Soprano Heather Pawsey played a slave in Vancouver Opera’s most recent production of Salome, has performed contemporary Canadian music in the Vancouver Aquarium, and has sung in Handel’s Messiah. Her repertoire is vast, but it was her Brief Encounters appearance in 2008 with DJ Timothy Wisdom that really forced her to take a leap into the unknown.

“I was in a traditional ball gown, and people absolutely did not expect to hear an opera singer rap,” Pawsey says in a phone interview. “It terrified me. I know nothing about rap; it’s not music I listen to. I thought, it’s either going to bomb, or I have to give it a try, have the courage to be a spectacular failure or just be spectacular.”

By all accounts Pawsey was spectacular indeed, and, as she puts it, “People went nuts.”

Produced by the Tomorrow Collective’s Mara Branscombe and Katy Harris-McLeod, Brief Encounters pairs artists of different genres and gives them two weeks to come up with a short duet. The unions have been mind-blowing: a contemporary dancer working with a welder, an actor with a chef, and a lighting designer with a hip-hop artist, to name just a few. The series has also featured visual artists, painters, musicians, and butoh and bhangra dancers, among others, as well as a carpenter, a hairdresser, and an architect.

The idea stemmed from the dancer-producers’ desire to tap into other audiences besides those attending dance performances and from their interest in blurring the lines between genres. The results redefine interdisciplinary and take collaboration to new, exciting extremes.

When it launched four years ago, the series took place at a Gastown studio called the Office, then moved to the Anza Club. However, Brief Encounters has been gaining steadily in popularity, becoming one of the hottest live-art events in the city. To accommodate bigger crowds, the show has found a new home at Performance Works on Granville Island, where it runs tonight and tomorrow (October 8 and 9).

The venue will enable Brief Encounters to retain its cozy, clubby, underground feel, with cabaret tables and a bar. But it will also allow for greater production values, better sightlines, and more viewers.

The Tomorrow Collective is shaking things up for its 13th installment—which is subtitled The Remix—by inviting back some of the 144 artists who’ve participated in the past. This time out, each will be teamed up with someone different. Pawsey, for instance, is working with standup comedian Graham Clark.

“It’s a wonderful, exciting, terrifying thing to do,” Pawsey says. “Standup comedy is one of those things that terrifies me. But this is about facing one’s fears.”¦We look at how far we’re willing to step outside our comfort zone.”

The producers are bringing back one piece from the past, however: dance comedian Diana David and playwright Jacob Richmond’s Letter to Michael Jackson.

“When it was performed [in 2008], a seasoned arts professional said to me, ”˜That’s ready for the Fringe right now,’” Branscombe says. “It was hugely popular”¦and it played way before he died. It’s an honest tribute to him.”

Harris-McLeod points out that the show is accessible to people of all walks of life.

“The feel of the night”¦is playful and exciting,” she says in a phone interview. “It’s just a fun, warm environment. And at the end we turn it into a dance party,” she says, noting that DJ Wisdom will be at the turntables.

While the evening is guaranteed to deliver solid performances and rambunctious fun, there’s another good reason to take it in, Branscombe notes.

“Especially in this time of budget cuts, it’s a great time to support Vancouver artists and support live art, to turn off the TV and come out,” she says. “These difficult times are a gift in a way, because people do wake up.”