PXR2021
Schedule

Saturday, Nov 13th
Conference Opening Ceremonies and Land Acknowledgement
Join us in AltSpaceVR at the PXR 2021 Main Tent to ring in another year of programming, research, and development in performance and XR! Create your own avatar and meet the other attendees of PXR 2021 as we recognize the lands we are privileged to work and play on and announce our full conference line up of Canadian and International XR talent as well as two new programs!
Main Tent
Keynote Speech: Immersive Story Trends, Live Performance, Interaction Design, & XR Ethics
Kent Bye
Voices of VR Podcast host will talk about some of the trends that he’s seeing in intersection between live performance, immersive theater, and immersive technologies. He’ll recap a brief history of notable XR performances he’s been able to catch on the film festival circuit over the past 6 years, but also some of the underlying experiential design principles and some of the ethical considerations. One question that comes up again and again is “What is the liveness of the live?” within virtual performances, and he’ll recount a range of different approaches to this question, including how interactive user interfaces can help shape the overall aesthetic of an immersive piece.
Main Tent
LivePerformance360: Exploring the Intersections of Live Performance and XR Technologies
Boca del Lupo (Carey Dodge and Jay Dodge)
LivePerformance360 is a new initiative of Boca del Lupo looking at the intersection of live performance and immersive technologies. This presentation, by Artistic Producer Jay Dodge and Technology Director Carey Dodge, will explore the three main pillars of LP360: Content created by performing artists for audiences, 360 video as a powerful tool connecting festival presenters and touring artists, and the dynamic possibilities for VR as an avenue for access to live performance for individuals in remote communities and/or with other circumstances that may impede their ability to attend a live event. Presented from Boca del Lupo’s Fishbowl on Granville Island, a space that Carey and Jay have turned into a experience and demonstration centre for LP360.
Zoom
Bar Hour
The PXBar is open! Come have a drink at the PXBar, served to you by Single Thread Theatre artistic director Liam Karry. You never know who might stop by!
PXBar
Backstage with "The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite" Team
Ferryman Collective (Deidre V. Lyons)
With the unprecedented disruption in theater, creators have had to explore different avenues for immersive storytelling, using whatever technology was available to pivot during this challenging time. Ferryman Collective was created out of this environment, inspired by Finding Pandora X and its use of the social VR platform VRChat, Ferryman Collective created PARA, then Krampusnacht, a finalist for the PGA Innovation Award. They then joined forces with CoAct Productions to bring an in real life production of The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite into VR, which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, its international premier at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, its Asia premier at the Kaohsiung Film Festival and is currently showing in competition at the Raindance Film Festival. Join this team as they take you on a backstage tour of this magical production and see what it takes to bring a theatrical production into VR.
VR Chat
Orbiter | VR Concert Feat. Joshua Lucas
Orbiter is an exclusive VR concert to officially launch PXR 2021. Using a combination of electronic looping and multi-instrumentalism, Joshua Lucas will be livestreaming a music performance from the mothership into AltspaceVR while entirely in headset. Audiences can expect see a video projection of the artist as well as his avatar playing music that blends atmospheric soundscapes, edm and indie-pop. After the 30 minute concert performance, attendees are encouraged to hang out, and learn more about the upcoming festival events and speakers. Anyone interested in discovering how to become a VR musician is welcome to stick around and ask questions after the show.
Cabaret
Sunday, Nov 14th
VR Filmmaking with 360 Video
Nyla Innuksuk
Nyla Innuksuk is a VR and 360 degree film trailblazer, and the founder of Mixtape VR. She has been working in the XR genre (in various capacities) for nearly a decade, as technologies and applications have evolved. In this interactive discussion, Nyla will discuss some highlights of her career, including collaborating with fashion designer Curtis Oland, A Tribe Called Red, and others to create innovative experiences, as well as her passion and foray into graphic novels and game design, including her work with Marvel Comics. She will reveal new projects and ideas, the ways she creatively envisions her mixed media work, her new film Slash/Back, and how VR has shaped her career and creative choices.
Main Tent
Bar Hour
The PXBar is open! Come have a drink at the PXBar, served to you by Single Thread Theatre artistic director Liam Karry. You never know who might stop by!
