The sixth IndieFest presented by re:Naissance, brings the performing arts festival back to stages November 20–29.
This year’s theme, “Colliding Art Forms,” is a celebration of the unexpected ways artists and audiences alike connect. The festival engages traditional forms of storytelling with emerging technologies and experiential productions, as it continues to expand artistic practice and nurture up-and-coming voices, bringing people together across mediums, sectors, and lived experiences.
“In Vancouver, we often see artistic communities working in silos,” says Debi Wong, founding artistic director of re:Naissance. “Our festival is designed to disrupt that. We believe the future of the performing arts depends on this kind of collision — not just for novelty’s sake, but as a response to the moment we’re in. The world is shifting rapidly, and artists have the opportunity to explore how different technologies and perspectives can reshape how we experience storytelling and connection. By facilitating and celebrating emerging technologies and immersive practices, we’re not only expanding the creative toolkit, but also building bridges between communities who may not otherwise intersect.”
Highlights of the 2025 season include:
Willilish’d by the musical duo As and When (Thule van den Dam and Hayley Sullivan McInerney)
November 21 & 22 @ DigiBC Creative Tech Studio, 577 Great Northern Way
A new immersive production from As and When who came to re:Naissance through its 2024 Convergence Cohort — a skill development program for emerging artistic producers. Willilish’d explores themes of memory, emotion, change, and motherhood with both lullabies and loop pedals as material. The artists present a narrative soundscape, transforming fragments of nursery rhymes into new melodies and beats. Through their use of the loop pedal, audiences witness the construction of new narratives coming alive in unexpected ways.
Future Mythologies
November 26 @ The Annex, 823 Seymour Street
Future Mythologies is an annual presentation of excerpts of new works in development that challenge traditional forms of storytelling — this year will be a collaboration with Chapel Sound Art Foundation and Electronic Music Incubator program, Notebook, featuring musical artists exploring intersections of new sounds and folklore.
Inferno: A Hip Hop Opera by Omari Newton and Amy Lee Lavoie
November 28 & 29 @ DigiBC Creative Tech Studio, 577 Great Northern Way
The musical premiere takes place amidst the rising threat of AI and its erasure of artists, particularly IBPOC creators, this reimagining of Dante’s Inferno is a timely allegory centering the resiliency and ingenuity of communities whose work is often appropriated. In its setting, Hell is reimagined as a Spotify-esque headquarters with protagonists Vie (a music producer) and Mo (an artist turned security guard) embarking on an epic journey to take back the rights to their work. Pairing opera’s emotional richness with hip-hop’s text driven, poetic aesthetics, this production features music that will eventually be released in an album for audiences to stream beyond the festival.
In addition to Inferno and Willilish’d, re:Naissance partner, the DigiBC Creative Tech Studio at the Centre for Digital Media, pushes the boundaries of art and technology’s with select exhibitions featuring music and performance components, such as Tyler Soon’s 120,000 LED light sculpture, Voxelite. This larger-than-life work is connected to the musical game RIFT, where buttons, music, and movement are catalysts for corresponding light patterns and innovative storytelling. Audiences can also interact with Imagining Good Futures: Thunderbird Dreams, a mural that depicts stories from multiple generations of Indigenous artists. Created by IM4 Media Lab the mural invites Indigenous youth, Elders, artists, and technologists in a shared exploration of care, sustainability, unity, and kinship.
IndieFest presented by re:Naissance, runs November 20-29, 2025 at various locations. For the full IndieFest line-up and tickets visit at indiefest.ca. Early Bird Tickets are on sale until October 21, for Inferno and Willilish’d. Regular Tickets go on sale October 22. Free admission is available to Indigenous, Inuit, and Métis peoples.