Jeff Brenneman and Lauren "the Flute" Liebowitz are a two-person superteam of FRIENDSHIP. They both enjoy video games and snoring cats, which obviously is about as solid a foundation as a FRIENDSHIP can have. If they were cartoon characters, they would definitely both be in their own 90's show about FRIENDSHIP. They are here at MAGFest on a mission to spread FRIENDSHIP to everyone!
Antipode is an eccentric dance group that has combined their love of video game/nerd culture with their love of belly dancing to create a unique form of dance known as geek belly dancing. Antipode performs throughout the year at numerous conventions. They were founded in 2006 and have performed all over the United States and even in the United Kingdom.
The group is currently made up of six dancers: co-directors Ayla, the choreographer; and Merika, the costumer; with members Kaiya, Termariel, Eirwen, and Calixta Starr. Though primarily the six, Antipode has had multiple guest dancers grace their shows.
Fusing the theatrics of acting with a mix of cosplay, pop-culture, and off- beat humor Antipode brings the audience not just dance, but full geek entertainment.
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Created in 2008 in Baltimore, Maryland by artists Jamie Noguchi and Nick DiFabbio, Super Art Fight has grown over the past decade into an absolutely can't miss live event, mixing elements of pro-wrestling styled storytelling and character work, live art, and improvised humor.
To date, Super Art Fight has produced hundreds of live events, including shows across the United States and into Canada; appearances at such big conventions as Otakon, Anime Expo, MAGFest, and Awesome Con; features in the pages of The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and Wired; and regular engagements at such legendary rock-and-roll venues as Baltimore's Ottobar and Washington DC's The Black Cat.
Want to see artists collide in one-on-one or tag-team action? Can they stand tall against the ridiculous topics from the crowd-sourced Wheel of Death? Are you ready to cheer your favorites on to victory?
There's only one way to get started...
3-2-1...ART FIGHT!
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Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is a community dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. In 2016, OC ReMix officially moved under the umbrella and sponsorship of Game Music Initiative, Inc, a 501c3 non-profit charitable organization.
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David Wise is an English video game music composer famous for his work on the Donkey Kong Country SNES series, Wii-U and Switch. He was a composer at Rare from 1985 to 2009, and was the company's sole musician up until 1994. He has gained a cult following for his work on other games including Marble Madness, Battletoads, and RC Pro-Am. Wise is known for his atmospheric style of music, mixing natural environmental sounds with prominent melodic and percussive accompaniment.
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Frank Cifaldi is the founder and co-director of The Video Game History Foundation, a 501(c)3 dedicated to saving and documenting the history of how games are made and played. He's dedicated the past 20 years of his life to this cause, and plans on dedicating at least 200 more if medical technology allows.
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8-Bit, the creator of the 8-Bit Music Theory YouTube Channel, makes videos analyzing how and why our favorite video game music sounds so great, using a combination of his formal music education and hundreds of hours of personal study.
If you haven’t seen any of his fantastic content, he provides a very technical and informational analysis on key factors in video game music that contribute to the song’s style, feeling, and purpose. His videos explore chords, scalar sounds, melodic structure, time signatures, and more, in relation to VGM.
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Wilbert Roget, II is a veteran composer in the video game industry, penning the scores to Mortal Kombat 11, Call of Duty: WWII, Star Wars: Vader Immortal, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Destiny 2: Forsaken, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, Anew: The Distant Light, and other indie and AAA titles. He also is the co-founder of Impact Soundworks, a highly successful sample development and music software company, and an accomplished lecturer on video game music, having given talks at the Game Developers Conference, ASCAP Expo, PAX and PAX Dev, as well as Yale University, Eastman School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory and several other institutions. His scores have earned nearly a dozen awards and nominations from the Game Audio Network Guild, Academy of Arts and Sciences (DICE Awards), ASCAP Composers Choice Awards, and others. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Game Audio Network Guild."
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"I only upload high quality video game rips."
SiIvaGunner is a collaborative YouTube channel that uploads "high quality video game rips". The catch is, these aren't quite the video game tunes you might be familiar with! Each rip uploaded has been edited or mashed up in some way to sound different. Whether the gag is one of the many injokes the channel is known for, such as The Flintstones and Snow Halation, or a pop culture reference such as Despacito and Take On Me, there's a little something for everyone across over 10,000 uploads!
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Ellen McLain is an American opera singer and voice actress from Nashville, Tennessee. She is best known for providing the voice of GLaDOS, the computer antagonist of the Portal video game series. Her voice roles also include the Jaeger A.I. in Pacific Rim, the Combine Overwatch in Half-Life 2, and the Administrator in Team Fortress 2. Ellen has been married to fellow actor, John Patrick Lowrie, for thirty-three blissful years.
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John Patrick Lowrie, winner of the Best Radio Drama Actor award and Best Radio Drama Adaptation Award at the 2014 Moondance International Film Festival, is the voice of the Sniper in TF2; Pudge, Storm Spirit, Doom, Earthshaker, Shadow Fiend, Ancient Apparition, Lone Druid and Dark Seer in DOTA2, Balaram in Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Sword Control in Halo:Reach, Commissioner Kinsler in Halo:ODST, Warden in Infamous, Harold Keegan in F.E.A.R.2: Project Origin, Odessa Cubbage and Citizens in Half-Life2, Agent Gray in The Matrix Online, Hermes Haight and Sergei in The Suffering, Bruno Lawrie in NOLF and NOLF2, Tammany in Police Quest: SWAT2, the narrator in Total Annihilation as well as characters in many other video games. He lives in Seattle with his wife of 33 years, Ellen McLain, the voice of GLaDOS in the Portal games. He has worked as a professional performer all his life, from guitarist and composer to actor, director, conductor and author. His first novel, Dancing With Eternity, won the Foreword Firsts Award for best debut fiction in 2011. Dancing With Eternity was released as an audiobook in June of 2014.
He and his wife are pleased to announce the release of their latest video game, The Church In The Darkness in August of 2019 and are looking forward to the upcoming release of their next video game, Space Venture, in the near future.
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