PXBar
Debbie Deer Productions | Nerfitii: The Beautiful One Has Come
Debbie Deer
The Performing Arts world ended as we knew it with the Pandemic but Debbie Deer Productions (DDP) still had a play to make! The team at DDP talks about how they recreated the story of the Ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, using the Unreal Engine Gaming Software to make a mixed reality film. Nefertiti: The Beautiful One Has Come brings Ancient Egypt to life with an Afrofuturist take on the land of Pharaohs involving telluric energy, spiritual warfare, portals and telekinesis. Mixed reality isn’t easy, but DDP will talk about their favourite hacks to turn trials into triumph.
Main Tent
Behind the Scenes of Finding Pandora X
Double Eye Studios
Jump into VRChat for a tour of Finding Pandora X, with director Kiira Benzing. Finding Pandora X is an immersive theatrical VR experience where the audience plays the role of the Greek Chorus, interacting with live Broadway caliber actors as the play unfolds. It made its world premier at the 77th Venice International Film Festival in September 2020 and its national premiere at SXSW 2021.
VR Chat
Campfire Chat
After a full day of thoughts and ideas, come sit around our virtual campfires and share your reflections with other PXR attendees and presenters! Listen to the crickets, roast a marshmallow! Conversation speed-dating style!
Main Tent
Monday, Nov 15th
Brendan Bradley | OnBoarding New Artists & Audiences
Brendan Bradley and the Jigsaw Ensemble
During the COVID shut down, a group of theater and XR creators joined forces to successfully rehearse and perform live theater remotely in open source, browser-based VR (on a custom instance of Mozilla Hubs). We successfully staged and presented the one act play, Jettison, for multiple live virtual audiences at No Proscenium’s Here Festival and were Finalist for The Producer Guild of America’s Innovation Award. Shortly thereafter, we wanted to see how our work could scale to empower and educate artists all over the world and pivoted to create OnBoardXR, a recognized, seasonal, collaborative anthology of groundbreaking, short live performance prototypes in WebXR.
Side Tent
Bar Hour
The PXBar is open! Come have a drink at the PXBar, served to you by Single Thread Theatre artistic director Liam Karry. You never know who might stop by!
PXBar
Creative Lab North Panel | Addressing Creative Digital Infrastructure in the North
Jacob Zimmer, Melaina Sheldon, Jayden Soroka, Shaun Anderson and Casey Koyczan
Join Jacob Zimmer, Melaina Sheldon, Jayden Soroka, Shaun Anderson and Casey Koyczan as they discuss their perspectives on emergent technology as creative tools, the possibilities for XR creation in the Northern Territories, and some of the exciting nation-wide collaborations that are already happening with access to creative digital infrastructure. This panel will be led by Creative Lab North Executive Director, Micheal Mooney.
Main Tent
Inside the Collider: Avatar Embodiment and the Actor in VR
Chloe Payne with Nita Bowerman, Howard Dai, Sydney Doberstein, and Charles Douglas
During the ColliderVR project a new physical performance language and movement pedagogy was developed. In this workshop, participants will learn this practice through movement exercises and practical VR performance techniques. Inspired by physical theatre practices like mask, puppetry and mime, these techniques make avatars more emotive, expressive, and responsive.
A VR headset is required to participate in this workshop. Mac and PC users are welcome to attend as observers.
This workshop will be led by Chloe Payne and feature Collider ensemble members Nita Bowerman, Howard Dai, Sydney Doberstein, and Charles Douglas.
Side Tent
Featured VRtist: Sunny Nestler | Cone Worms XR
Sunny Nestler
In the near future, cone worms (Coneus longissimus) are organisms that have evolved from their predecessors into living creatures. Similar to lichens, or plastiglomerate, they are made of more than one substance. When these strange organisms made of linked traffic cones and DNA come to life and propagate, they roam along the Burrard Inlet area of Vancouver, interacting with humans along the way. We are conditioned by traffic cones that tell us plainly where we can’t go; typically cones linked together are perceived as barriers. But when transformed into organic, segmented creatures they come to life, showing where you can go. Repurposing the cone as a symbol means showing connectivity and freedom of movement. The cone worm is an emerging species, not an endangered one. In this presentation, artist Sunny Nestler will talk about this work, and how it has shifted from drawing and painting, to animation and interactive 3D media.
