Monk v Assassin: Directors Nathan + Charlotte dig into Charlotte and NOW-ID’s spatial and choreographic influences, collaborative partnership, and where one goes after death.
This conversation is less about arriving at clear answers and more about sitting inside the questions, following where they lead, and seeing what emerges in the space between two perspectives.
Listen to the episode here
Jesse Walker in Montreal, Canada, 2025
As part of NOW-ID’s Ne Plus Ultra interview series—highlighting artists and designers creating impactful work—we are excited to feature longtime collaborator and friend, DJ Jesse Walker.
A key figure in underground dance music and community culture, Walker’s influence spans Idaho, Salt Lake City, and his current base in Vancouver, BC. Since teaching himself to DJ in 1993, he has built a career rooted in independence, experimentation, and connection.
In 1998, he founded New City Movement (NCM), helping shape Salt Lake City into a recognized hub for house music and creative exchange. As a DJ, his sets are immersive and soulful, and he has appeared at major events including the Sundance Film Festival, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Treefort Music Festival.
Walker’s practice extends beyond music into design and multidisciplinary collaboration, working with organizations such as the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, the Utah Arts Festival, and NOW-ID. Now based in Vancouver, he continues to cultivate community, support emerging talent, and create spaces for shared experience.
Cynthia Walker (top left), with Sugarfoote (Photo: Clay Walker)
I grew up in a rural suburb of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Think wide open, windy, lava rock, sagebrush and dirt roads going nowhere in particular. It wasn't the worst place to be a daydreamy kid with time to kill. Music came early, through my mother, who sang in an all-female country band called Sugarfoote, and was encouraged throughout my childhood with piano and voice lessons, including community and school choirs. Having dyslexia and ADD, I never really learned to read music in the traditional sense. I was taught Suzuki method, where you play by ear first, which turned out to be a gift.
Piano recital at church
Music was my first passion, escalating with my fascination with FM radio. I'd race down to my bedroom after three hours of Mormon church on Sundays, finger on the tape record button waiting for the top tunes on Casey Kasem's 'American Top 40' countdown. Another four hours well spent with no fast-forward. The soaring power ballads, moody modern rock, new wave, hip-house, and synth-driven pop sparked something in me. I was awakened pivotally by Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation 1814" concept album, Depeche Mode's late-80s trilogy of 'Music for the Masses,' '101,' and 'Violator' and similar mould-breaking artists... Madonna, The Smiths, New Order, George Michael, Blur, Deee-Lite, Erasure, etc. Remix culture was reaching new heights, not just for disco DJs, and the 12-inch single became a kind of holy object to me even before I could afford vinyl. Studying liner notes and remixer credits led me to all kinds of electronic music coming out of NYC, Detroit, and the UK like Moby, Orbital, Richie Hawtin, and The Orb.
I was also the front man for a kind of melancholic, introspective, not terribly good band in high school with my friends. We played shows around town, then organized several quite successful 'alternative music' festivals, which had me dabbling in poster design and emboldened my music tastes and a desire to perform even further.
The Kirkyards (high school band photo — at the cemetery, of course)
The first rave Jesse attended
Jesse with fashion designer Jared Gold at The Vortex SLC, 1995.
It started with a rave. A now legendary local fashion designer, candy maker, and promoter by the name of Jared Gold brought DJs in from California to take over an 18+ college dance club in Rexburg, Idaho and that completely rewired my brain. The fashion, the attitude, and strobe lights! It was the punch of full spectrum color I didn't know I'd been missing. Everything clicked together. I started following him everywhere, an insatiable student. He introduced me to a DIY culture, screen printing, Barbarella, My Bloody Valentine, Andy Warhol, John Waters, and my first drag queens. A whole vocabulary handed to me all at once.
Becoming a DJ was everything to me in that moment. I cobbled together a mismatched pair of home stereo turntables and a Peavey club mixer and taught myself to beatmatch on records I'd picked up on trips to Salt Lake City, which was a three-and-a-half hour drive each way. I'd make that trip to buy vinyl, attend parties, or even rent a single club light or fog machine that weren't available in Idaho, return them the following week only to buy more records. Eventually that led to moving to Utah immediately after high school to continue working in nightlife with Jared.
