Valerie Sing Turner
Based on the Coast Salish territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations, Valerie Sing Turner is a multidisciplinary artist who performs, writes, directs, dramaturges, and produces. The premiere of her first play, Confessions of the Other Woman, was co-produced by Urban Ink Productions, Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, and Visceral Visions. She is a recipient of the Enbridge playRites Award for Emerging Canadian Playwright and the John Moffat + Larry Lillo Prize, and was artist-in-residence with National Arts Centre for the development of her 10-actor play, In the Shadow of the Mountains, which has been curated as part of Ruby Slippers’ Advance Theatre Festival of staged readings in February 2022.
A former artist-in-residence with the Shadbolt Centre and associate artist with Urban Ink, Valerie has 20+ years’ experience performing onstage and onscreen, and as a voiceover artist in animation, new media, and CBC radio dramas and short-story narrations. Her writings have appeared in Canadian Theatre Review, alt.theatre, various online publications, and operatic libretti. In 2003, Valerie founded Visceral Visions, for which she is Artistic Producer; the company’s latest initiative is CultureBrew.Art, a digital platform that features a national searchable database of Indigenous and racialized artists who work in the performing, literary, and media arts. An acknowledged leader on issues of diversity and decolonization in the Canadian arts sector, Valerie is a member of Canadian Actors’ Equity, UBCP/ACTRA, and Playwrights Guild of Canada, and an alumnus of the Banff Centre for Arts’ Cultural Leadership program. She was honoured with UBCP/ACTRA’s 2019 International Women’s Day Award in recognition of her “outstanding contributions to the Union, the industry, and causes of social justice”.
Following #IndieFest, Valerie is looking forward to expanding this fabulous collaboration with Katerina Gimon, Debi Wong, and re:Naissance Opera, adapting Did I Just Say That? into an animated film as co-director and co-producer.