MY HEART PALPITATES

Sonya Stefan is a media artist who creates interdisciplinary work using real-time electronic glitchery, High8 video cameras and 16mm film. She is interested in deterioration using damaged materials of all kinds, from broken video mixers, disintegrated found footage film to glitched television screens and transforms these materials into contemporary new media works.

For over twenty years, Sonya has been a professional dancer performing with various companies such as Toronto Dance Theatre, Jean-Pierre Perreault, Montreal Danse, Animals of Distinction, Estelle Clareton, Paul-Andre Fortier and many others, continuing to combine her media works with her dance practice. She premiered a 24-television installation with Berlin-based band Group A and choreographer Dana Gingras at Agora de la Danse in April 2018, touring it to the Mona Foma Festival in Tasmania Australia. She recently completed a five-week Visual Arts Banff Residency in Alberta as well as curated Lux Magna, a festival created by women and non-binary folks, POPMontreal and Suoni Per Il Popolo, all Montreal music festivals. She is co-founder of La Lumière Collective, a Montreal-based micro-cinema and Ibrida*Pluri, which pairs dance, visual and sound artists and her work has been exhibited at Musee D’Art Contemporain de Montreal, MUTEK (CA), Festival Oodaaq (FR), Bucharest International Film Festival (RO), Musee de beaux-arts de Rennes (FR), Danslab (Netherlands), Lab 111 (Amsterdam), Air Canada En Route Film Festival and many others.