One turning point, as far as DJs go, was watching Doc Martin (LA) work three turntables at a downtown super club, the Vortex. He toured with Deee-Lite and had this high-octane, tribal, train-about-to-go-off-the-tracks style of playing house music that blended the best the West Coast, NYC, and London scenes had to offer. That opened my mind to the possibilities of what a truly experienced, multi-dimensional DJ can do.
I try to always have a sense of the mood or arc I want to build, but the best sets happen when you're listening as much as playing. If you are fluent in your catalog and are organized, it's easier to jump around and follow the energy. I like to lure people into a false sense of security, then flip the script. Main priority is a high taste level above all else and not forgetting to have fun. Very important.
On the event side, the same logic applies at a larger scale. I learned from watching Jared how creating a flammable cocktail of contrasting elements can make any party sing (or get the cops called on you). Other influential collaborators have taught me a lot about the power of giving people ownership in the process, and the ongoing importance of equity and equality in dance music and beyond. If people feel seen, and safe, they can be themselves fully and that's a rare and beautiful thing.
Jesse playing vinyl at Bricks Club, 1997.
Yes, absolutely. There's an emotional logic to a great set. You draw people in, then hopefully take them somewhere they didn't expect to go. I think it's more important for takeoff and landing, whereas the middle part is where a great DJ can play anything and make it make sense.
Anywhere between 90 minutes and three-plus hours is standard for experienced DJs. More enjoyable to stretch out and play with range. I used to go six or longer back when I had a warehouse of my own hosting afterparties. It's good to plan your very best, and be prepared for the worst. If you're in sync with your music library and state of mind, you can reach a flow state between you and the dance floor that can be pure magic.
I definitely flourished living in Salt Lake. After playing what felt like hundreds of small gigs at raves, house parties, restaurants, and dive bars, I started getting residencies at reputable venues where I could test out concept nights and hone my craft. The Urban Lounge, Manhattan Club, Bricks, Axis, The Red Door, Club Blue, and the mighty W Lounge come to mind. I had several important mentors who gave me up close and personal access to traveling DJs, opportunities, and experiences I'll never forget, like tagging along to go crate digging with "CJ" Mackintosh, who's responsible for adding the scratching element to M|A|R|R|S' 1987 hit "Pump Up the Volume."
Outside of clubland, the incomparable Gary Vlasic brought me in for high-profile corporate gigs like museum galas, downtown art activations, fundraisers, and festivals, including Sundance, which led to even bigger opportunities performing at Utah Pride, during the 2002 Winter Olympics, and opening for acts like Empire of the Sun, Crystal Waters, and En Vogue. Working with NOW-ID on many site specific projects has been beyond rewarding as well.
Throughout all of this, my collective New City Movement with Matthew Fit and lots of other amazing people has tried to build something that is about more than just nightlife. It's been about creating our own fun, community, and activating culture in a city that's needed the occasional nudge.
My DJ style is warm, gay, and groovy, always reaching for emotive. Rooted in the history of vocal, funky, acid house, and disco, I like to ride the line between current and classic, familiar and underground.
NYE at Urban Lounge, 2025
They are strangely similar in scale, both mid-size markets, but the energies and emphasis can differ. Utahns are pretty chatty and boisterous, often because they're genuinely excited to find anyone who cares about music the way they do. There's a wild-west spirit to existing in Salt Lake, generally, that's exciting and exhausting in equal measure. Over the past decade it's had a real renaissance of after-hours nightlife and emerging talent thanks to hard working party promoters of all stripes. I feel like it's on the map more than ever before, post-Covid.
Vancouver club goers are perhaps a bit more informed about who they're going out to support. They definitely show up in force, stay beginning to end, and commit to the experience. The Pacific Northwest has produced many world-class, connected DJs, labels and festivals, and people here take music seriously. Both places share our current struggle with venues, budgets, and city governments that don't always recognize what we do as culturally valuable. Nine times out of ten these are some of the safest, most self-policing communities you'll find anywhere. A tradition built and protected by Black, brown, trans and queer people, and it deserves to be treated with that kind of care and respect.
