about

Olivia C. Davies (Anishinaabe) creates and collaborates in the design of Contemporary Indigenous choreography, creative writing, film, improvisation, performance, and sound design. Davies' body of work spans two decades with works that explore the emotional and political relationships between people and places, often investigating the body’s dynamic ability to transmit narrative. Her work has been shared across Canada and abroad at the Birmingham International Dance Festival, the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, the Dancing on the Edge Festival, Crimson Coast InFringing Dance Festival, Fluid Fest, Vines Festival, Shambhala Festival, CCOV, Studio 303, Public Energy, Nozhem First Peoples Performance Space, Emily Carr University, Native Earth Performing Arts, and the National Arts Centre. Her latest work Maamawi: Together Through The Fire is a collaboration with Peppers Ghost New Media Collective and tells the story of the Anishinaabe 7 Fires Prophecy through an augmented reality experience.

As a trauma-informed workshop facilitator mentored by Diane Roberts and Rosemary Georgeson through the Arrivals Legacy Project (ALP), she has developed storytelling through movement and collective creation opportunities for women living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at the Firehall Arts Centre, for youth in care at Vancouver’s Aboriginal Children Family Services Society, for aging adults through Arts and Health Vancouver, and for schoolchildren through New Works Share Dance program.

She is the Founding Artistic Director of O.Dela Arts and the Matriarchs Uprising Festival. Davies is a mother, mentor, and mentee who honours her mixed Anishinaabe, French Canadian, Finnish and Welsh heritage.

Brian Postalian (Բրայն Փոսթալյան) is a performance creator, educator, and producer born and raised in Toronto/Tkaronto by way of Armenia, Ireland, UK, and the Czech Republic. With their company Re:Current Theatre, they make work that reconsiders how we share space together in communal places, blurring the divide between audiences and performers. Their work extends beyond traditional stages and use the communal form as an intervention of the private self in public space. Their work New Societies has been presented across Canada and Internationally; where it has been translated into Mandarin. Brian's work co-creating Access Me with the Boys in Chairs collective was published by Playwrights Canada Press as part of Interdependent Magic: Disability Performance in Canada.

He has worked as a curator, producer, and artist with companies across Canada including: Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Presentation House Theatre, Playwrights Theatre Centre, Common Boots Theatre, Factory Theatre, Crow’s Theatre, Impulse Theatre, potatoCakes_digital, Rumble Theatre, PuSh Festival, Matriarchs Uprising, Paprika Festival, SummerWorks, Magnetic North Festival, Kick & Push Festival, In the Soil Festival, Queer Arts Festival, and many more.

Brian has been a sessional instructor within the School of Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto and Simon Fraser University. Brian is a certified facilitator of liz lerman's Critical Response Process. He completed a Master of Fine Arts at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts in Theatre Game Design and Interdisciplinary Performance Studies. In his spare time, he likes to visit used book stores, revisit childhood video games, ride his bicycle, play with his dog Amie, and says that he’s been learning how to draw and play the Armenian duduk for at least eight years but isn’t much better at it now than he was when he started. Brian currently lives on the unceded Coast Salish territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations (also known as Vancouver, BC).

Kelly McInnes (they/she), a settler of Irish, Scottish & British ancestry, is gratefully based on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. As a queer dance artist, Kelly is concerned with embodying care, sensuality, and generosity. As choreographer, performer and community-engaged facilitator, the intention of her work is to inspire collective healing. She creates as a way to remember and honor our interconnectedness with and responsibility to all life. Her Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practice powerfully inspires her artistic process. A lover of DIY, collaboration and site specificity, Kelly has performed her work in theatres, galleries, studios and parks in Canada, Germany & Mexico. Community-engagement is integral to her practice. She worked with youth over several years through her projects MINE and Epoch Youth Project and enjoyed 4 seasons as facilitator and artist-in-residence with the Roundhouse Community Dancers. Her most recent project Late Stage Remedy, a collective dance meditation, invites a large group of dancers to gather in public parks to share love and care with the lands upon which they dance.

Nico Dicecco is a technical director, production manager, video artist, and photographer based in Vancouver, BC on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Some favourite past (and some ongoing) projects include Through My Lens (Theatre Replacement), The River (Myriad Dance Projects), Body Parts (Tara Cheyenne Performance), In Camera (Realwheels Theatre), #whatnow (Alley Theatre), Mambo and Other Works (Ballet Kelowna), Benevolence (Ruby Slippers), and of course Matriarchs Uprising. Nico holds a PhD in English from Simon Fraser University for his research on adaptation, digital media, and performance.

