ABOUT
The UnDiva started as a small act of rebellion.
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Classical music has a way of expecting conformity. You learn the repertoire, you learn the presentation, you learn how to be what's expected of you in every way. The UnDiva was my way of saying: I'm not a cookie-cutter soprano. It felt necessary, a little cheeky — and I had no clue that I would end up here.
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What I've come to understand since then is this: it was never really about the music.
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Voice was somewhere I found myself.
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I was the kid who liked reading aloud in class — counting paragraphs ahead to make sure I'd deliver mine well. I recorded myself on my little cassette player, doing variety shows and "podcasts" before that was even a thing. I belted out Donny and Marie Osmond songs that I listened to on my Fisher Price record player.
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Eventually I became the adult who loved the embodied feeling of singing more than the music itself.
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Singing was my way to my voice. And my voice was my way to me.
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Classical training gave me a framework I could excel within. Precision. Perfection. I was a good student. I did what I was told. I was praised for it. It took me quite far.
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But I'm not a laser beam.
I'm a constellation.
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And the training kept asking me to compress all of that — the breadth, the connections, the fire — into a single focused point of light. I could do it. I did do it. But it was never enough of me.
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The UnDiva grew from that friction. Not just a rebellion against classical music's expectations — but against every system that asks us to be smaller, more manageable than we actually are. Against the idea that our complexity is a problem to be solved rather than a capacity to be used.
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I've spent years composting that framework. Keeping what nourished me — the embodied knowing, the understanding of what silences people and what frees them, the recognition that technique alone never unlocks authentic expression — and letting the rest go.
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What's left is this: an orientation practice. A writing practice. A way of helping people locate themselves — in their bodies, their thinking, their histories, the systems moving through them.
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I'm still finding the shape of it.
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But the voice was always the thing. It just isn't quite singing anymore.
More about me
Multi-passionate creator, ardent feminist, and former gifted kid living life disguised as a middle-class white mom and wife. My holy trinity: coffee, dogs, and ABBA. These three things can get me through almost anything. Well, that and my people.
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I have an insatiable curiosity and a voracious appetite to understand myself and the world around me. My busy mind expresses itself through writing, conversation (I love to talk), and a deep need to analyze the shit out of everything. I've been with my Indigenous partner for over thirty years, and our interracial relationship has been one of my greatest teachers about privilege, allyship, and the ongoing impacts of colonization. As a white woman, I'm actively working to understand and disrupt white supremacy rather than passively benefiting from it. I also believe that transparency about my lineage, land relationships, and the Indigenous teachers who've shaped my understanding is essential.
[Read my complete lineage and accountability statement]
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When the pandemic hit, I started The League of Unruly Ladies as a way for women to stay connected during isolation—because I knew we needed each other more than ever when the world felt like it was falling apart. That instinct for community-building in times of crisis has become central to how I work.
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My current passions span neurodivergence, anti-racism work, intersectional feminism, somatic therapies, nature photography, herbalism, and breaking down the false binaries that keep people stuck. Although I fancy myself a revolutionary, the truth is I'd love a piece of land far from civilization where I can grow a food forest, walk in the woods with my pack of dogs, forage medicinal herbs, and follow my creative impulses freely.​
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I'm an extroverted introvert (or introverted extrovert—still figuring that out) who both loves and struggles with people. I can see the good in everyone but am constantly frustrated with humanity. I have a deep calling to move the dial forward in our world, working on both the outside systems and our inner landscapes, because we need both personal and systemic change.
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The bottom line: I'm learning to live authentically, trust my intuition, and integrate my mind, body, and spirit. I'm walking this path alongside you.
BUCKY AND RILEY - MY TEAM
Background & Training
I've never taken a conventional path, and that includes my path to this work — and that's exactly why it works.
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Master's in Opera Performance from UBC. I sang — chorus, solos, stages in Europe, paid and unpaid — for over two decades. And taught voice at UBC, MacEwan University, and privately for longer than that.
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Before that, a Women's Studies degree from the University of Alberta that planted the seeds for understanding how personal expression intersects with systemic oppression.
Thirty-plus years of teaching voice showed me that technique alone never unlocks someone's authentic expression. You have to address what's keeping them silent or careful in the first place. That insight is what everything else grew from.
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Since then: trauma-informed voice work, Race and Labor Workshop, Digital Facilitation, Birthing the New feminist business course. And yes — Marketing for Hippies, because even revolutionaries need to eat.
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This combination — classical training, feminist analysis, trauma-informed practice, anti-racism work, decades of witnessing transformation — is what allows me to see what's actually happening and name it precisely enough that you can work with it. What that looks like in practice varies. It's always responsive to what you bring.
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The credentials matter. The commitment to keep learning matters more.
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I've spent a lot of time thinking about why I do this work and how to do it with integrity. If you want to go deeper on that — the values, the approach, the messy ongoing work of building something that actually reflects what I believe — it's all here.
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