About

Four women standing on stage facing forwards and gesturing towards the audience.
Image Description: A photo of the Speaking Vibrations performers: four women standing side by side on stage with their arms reaching forward and their hands palms downward. Their hands are slightly blurred as they are in a vibrating motion. Each woman wears a distinct colour fabric for their costume. From left to right: On the far left is a Filipina woman, she has long black hair and wears black shirt, red pants and sash. Beside her, left of centre, is a white woman, she has long curly brown hair and wears a white draping fabric like a dress. On her right is a Black woman, right of centre, she has a short fro and is wearing a bright green shirt. Beside her, is a Vietnamese woman who has her black hair tied in a high bun and is wearing a dark blue robe. Photo by Andrew Alexander at Great Canadian Theatre Company (2022).

About Speaking Vibrations:

ASL poet and storyteller Jo-Anne Bryan, percussive dance artist Carmelle Cachero, literary Hip Hop artist King Kimbit, and contemporary dance artist Jordan Samonas are the creators of Speaking Vibrations.

We are four women from different walks of life, of diverse identities, practices and communities. Our stories are about the tensions between where we are from, where we live, and the languages we speak, sign, or have lost.


Accessibility is our aesthetic:

  • We create inclusive, accessible and transdisciplinary performance works.
  • We centre Deaf storytelling, performance, and creation methods.
  • We combine different styles of performance and storytelling.
  • We use innovative and accessible technologies, production methods, stage and sound design.
  • We work with ASL interpreters and accessibility consultants.
  • We believe that accessibility is a process!

To learn more about this website’s accessibility, click here.

More about Speaking Vibrations:

We won the April Hubbard Creative Access Award at the 2023 Halifax Fringe Festival and the Corel Endowment Fund for the Arts Award (Ottawa Arts Council, 2023). We were nominated for Best Direction (Jacqui du Toit and Pamela Witcher) and Best Design (Vibrotactile Design: David Bobier, Jim Ruxton and Jesse Stewart) at the 2022 Prix Rideau Awards. At the Ottawa Fringe Festival in 2021, we won “Outstanding Ensemble Performance.”

The City of Ottawa, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts have funded and supported our work. We have attracted attention from interviews and reviews with newspaper, radio, magazine and online publications. 

To learn more about past performances, click here.

Our Team:

creation/performance | Jo-Anne Bryan, Carmelle Cachero, King Kimbit, & Jordan Samonas

producers | Carmelle Cachero & Jordan Samonas

stage & production manager | Kat Wong 

director/dramaturg | Jacqui du Toit

Deaf culture director | Pamela Witcher 

lighting design | Emilio Sebastiao

projection & video designer | Lesley Marshall

vibrotactile specialists | David Bobier & Jim Ruxton (VibrafusionLab)

lead interpreter | Marianne Kelly



The Artists

A Filipina woman in a red sash poses against a black background.

Carmelle Cachero

Co-Producer, Creator, Performer

Image Description: A photo of Filipina woman, she has long black hair and wears black shirt, red sash and red wrist ties. She is looking towards the camera and her hands are clasped together.

Carmelle Cachero tells her story through rhythm and her passion for the art form of rhythm tap is a driving force to her pursuits.  In addition to Speaking Vibrations, she currently dances with the Ottawa Rhythm Initiative Ensemble and YOW City Tap.  She co-founded the West Coast Tap Dance Collective and is a former member of The Urban Tap Squad, both based in Vancouver. Carmelle currently  is a Producing Fellow in the ThisGen Fellowship under the partnership of Why Not Theatre and the National Arts Centre. Her love for the arts extends into other aspects of her life working as a Sign Language Interpreter for theatre and the performing arts. 

White woman in a white costume poses on stage against a blue background.

Jordan Samonas

Co-Producer, Creator, Performer

Image Description: A photo of white woman on stage posing in a lunge position in front of a blue background. She is looking down. Her palms are open in the shape of a book. She has long curly brown hair and wears a white draping fabric like a dress.

Jordan Samonas is a performer, choreographer and producer of interdisciplinary works and events, with an eclectic movement background. Visionary and go-getter, Jordan has a background in indie self-production: ROOTED Contemporary Dance (2015-2019); NORTH OF MIND with Don Ross (2018) and Speaking Vibrations Accessible Concert Film (2021). Select credits: Speaking Vibrations (Great Canadian Theatre Company, 2022; Ottawa Fringe Festival, 2021; Uproar Arts Festival, 2019), ex-ducere (Nextfest Arts Festival, 2021); A Hug in Several Parts (Dark Horse Dance Projects, 2019) snowdance2 (ROOTED Contemporary Dance, 2019), technosapien (Series Dance10-Ottawa Dance Directive, 2018); Ottawa Rhythm Initiative Ensemble (Ottawa Jazz Festival, 2018).

A Black woman in a bright green dress poses against a black background.

Jo-Anne Bryan

Creator, Performer

Image Description: A photo of Black woman on stage in front of a black background. She has a short fro and is wearing a bright green shirt with wide sleeves. She is looking towards the camera. Her hands making the shape of a sphere or globe.

Jo-Anne Anita Bryan is an Ottawa-based Artist experiencing life through the intersections of being Black, Deaf, Queer, and Woman. Her artistry includes American Sign Language (ASL) storytelling and performance. Jo-Anne is one-quarter of the Speaking Vibrations group; they did their first performance at Uproar Arts Festival (2019). Jo-Anne performed her ASL storytelling Where You Come From (Phenomena Festival, 2019) and 400 years (Sound Off Festival, 2021). When not performing, she works as ASL consultant/Deaf interpreter to interpreters and Deaf theatre actors and creates illustrations in her spare time. She wants to ensure that theatre is accessible to Deaf communities.

A Vietnamese woman in a dark blue robe poses against a black background.

King Kimbit

Creator, Performer

Image Description: A photo of a Vietnamese woman who has her black hair tied in a high bun. She is wearing a dark blue robe with draping sleeves. She has her palms open and her eyes closed.

King Kimbit is a literary and vocal Hip-Hop artist based on traditional land of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. As a daughter of the Vietnamese Diaspora, King yearns to explore the roots of her journey as she expresses through art forms learned from an inner-city upbringing, some of which can be heard on her debut album, Life Lessons Poetically. King is passionate about empowering and encouraging youth, community care, and sharing love through writing, reciting, and the abolition of punitive, carceral institutions, and is currently working on her sophomore album, Healing Trauma From The Projects. 

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