Events with real intention behind them, where they shake up the norms, where the artists, the environment, audience and music are all in conversation with each other. Queer events and underground parties have always felt like home for that exact reason.
We just wrapped our 16th annual Bunny Hop easter event in SLC raising close to $16k for local charities. So proud of everyone involved with that modest legacy.
Right now I'm deep in co-curating and hosting this year's Public Disco Pride Block Party with DJ Dood, one of the most creatively satisfying things I've taken on since moving to Vancouver. And I'm regularly playing with different collectives, including the crew I've been welcomed into here, Main Street Dance Authority, who've been doing something really special at the Lido every second Saturday for over a year now. There's cool stuff happening in this city on tight margins, for the right reasons.
One of Jesse’s first turntables. A highly regarded vintage Marantz 3200 from the mid-1970s plus a Technics SL-B2.
Contrast, more than any one thing. I'm a huge proponent of listening to and appreciating all kinds of music, art, film and culture at large. I think it makes for a more interesting DJ and a more interesting you. I love experiencing things that aren't necessarily my taste or my crowd sometimes, because it forces you to reflect and grow.
My husband Mark gives me daily creative inspiration and support. He's the most innately creative, capable person I’ve ever met. We have a dream dialogue going between us and our world, and he has been there for me every step of the way.
Jesse with husband Mark Hofeling
Barcelona, Mexico City, Medellín and Berlin are all creating something vital right now. Chicago and Detroit never stopped being foundational. So much of what the rest of the world is doing with dance music traces back there. And Montreal, here in Canada, is wholly unique. Stereo is still one of the best clubs in the world, and MUTEK, the avant-garde electronic music and digital arts festival, is something I'd very much like to experience.
Specifically right now, DJ Soos, a Mexico City-based producer blending dubby house, dreamy downtempo and nostalgic techno. I saw him play last week and it was everything I hoped for. Saya Gray and Rochelle Jordan are doing extraordinary things at the crossroads of experimental pop, R&B, and electronic music. The 46-track TRAИƧA compilation that came out in 2024 celebrating trans and non-binary artists genuinely moved me. A record store owner in SLC also turned me on to Jimi Tenor, a Finnish multi-instrumentalist blending jazz, afrobeat, funk and electronics, and I love stuff like that. Seeing Air perform at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Johnny Marr of the Smiths, and New Order's Peter Hook & The Light were also major highlights.
Beyond all of that, Colored Craig out of LA and New York, and CarrieOnDisco from San Francisco. Both are rooted in vinyl, and Craig is vinyl only, which is rare to see, especially at queer events. We are thrilled to be bringing them both to Vancouver this summer with major Canadian talent for the Pride Block Party. I think it's going to be a sight to see and hear.
More broadly, I'm in a place right now where I'm more energized by championing rising artists than any particular name. Paying it forward is where my attention is.
Being in a dense, walkable, verdant downtown neighborhood by the ocean is completely new for us. I just start walking every day in any direction and find something I haven't seen before. Living on a peninsula creates its own feeling of belonging to a particular place. The West End, the marinas, Stanley Park and beyond. I'm still loving every minute of it.
My husband Mark and I moved here in 2023. He's a dual citizen who has worked in Canadian film and television for years, and we've always had a soft spot for this country's emphasis on collectivism and multiculturalism. I'm applying for citizenship this fall, which feels like its own kind of arrival.
Professionally, I'm moved by the creative people I've found here. There's a wealth of talented designers, architects, small business owners, DJs and promoters making their mark.
They come from the same place, without question. I came up in both without formal schooling. Completely self-taught in design at the school of hard knocks, and eventually getting a real-world education from some genuinely brilliant people. My business partner at MODELIC, Matthew Coles, shaped how I think about design as a daily discipline. His brother Stephen, who helms the Letterform Archive in San Francisco, propelled my love for typography even further.
In both design and DJing I have certain methodical tendencies that get me from point A to Z. I'm always scanning for what's new or interesting around me, I throw it all into a pot and look at it from different angles. A lot of the best ideas arrive in the middle of the night once I've stopped forcing them. Typography and color are my two biggest starting points for any design project. Even just as a reference point, they help me visualize what needs to happen next. Music album art, concert visuals, trends in print media, architecture, and fashion. I'm always watching all of it and letting it feed the output.
