The arts organization in residence at the Sunshine Coast Arts Council will conclude its spring and summer tenure with a community event that combines performance pedigree with deep-rooted inspiration from nature.
The Soil to Stage Finale — scheduled for Aug. 18 — is the culminating event in a series of workshops coordinated by The Only Animal, a Vancouver-based theatre company headed by Roberts Creek resident Barbara Adler. As the arts council’s artist in residence, The Only Animal is hosting soil-to-stage “production parties” from July through August.
But when participants gather to process raw fleece, card fibres and spin wool, they are actually weaving a long-term theatrical vision.
“The bigger arc of what we’re working on is using handmade textiles to make the stage environment for a future performance,” said Adler. “It’s a music theatre piece that tells the story of a group of professional mermaids who have to repair their relationship to a clearwater spring where they’ve been performing an underwater spectacular.”
Preparations for the Mermaid Spring musical, scheduled for debut in 2026, began six years ago. “It’s a really long process to make a handmade set for a music theatre piece,” explained Adler. “So along the way, we’ve devised these different ways of inviting the community in to be part of the process and to work alongside us.”
The Only Animal was founded in 2005 as a group of performance artists dedicated to creating live theatre in nontraditional venues like beaches, forests and snow-covered mountainsides. For an interdisciplinary artist like Adler, it provides an opportunity to link textile artistry with community engagement.
The Soil to Stage Finale will be presented in conjunction with the annual Artisan Fair in Sechelt’s Hackett Park. Alongside storytelling and musical performances, live demonstrations by members of the Sunshine Coast Fibreshed will emphasize how local textiles benefit the climate. Local textiles are cultivated using sustainable forms of agriculture, and their materials are ultimately returned to the land.
Adler cleaves to a slow-paced practice that combines artistic creation with activities that build social connections. In late July, 20 people gathered at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre to dye textiles using indigo grown in the centre’s natural dye garden.
“It’s all part of building something together,” said Adler.
Adler herself is a practitioner of hyperbolic crochet, using a hook to interlock loops of yarn into intricate, folded shapes that resemble mushrooms or coral. The shape grows by becoming denser instead of expanding outward. As a metaphor, Adler observed, it is a powerful counterpoint to the relentless spread of colonial institutions and ideologies. Instead of devouring more space, growth increases the textile’s integrity.
“I love that idea that we could make things really modestly and small,” said Adler, “and then over time still be fostering all these very vibrant connections with communities, with other artists, and even with the nonhuman world.”
At other summer sessions, participants learned to make rope and string using daylilies, whose long stems can be twisted into strong cords. Adler has even experimented with transforming backyard blackberry stalks into cordage. The dye garden at the Arts Centre has produced Coreopsis (orange and brown) and sulphur cosmos (tangerine and green). During workshops next week, attendees will gather driftwood to construct a loom.
Aug. 18 may be the “finale” for The Only Animal’s Sunshine Coast residency. But it’s also a milestone. “The things that we’re learning along the way are going to be bigger than the final product,” said Adler.
Event listings for The Only Animal artist residency are available online at sunshinecoastartscouncil.com/the-only-animal-residency.
