We are the Colliders: four women who met online in 2001 and formed Avatar Body Collision. We are a collaborative, globally distributed performance group who lives (mostly) in London, Helsinki, Aotearoa/New Zealand and cyberspace. We devise and rehearse online using chat software that is cross-platform and free to download.

Typically spectators see one proximal performer, while three remote performers appear on webcams and in avatar worlds, projected onto screens in the hosting venue. In this way, narrative elements move back and forth, across and between these multiple stages - proximal - webcams and internet based tools.

Some of our work is designed only to online environments and in direct interaction with the participating audience.

We have used existing web communities and tools like The Palace - Dress The Nation (2003) was created solely for a Palace environment, ie. all performers and spectators were online and represented by avatars occupying the same space. Our recent work has been developed for the UpStage performance venue. UpStage is our own software development project - open source browser based tool for online performances with an element of audience participation. 

In projects such as those of AVATAR BODY COLLISION, the play between the real women at once in their domestic spaces and co-habiting virtual space with avatars, may ultimately afford greater opportunities for the pleasures of "good theatrical nights out" and broad political resistance ... in this scenario, theatre re-conceived allied to consciousness reframed has a radical potential like never before."
Prof. Robin Nelson: Keynote address for IFTR/FIRT XIV World Congress Amsterdam August 2002.