I have worked for my share of household names, but the design work I'm most proud of has been for nonprofits and progressive civic organizations. Work that has some stake in the world beyond aesthetics and does actual good on the ground. They also tend to be the best clients.
Public Disco Pride Block Party 2025 (Photo: Alison Boulier)
I performed at last year's Public Disco Pride Block Party and felt immediately in tune with what they're building. A genuine commitment to activating the city and bringing artists in at the highest level. This year, as I mentioned, I've been brought in to co-curate the event with DJ Dood (Elsa Sianas). That's meant dreaming up a wishlist of artists we'd love to bring to Vancouver, then spending weeks working out availability and cost against our budget. Elsa kept us on track and made it an inclusive, fun experience.
I'm especially proud of how much vinyl will be played this year. You don't see this at many queer events and I think it's going to be something special for people who haven't witnessed it before. The event isn't connected to the city's official Pride festivities, but it's happening in the city, in that spirit, and for the community.
Pride to me is an invitation to remember and celebrate the history we share as 2SLGBTQI+ people in the fabric of humanity. Our trials, our triumphs, our ongoing resilience. We can't take for granted the spirit of rebellion and protest that carried us to where we are now. That spirit deserves a party worthy of it.
I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone other than myself at this point, and that's a freeing place to be. I'm happy to be alive. I want to keep finding ways to collaborate on things that let me breathe as an artist rather than just execute as a producer. I want to keep challenging my own craft and stay genuinely curious.
The longer view is towards contribution. I've been the beneficiary of mentors and scenes and communities that handed me so much love and support and let me run wild. I'd like to do the same for others coming up. Championing rising DJs, supporting the culture we're custodians of, and staying in the room long enough to keep being useful to it.
Bunny Hop 2026 (Photo: David Arellano)
Always looking for beautiful and inspiring places for site-specific performances… We are lucky to find some special ones. Vilhelm Lauritzen Terminal in Denmark. Brewing.
Nik Rust, Pamela Goddard, and Toby Barratt - Photo by Bright Photography
As part of NOW-ID’s ongoing interview series, Ne Plus Ultra — which features stories of artists and designers creating inspiring and impactful work — we are delighted to share the insights of Vancouver’s Propellor Studio. Propellor is an independent, multi-disciplinary design studio; if you are in the area, you can visit their gallery on Granville Island to see their latest work alongside curated pieces from other local creators. Fun fact: Principal Nik Rust is the son of architect Paul Rust, who designed NOW-ID founder Nathan Webster’s childhood home in Crescent Beach circa 1977. This one is special to us!
From Propellor’s website:
We thrive on the challenge of creating useful, beautiful, and ecologically minded objects and experiences. Our work spans a broad range of disciplines from lighting and furniture design to spatial design and sculpture. There are threads that run through all of our work - an interest in nature, its forms and systems, a passion for exploring materials, function, and aesthetics, and a desire to make things that will last well into the future.
Nik: Somehow, we all found ourselves in the studio program at Emily Carr in the early nineties. There we met, became fast friends, and by our final year were already working together on art projects. Collaboration felt completely natural at the time, but in retrospect, I suppose it wasn’t a very common thing at all. Not that it was discouraged, but art is primarily framed as a solitary endeavour, so I think the art school system is (or was) organized to foster work in that context...
Toby: A desire to work together and build a studio from the ground up brought the three of us back together in 2000. From the beginning, we wanted to work in a multidisciplinary way, much as we had in school. We had the opportunity to take on a 400-square-foot gallery space on Granville Island attached to the woodshop where Pam was working at the time as a finisher. Use of the shop was included in the rent, so we were fortunate to have an excellent place to make our first pieces and a sweet little gallery in which to show them. Within a year, we were selling our first furniture pieces, Pam had created a line of hand-milled soap, and we had begun our first experiments in lighting. It took some time to gain traction, but a pivotal moment came when a young local restaurateur walked in and said, “Hmmm, I don’t exactly understand what you guys are doing here, but I like it. Can you design some interesting lighting for a new restaurant I’m working on?”
