Live Acts Festival | 2025

Week 1: March 11 – 15 // Week 2: April 1 – 5, 2025
Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre and Assembly Space
SFU School for the Contemporary Arts
149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver

Tickets: Students: $10 // SFU Faculty, Staff & Alumni: $15 // Seniors: $15 // General: $20

Find program-by-program ticket links below!

The culmination of creative research over two semesters, the Live Acts Festival 2025 is a presentation of BFA capstone projects created by SCA Theatre & Performance and Dance Majors. Over two weeks, 18 artists present solo or group works in a series of double bill programs, across three unique stage configurations – Proscenium, Alley, and in the Round – in the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre.

Featuring Marissa Capron, Claire Duhamel, Katie Gherasim, Jae Gonzales, Lachlan Harris-Fiesel, Ruby Henderson, Jillian Jarin, Ruby Maher, Sandra Medeiros, Isabella Luna Onorato, Katie Schauerte, Lia Sieben, Janinne Swaby, TJ Tan, Ryan Tsang, Ruby Wu, Viviane Wu, and Clara Xu.

Special Thanks

Technical Director: Ben Rogalsky
Manager, Production and Events: Emily Newman
Faculty Advisors: Kyla Gardiner, Rob Kitsos, James Long, Wladimiro Woyno Rodriguez
Technical Assistance: Goldcorp Center for the Arts Production and Events Services team

The Live Acts Festval was created and is presented on the ancestral and stolen land of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

Programs & Ticket Links

PROGRAM ONE | March 11 & 14 | 7:30 PM | Tickets: In the Middle + Thalassalexis

In the Middle by Lia Sieben (Dance)

How do we reclaim agency when our inner voices are overshadowed by the demands and expectations of others?

In the Middle examines the experience of feeling mentally trapped, navigating the weight of expectations, and external pressures to fit in. Drawing upon themes of resistance and surrender, the choreography embodies the internal struggle that one may face under pressure. The movement is characterised by the integration of push and pull, spirals, contact, and floor work. Dancers resist, support and yield to one another, demonstrating the mental and emotional toll that these pressures induce. The progression of the piece builds through structured phrases and patterns, only to be dismantled and unravelled, symbolising the breakdown and reclaiming of one’s identity. The audience is invited to reflect on their own internal battles and the power dynamics that shape their choices.

This performance contains loud noises and flashing lights.

Choreographer: Lia Sieben
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Kirsi Jiao
Music/Sound: Hanstimm & Dasgoat, music arranged by Lia Sieben
Stage Manager: Sunny Lee
Lighting Operator: Edison Cheung
Sound Operator: Vanessa Yuen
Performers: Lia Sieben, Teddy Brubacher, Reese Wynne Magnayon

Special thanks to dancers for their contributions and willingness to try new things.

Thalassalexis by Marissa Capron (Theatre & Performance)

Thalassalexis is an immersive performance blending spoken word, Bahamian/Caribbean dance, and storytelling to explore the meaning of my name: Marissa Alexis, “Defender of the Sea.” Using water, puppetry, video projection, and lighting, the performance evokes critical reflections on the sea’s beauty and fragility and asks, “How does one become a Defender of the Sea?” The project explores human impact, climate change, and the deadliest hurricane to ever strike The Bahamas, Hurricane Dorian. These devastating forces challenge my sense of self and highlight humanity’s complicity in major weather events. 

Thalassalexis draws inspiration from Junkanoo, Caribbean literature, feminist marine perspectives, and Tidalectics. These influences frame a recollective journey where I reclaim my identity embodying the duality as human and “Mar” (Sea) as well as a “Defender.” The performance invites audiences to confront their own complicities and reflect on their role in shaping the future of the seas. By integrating cultural motifs and interdisciplinary performance, Thalassalexis bridges the gap between individual identity and the environment, inspiring collective reckoning in a world shaped by environmental challenges.  

