Artwork by Keely O’Brien
Concept and curation by Barbara Adler, with The Only Animal
Inspired by the history of the Luddites, skilled textile workers of the Industrial Revolution who resisted automation ad fought for fair work, this contemporary reimagining invites audiences to slow down, connect, and co-create.
Over three days of social gatherings and performances, a large-scale, plant-dyed textile comes to life with contributions from the public. Audiences dye, eco-print and embroider fabrics to reveal hidden designs by artist Keely O’Brien, alongside live storytelling and recorded sound. On Sunday night the stitching continues, paired with ‘music from the land and heart’ by Tsimka Martin and Michael Red, and songs of ‘rivers, mountains and rainforests’ by Caley Watts.
A re-enchantment of place, tuned to the rhythm of our hands.
November 7th – 9th at The Roundhouse
181 Roundhouse Mews (Pacific & Davie)
Google map
Between 11 am and 7 pm on Saturday, November 8th, The Only Animal shares "magic tricks with natural dyes"—demonstrating hands-on methods for colour transformations with fabric—in four one-hour sessions. Participants will work with natural materials while listening to guest artists tell personal stories about how their experiences with natural dying connect them to place, land and culture.
Daphne will talk about her experience working with international sportswear brands and how this shaped her to return to slow fashion, natural dyes, and processes that connect her to land and people.
Rooted in the traditional, ancestral, and stolen territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking peoples, Daphne Woo 胡 可 欣, carries the stories and legacy of her family as a second-generation settler of Chinese ancestry. Her early immersion in arts and textiles encouraged a spirit of exploration and experimentation which led to studies in Fashion Design & Technology at Kwantlen College and diverse roles at Nike European Headquarters, Asics Europe B.V., and lululemon athletica. A decade of working in the Netherlands reshaped Daphne’s sense of belonging and her perspective on migration, identity, and adaptation.
Adventures on the Yukon River, and travels through Asia in 2016, renewed her relationship with land and revived her practice with Amacata Design Concepts, marking a return to personal values, community and working with natural materials and dyes. More recently, Daphne has dedicated herself to art, teaching, and (un)learning, cultivating a thoughtful connection to land and community.
Rita Kompst will share how weaving with cedar and wool, and working with natural plant dyes and mushrooms, have been part of her healing journey. This session features mushrooms gathered for Rita by her friend, mycologist and artist Willoughby Arévalo, of Art & Fungi.
Rita was born and raised in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm culture. Her late father Joe Becker was a former Musqueam Chief, a carver and a fisherman. After he passed, Rita started cedar weaving as per her cultural teachings. Over the next 7 years, as she experienced several personal losses, she continued weaving as part of her healing journey. Several years ago, her mentor Todd Devries encouraged her to begin teaching cedar weaving which she now does full-time.
Bernarda will share her journey about the challenges of trying to reconnect with her Indonesian culture, her feelings of disconnection and her desire for belonging through the ups and downs of learning the practice of traditional batik dyeing. Her project "The Batik Library" seeks to connect people through workshops, resources and one-of-a-kind, naturally-dyed pieces that raise awareness of Indonesian culture through the method, stories, and history of traditional batik.
Bernarda is a fashion designer and textile practitioner dedicated to raising awareness of Indonesian batik. With years of experience in design and a deep commitment to environmental care, she works closely with artisans using natural dyes and traditional methods. Now based in Vancouver, she facilitates hands-on batik workshops across the Lower Mainland, sharing the beauty of her heritage. Her practice bridges craft, culture, and sustainability, inspiring others to connect with tradition and nature.
Valerie will share stories and samples from her work as an Indigo Griot, as she guides us in simple shibori folding techniques to dip fabrics in small iron indigo vats. Valérie will share what she has learned from collaborating with her own bio-fermented indigo vats, which she has tended through cycles of rest and renewal over the course of decades.
Valérie d. Walker is a Renaissance Artist, alchemyst, transmedia maker, educator, curator, Indigo Griot, Radio-Wave creatrix, and BIPOC Femme Afro-Futuristic transmitter. With lifetimes of Indigo knowledge, Valérie’s practice explores enviro-positive natural dyeing & printing, fibre-based responsive installations, tactile virtual spaces, solar-powered circuits, story-telling, epigenetic memories, environmentally healing studio processes, craft-based techniques, digitalia & imagining, programming, sensoriality, and Afro-Futurism.
She is a graduate of UC-Berkeley and NSCAD University, and holds 5th level Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) & Chado (tea-ceremony) degrees with Urasenke-Kyoto. She currently teaches Interdisciplinary Foundation Studio, Interactive Wearables, Electronics for Artists, FibreShed Regeneration (TARP) Indigo naturally, and programming for Grrlz with community empowerment centers. She is an artist in residence at the Malaspina Downtown Printing Studios and has her own bio-fermented natural indigo dye studio in East Vancouver.
