UNNAMED BAND: Sessions

UNNAMED BAND - ‘ENSEMBLING’ is an interdisciplinary collective of four artists - Anju Singh, Toni-Leah C. Yake, Julia Úlehla, and Barbara Adler - who will experiment with music, sound, writing and textiles. While in studio they will engage the public in sharing sessions, with the aim of fostering relationships with ancestors, stories, dreams, technologies, natural processes, and care labour.

The soft poetic nature of textiles offers the artists a format for collaboration that ‘perforates the self,’ allowing for mutual exploration, and an interest in the influence of unseen forces that surround them.

The collective is starting the project with research led by Yake. Inspired by 19th century poet E. Pauline Johnson/Tekahionwake’s retelling of the story "Deer Lake" shared by Chief Joe Capilano. The artists will be experimenting with ‘proto-scores’ inspired by Tekahionwake’s regalia.

Group Studios

Thursday, August 14
11am - 4pm
(open to public 1pm - 2pm)

September 11, 18 and 25
11am - 4pm

Public Performances

Using experimental scores inspired by & Other Ways’ textiles, the UNNAMED BAND will perform improvised music and sound. There will be an opportunity for discussion. Drop-ins welcome. Materials will be on hand for audience members who wish to continue working with their hands.

Saturdays
September 13, 20 and 27
3:30pm – 5:30pm

About the artists

Toni-Leah C. Yake (European; Kanien’kehá:ka, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, Turtle Clan) is a composer-performer and media artist residing on xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm, Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ territories. Her work extends to explore the land, memories, subconscious materials, world building and embodied response. Informed by dream interpretation and Kanien’kehá:ka epistemology Yake submerges into liminality with compositional practices illuminated by archival recordings, synthesis, and noise. Toni-Leah C. Yake’s practices are influenced by the research of kanyen’keha (Mohawk language), the interplay between conscious and unconscious realms, symbolism, and experiences of sound that generate mnemonic experiences, relationships with unseen dimensions, and connections to archaic human memories.

Anju Singh is a composer, musician, and media artist based in Vancouver, BC who works with traditional instruments, electronics, found sounds, custom-built instruments, photography, video, serigraphy, and film to create works that explore tension and conflict. Anju's practice is an exploration of texture through the use of extended or experimental techniques, use of electronics, experimenting with musical and non-musical materials, and electronic processing. One of the core processes in her practice is to use methods of deconstruction and reanimation to repurpose and contextualize materials in new compositional environments. Anju’s work has been presented across Canada, in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States at festivals, galleries, and events in a variety of spaces including Fylkingen in Stockholm Sweden, Send + Receive Festival in Winnipeg, Vancouver Jazz Festival, The Polygon Gallery, Sled Island, and more recently in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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).

Barbara Adler is an interdisciplinary artist and performer, whose work has been presented through multiple solo and band albums, publication in spoken word anthologies, theatre and dance productions and performances at major music and literary festivals. The daughter and sister of Czech immigrants, Barbara now lives in xwesam, colonially known as Roberts Creek, on the unceded territories of the shíshálh and Skwxwu7mesh Nations. Her recent projects centre slow and process-led creation, using intricate textile objects to put a wrench in productivity culture and focus work around relational time and seasonal cycles. In 2023, she joined The Only Animal Theatre as its Artistic Director. She holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies and a BA in Art and Cultural Studies, both from Simon Fraser University.