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Feedback and Paradox

Plastic Orchid Factory's Digital Folk

“In an age where so many people do exist in relative isolation, engaging with the world through technology, digital folk is a flash of energy — energy that dance, song, and community so uniquely extract.” - Brittany Duggan, Georgia Straight

Photo courtesy of Plastic Orchid Factory

Photo by Chris Randle

Digital Folk is part video game, part costume party and incorporates live music and dance. As an installation presented by Plastic Orchid Factory as part of Dance in Vancouver and DIY@DIV it was presented as a looping performance that took place on November 23 through 24 at Left of Main in Vancouver.

According to the artists involved, the work was “built from the desire to revisit how communities gather to play music, dance and tell stories.” An interdisciplinary collaboration between dance artist James Gnam, visual artist Natalie Purschwitz, lighting designer James Proudfoot, lighting sound designer Kevin Legere and ten other dance artists (listed below) Digital Folk, is described by its creators as presenting a “playful environment … focused through the lens of video game culture to create an irreverent and interactive world of virtual and physical community, feedback and paradox.”

concept / creative direction - James Gnam

scenography / costume design - Natalie Purschwitz

lighting design - James Proudfoot

sound design - Kevin Legere

choreography / performance - Jane Osborne, Natalie LeFebvre Gnam, James Gnam, Kayla DeVos, Walter Kubanek, Lexi Vajda, Clare Twiddy, Siobhan Sloane-Seale, Rob Abubo, Lorenz Santos

producer - Natalie LeFebvre Gnam

associate producer - Kayla Devos

stage management - Jonathan Kim

set build - Stuart Sproule

set design assistant - Candy Wang

publicity - Natalie LeFebvre Gnam

marketing design - Ahmed Khalil

past collaborators - Dario Dinuzzi, Vanessa Goodman, Bevin Poole Leinweber, Diego Romero, Shion Carter, Rachel Helten, Hannah Jackson, Rachel Silver, Kim Plough

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Posted February 6, 2018

Caribana is Our Stage

Themes of becoming, shaping from and returning to are central to Caribbean performance arts. As one of these art forms, Carnival is a nuanced performance art practice rooted in the cultural memory of the lives of Caribbean peoples throughout Canada and the diaspora. But whose story is told (or not told) and in what context? The telling or omission of stories can be traced to a lack of understanding of the complexity of the Caribbean and its Carnival – a performance tradition that is more than the mass commodification, sexuality and “loud music” we often associate it with.

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