The Team
Image description: Headshot of Jacqueline Ko, a disabled Chinese-Canadian woman with long hair and bangs wearing a black blazer, wine-coloured dress and lipstick, and a confident expression.
Jacqueline Ko
Artistic Director
Jacqueline Ko (she/her) is a multi-award-winning soprano who “knows exactly what to do with an absolutely gorgeous voice” (Review Vancouver). A versatile performance and recording artist whose work spans opera, theatre and film, a few of her notable role highlights include Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Angelica in Suor Angelica, Sharon in Master Class, Lauretta and La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute. She has been praised for her “definite aptitude” (Opera Canada) as the founding artistic director of Opera Mariposa, and is also an internationally-recognized disability and chronic illness advocate who has raised over $125,000 to date for chronic neuroimmune diseases such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), with which she has lived since age six. Thanks to her work advancing disability visibility in the arts, in 2019 she was selected to become the first Canadian Ambassador for the Open Medicine Foundation, a global organization whose other representatives include international bestselling authors and Nobel laureates.
Image description: Headshot of Robin Hahn, a white femme disabled human with brown hair and eyes, wearing a white sweater, berry coloured lipstick and a big smile.
Robin Hahn
Associate Director of Artistic Planning
Robin Hahn (she/they) is a Metropolitan Opera Award-winning lyric soprano, stage director, music educator and content creator whose career has taken her around the world, from Amsterdam to New York to Disneyland. As a performer she has been hailed as “sublime, with a beautiful resonant soprano full of colour” (Opera Canada), and her highlights range from a production of Così fan tutte in the Netherlands, to a Canada-wide tour as soloist with the Chinese Radio Broadcasting Orchestra. As a stage director, Robin’s productions have been hailed as “a masterpiece of controlled mayhem” (Review Vancouver), and her work is known for reinterpreting and updating heteronormative stories. Since co-founding Opera Mariposa, she has become a respected disability advocate within the operatic community, as well as a fast-growing YouTuber whose channel Robin Hahn, sopran has been awarded the Industry Catalyst Grant from CreativeBC and the City of Vancouver.
Image description: Headshot of Stephanie, a disabled Chinese-Canadian woman with wavy black hair wearing a red dress and gold necklace, turning towards the viewer smiling.
Stephanie Ko
General Manager
Stephanie Ko (she/her/hers) is a disabled arts administrator, graphic designer, costume designer, consultant and national award-winning writer based in Vancouver. As well as being Opera Mariposa’s general manager, she has been involved in disability and chronic illness advocacy for over a decade in partnership with charities, healthcare programs, funding bodies and arts service organizations worldwide. She currently sits on Actsafe’s Performing Arts Standing Committee; serves on the Community Council for the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance; and co-moderates I Lost My Gig Canada, supporting artists and freelance workers impacted by the ongoing pandemic. She brings her lived experience with post-viral illness to collaborations with the global nonprofit Open Medicine Foundation, and in 2022 was awarded Lifetime Honorary Membership with the ME | FM Society of BC for outstanding service to the chronic illness community.
Image description: Headshot of Katie Gillespie, a disabled white woman with long curly brown hair, hazel eyes and glasses, in front of a staircase with a smile on her face.
Katie Gillespie
Communications Associate
Katie Gillespie (she/her/hers) is a disabled recovering grad student, with a background in communications and a passion for all community-engaged arts. Over the last decade, she has volunteered with West Coast companies like the North Shore Light Opera Society, Heroic Opera, East Van Opera, Metro Theatre and United Players of Vancouver, in greater and lesser capacities as her health and her access needs dictate. In roles ranging from board member to box office, from communications associate to an advocate for COVID-19 safety, her focus and passion has always been making theatre more accessible, whether that’s promoting it to younger people, or making it more affordable or more physically and immunologically inclusive. Katie has been a part of the Opera Mariposa team since 2014, and despite worsening health, is excited and committed to contributing what she can to an arts organization explicitly dedicated to promoting disability access in opera and theatre.
Image description: Headshot of Christie A. Pollock, a disabled white woman with grey eyes, bangs, and long brown hair tied back, standing before a stone wall. She wears bright burgundy lipstick, a white top, and a deep purple cardigan.
Christie A. Pollock
Communications Associate
Christie A. Pollock (she/her) has been reorganizing the costume collection, welcoming audience members at the box office, and consulting on the creation of prop songbirds for Opera Mariposa since 2014, in addition to her primary role writing and editing copy. She has also enjoyed volunteering with other performing arts companies in Vancouver including Heroic Opera and East Van Opera. A lifelong choral singer with a linguistics degree and multiple disabilities, much of her time outside of the indie opera world is devoted to patient-centred health care initiatives. Christie collaborates frequently with BC Mental Health & Substance Use Services and the Patient Voices Network, in roles such as panel speaking, reviewing provincial policy, and co-designing hospital procedure. She is also a facilitator for a peer support group with the BPD Society of BC, and a psychology major at Simon Fraser University in a second degree program.