This performance contains bright and flashing lights and audience participation.

Director and Performer: Marissa Capron
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Kirsi Jiao
Music/Sound: Junkanoo music, songs by Nita, Stevie S and Cleophus R. E. Adderley
Stage Manager: Sunny Lee
Lighting Operator: Edison Cheung
Sound Operator: Vanessa Yuen

Special thanks to: Justine A. Chambers, Colleen Bayati, Patrick Maka, and Charles Major

PROGRAM TWO | March 11 & 14 | 8:45 PM | Tickets: Deer Stop + The Semicolon Backbracket Mime Show

PROGRAM FOUR | March 13 @ 7:30 PM & March 15 @ 8:45 PM | Tickets: WORD VOMIT + Possessive Perception

WORD VOMIT by Viviane Wu (Theatre & Performance)

In an increasingly globalised society, interactions between various socio-cultural backgrounds demand certain shifts in communication. Whether through language acquisition, gestures, symbols, facial expressions, or slang, communication remains a constant, unceasing exchange that continuously shapes our interactions. WORD VOMIT is a multilingual experimental performance that combines and challenges the three communication types defined by linguistics—verbal, non-verbal, and synthetic—to explore the various methods of communicating the universal need to use the restroom.

This performence contains flashing images (CRT TV), gagging/regurgitation, and audience participation.

Director: Viviane Wu
Technical Director: Hailey Gil
Lighting Design: Hailey Gil
Video Design: Kaila Bhullar
Stage Manager: Vania Ngok
Lighting Operator: Miranda Collard
Sound Operator: Tamara Trbaric
Performers: Viviane Wu, Camille Millar and Inkara Julmagambetova

Special thanks to: Kevin Nguyen, Adrian Schmidt, and Theo Seto

Possessive Perception by Ruby Wu (Theatre & Performance)

Possessive Perception blends dreamlike moments with sensory experiences to explore a relationship that is either a personal situationship or a political conflict. Moving through colonial and post-colonial periods, the story exists in a dream world, where three actors—one male neutral character and two female characters representing Taiwan and China—navigate their complex connections. The female characters act like shadows of each other, constantly reflecting and mirroring each other’s actions and emotions. While the male character serves as a guide, actively bringing the characters together and keeping them apart.   

Scent is used throughout the performance to heighten the emotional atmosphere, with different smells representing different moods and political situations. Simple staging, lighting, and costumes aspire to add to the dreamlike feel of the piece.   

By combining dream logic, political themes, and our olfactory senses, the performance invites the audience to see the relationship between Taiwan and China as both personal and political. It challenges the audience to consider our deep entanglements of identity, relationship, and history.

This performence contains the scent of green tea, flashing images, and loud noises.

Director: Ruby Wu
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Hailey Gil
Music/Sound: Ruby Wu
Stage Manager: Vania Ngok
Lighting Operator: Miranda Collard
Sound Operator: Tamara Trbaric
Performers: Ruby Wu, Dawn Ka and Athena Chan

PROGRAM FIVE | April 1 & 4 | 7:30 PM | Tickets: Inter Views + Paper Trails

Inter Views by Clara Xu (Dance)

Inter Views examines the emergence and transfer of our inherited data, comprised of our lived experiences and interactions. A movement piece performed with improvisational scores and crafted movement, the work explores real-time processing, human-to-technology interfacing, and the relationship of a user to a product. A series of isolations become one entity, processing frame-by-frame as they travel through the space. When they join, it is a challenge of both the performers and the audience to process the impulses their body holds, and the memories that jump to the forefront of their minds. This performance is part-lecture, part-interview, with the stage as an interface display, and mobile devices as a singular point of connection. 

This performance contains high-pitched noises.

