - XR Partner

Caroline MacCaull, Chimerik 似不像 Collective - XR Partner

Casey Koyczan - XR Partner 

danielle Mackenzie Long - XR Artist, Artist in Residence 

Emily Carr University of Art + Design - XR Partner

Emmalena Fredriksson - XR Partner

Freya Björg Olafson - XR Mentor 

Gemma Crowe - XR Program Director 

Ian Garrett, Toaster Lab - XR Mentor 

Ian Lavery - XR Mentor

James Albers - XR Artist, Artist in Residence 

Jay Dodge, Boca del Lupo - XR Partner 

Nancy Lee - XR Mentor 

New Media Gallery - XR Partner

Sammy Chien, Chimerik 似不像 Collective - XR Partner

Sarah U - XR Artist, Artist in Residence

Sierra Megas - XR Program Manager

Simran Sachar - XR Artist, Artist in Residence


2021 - 2022 

Eric Cheung - XR Artist

Erika Mitsuhashi - XR Program Director

Ian Garrett, Toaster Lab - XR Mentor

Jacob Niedzweicki - XR Mentor

Kevin Li - XR Artist

Sierra Megas - XR Program Manager

 

Top Photo: Simran Gupta