On Sunday night the stitching continues, paired with ‘music from the land and heart’ by Tsimka Martin and Michael Red, and songs of ‘rivers, mountains and rainforests’ by Caley Watts.
As you enjoy the concert, you’re welcome to pick up some of our beautifully natural-dyed materials to stitch or create cordage. No experience is needed and everything will be provided. Join in if you like, or simply sit back, listen, and enjoy the enchanting sounds.
GET TICKETSKeely O'Brien is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice incorporates handmade objects with innovative theatre creation. Devoted to a thoroughly DIY process, Keely’s work includes experimental performance, imaginative ephemera, and interactive experiences. She often creates collaborative projects with community members who may not consider themselves artists, and invites the public to participate in unusual meaning-making experiences. Keely is Co-Artistic Director of Popcorn Galaxies, a theatre company with a focus on unconventionally structured, site-specific, and audience-activated performance. She holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from Simon Fraser University, and is a self and family-taught visual artist. She lives in Richmond, BC, on unceded territories of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking peoples.
Tsimka & Michael Red is a collaboration of music from the land and from the heart (and knowing and listening).
Tsimka sings and speaks and sometimes plays a drum. Most lyrics are in Tsimka’s heritage language Tla-o-qui-aht ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ. Her themes deal with love, cleansing, healing, liberation through imagining and more.
Michael creates and reveals music & atmospheres with the natural sounds recorded by Tsimka from her ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ home territory, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh territory (where she lived recently for 2 years). Breaking ice as light percussive rhythm, bull kelp head explosions becoming kick drum patterns, a Squamish valley wolf, a large cat in the dark.. Cixwatsac (Frank Island frogs), Swainson’s Thrush, other birds. a little creek at Hiłwinʔis, ocean, rain and mist
Tsimka’s voice is also used as an instrument through live fx and is embedded in Michael’s pre-made production (which is dubbed out and layered and effected live). Words and tones and expressions are shaped and woven into all layers of the sonic fabric, from deeply embedded to very visible.
Caley Watts is a Cree singer/songwriter and a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation who grew up along the river banks, mountain ranges, and rainforest of her adopted home in the Nuxalk Nation. Her smooth, bright vocals, oozing with emotion are a blend of folk and roots that draw heavily from the pace and beauty of her home.
River’s Daughter, Caley’s debut album, is the result of years of mentorship and co-writing sessions with incredible artists, including William Prince, Serena Ryder, Kinnie Starr, Katie Pruitt, Raye Zaragoza, Sebastian Gaskin and Samantha Crain.
Watts has performed at both the Winnipeg and Edmonton Folk Festivals, and recently took the stage at ‘Road to the Junos’ earlier this year. To celebrate National Indigenous History Month, CBC Music selected Caley as one of five emerging Indigenous artists. As CBC Music producer Kelsey Adams wrote about Watts's song East Wind: "Her arresting vocals glide over the pared-back production, until the electric guitar takes centre stage in the song's latter half with a time-stopping solo."
Rooted in the traditional, ancestral, and stolen territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking peoples, Daphne Woo 胡 可 欣, carries the stories and legacy of her family as a second-generation settler of Chinese ancestry. Her early immersion in arts and textiles encouraged a spirit of exploration and experimentation which led to studies in Fashion Design & Technology at Kwantlen College and diverse roles at Nike European Headquarters, Asics Europe B.V., and lululemon athletica. A decade of working in the Netherlands reshaped Daphne’s sense of belonging and her perspective on migration, identity, and adaptation.
Adventures on the Yukon River, and travels through Asia in 2016, renewed her relationship with land and revived her practice with Amacata Design Concepts, marking a return to personal values, community and working with natural materials and dyes. More recently, Daphne has dedicated herself to art, teaching, and (un)learning, cultivating a thoughtful connection to land and community.
Rita was born and raised in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm culture. Her late father Joe Becker was a former Musqueam Chief, a carver and a fisherman. After he passed, Rita started cedar weaving as per her cultural teachings. Over the next 7 years, as she experienced several personal losses, she continued weaving as part of her healing journey. Several years ago, her mentor Todd Devries encouraged her to begin teaching cedar weaving which she now does full-time.In addition, Rita dyes wool with mushrooms, plants and lichens creating a rainbow of naturally hand-dyed colours.
Bernarda is a fashion designer and textile practitioner dedicated to raising awareness of Indonesian batik. With years of experience in design and a deep commitment to environmental care, she works closely with artisans using natural dyes and traditional methods. Now based in Vancouver, she facilitates hands-on batik workshops across the Lower Mainland, sharing the beauty of her heritage. Her practice bridges craft, culture, and sustainability, inspiring others to connect with tradition and nature.
