Blur

PHI Studio, Riverbed Theatre & Onassis Culture

  • Promotional image for <Blur>. Against patterned wallpaper, a woman in a red sleeveless top faces front with one hand stretched out. Several large soap bubbles float around her, each reflecting a human figure, and a round clock hangs on the wall above.
  • A scene from <Blur>. A hairless human face fills the frame against a dark background, pale grey-blue eyes looking to one side. In the darkness at the right, several small human figures drawn in white outline descend in a row.
  • A scene from <Blur>. Black chairs are arranged in a circle in a grey concrete space. At the centre, a woman in a red top and black skirt bends forward and breathes out smoke, while on a wooden pallet in front of her a person in black sits holding a sheep. Others crouch low around them.
  • A scene from <Blur>. In a room with patterned wallpaper, a woman in a red top and black skirt kneels on a sand-covered floor and holds the chin of a child seated opposite her. The child, in a pale purple T-shirt, sits cross-legged and looks back at her. A blue plastic bucket stands between them.
  • A scene from <Blur>. On a wooden pallet on a grey floor, a person in black sits cross-legged holding a sheep in their arms. They bow their head toward the animal, which faces forward. Black chairs are blurred in the background.

 

  • Director Craig Quintero, Phoebe Greenberg
  • Genre Multidisciplinary
  • Date 10.16.Fri 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm, 7:30pm, 8:30pm 10.17.Sat 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm, 7:30pm, 8:30pm
  • Language English
  • Accessibility Korean Subtitles
  • Rating 16 and over
  • Venue SFAC Theater QUAD
  • Duration 45 min.
  • Premiere Taiwan International Festival of the Arts(TIFA), Taipei, 2025
  • Tickets 50,000 won

 

Global Interpark

An XR immersive theater experience — What if we could defeat death?

Introduction

An innovative XR Theatre experience, BLUR invites you to embark on a surreal journey between dream and reality, fact and fiction.

What if you could defeat death? We are living in an age in which advancements in cloning and genetic engineering have upended our sense of the natural order. Terms like “resurrection biology” and “de-extinction” have shifted from the realms of science fiction to reality. BLUR is a poetic exploration of these uncertain times, immersing the audience in a sensory labyrinth of simultaneously wondrous and frightening possibilities that seamlessly shift between the virtual and real, fact and fiction. Created by Craig Quintero, Artistic Director of the Taipei-based Riverbed Theatre, and Phoebe Greenberg, Director and founder of Montréal's PHI Centre, this profoundly original experience combines live performers with a surreal collage of digital mediums, setting a new standard for XR Theatre. An official selection in the 2025 Venice Biennale, Blur is a haunting meditation on hope, loss, and love.

Director
Portrait of director Craig Quintero. Against a grey background, wearing round glasses, a moustache, a black padded jacket and a red-and-black checked scarf, he looks toward the camera.

Craig Quintero

As the Artistic Director of the Taipei-based Riverbed Theatre Company, Craig has written and directed over fifty original image-based performances, including productions in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, France, Germany, and the United States. He is also a sculptor and installation artist whose work has been shown at the Asian Biennial, Venice Biennale Collateral Events, Kobe Biennale, Taipei Biennale, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei MOCA, and the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art.

His VR experience <All That Remains> premiered at the 79th Venice Film Festival (2022) and won the prize for Best Immersive Experience at the 2023 Luxembourg Film Festival and Best 360 VR Film at the Kaohsiung Film Festival. His second VR experience, <Over the Rainbow>, premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and was selected for the “Best of” section for the 80th Venice Film Festival (2023). The project won the Panorama Prize at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. His most recent project, <A Simple Silence>, premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Craig was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2023. A former Fulbright Senior Scholar, Craig received his Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is a Professor in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at Grinnell College.

Portrait of director Phoebe Greenberg. Against a pale grey background, wearing a black turtleneck with long straight hair and silver earrings, she looks toward the camera.

Phoebe Greenberg

Phoebe Greenberg, a L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq graduate, has passionately explored movement techniques and corporeal theater. Before returning to Montreal in the ’90s, she would perform and produce theater productions throughout Europe.

Greenberg founded Diving Horse Creations, a Montreal-based studio emphasizing physical performance and stage space exploration. In 2007, she established the DHC/ART Foundation and the PHI Centre in 2012, championing art and culture in Old Montreal. Notably, she conceived and produced the short film <Next Floor>(2007, directed by Denis Villeneuve), showcasing her artistic vision and active role in PHI Films.

As PHI’s founder and director, Greenberg has championed numerous projects at the crossroads of art, cinema, music, theater and extended reality.

Credits
  • Directors & WritersCraig Quintero, Phoebe Greenberg
  • ProducersSu-Ling Yeh, Coline Delbaere, Julie Tremblay, Prodromos Tsiavos
  • CastYu-Hsin Yu, Yi-Hsuan Chen, Mei-Chun Hsiang, Ning Chang, Sia Jhih Lin, Phoebe Greenberg, Xinqi Chen and others
  • Tech MasterChing-Chih Yang
  • Stage ManagerChuan-Ren Tsai, Bo-Chuan Jheng
  • Stage Technical DirectorChih-Chen Hsu
  • Interactive DevelopmentPHI Studio
  • Creative DevelopmentThomas Azoug, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoît, Aurèle Chanal
  • Immersive Theater DesignRiverbed Theatre
  • Set DesignCraig Quintero, Carl Johnson
  • MusicYu-Jun Wang
  • Sound DesignChin Lun Kao
  • FMOD IntegrationBo-Yi Wu
  • Choreography SupportEdouard Lock
  • Visual Experience SupervisorMélanie Courtinat
  • 3D assets, environments and VFXBehaviour Interactive
  • 360° FilmmakingFunique VR
  • Motion CaptureLAB 7 & Game On
  • Volumetric CaptureIP LAB. Volumetric Capture created with HOLOSYS by 4DViews, www.4dviews.com
  • Co-produced byPHI Studio, Riverbed Theatre, Onassis Culture
  • Supported byCMF, TAICCA, SODEC, Onassis Culture. This project is supported by the TAICCA’s Innovative Content Grant for International Co-Funding or Co-Productions.
  • Official Presentation PartnersNational Theater & Concert Hall
  • PartnershipTaiwan Contemporary Cultural Lab (C-LAB), Hong Foundation
  • Touring SponsorsNational Culture and Arts Foundation, NSFG Foundation, RSI Group, Puyong Archiland, Brandon Global Trading Company
PHI Studio, Riverbed Theatre & Onassis Culture

  • <Blur> is unlike anything I have ever seen.
    — Charlie Fink, Forbes
  • An immersive theater experience that definitively breaks with the codes of simple XR creation.
    — Mathieu Gayet, XR Must
  • Craig Quintero and Phoebe Greenberg’s extraordinary <Blur> (probably the hottest ticket on the island).
    — Xan Books, The Guardian
  • It’s head-spinningly strange, provocative and seductive.
    — Xan Books, The Guardian