Toby: It took us a while to find our direction with Propellor. The three of us are generalists by nature, and we have always been drawn to working across different modes, methods, and materials. Over time, the idea of designing and making things that are useful, beautiful, and eco-minded became a kind of compass for us, something that helps bring us back to our path when we drift in pursuit of curiosity, novelty, or simply the realities of making a living. Those three principles do not always carry equal weight. Each project asks for its own balance. It can be very difficult to bring all three fully into alignment, but that challenge is part of what keeps the work meaningful for us. With every project, we carry forward a little more knowledge, intuition, and experience, always trying to get closer to that balance.
(Reclaim+Repair: The Mahogany Project - Photos by Rebecca Blissett)
Toby: Reclaim+Repair: The Mahogany Project was a multi-faceted project that clearly defines the ethos of our studio. When the Museum of Vancouver offered us an extraordinary trove of vintage mahogany harvested in Central America between the 1950s and 1970s, we saw an opportunity to do something meaningful with a remarkable material. Working with the museum, we developed an exhibition that invited Vancouver designers and artists to create new works from this reclaimed wood, while also acknowledging the troubled history of extraction tied to it. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the work was directed toward Indigenous-led reforestation initiatives in Central America. For us, the project closely reflects Propellor’s core commitment to creating work that is useful, beautiful, and eco-minded. It supported Vancouver’s design community, honoured the beauty and potential of the mahogany, gave the material a purposeful public life through exhibition and dialogue, and approached sustainability not simply through reuse, but through repair, accountability, and a commitment to regeneration.
(Rift - Burrard Place - Photos by Ema Peter)
Nik: Rift is a pretty dramatic example of how some of our recent work has moved beyond feature lighting fixtures into larger, purely sculptural architectural installations. In the case of Rift, we were approached by the Office of McFarlane Biggar to design and produce a large-scale architectural feature. It was to be a pair of 30-foot screens for the lobby of a large downtown tower project. The brief was fairly straightforward: the screen should feature materials from the existing project interior palette (specifically white oak and bronze), reference the architecture of the tower more broadly, and that the level of transparency of the screen should be subtly variable so it could respond to the differing demands of each part of the lobby; to allow light and sight-lines to transmit in some places, in others to create more of a visual barrier between discrete spaces. In terms of scale and engineering, this project put us more than a little outside our comfort zone, and we were thankful to be working with such competent and supportive collaborators at OMB. Even so, heads were scratched and sleep was lost, but in the end we landed on a concept that we feel responded to the design brief on the one hand, and addressed our concerns around scale and engineering on the other. Most helpfully, it involved only two small primary components. We conceived of it as a kind of giant abacus; the structure is provided by a series of tensioned cables running from floor to ceiling, onto which the oak horizontal elements are threaded like beads. Between the oak slats, a series of center-pivoting bronze anodized panels are sandwiched, creating a kind of louvered effect. Each panel was hand-positioned during installation to create both a sense of overall randomness and the right level of transparency for that particular portion of the screen.
We do have a time-lapse of the installation on our Instagram feed (propellorstudio), which gives a sense of the actual installation if you’re interested...
Toby: Yes, we met at Emily Carr University on Granville Island, started Propellor here, and after a 15-year hiatus, brought our studio back here again. It is simply an ideal place to work. We are part of a community of artists, designers, and entrepreneurs, by the ocean, surrounded by the city, and visited by curious people from around the world.
What more could we ask for?
Propellor Gallery - Granville Island
Nik: It’s different every time, but collaboration is always at the core of our process, not only between us but also with our clients. Often one of us does act as a kind of de facto project manager, and this is usually determined organically, either by where the idea originated, whose wheelhouse the project most readily falls into, or even who has the most bandwidth at the time. Either way, we end up putting our heads together and jamming often, whenever it’s time to focus the vision, tackle technical hurdles, or if the project starts to grind and needs a fresh perspective. Even when things get really challenging, it’s very rare that we all go blank at the same time, there’s always one of us who can come in with a question like "what if we looked at it this way…” and we’re able to keep moving. All that said, we've also made a point of creating space in our practice to explore our own idiosyncratic visions. By setting aside days dedicated to open-ended exploration (prototyping, experimenting, and generally playing) we’re able to explore our own particular (and sometimes peculiar) ideas, which ultimately feed back into and energize our shared design practice. Now, with our new gallery on Granville Island, we also have a venue for the proceeds of these explorations, which has been a lot of fun, and a great way to see how these ideas live in the world.
