A Wake of Vultures' K Body and Mind returns in live multimedia form, May 4 to 7 at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts
Sci-fi miniseries debuted in virtual form in 2020; now it hits the stage with a big screen, robotic choreography, and more
Donna Soares and Jasmine Chen in a still from K Body and Mind.
K Body and Mind is at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts from May 4 to 7. There is also a Wednesday livestreaming show.
SCI-FI-CHARGED K Body and Mind is finally seeing its live premiere this week, after a virtual version debuted at the height of lockdown in 2020.
Created by A Wake of Vultures’ 2019 Siminovitch Prize Protégé winner Conor Wylie, the genre-defying mini-series follows a security agent who must protect her body-share start-up The Grove, which engineers bodies to be shared between multiple people. An unknown, hostile virus is trying to colonize it, threatening a utopian future society where citizens exist so peacefully that they can cohabit the same body, without hunger and sickness,
The show interweaves cinematic sound, minimalist visuals, and robotic choreography—adding up to what Vultures describe as a puzzle for the audience. For this rendition, the company employs a big screen where it projects two of three episodes, engaging with the filmed material through live performance, movement, and design; the cast then performs the third episode in its entirety.
Its creators draw on everything from cyberpunk to silent film and video games for the show’s stylized look and feel; you can read more about it in our interview with Wylie about the mini-series’ first installation here.
A Wake of Vultures, an interdisciplinary collective based out of Vancouver. K Body and Mind features the work of Wylie’s collaborators, sound designer Nancy Tam and visual designer Daniel O’Shea. Wylie, Tam, and O’Shea have been partners since their studies at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, and formed A Wake of Vultures officially in 2013. Together, the trio investigate their shared interest in science fiction, reality and perception, video games, and anime through multimedia explorations, including audio walks, theatre productions, and installations.
Catch up on the K Body and Mind universe, because you'll be seeing more of it in different forms: Wylie reports the company has got a grant to expand the sci-fi universe of our work through three collaborations, including an animated short film, a manga, and more.
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