Choreographer: Clara Xu
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Hannah Azam
Music/Sound: Arr. by Clara Xu
Stage Manager: Yuliia Piekh
Lighting Operator: Angela Peng
Sound Operator: Hermella Araya
Performers: Clara Xu, Vivien Dang, Naz Ozlu, Yulia Liu

Paper Trails by Jae Gonzales (Theatre & Performance)

Paper Trails is a shared exploration of grief through gathered sources. In this show, audience members become the performers as they read and enact texts and gestures drawn from the creative team. The language consists of letters written to loved ones, childhood stories, scripted dialogue, instructions, and physical gestures developed from these sources. Audience members will create the story and performance as they move through the materials. Paper Trails was created to ask audiences two questions: How do we grieve, remember, and let go? and, What will you risk for togetherness?

This performance contains audience participation and light haze.

Director: Jae Gonzales
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Hannah Azam
Music/Sound: June Hsu
Stage Manager: Yuliia Piekh
Lighting Operator: Angela Peng
Sound Operator: Hermella Araya
Performers: Sarah Carter, Indah Del Bianco, Matteo Giannetta, Jae Gonzales, Darren Stewart, Mike Waddell

Special thanks: Bernice Paet

PROGRAM SIX | April 1 & 4 | 8:45 PM | Tickets: wanna not be everywhere + The 2025 BURARA Fashion Show: “Cleaning Couture"

wanna not be everywhere by Katie Schauerte (Dance)

Running as fast as you can but moving slowly through space…being chased by someone you know, but don’t recognise…

wanna not be everywhere, is a creation of opposing things that somehow make sense. Focusing on dreamlogic, this piece creates a dreamscape highlighting the odd structures and shifting visual aspects of dreams. The work attempts to capture the textures of dreams through movement and gesture, without setting a central narrative. The work explores dream-like elements of glitching, dropping, transforming, shapeshifting, restart, replay, and shifting perspectives.

This performance contains heavy haze and flashing lights.

Choreographer: Katie Schauerte
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Xinyi Wang
Music/Sound: Manoah Epp
Stage Manager: Dawn Ka
Lighting Operator: Hermella Araya
Sound Operator: Angela Peng
Performers: Daisy de Kroon, Maralee Grace, Sonja Kwantes, Isabella Onorato, Sophie Riedl, Jeya Thiessen, Sarah Wilson

The 2025 BURARA Fashion Show: "Cleaning Couture" by Jillian Jarin (Theatre & Performance)

The 2025 BURARA Fashion Show: "Cleaning Couture" stems from my ongoing research that asks how we might make the invisible, visible? Throughout the work's development, I have researched traditional fashion shows, iconic fashion brands, and observed cleaning routines that my parents practice daily as Custodians. These inspirations emerge as gestures, narratives, and silhouettes for my fashion pieces and the glorification of the often overlooked. The audience is invited to experience a fashion show that blends creative fashion designs with the overlooked beauty and significance of everyday routine. Growing up with Filipino parents who are full-time custodians, I realized their dreams were not to clean, but their cleaning has allowed me to live out my dreams.

This performance contains light haze, flashing lights, and sanitiser smell.

Director: Jillian Jarin
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Xinyi Wang
Music/Sound: Jillian Jarin
Stage Manager: Dawn Ka
Lighting Operator: Hermella Araya
Sound Operator: Angela Peng
Performers: Jillian Jarin, Lashaan Tonge, Josh Tonge, Sam Bursh, Caelee Macdonald, Sebastian Sanchez, Emmy Reid, Eric Stad, Anna Genereux, Emily Harker

PROGRAM SEVEN | April 2 @ 7:30 PM & April 5 @ 2:00 PM | Tickets: Nostalgia Nostalgia + Screaming into the Dark

Nostalgia Nostalgia by Katie Gherasim (Theatre & Performance)

Nostalgia and Nostalgia explores how grief shapes and defines the relationship between the living and their deceased loved ones. Mourning serves as an expression of grief, and the way one chooses to mourn can influence their ongoing connection with the departed. In moments of dismay, anger, or reminiscence, there are opportunities for self-discovery and forced transformation, but also for new insights into this unique relationship. 

