Barbara Adler

Barbara Adler doesn’t faze easily. In her ten years of touring, she has told stories, performed poetry, and played her accordion all over North America and Europe. She’s appeared in every conceivable variation of bar, night club, high school, coffee shop, theater, folk festival, hockey rink, living room, elementary school classroom, and converted art gallery\church\tattoo-parlor. Quick-witted, warmly funny, and charmingly adventurous, Barbara Adler travels well.

 Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Barbara first started writing and performing for the Vancouver Poetry Slam. She’s been a Canadian Team Slam Champ, a CBC PGI Laureate and a CBC Poetry Face Off Winner. She also tied with Allison Boyce and Katie Marsh to win the “Be the Best You Can Be” award in Grade 7. 

 As a founding member of the critically acclaimed folk band, The Fugitives, Barbara has helped bring spoken word to musical audiences around the world. She continues that work with her own band, Fang, which combines disastrously energetic word and song mash-ups, with an idiosyncratic take on accordion playing meant to make you forget anything Polka has ever done to you.

 Barbara performs and teaches spoken word in schools across Canada, and works extensively with literacy organizations in British Columbia to bring poetry to teens and adult learners all over the province. She is the school liaison and lead presenter of the B.C. Schizophrenia Society’s ReachOut Psychosis concert tour, which has shared its message with over 85,000 high school students in British Columbia. She has led workshops at the VPL Book and Writing Summer Camp, and is a mentor for the Vancouver East Cultural Center’s Youth Spoken Word Intensive.

 Her latest storytelling project, The B.C. Memory Game, collects, creates and shares stories from her travels.

 "(Adler) writes smart, funny, and often deeply moving poetry around questions of history, identity, and self-image" - The Georgia Straight, Vancouver

"Adler's carefully crafted rants are breathlessly precise" Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg

"Adler's stage presence is uniquely engaging.“ Times Colonist, Victoria

Barbara typically performs for one block either in a classroom or auditorium, for a broad cross-section of students (usually English, Writing, Theatre, and Fine Arts classes). This performance introduces students to solo performance poetry, mixed with storytelling and rapid-fire, literary "rap". Workshops and shows also Barbara's shiny, 120-button piano accordion, which sounds frightening, but is in fact a lot of fun. For longer sessions, Barbara leads workshops focused on writing for performance in smaller classes (25-35 students). Activities include, "The Box of Doom," "Wild Minds," "Hyperbole Death Match" and "Extended Metaphors," followed by writing time and performance by students. This last activity is one of Barbara's main focuses; by creating an inspired and creative atmosphere, she encourages students to get up in front of their peers and share their own material. Throughout all these activities, the emphasis is on showing that writing and performance are skills that are relevant and accessible to anyone, and most importantly, that working with words can be fun. Although these activities are designed to be quite basic and non-intimidating, Barbara's extensive experience as a writer and performer means that she can provide more detailed feedback for students who already have experience or interest in spoken word or music, in a manner that remains positive and supportive. For the last three years, Barbara has been selected to provide one-on-one mentoring to aspiring young writers, as part of the Vancouver East Cultural Center's Ignite! Spoken Word Intensive.