Nik: I think much of our inspiration comes from right here actually, the city yes, but more specifically the surrounding region. We all spend as much time as we can in the woods, mountains and waterways around Vancouver, and I think that our sense of place and love of the natural world are always intrinsically informing our designs and material choices. Also, despite not having been there, we draw a lot of inspiration from Japanese craft, I often speculate on how much richer, more interesting, and less wasteful our world would be if an inspired concept like Wabi Sabi was truly embraced at scale...
Toby: The Japanese have a term, shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing,” which speaks to the restorative value of time spent in nature for both mind and body. We head to the forest as often as we can to hike, canoe, and camp, using those trips to replenish ourselves and rekindle creativity. Nature is a constant touchstone in our work. We are drawn to the forms, textures, and patterns that abound in the natural world, and a trip into the mountains never fails to inspire. Closer to home, our studio on Granville Island keeps us in daily conversation with our neighbours. Those conversations often lead deep into the intricacies of printmaking, coffee roasting, public sculpture, silversmithing, and more. Many of our neighbours are acknowledged masters of their craft, and getting to know them and their work is deeply inspiring.
Toby: Every great light has a strong sculptural presence and creates an undeniable mood. Each designer has their own way of getting there, and that is what I love about lighting: the possibilities seem endless. But at least once a month, I’m reminded that the moon is the archetype. There’s something to aspire to!
A selection of Propellor’s lighting design
Toby: We have a brand new light that we’re in the early stages of designing. It feels fresh and a bit of a stretch aesthetically. At the moment, it exists only in sketches and 3D models, but next week we begin prototyping, and that is always the fun part.
Stay tuned!
Toby: Currently, I’m having a hard time imagining what the world will look like in 2.5 years, let alone where Propellor will be in 25. The accelerating pace of AI is a constant topic of discussion in our studio, provoking fascination, optimism, and fear in equal measure. We have been tracking the progress of machine learning fairly closely for the past five years, and the only thing that seems truly knowable in the face of this revolution is that change is coming at exponential speed. The first of many waves of disruption is only now beginning to roll across the economy. Knowledge work, and the creative fields in particular, are already feeling mounting pressure. Weekly advances in generative AI, including the very recent emergence of AI agents, call into question the certainty of continued human hegemony in all realms of endeavour. More than ever, in the face of a possible crisis of purpose and meaning brought on by the relentless push to automate everything, we are leaning into the most human parts of our work. We have always believed in the power of the handmade, the imperfect, the idiosyncratic, and the human-centred as an antidote to the homogeneity of the modern world. That will not change. What will remain constant in this coming reordering of institutions and systems of production is that human beings find meaning in making and valuing work conceived and produced by other humans—whether that is a wheel of cheese, a building, a love song, a teacup, or a light for their home.
What will we be doing in 25 years?
No matter what the world looks like, it is in our nature to keep making things that strive to be useful and beautiful.
Welcome to the seventh edition of NOW NOW. We recorded this on Sunday, February 22, 2026.
I am excited to welcome artist/designer/architect Javier Caceres as our guest.
Javier Caceres is an architect and artist born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently based in Vancouver, Canada. He is a designer at Public Architecture + Design Inc. Javier holds a professional degree in architecture from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), graduating in 2011.
Throughout his career, Javier has collaborated on architectural and design projects across Venezuela, Peru, Spain, Chile, China, and Canada, cultivating a practice enriched by diverse cultural and professional contexts.
In 2015, he won first place in a national comic competition in Venezuela and became a contributor to El Universal's opinion section. Alongside his architectural work, Javier has continuously explored a wide range of artistic expressions — from graffiti and painting to comics and digital media — reflecting his multidisciplinary creative interests.
Welcome to the sixth edition of NOW NOW. We recorded this on Monday, January 19, 2026.
