Upintheair Theatre
The Upintheair Theatre team: managing artistic director David Mott, creative producer Jessica Hood, festival curator Sarah Roa, and resident curator Kelsi James.
Upintheair is a value-driven organization, prioritizing values of integrity, opportunity, hospitality, collaboration, relevance, and fun. The value set is the guiding principle for all decision making, actions, and relationship building.
Founded in 1999 by Daniel Martin and David Mott, Upintheair Theatre has spent over 20 years creating innovative performances, platforms for community-building, and opportunities for early-career artists. After launching with a series of Fringe Festival hits, the company is best known for producing festivals—Walking Fish, Neanderthal, and rEvolver—that established it as a vital part of the Vancouver and Canadian theatre scenes. In 2022, Martin moved on from his role at the company to pursue new challenges while Mott continues to direct the artistic path for Upintheair with General Manager Andrea Rideout and a team of emerging curators. Martin and Mott are lifetime creative partners that will continue to generate new works outside of Upintheair.
Launched in 2003 with no funding by a company with no producing track record, the Walking Fish Festival ran for nine years, and featured more than 450 emerging artists in the production of 88 original Canadian works. From 2010 to 2012, Upintheair then joined with Left Right Minds to run Neanderthal Arts—a two-week summer festival with original full-length works. In 2013, they launched the rEvolver Festival, which today provides a supported environment for emerging and early mid-career professionals to present boundary-pushing work to diverse and enthusiastic audiences. In 2019 they began a new commissioning series, The Array, to develop further relationships with generative Vancouver theatre artists. The series provides financial, marketing, and venue resources to artists, who make short pieces sourced from a shared theme inspired by current science and physics news.
Upintheair also creates and produces innovative live theatrical performances through its in-house theatre projects. The company focuses on the speculative fiction genre to explore contemporary political and societal issues. Often described as the “What if?” genre, speculative fiction is characterized by unusual ideas and an elevated imagination, creating innovative works like Inside The Seed, The City and The City, The North Plan! (a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award winner for outstanding production, small theatre, in 2015), A Brief History of Human Extinction, and REVELATIONS. In all, the company has produced more than 100 shorts works, as well as 11 original performances, three festivals, and multiple performances by existing playwrights.
Upintheair continues to explore issues and ideas examining the contemporary world around us. With a keen eye on the immediate future, Upintheair is devoted to fostering the next live performance generation—those who see it, those who make it, and those who do it.
