Brief Encounters http://tomorrowcollective.com/

Brief Encounters is a multidisciplinary performance experiment designed to fuse disciplines and push artistic boundaries. Brief Encounters was created by The Tomorrow Collective in 2005, and is produced by Katy Harris-McLeod and Mara Branscombe. For each installment the producers pick twelve inspiring artists/creators and match them in 6 unusual pairings. Two weeks prior to the show dates the artists are allowed meet with their partner and begin working. From this point on, the only criteria is that the piece be a new collaborative effort.

Brief Encounters is about the mixing of mediums and the crossing of artistic cultures. The collective created this event out of an interest in cross-pollination between art forms, audience education and the excitement of creation under-the-gun. The result is the creation and performance of cutting-edge collaborative work between artists who had likely not previously met, let alone worked together. The pieces that emerge from the Brief Encounters pairings fuse, cross over, interrupt and co-create new perspectives on artistic forms and the relationships between them. To date, the The Tomorrow Collective has produced 156 different artists in Vancouver over the 14 installments of Brief Encounters, as well as 10 artists in Nanaimo.