I am very excited to welcome dancer Yumelia Garcia as our guest. Yumelia was born in Caracas, Venezuela, where she received her early training at the National Ballet School. She joined the National Ballet of Caracas at the age of 15 and was promoted to soloist just one year later. At 17, Yumelia moved to the United States, where she danced with the Milwaukee Ballet for ten years, followed by engagements with Ballet Florida, and later spent five seasons with the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. I have had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Yumelia on several projects over the years, the first of which was a work titled Conversations, which I choreographed for the Milwaukee Ballet in 2002.
We are researching reflectivity in relation to upcoming work and will be sharing some of the things inspiring us over the next few months. Charlotte picked these three images and arranged them as you see, further sculpting the artists’ sculpting of reality through reflectivity, layering, and symmetry. Anish Kapoor’s 'Cloud Gate' (top) creates a fluid, distorted gateway, drawing inspiration from liquid mercury to invite viewers to become active participants in their environment. Doug Aitken’s 'Mirage' projects—whether the 'Mirage House' in the desert (middle) or 'Mirage Detroit' within a historic bank (bottom)—utilize the archetypal form of the suburban ranch house as a "human-scale lens". Both Kapoor and Aitken use reflection to dissolve boundaries where subject and surroundings merge in a state of constant flux, creating space that is both engaging and disorienting.
Godt Nytår to everyone! Wishing you and the world all the best for 2026! May we all experience good luck, health, fortitude, genius, and beauty!
Thank you to all of the beautiful artists we worked with in 2025.
More and more and more on all to come!
#vancouver #nowidworks #canada #universityofrichmond #virginia #bozemanmontana #balletwestacademy #slc #copenhagencontemporarydanceschool #denmark #nownow #podcast #book #publicarchitecture #contemporarydance #raisondêtre #neplusultra
@fukitecture @janatyner @bri_wak @lhnstudio @hiwest801life @being_nathan @charboye @publicdesignvancouver @egelundj @universitydancers_ur @bw_academy @michael_waldrop @raisondetredanceproject @copenhagencontemporary @tararoszeen @jamesgnam @chipman.jack @arnveegee @tonyahartz #markhofeling #joelrichardson #jannhaworth @adamdday @amietullius #davidkranes #kodakultur #danishartsfoundation #artmusicdenmark #sahandmohajer
I am very excited to welcome Tonya Hartz as our guest on the fifth edition of NOW NOW. We recorded this conversation on Tuesday, December 16, 2025.
Tonya is a Vancouver-based photographer and location scout with nearly 30 years of experience in the film industry. She has cultivated a deep understanding of both production requirements and the intrinsic value of a location’s department’s creative contribution to the screen. Tonya has worked with exceptional artists across independent films, commercials, episodic television, and large-budget productions. Her work in both photography and location scouting is defined by intuition, creative vision, and a keen eye for storytelling.
Photo courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune.
It made me sad to hear of my friend David Kranes's passing. I first met David in 2009. David and I spent a couple of hours together that first afternoon at Cucina’s, talking about art, books, dance, and life. That initial meeting marked the beginning of what would become an incredibly impactful friendship.
Nathan and I spent many evenings at David and Carol's house in the Avenues discussing art and current affairs, with both depth and good humor. David came to every one my performances after we met, until he physically couldn’t make it anymore to some of our odder locations. He always had something unique and thoughtful to say about my work and I so appreciate that. It was obvious he paid attention, and he spoke from the heart. David connected me with several people in both Utah and beyond who have had a tremendous impact on my career.
I admire David’s career - as a published author (he did JUST finish another book!) and as professor from the University of Utah. He had also spent fourteen years directing the Playwrights’ Lab at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, and advised… on the layout of casinos (?!). More than anything, perhaps, I admire his capacity as a mentor, and he had been a mentor to so many, to renowned actors and playwrights, to Nathan and I.
David, Nathan, and I collaborated on two staged dance productions. Touching Fire premiered in 2010 and explored themes of creativity and madness, enhanced by layering in David’s haunting and beautiful stories about relationships, in his penetrating, gentle and not quite gravelly voice. The second piece But, Seriously premiered in 2011 and featured David’s close friend, the actor Ethan John Phillips. We have so much video of the four of us in our old backyard, capturing and laughing at Ethan’s seemingly infinite number of memorized jokes and one-liners.
