IndieFest 2025 – Colliding Art Forms Across Vancouver

Dates: November 20–29, 2025
Locations: Multiple venues across Vancouver, including DigiBC Creative Tech Studio, Lobe Studio, and The Annex
Presented By: re:Naissance Opera
Festival Theme: Colliding Art Forms
Website: IndieFest 2025 – re:Naissance Opera

Festival Overview

IndieFest 2025 returns for its sixth year, celebrating boundary-pushing performance, emerging technologies, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. This year’s theme, “Colliding Art Forms,” highlights how artists, technologists, and storytellers are blending genres, practices, and mediums to redefine the future of performing arts.

Presented by re:Naissance Opera, IndieFest takes place November 20–29 across multiple Vancouver venues and features immersive theatre, sonic installations, hip-hop opera, multimedia showcases, and community-driven artistic gatherings. The festival continues its mission to nurture equity-deserving voices and bridge artistic communities that often work in silos.

The 2025 lineup includes new works-in-progress, world premieres, collaborative laboratory sessions, and immersive digital experimentation—all designed to spark dialogue, connection, and artistic innovation.

Opening Gathering

November 20, DigiBC Creative Tech Studio
Tickets: PWYC $10–$15

The festival opens with a community gathering led by interdisciplinary artist fanny kearse. The event features three short performances from Convergence Cohort artists—Kristina Lao, Alyssa Samson, and Van Le Fan—and offers opportunities for attendees to connect across disciplines. Installations from Signals: Creative Tech Expo will also be on display.

Willilish’d

November 21 & 22, DigiBC Creative Tech Studio
Tickets: General admission available

Created by Thule van den Dam and Hayley Sullivan McInerney, Willilish’d is an immersive production exploring memory, motherhood, and transformation. Through quad sound, archival audio, and re-composed nursery rhymes, the work transforms intimate family histories into a multilayered experience at the intersection of design, theatre, and sound art.

DEPTHS – A 4D Spatial Audio Installation

November 23, Lobe Studio
Tickets: $19.99

A collaboration between Lobe Studio and guest curator Vanessa Yuen, DEPTHS by Audio Essentia guides audiences through an immersive sonic ceremony that blends advanced spatial audio technology with Indigenous wisdom traditions. The installation incorporates Shipibo Icaros, binaural beats, and environmental soundscapes to explore themes of shadow, consciousness, and healing.

Creative Collisions: Open Screen. Open Mic. Open Jam.

November 25, DigiBC Creative Tech Studio
Tickets: $5

This first-of-its-kind Immersive Jam Session brings together technologists, performers, XR creators, and musicians in an open environment designed for experimentation. Visitors can explore four interactive zones, including a 270° projection cube, LED light sculpture, immersive stage, and lounge screens, while artists present works-in-progress and spontaneous collaborations.

Artists can join the jam by completing the intake form on the IndieFest website.

Future Mythologies

November 26, The Annex
Tickets: $19.99

A festival favourite, Future Mythologies showcases three new works-in-development created by artists pushing the future of storytelling. Through excerpts and facilitated dialogue between audiences and creators, the evening highlights intersectional, experimental, and folklore-inspired performances.
This year’s program is curated in collaboration with Chapel Sound and Notebook, an electronic music incubator.

Inferno: A Hip Hop Opera – Concert Experience

November 28 & 29, DigiBC Creative Tech Studio
Tickets: General admission available

One of the most anticipated events of the festival, Inferno: A Hip Hop Opera takes another major step toward a full production with a concert presentation of its complete script and music.

Created by Omari Newton and Amy Lee Lavoie, the work merges hip hop, rap, beatboxing, R&B, and contemporary opera to celebrate IBPOC voices.
Featuring vocalists Teiya Kasahara, Leo DE Johnson, Kimmortal, and Scribbly Doodle, Inferno reimagines Dante’s classic as a feminist, anti-colonial allegory set in a dystopian, Spotify-like corporate headquarters.

The story follows two artists, Vie and Mo, as they fight to reclaim stolen music and challenge a corrupt industry—facing each “layer of hell” in the process.

Festival Mission: Colliding Art Forms & Expanding Possibilities

IndieFest is built on the belief that art evolves through connection—between disciplines, technologies, cultural experiences, and emerging creative voices. The festival provides a platform for immersive practices, XR storytelling, contemporary opera, hip-hop, sound art, and experimental performance to intersect in bold and unexpected ways.

Tickets & Updates

Festival tickets, early-bird offers, and event passes are available through:
re:Naissance Opera on Showpass

For media inquiries:
Ines Min
Email: ines@inesmin.com
Phone: +1 604 440 0791

Why You Should Attend

• Experience cutting-edge, technology-driven performance

• Engage with emerging and equity-deserving artists

• Discover new forms of storytelling across dance, opera, theatre, digital art, and music

• Support a festival shaping the future of interdisciplinary arts in Vancouver

• Explore multiple venues hosting immersive and experimental installations

Discover More Theatre & Arts Events Across Metro Vancouver

Find more festivals, live performances, and creative experiences at Vancouver Page – Discover Local Events.