VRt Gallery
Tuesday, Nov 16th
Toasterlab: Making Decisions
Toasterlab Mixed Reality Atelier
Over the last few years, the Toasterlab Mixed Reality Atelier has been diving deep into the exploration of the intersection of mixed reality technologies and live performance. By “boosting” 16+ live performance with equipment, expertise, and consultation to partnering projects and earning many hard lessons on our own, we have seen what can happen when virtual and augmented reality, motion capture, live streaming, geolocation get integrated into live art and what you must ask along the way. We created a tool with rules of thumb to start your planning with support from all the makers across the projects and more, in it’s own VR exhibition!
Toasterlab Hubs Exhibition
The MetaMovie presents: The Alien Rescue
Marinda Botha, Nicole Rigo, Kenneth Rougeau, and Craig Woodward
The MetaMove presents: Alien Rescue” did a preview during the 77th Venice Biennale, and the world premiere at Raindance this year. This is the 3rd “MetaMovie”, and the team behind the project has developed a lot of experience in live social VR performances. During this presentation, the MetaMovie-crew will demonstrate how they deal with the complex dynamic of managing branching storylines, freedom of guests, and improvisation, all in a live environment. It is highly recommend to attend one of the performances prior to the presentation.
Main Tent
Bar Hour
The PXBar is open! Come have a drink at the PXBar, served to you by Single Thread Theatre artistic director Liam Karry. You never know who might stop by!
PXBar
Campfire Chat
After a full day of thoughts and ideas, come sit around our virtual campfires and share your reflections with other PXR attendees and presenters! Listen to the crickets, roast a marshmallow! Conversation speed-dating style!
Main Tent
Wednesday, Nov 17th
360 Degrees of Reality: In Studio with Boca del Lupo
Boca del Lupo
You have heard about LivePerformance360, Boca del Lupo’s latest initiative combining live performance with immersive technologies, and now is your chance to meet the team in their studio. Join Boca del Lupo in a one-on-one session and ask all your questions about curating, art-making and archiving theatrical experiences using 360 video tools.
Side Tent
Bar Hour
The PXBar is open! Come have a drink at the PXBar, served to you by Single Thread Theatre artistic director Liam Karry. You never know who might stop by!
PXBar
Reimagining Real Space for Digital Creations with Theatre Passe Muraille
Theatre Passe Muraille
Calling all gearheads – Theatre Passe Muraille is sparking a timely conversation about building digital creation space, and wants your input as they prepare to transform the iconic TPM Backspace and equip it with the latest in digital technologies.
This is a panel discussion moderated by the PXR team, and will be an opportunity for vital thought-exchange with theatre minds across the country, proposing ideas and frameworks for creating live performance in a digital age.
Main Tent
Campfire Chat
After a full day of thoughts and ideas, come sit around our virtual campfires and share your reflections with other PXR attendees and presenters! Listen to the crickets, roast a marshmallow! Conversation speed-dating style!
Main Tent
Thursday, Nov 18th
Fireside Chat with Jordan Tannahill
Jordan Tannahill
Draw Me Close blurs the worlds of live performance, virtual reality and animation to create a vivid memoir about the relationship between a mother and her son charting twenty-five years of love, learning and loss.
Join award-winning playwright, novelist and director Jordan Tannahill to hear about his process creating this groundbreaking theatrical experience in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada and the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio.
Zoom
Bar Hour
The PXBar is open! Come have a drink at the PXBar, served to you by Single Thread Theatre artistic director Liam Karry. You never know who might stop by!
Main Tent
The Creative Journey Behind Frequencies
HEIST (Sylvia Bell and Aaron Collier)
Zoom
Featured VRtwork: Honour Dance
Kent Monkman
Honour Dance is a virtual reality experience based on a 2008 five-channel video installation by Kent Monkman titled Dance to the Berdashe. Set in a verdant meadow at magic hour, Honour Dance offers a contemporary re-interpretation of a traditional Indigenous ritual featuring the “Berdashe”, a gender-bending figure whose behaviour and very existence astonished and appalled European explorers of North America.