Over the years, David remained a mentor and friend, consistently offering feedback, critique, insight, guidance, and support. He had a profound understanding of the body’s potential for expression and an extraordinary ability to recognize the strengths of a piece and the authenticity of performers. He guided artists with remarkable presence, intuition, humor, and generosity.
He once said, “What’s the opposite of ‘harm’? Mentors should be aiming to achieve that. When I teach well, I feel clean.”
When I visited David and Carol at the Legacy in Salt Lake City, in spite of, in his own words, his bones having become crackers, I was always moved by how present David was when we spoke. He wrote until the very end, always asked to see what I was making, and kept offering his openness to new collaborations. Though his body weakened, his mind and creativity remained as dynamic and curious as ever. I asked him once who inspired him and he said: “I'm inspired by artists who give almost as much of their energy attempting to be good people--good citizens in the world--as in being good artists.”
Nathan and I loved him deeply, and we will miss him.
Charlotte
NOW-ID would LOVE your support this Giving Tuesday! We are putting some meat on the bones of this year’s NEUROCEROS… to make it BIGGER, to share more BROADLY, and your help and engagement go so very far to bring our unique concepts to reality.
Thank you!
www.now-id.com/support
October 2025.
Photo by Chad Kirkland
I am excited to welcome Jann Haworth as our guest on the fourth edition of NOW NOW recorded on September 12th, 2025. Jann is an incredibly prolific British-American Pop Artist and a pioneer of soft sculpture. She is perhaps best known as the co-creator of the Beatles' 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, for which she won a Grammy in 1968. Jan's work is in museum collections all over the world, from the Tate in London to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington.
Jann is an advocate for feminist rights, especially when it comes to the representation of women in the Art World.
A huge thank you to our Vancouver board for all their support on our recent event NEUROCEROS!
Thanks so much Will Fu, Jana Tyner, Brian Wakelin and Laura Newlon! We look forward to what we will continue to create together.
Thank you to our wonderful audiences and, of course, to the incredible artists involved in our production last Friday and Saturday!
Thank you to @publicdesignvancouver for hosting us in their beautiful space. Also, a big thank you to our board members and donors who contributed to making this first iteration possible!
I am excited to welcome Joel Richardson as our guest for this third edition of NOW NOW. Joel Richardson is a Canadian Production Designer, accomplished artist, and a multi-platform storyteller. He is also a co-founder of the METIPSO PORTAL experimental media lab and an award-winning member of the Directors' Guild of Canada. Throughout his career, Joel has showcased his art globally. Joel's journey into the realm of production design began with Season 2 of Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience." In 2022, he embarked on a two-month trip to Kenya, where he applied his creative prowess as a Production Designer for his first feature screenplay, "Kipkemboi," which received a green light from Telefilm Canada and the CBC.
Listen to the podcast here.
Tickets for NOW-ID's NEUROCEROS! are on sale NOW... here!
Enjoy an intimate evening with three extraordinary performers, contemporary dance, live music and robust beverages at our first exploration of NEUROCEROS, a contemporary dance work inspired by Ionesco's absurdist play Rhinoceros.
Thanks to Public Architecture and board member Brian Wakelin, we will now be hosting the event beneath their office at 1495 Frances St in Vancouver, BC.
Doors and BAR open at 6:30PM, with performers to start at 7:30PM. Space is limited so get your tickets soon!
Cast and Crew:
Choreographer: Charlotte Boye-Christensen with...
Dancers James Gnam and Tara McArthur
Composer / Musician: Jesper Egelund
Design: Nathan Webster
Lighting: Jack Chipman
Graphics: Will Fu
With special thanks to the NOW-ID Board members Brian Wakelin, Jana Tyner, Will Fu, Laura Hart Newlon
and Heidi Westfall.
THANK YOU to Anne Van Gelder, Gigi and David Arrington, Ty Dickerson and Hope Hornbeck, Jennifer Phillips and Ed Rawlings, and Stefanie Dykes as well as Koda Kultur, Art Music Denmark and the Danish Arts Foundation for supporting NOW-ID's NEUROCEROS!!!
Click here to support artistic innovation, collaboration and our exploration of the project's timely themes.
