NE PLUS ULTRA - Propellor Design Studio /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

Rift - Burrard Place - Photo by Ema Peter

As part of NOW-ID’s ongoing interview series, Ne Plus Ultra — which features stories of artists and designers creating inspiring and impactful work — I was 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 in Vancouver to see their latest work alongside curated pieces from other local creators.

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.

You can read the interview here

Nik Rust, Pamela Goddard, and Toby Barratt - Photo by Bright Photography


NOW NOW podcast #7 - Artist/Designer/Architect Javier Cáceres /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

We recorded the seventh edition of NOW NOW on February 22, 2026.

Javier Cáceres 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.

NOW NOW podcast #6 - Dancer Yumelia Garcia /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

Welcome to the sixth edition of NOW NOW.

We recorded this on Monday, January 19, 2026.

I was 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 10 years, then with Ballet Florida, and later spent 5 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.

Inspiration. /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

With NOW-ID, I am researching reflectivity in relation to upcoming work and will be sharing some of the things inspiring us over the next few months. I picked these three images and arranged them as you see, further sculpting the artist’s 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.

NEUROCEROS /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

Some moments from our recent production NEUROCEROS, which premiered in Vancouver last weekend. Thank you to @publicdesignvancouver for having us and to everyone who attended and supported the project, as well as our Board and donors!

This is the first iteration of a larger project, and it was exciting to see it come to life in this intimate setting with these beautiful Artists.

Shirley Ririe /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

It made me so sad to hear about the passing of Shirley Ririe, but I remain incredibly grateful to have known her. I became friends with Shirley in 1999 when I created my first piece with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, and we stayed close since then and throughout my years with the company. She was immensely supportive, insightful in her feedback, profoundly generous and I will miss her! A passionate advocate for the arts, she was not only a beautiful artist but also a generous mentor to me and many others. I continue to be in awe of the company and community that Shirley and Joan pioneered.

Thank you, Shirley, for being you!

NEUROCEROS Tickets available now. /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

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.

NEUROCEROS! /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

Inspired by Ionesco’s 1959 absurdist play Rhinocéros* and designed to counter raw nerves rubbed wrongly in our own time, NEUROCEROS! will be a site-specific work in former brass foundry, warehouse and current music venue Industrial Garden at 236 Clark Avenue. 

Doors and BAR open at 7PM, with performance to start at 8PM.

Cast and Crew:
Choreographer / Dancer: Charlotte Boye-Christensen with...
Dancers James Gnam and Tara McArthur 
Composer / Musician: Jesper Egelund
Design: Nathan Webster
Lighting: Jack Chipman
Graphics: Will Fu
Bar: Industrial Garden

With special thanks to the NOW-ID Board members Brian Wakelin, Jana Tyner, Will Fu, Laura Hart Newlon
and Heidi Westfall.

Join Koda Kultur, Art Music Denmark and the Danish Arts Foundation to help foster artistic innovation and collaboration on the project’s timely themes by artists (including three dual citizens) from Canada, the United States and Denmark. Click here to support the project.

And lastly, we have a podcast!

The NOW NOW podcast is a forum for discussion of art, politics, and the creative act relative to our current, challenging political times.

Listen to the latest interview with our collaborator, Danish composer and musician Jesper Egelund.

Be The Mob! /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

BE THE MOB!

Join NOW-ID in Vancouver this September for the company’s premiere of NEUROCEROS!


Inspired by Ionesco’s 1959 absurdist play Rhinocéros* and designed to counter raw nerves rubbed wrongly by our own time’s twitching, grunting beast… three dancers and one composer/musician push through alienation arising with [wait...is this fascism!?] and you!

NEUROCEROS! will be a site-specific work in the former brass foundry, warehouse, and current music venue, Industrial Garden, located at 326 Clark Avenue.  Doors and the bar open at 7 PM, with the performance starting at 8 PM.

Feeling at all alienated? Let's counter that and simultaneously help bring this project to reality. Support the project, the artists and the community! Donate any amount during the month of July and receive an invitation to a preview / meet the artists event over cocktails and Q&A at one of two VIP events leading up to the show!

Join Koda Kultur, Art Music Denmark and the Danish Arts Foundation to help foster artistic innovation and collaboration on the project’s timely themes by artists (including three dual citizens) from Canada, the United States and Denmark. Click here to learn more.

* Ionesco’s play Rhinocéros is often read as a response and criticism to the sudden upsurge of Fascism and Nazism during the events preceding World War II, and explores the themes of conformity, culture, responsibility, mass movements, mob mentality and morality. Over the course of the play, inhabitants of a rural village slowly turn into Rhinoceroses... 

Cast and Crew:
Choreographer / Dancer: Charlotte Boye-Christensen with...
Dancers James Gnam and Tara McArthur 
Composer / Musician: Jesper Egelund
Design: Nathan Webster
Lighting: Jack Chipman
Graphics: Will Fu
Bar: Industrial Garden

And more to come...

NOW NOW Podcast now available on Apple. /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

Welcome to this first edition of NOW NOW. We recorded this on Friday, June 13, 2025.

I am excited to welcome Mark Hofeling as our first guest. Mark is a production designer and art director who has designed and art-directed over 70 productions for film and television. Designing his first feature “Windrunner”  in 1995, amongst his credits are The High School Musicals, Disney’s Zombies, and The Descendants. He has worked on locations all over the world, from Barcelona to Toronto and Atlanta. Mark is also incredibly prolific in his creativity, having written books, designed furniture, created figurines, and produced podcast content. 

 Mark is a perceptive and brilliant observer of political events, placing current events within a broader historical context. He is also just wickedly funny and smart, and may be able to help us navigate this current political moment.

You can listen to the podcast here.

FBF - Masterclasses at Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School and a new interview. /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

Flashback Friday:

I thoroughly enjoyed teaching at the Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School when I was back in Copenhagen a couple of weeks ago. It is exciting to see the constant creative evolution of this institution.

Buchanan Courtyards (Photo by Nic Lehoux)

As part of NOW-ID's ongoing interview series Ne Plus Ultra that shares the stories of artists and designers creating extraordinary, inspiring and impactful work, I was delighted and honoured to interview and share the thoughts of Brian Wakelin.

Brian is an architect and co-founder of design firm Public Architecture, based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Read the interview here.

Inspiration. /  by Charlotte Boye-Christensen

I was so impressed and inspired by these beautiful young artists and thoroughly enjoyed working with them over these past two weeks. We premiered this new work CYCLIC last Thursday and Friday at the Rose Wagner Theatre in Salt Lake City.

Thank you and congratulations to Ballet West, Ballet West Academy and Artemotionusa!

Photos courtesy of Joshua Whitehead.