www.creative-catalyst.com
www.avatarbodycollision.org
www.upstage.org.nz

www.themagdalenaproject.org
magdalena.actrix.co.nz

Helen Varley Jamieson is a writer, theatre practitioner and digital artist. She is currently undertaking a Master of Arts (research) at Queensland University of Technology, investigating her practice of cyberformance.

A theatre practitioner since childhood, Helen has written, directed and produced many stage plays. During the mid-1990s she began to work professionally in the internet industry and this led to her exploration of live online performance. Helen coined the term “cyberformance” in 2000 to describe this form of networked performance that approaches the internet as a site for collaborative performance by remote performers. In 2001, she initiated “the[abc]experiment” – a research project that explored the interface of theatre and the internet and culminated in a live performance involving performers in New Zealand, the USA, UK and Europe. This project spawned the globally-dispersed cyberformance troupe Avatar Body Collision, of which Helen is a founding member.

Since then, Helen has given performances, presentations and workshops on cyberformance at festivals, universities and arts organisations internationally. With Avatar Body Collision she has devised and performed eight shows, and developed the purpose-built online performance software, UpStage. The launch of UpStage V2 in June 2007 included a two-week interactive exhibition at the New Zealand Film Archive and 070707, a one-day festival of live performance in UpStage featuring 13 performances created by artists from all over the world.

An active involvement with Magdalena Aotearoa and the Magdalena Project since 1997 has brought Helen into direct contact with the work of many contemporary women theatre practitioners from diverse cultures. She has worked with director Jill Greenhalgh (founder of the Magdalena Project) on her series Water[war]s and is currently collaborating with a group of senior Magdalena artists on Women With Big Eyes.

As an arts writer, Helen covered the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for three years (1998-2000) and is a regular contributor to print publications and online arts communities.