VRt Gallery
Friday, Nov 19th
Terra Luma VR Sound Design Workshop
Joshua Lucas
Terra Luma is an interactive workshop & sound installation, which highlights approaches for composing, designing and mixing music/audio in virtual reality. Presented by multi-disciplinary artist Joshua Lucas, the event reflects some of the key insights, discoveries and techniques the speaker uses when building worlds and developing sound for VR. As an installation, Terra Luma is meant to explore a space where nature and simulation collide. The otherworldly light-forms of flora and fauna are representative of the quantum vibrations that flow within all organic life. 3D painted in Tiltbrush and formatted for AltspaceVR, these objects emanate sonic pulses and musical frequencies that surround the audience within a darkened void of space. Attendees can expect to gain a peek behind the veil, and learn about Joshua’s process when writing music and collaborating using spatialized audio in VR.
Side Tent
Bar Hour
The PXBar is open! Come have a drink at the PXBar, served to you by Single Thread Theatre artistic director Liam Karry. You never know who might stop by!
Main Tent
XR for Indigenous Language Revival with MoniGarr
MoniGarr
MoniGarr will share examples of how XR is used for Indigenous language revival & retention projects. Virtual reality environments, augmented reality face filters with voice changers, 3D Kanien’keha animations and Onkwehonwehneha AI are a few of the projects that visualize Kanien’keha / Indigenous existing & thriving in all spaces & times.
Main Tent
Inside the Collider: Behind the Scenes and World Navigation
Nicole Eun-Ju Bell, Stephanie Fung and Justine Katerenchuk
Collider is an ongoing research and development project in immersive VR theatre produced by Single Thread Theatre Company. Its findings were first presented as an immersive experience at the rEvolver Festival and Festival of Live Digital Art in Spring 2021. This presentation will give PXR attendees an exclusive peek behind the scenes, discussing how the team built and navigated the expansive world of Collider in AltspaceVR.
This workshop will be led by Collider ensemble members Nicole Eun-Ju Bell and Stephanie Fung, as well as Collider Stage Manager, Justine Katerenchuk.
Side Tent
Campfire Chat
After a full day of thoughts and ideas, come sit around our virtual campfires and share your reflections with other PXR attendees and presenters! Listen to the crickets, roast a marshmallow! Conversation speed-dating style!
Main Tent
Saturday, Nov 20th
The Galaxicle Implosions: A look Inside a Work-In-Progress Immersive Theatre Show
Flipside XR (Leslie Klassen)
The Galaxicle Implosions is an immersive semi-improvised sci-fi comedy designed for VR, live theatre, and online audiences. It’s one show performed simultaneously for three audiences. Join the presenters in Altspace VR in one of the virtual sets used in production. Attendees will learn about work-in-progress discoveries that occurred during the ideation and design process of this immersive theatre project. This includes pre-production documentation, rehearsals, actor onboarding, and the overall approach to content development. This presentation will share key challenges the production team grappled with around multiplayer acting, interaction design, and designing content for multiple audiences. Learn about virtual production in VR through this work-in-progress presentation.
Side Tent
Professional VR Acting: Avatar as Mask, Puppeteering, Improv and Immersive Narrative Design
Dasha Kittredge and Ari Tarr
How does one create deeply effective performances in the metaverse? The long history of mask technique is one of the quickest ways to train the body to truthfully emote specific feelings physically. Mask training with VR allows one to inhabit and bring to life impossible creatures and puppets not previously available to the solo actor. There is so much more to mask than just wearing one; a digital avatar is just like a Mask in that it can be limiting or expansive to the creative spirit of the actor, depending on how it is worn. In this workshop Dasha Kittredge and Ari Tarr will guide students through the fundamentals of how to express with neutral and expressive masks. Participants will adapt these techniques to VR and the art of avatar embodyment. This course is for both the VR novice who wants the basics of getting in an avatar for the first time as well as VR movement capture professional actors who would like to hone and exercise their skills for live performances.
Main Tent
Showcase of PXU/PXRtist Link Up
The Student XRtist Link-Up is a brand new initiative in PXR2021 bringing together students of game design and performing arts across Canada to imagine new virtual reality experiences. Join students from Lethbridge College, George Brown Theatre School, York University, Langara Centre for Entertainment Arts, and Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation as they showcase their innovative creations.
XRtist Lab