ONALEA BIOGRAPHY

Onalea is a multidisciplinary creator, performer, puppeteer, director & recording artist. As a music and theatre artist Onalea has performed numerous roles world wide in both the traditional and the avant-garde including the role of Hecate in the hit show Sleep no More in New York City.

She recently hosted and performed at the Bell Grandstand show at the Calgary Stampede for an audience of 20,000 people nightly.

A consummate crossover artist, Onalea's original work is a unique blend of music and the theatrical. An accomplished vocalist, she has sung with everything from trio to chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras, and big bands. She has recorded four CD's ranging from big band to jazz standards, electronica to original material. As a director she specializes in new work and integrating multi genre performance styles and communities.

Onalea has created and performed shows as a singer, actor and puppeteer for symphony orchestras as a part of Dandi productions, and she spent 7 seasons with the legendary Canadian physical theatre ensemble One Yellow Rabbit. Her voice has been heard in multiple animation projects on cartoon networks around the world.

Onalea's original pieces REQUIEM FOR A LOST GIRL:  A Chamber Musical About Homelessness and BLANCHE: The Bittersweet Life Of A Wild Prairie Dame premiered in New York City as special events of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.  REQUIEM was recently presented by the Vancouver Opera. Mata Hari in 8 Bullets - a one woman fever dream burlesque, performed Off Broadway in New York and at the Edinburgh festival.

Onalea is also an activist who passionately believes using The Arts as a tool for education, advocacy and social change.  She has collaborated in creating community and conversation around the topics of homelessness, poverty, mental health, addiction and missing and murdered women by engaging with the following organizations as a part of the Requiem project: Calgary Drop In Centre, Calgary Woman’s Centre, Henry Street Settlement Shelter, Fountain HouseCovenant house youth crisis shelter (NYC) and The Kettle Society (Vancouver).  

Onalea is presently working on a solo album project of torch, cabaret & originals.

Follow her online @onaleamusic

Onalea on Youtube


“One of the most powerful performances I’ve ever experienced, this opera that is not merely watched but felt through and through. Every member of the audience was invested and fully wrenched in the anger, the despair, the wrath and the hope.” (The Vancouver arts Review -Maira Hassan RE Onalea's piece REQUIEM FOR A LOST GIRL)

"Intimate yet sweeping... haunting and powerful... you found yourself reeling from its emotional punch" 
NY THEATRE.COM (RE Onalea's piece BLANCHE)

“Gilbertson's distinctive, charming voice bristles with intelligence and captures your attention effortlessly. You always sit up and pay notice when she's singing." -Michael Giltz, Huffington Post

"...an artist with a beautiful voice..." - Celia Wren, The Washington Post

“An enchanting stage presence and a silky voice” - Time out New York

“…It takes a performer with true magnetism to hold 20,000 people in rapt attention”

Louis Hobson, Calgary Herald

Onalea Theater Demo reel

 

 

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photo by Miguel Anaya