Beth Huelsenbeck & Marissa Mahoney - RENDER

RENDER is a multidisciplinary performance project by choreographers Beth Huelsenbeck and Marissa Mahoney exploring the intersection of contemporary dance, motion capture, and the digital world.

Through live dance, projection, and motion capture technology, RENDER investigates what happens when the human body is translated into data. Motion capture preserves movement while often losing the subtlety, spontaneity, and emotional complexity that make live performance distinctly human. Yet digital technology also offers new possibilities, allowing the body to glitch, distort, duplicate, and transform beyond its physical limitations.

Featuring original choreography by both artists and motion-capture imagery by 3D artist and technical director Jimmy Hopkins, RENDER creates an evolving dialogue between live performers and their digital counterpart.

With a dynamic cast of four, this immersive 90-minute experience challenges the boundaries between the physical and artificial, inviting audiences to consider what is lost, preserved, and reimagined when the human body becomes digital.

Marissa Mahoney is a dancer, performer, and choreographer with a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography, a BA in Strategic Communications, and a minor in Creative Writing from Elon University. Her performance credits include HARVEST, LUME Dance Collective’s DESOLATION, People Play Dance Theatre’s PLAYSPACES, and the U.S. premiere of DISCOFOOT. As founder of RISSTHEMOVEMENT, she has presented original choreography at Highways, the San Pedro Festival of the Arts, Pasadena Art Night, Versatility Dance Festival, and numerous Los Angeles showcases. She won Brockus’ 15 Year Celebration Choreography Contest and recently choreographed Hilary Ives’ debut concert, IT’S A SHOW. Her work celebrates the expressive possibilities of movement and the connections it creates.

Beth Huelsenbeck (she/her) is a dancer and choreographer exploring how science fiction and animation can tell stories through contemporary dance. She trained at Berkeley Ballet Theater and attended summer programs at San Francisco Ballet School and Alonzo King LINES Ballet. At Boston University, she studied environmental science and English literature while dancing and choreographing with Harvard Ballet Company. She later graduated from Germany’s Iwanson International School for Contemporary Dance and became an artist in residence at Schloss Blumenthal, premiering her duet emotional bandwidth. Her collaboration with composer Edna Yeh, WYRD, was performed in Los Angeles and Vienna in 2025. She has also danced with Compañia Medusa and Brockus RED Dance Company.