Valérie d. Walker is a Renaissance Artist, alchemyst, transmedia maker, educator, curator, Indigo Griot, Radio-Wave creatrix, and BIPOC Femme Afro-Futuristic transmitter. With lifetimes of Indigo knowledge, Valérie’s practice explores enviro-positive natural dyeing & printing, fibre-based responsive installations, tactile virtual spaces, solar-powered circuits, story-telling, epigenetic memories, environmentally healing studio processes, craft-based techniques, digitalia & imagining, programming, sensoriality, and Afro-Futurism.
She is a graduate of UC-Berkeley and NSCAD University, and holds 5th level Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) & Chado (tea-ceremony) degrees with Urasenke-Kyoto. She currently teaches Interdisciplinary Foundation Studio, Interactive Wearables, Electronics for Artists, FibreShed Regeneration (TARP) Indigo naturally, and programming for Grrlz with community empowerment centers. She is an artist in residence at the Malaspina Downtown Printing Studios and has her own bio-fermented natural indigo dye studio in East Vancouver.
Toni-Leah C. Yake (Euro-settler; Kanyen'kehà:ka, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, Turtle Clan) is a composer-performer currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Her interdisciplinary practice engages with themes of land, memory, world-building, and embodied response. Informed by dream interpretation and Kanyen'kehà:ka epistemologies, Yake's performances frequently navigate liminal states through the integration of archival recordings, synthesis, and noise-based sound practices. Grounded in ongoing kanyen’kéha (Mohawk language) research, her work explores the interplay between conscious and unconscious experience, symbolic resonance, relationships with unseen dimensions, and the invocation of ancestral and archaic memory.
Julia Úlehla is an interarts performer, composer, scholar, and cultural worker who lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. Her performance practice and research engage with "living song" and other forms of more-than-human life, ancestry, traditional culture, and forms of experimentation. She received a BA in Music from Stanford University, an MMus in Vocal Performance from the Eastman School of Music, a PhD in Ethnomusicology from UBC, and a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cultural Studies at Queens University. Julia was a member of the laboratory theatre the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, and now regularly performs throughout North America and Europe with her ensemble Dálava, and in a variety of other performance milieus. Her scholarship has appeared in the journals Performance Matters (2023) and Ethnomusicology Translations (2018), and as a co-authored chapter in Research and Reconciliation: Unsettling Ways of Knowing through Indigenous Relationships (2019). As a composer and vocalist, she has recorded on Pi Recordings (2025), Songlines Recordings (2017), and Sanasar Records (2014).
The music of guitarist and composer Aram Bajakian music has been called “a masterpiece” (fRoots), “shape-shifting” (FreeJazzCollective), and “sometimes delicate, sometimes punishing” (Chicago Reader). As a guitarist, “the virtuosic jack of all trades” (Village Voice) has toured extensively with Lou Reed, Madeleine Peyroux, John Zorn and Diana Krall. From 2018-2021, Bajakian served as the New Music Curator at Western Front in Vancouver, one of Canada’s leading artist-run centers for contemporary art and new music. Bajakian received his Bachelor of Music degree (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he studied with Dr. Yusef Lateef. He holds a Master of Arts Degree in Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the University of British Columbia. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, where his advisor is Dr. Nathan Hesselink. His research focuses on contemporary and historic Armenian communities.
As Why Choir, interdisciplinary artist and composer Roxanne Nesbitt and Juno-award winning drummer Ben Brown, create imaginative semi-improvised songscapes. Using a wide range of sonic tools including drum kit, voice, electronics, upright bass, and Nesbitt’s handmade ceramic percussion instruments—Why Choir’s performances blend experimental sounds with pop idioms to blur the lines between accessible and avant-garde.
Jen Yakamovich is a Halifax-raised, Vancouver-based drummer and percussionist who works across disciplines as an improviser, composer, educator, researcher, live performer, and session musician. Holding a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University (2019), she is interested in the connections between sound, rhythm, and social-ecological transformation. She approaches her relationship with the drum set—a system of interrelating sounds and parts— as a window into relationships with her own internal system and wider social webs.
In addition to working across musical contexts, Yakamovich enjoys opportunities to take the drum set into less traditional settings and disciplines. She regularly collaborates with dancers, visual artists, galleries, essayists, theatre groups, and environmental scientists. Recent projects and performances have included Active/Passive Festival (2022), Coastal Jazz Iron Fest III (2022), Harvest Moon with Rumble Theatre (2022), grunt gallery’s Tactile Residency (2023), Sled Island (2023), and Vines Art Festival (2023). She has been a percussionist for artist and instrument-maker Roxanne Nesbitt’s nine-month research creation project and installation, “Thunderous Wondering” (2023).
@theonlyanimaltheatre