IGNITE featuring Mikhael Tara Garver

 Join us with guest artist Mikhael Tara Garver, an Immersive and Experiential Creative Director at Walt Disney Imagineering and the Director of Immersive Performance for Disney’s 2 day, 3 night groundbreaking Galactic Starcruiser, the most ambitious storytelling immersive experience in the world.

Mikhael Tara Garver has been a pioneer in original experiential and immersive entertainment for over two decades. She has created innovative immersive work combining digital and physical across theaters, brands, non-profits, corporations, start-ups, social justice organizations, and civic spaces. She has received some of the first large-scale immersive commissions by national arts organizations like the American Repertory Theater, The Kennedy Center, The Goodman Theater, RiverLA, Montclair New Work Initiative, The United Nations, National Park Services, and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, The United Nations, The Public Theater, The New York Public Library, among others. She was the Head of Experiential Entertainment for Category41; the Managing Artistic Director of Woodshed Collective; and the Founder and Artistic Director of lauded Chicago Uma Productions. She was a director on American Repertory Theater’s Production of Sleep No More and an associate producer for Anne Bogart and SITI Company. From 2020-2021 Garver was commissioned to create Rio Records, an epic covid-safe storytelling digital and physical experience weaving over 90+ artists to bring the LA River to life in partnership with Los Angeles and RiverLA. 

Mikhael has been a consultant in the creative business potential of digital/physical immersive work. Whether bringing innovative thinking to one-off-events that can re-invigorate a brand OR designing scalable repeatable entertainment experiences for financial sustainability. Mikhael has led the charge in how this work can create successful financial models for a diverse slate of artists and audiences. Mikhael’s work has been live in rock clubs, on subway cars, in stadiums, street corners, multi-floor architectural masterpieces, drive-thrus, the largest billboards in the world, in theaters, and in someone’s covid safe home. She has consulted and built award-winning experiences for AMC Television, The National Park Service, Viacom, Amazon, Bloomberg, Smirnoff, Facebook, Warner Brothers, and many more. She has taught at Yale, Columbia University, Harvard, North Carolina School of the Arts, and NYU/ Tisch School of the Arts, among others. Garver founded experiential studio 13Exp , an experiential studio that centers ambitious IP primarily led by women, LBGTQIA, non-binary, veteran, differently-abled, undocumented, and BIPOC creators. 

Mikhael is a grantee of Pop Culture Collaborative’s Becoming America Fund, a member of the Guild of Future Architects, a board member of the Immersive Experience Institute, an advisor for Starfish Entertainment Accelerator, and an International Sacatar Fellow. Her speaking and thought leadership on the Power of Experiential Entertainment for Positive Culture Change has brought her to speak at SXSW, the Immersive Design Summit, Switchpoint, Immersive Homecoming Summit, and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.