Through the lens of time, the deceased seem ever-present, existing in the shifting interplay of memory and the current experiences of the bereaved. Contrasting emotions, such as nostalgia and sadness, coexist within a grieving individual. This overlap of memory and present begs the question: Are the dead truly gone? 

Nostalgia and Nostalgia seeks to create a space where performers and audiences can openly explore and express the emotions and associations tied to death—feelings often dismissed or avoided. Every loss is profoundly personal, and each person’s grief is uniquely their own, even when mourning the same individual. While no one can fully understand another’s grief or their process of healing, there is recognition and solace to be found within a community. This project aims to provide a much-needed space for mourning—a space where grief is not only acknowledged but embraced.  

This performance contains grief/death, loud sounds/high pitched noise, flashing lights and flashing images (CRT TV).

Director: Katie Gherasim
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Claire Jia
Music/Sound: Kai MacDonnell
Video Design: Theo Badzio, Anastasia Shatska, and Diana de Leyssac
Stage Manager: Sara Van Gaalen
Lighting Operator: Sally Mao
Sound Operator: Ryan Walsh
Performers: Katie Gherasim, Emma Ciprian, Elie DeCorby

Special thanks to: Rosemary Morrison 

Screaming into the Dark by Lachlan Harris-Fiesel (Theatre & Performance)

Screaming into the Dark is a new work led by Lachlan Harris-Fiesel as a part of the SCA’s 2025 Live Acts Festival. Inspired by existentialism and the mourning of a close family friend, this show puts humanity’s virtues, vices, and need for a purpose on full display as it attempts to explore how an ordinary person can leave a trace of themselves after they die. Society remembers certain figures like Alexander the Great or Neil Armstrong for the great and terrible things they achieved but is it also possible to be remembered through the love and kindness you show to the world? These questions confront a group of smartly dressed human-like beings as they debate the need to be remembered.  

This show is dedicated to the memory of Kyle Scott.

This performance contains violence, foul language, sexually themed discussions, talk of substance use and/or substance use and flashing lights.

Director: Lachlan Harris-Fiesel
Technical Director: Rue Larson
Lighting Design: Claire Jia
Music/Sound: Miles Davis
Stage Manager: Sara Van Gaalen
Lighting Operator: Sally Mao
Sound Operator: Ryan Walsh
Performers: Megan Battad, Raunuk Chand, Lachlan Harris-Fiesel, Rosemary Morrison, and Xzana Nesbitt

Special thanks to: Kaitlyn Harvie, Lance Harris-Fiesel, my parents: Corrine Fiesel and Murray Harris, and every other friend and family member who made this show a possibility.

PROGRAM EIGHT | April 2 @ 8:45 PM & April 5 @ 3:15 PM | Tickets: Tendederos + The Secret Ingredient

Tendederos by Isabella Luna Onorato (Dance)

How do we navigate our connections to cultural influences?  How do we locate ourselves in our lived layers of experiences?  How do we find our own expression from our home roots and the greater world?    

Tendederos is a piece created with contemporary and flamenco techniques, finding dynamic connectivity and differences between these forms. This process included Flamenco foot and arm work, contemporary floor work, techniques of improvisation, writing, music creation, first impulses, and working with momentum. This piece explores themes of nostalgia, culture, tradition, Latino heritage, the passage of time, and the interconnectivity of life.

This performance may contain strobe lighting effects.

Choreographer: Isabella Luna Onorato
Technical Director: Edison Cheung
Lighting Design: Mars de Menezes
Music/Sound: Nicolas Gregoire/ Isabella Onorato
Stage Manager: Kady Brandel
Lighting Operator: Ez Johnson
Sound Operator: Sally Mao
Performers: Lauren Butterfield, Hannah Latta, Claire Martin

The Secret Ingredient by Sandra Medeiros (Theatre & Performance)

The Secret Ingredient is a new work of contemporary performance responding to the question of how past memories might shape our personal narratives. The work is presented as a deconstructed cooking show, performed in the round and explores familial histories, nostalgia, and Portuguese culture. Childhood reminisces, puppetry, and 80s choreography mix with the cooking of traditional dishes.  