Andie Lloyd is a queer interdisciplinary artist and community advocate, currently based on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Territories. She works internationally as a lighting designer and media artist, and is a co-founder of HK House 香港屋, a non-profit based in Vancouver, B.C. Some notable involvements include: Peace Country, rice & beans theatre—Projection Design; Happy Valley/馬照跑．舞照跳, rice & beans theatre—Projection Design; BQFKN Online!, rEvolver Fest 2023—Digital Experience Design; Clean/Espejos, Neworld Theatre—Surtitle Design; Residuals (住み・墨), Shion Skye Carter—Lighting Design. She looks forward to designing projection and lighting for Neworld Theatre’s Fat Joke premiering in April 2024. Andie is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada and a graduate of Studio 58.

Jessica Han (she/her) is a Taiwanese-Canadian lighting designer, technical director, production/ stage manager, and filmmaker who is currently splitting her time between Taipei, Taiwan, and Vancouver, BC. She has been working and collaborating with local dance & theatre artists and companies since 2011.

A dance artist since 2003, Deanna Peters/Mutable Subject creates, performs and DIY produces for the stage, club, gallery, screen and online spaces. A digital designer since 2013, Deanna also creates for the web and print. It's all dance!

Julia Carr was born and currently resides on the ancestral, and unceded Indigenous territories of the ʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. She/They currently braids together a livelihood as dancer, artistic director, consultant, educator, IRATA/SPRAT Level 1 rope access technician, and events coordinator. A professional dancer since 2005, Julia has performed contemporary and vertical dance choreographies by renowned artists. She is also a collaborative creator and improviser, crafting spontaneous moments with musicians and fellow dancers both on stage and in unusual site-specific locations. Founding Co-Director of the interdisciplinary Body Narratives Collective, and since 2020 Artistic Director of Dancestreams repertory youth dance company.

Treaty 1-born Sophie Dow is a multidisciplinary creative, inspired by dance, music, film, collaboration and Michif/Assiniboine + French/Ukrainian roots. An avid adventurer, Sophie exudes passions for busking, yoga and traveling on top of holding a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography from York University. Sophie presently fulfills roles as: artistic associate of O.Dela Arts, The Chimera Project& V’ni Dansi/Louis Riel Métis Dancers, residency coordinator at Dance West Network, musician with The Honeycomb Flyers, a licensed practitioner of Traditional Thai Massage, a trained facilitator & student of BreathWave, a freelance dancer/choreographer/sound designer and a puddle jumping trickster.

Samantha Sutherland is a contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Tkaronto. Her ancestry is Ktunaxa and Scottish/British Settler. She grew up on Coast Salish Territories and graduated from the Arts Umbrella Dance Diploma Program in 2018. Samantha has been choreographing solo works since 2021 and has had the pleasure of presenting in festivals across Turtle Island. Some include the Matriarchs Uprising Festival by O.Dela Arts with presentations both in Vancouver and at the National Arts Centre, Sharing the Stage with The National Ballet of Canada, Night Shift by Fall for Dance North, Dance Made in Canada, and Weesageechak Begins to Dance by Native Earth Performing Arts. She has danced in new works by Alejandro Ronceria and Jera Wolfe. She is currently an Artistic Associate with O.Dela Arts.

Bob Baker (Squamish Ancestral name is S7aplek, Hawaiian name is Lanakila) is co-founder and Spokesperson for Spakwus Slolem (Eagle Song) the most reputable Dance Group of the Squamish Nation.

Born and Raised Squamish, Bob has been exercising his Culture through Singing, Dances, and various presentations, for over 35 years. Accomplishments range from revival of Sea-going Canoes and traditions, to Cultural projects such as the 27 ft. Grandmother Welcome Figure at Ambleside Beach Park, to dance presentations in Taiwan, Hawaii, Japan, Switzerland, (Montreaux Jazz Festival), and opening Ceremonies for Western Canada Summer games, Nation Aboriginal Hockey Championships, International U18 Lacrosse Championships, and recently, opening ceremony for the Canada Aboriginal Music Awards. To Blessing Ceremonies for B.C. Ferries, in Flensburg, Germany and the Tallships flotilla Blessing Ceremony here at English bay, Vancouver. On-going performances and projects continue through-out the Lower Mainland, Vancouver, Squamish-Whistler and Vancouver Island.

In the warmer months Bob can be found training in the traditional dug-out war canoes, as well as the Great Sea-going Canoes, and as a steersman for Tribal Journeys, and the Pulling Together Journey, visiting Villages along our beautiful coasts of British Columbia and Washington State.