Aphotic Theatre

Mandate & Mission

Aphotic Theatre Society was founded by Fay Nass, a first-generation queer, non-binary woman from Iran. Aphotic was born from the desire to create space for underrepresented voices — including women, BIPOC, queer/QTPOC, elders, and immigrant communities — by developing and presenting innovative, interdisciplinary, and thought-provoking performance. We prioritize who tells the story, and support them with agency, artistry, and care. Aphotic Theatre has been actively focusing on diversifying the Canadian theatre scene since 2010 and was officially incorporated in 2017.

Our name, “Aphotic”, refers to the zone underwater where less than 1% of light penetrates. In those dark places, almost nothing is visible except what is illuminated by bioluminescence. Our goal is to shine light on those people and stories that are often in the “dark” relative to the collective psyche. We strive to make the invisible visible by expanding awareness to places previously unexplored and unexamined by dominant culture. We create and produce work that is aesthetically innovative, contextually potent and viscerally intelligent.

Our work is both socially engaged and artistically ambitious, with two main program streams: community-focused social practice & innovative new work.

Each year, we serve artists and community members across spectrums of age, ability, ethnicity, gender, and lived experience. We engage audiences both locally and internationally, advocating for representation, artistic innovation, and cultural dialogue. Our work challenges tokenism and embraces deep inclusion, striving to decolonize practices and make visible the experiences often ignored or erased in mainstream narratives.

Through performance and community engagement, Aphotic Theatre amplifies vital stories, expands artistic form, and helps build a more inclusive Vancouver arts landscape.

CORE VALUES 

• Through our practices, we aim to decolonize and de-tokenize diversity.

• We engage with “outsider” experiences, including stories of the struggle for inclusion, acceptance, and understanding.

• We investigate cultural politics in an era of globalization and inclusion of under-represented experiences and identities.

• We explore multi-linguistic performances and empower other languages outside the dominant language of English.

• We explore the relationship between form and content through multi-disciplinary performances and challenge euro-centric aesthetic.