The Virtual Ritualist Collective is the artist ensemble made up of Alicia Donnellan and Louis Newton. These Auckland based artists explore the seams that often tenuously knit together the worlds of science, art and ritual. Merging mediums and disciplines, they approach storytelling with light-hearted intensity, looking to explore and expose the brilliant and desperate absurdity of the human condition.
Alicia Donnellan is a European Auckland based scientist, dancer and performance artist who delves into improv, instant composition and the intersection between the public and the intimate in art and the individual. She trained as classical dancer with the RAD and later as a freeform improv dancer with Samantha Sweetwater and countless others. She has presented her art and performance work in Spain, Ireland and New Zealand. The latter include joint exhibitions at the Yes Collective such as the Body Sovereignty Exhibition in 2016.
Louis Newton is a musician and sound-scape producer inspired by quantum mechanics, particle physics, black holes and existential philosophy. A variety of his pieces have been performed for theatre and dance productions around Auckland.