This performance contians possible allergens of onions, garlic, potatoes, salt and pepper.

Director: Sandra Medeiros
Technical Director: Edison Cheung
Lighting Design: Mars de Menezes
Music/Sound: Mars de Menezes
Stage Manager: Kady Brandel
Lighting Operator: Ez Johnson
Sound Operator: Sally Mao
Performers: Sandra Medeiros & Sandy Medeiros

A big fat obrigada to Fatima Medeiros, the best mom and cook in the world; the awesomest little sis Sandy Medeiros, who came out of retirement for this; and to the fabulous Karen Hamm, Theatre Therapist. 

PROGRAM NINE | April 3 & 5 | 7:30 PM | Tickets: Start a Riot + Terris' Terrace

Start a Riot by Janinne Swaby (Dance)

Start a Riot is a work centred on creating a Black space through Hip Hop as a locus for self-determination, pleasure, freedom and comfort. This project speaks to my four years of feeling out of place in this program, with no sense of community or relation in the ways I would have loved. But in the same breath, this project allows me to create a space where I can be the realest and most authentic version of myself. With my predominantly black cast by my side, performing a piece representing who I am as an artist, brings a sense of connection and empowerment to both myself and the space that I am ever so grateful to have created! The movement is supported through the rhythms and textures of Hip Hop and RnB music. As a dance form birthed in a time of revolutionary changes within the black population, Hip Hop is a site of joy and self-actualization. Start a Riot holds me and the dancers so that we can be our fullest and most true selves.

This performance contains music with explicit language.

Choreographer: Janinne Swaby
Technical Director: Hailey Gil
Lighting Design: Sky Logan
Music/Sound: Heavy Stunt by Yëat ft. Don Toliver/Drugs n Hella Melodies by Don Toliver ft. Kali Uchis/IDGAF by Drake ft. Yëat
Stage Manager: Avery Warren
Lighting Operator: Ryan Walsh
Sound Operator: Ez Johnson
Performers: Elizabeth Alabi, Ciama Andeku, Ashley Bayiha, Amaya Branco-Sibiya, Daniel Brown, Kaleah Crump, Shiya Gray, Felicity Kuyena, Kyanne Lawrence, Shaqueel Lawrence, Cayce Niemelainen, Manny Obi, Mofe Olagesin, Ava Smith, Janinne Swaby, Jordana Swaby, Younathan Terefe, Conlan Wood

Terris' Terrace by TJ Tan (Theatre & Performance)

Terris’ Terrace is an educational children’s show designed to teach life lessons. Through the lens of this familiar genre, the piece explores the fragility of short-term memory as the main character increasingly struggles to remember their lines or actions in what should be a rehearsed performance.  

The fragility of memory and the collapse of constructed realities drive the work, and this journey reveals the instability of the show’s constructed world. As the Host of Terris’ Terrace struggles to maintain control, the set and their sense of purpose gradually unravel, creating a tension between what should or could be.  

Audiences are invited to reflect on how we process and retain information, both in the real world and in theatrical contexts. The disintegration of the show's structure fosters an unsettling atmosphere, challenging viewers to confront the idea of their “next steps” when certainty crumbles.

This performance contains possible explicit language, themes of memory loss and existentialism.

Director: TJ Tan
Technical Director: Hailey Gil
Lighting Design: Sky Logan
Music/Sound: TJ Tan with music by Gold-Tiger and Bobby Darin
Stage Manager: Avery Warren
Lighting Operator: Ryan Walsh
Sound Operator: Ez Johnson
Performers: TJ Tan, Calliope Chen, Kherl Atienza, Mike Waddell

Biographies