Award-winning Jamaican-Canadian dub poet, storyteller and actor d'bi young is an overall performing arts phenomenon. She is known for such performances as her outstanding role in the 2005 production of ''Da Kink in my Hair, created by Trey Anthony, and her defining play Blood.claat – the first play in her Three Faces of Mudgu trilogy.
AfroToronto.com recently touched base with d'bi young to catch up on what she’s been up to and ask her about her performance scheduled for tonight (Fri. October 30th) in the Distillery District as part of the Canwest Cabaret Festival.
It’s immediately evident that the mother of two (a 5-year-old and a 10-month-old) is a master at multitasking. On top of being a full-time mom, d'bi young is currently working on her Master's at Guelph and runs her own dub theatre youth mentorship program—anitAFRIKA! dub theatre.
“I’m working with 13 people whose ages range from 19 to 60, and basically, I teach them how to write dub solo shows using these principles that I’m developing right now, and have been developing for the last 3 years, called the ORPLUSI principles of story-telling. These are orality, rhythm, personal is political, political is personal, language, urgency, sacredness and integrity. [These are] guiding principles towards the creative process. That’s the most exciting thing for me because I’m at Guelph as well doing my Masters developing theory around oral storytelling and traditions that come out of the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora,” she tells AfroToronto.com.
Developing the residency program at anitAFRIKA! dub theatre is a long-cherished dream of hers in the process of realization. “My dream’s always been to have a school, so I feel that the theatre is a choice in that direction,” young says. She is a big believer in everyone's creative potential. Young believes that we are all, in a way, conditioned. As the daughter of one of Jamaica’s pioneering dub artists --- Anita Stewart, young feels that she may have become a storyteller with special abilities because she was told that she had special abilities.
“I really do believe that we’re all storytellers. I mean, not everybody could do it professionally, but I think that we all have a responsibility to acknowledge that we’re storytelling in whatever we choose to do. The minute we acknowledge that, then we can make choices around how we actually communicate with people.”
As an Afro-Caribbean Diaspora woman, d'bi young sees herself as perpetuating a long tradition of storytelling. “I want to learn as much as I can about that process and investigate how that was done among people who have oral traditions,” she adds.
Tonight, d'bi young celebrates the tradition of old-school dub by performing with dear friends and musical veterans Rakesh Tewari, Ian De Souza, and Beau Dixon. The one-hour dub session will start at 10:30 p.m. The Canwest Cabaret Festival takes place at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto’s Distillery District.
“I do a lot of experimental stuff, my rock thing, my hip hop thing; it’s all dub poetry as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been feeling a bit of a combination of nostalgia and wanting to go back to the first dub sound,” says d'bi young.
INFO:
The Canwest Cabaret Festival runs until Sunday, November 1, at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, located at 55 Mill Street, Building 49, in the Distillery Historic District. Ticket prices: Concerts $20. Buy 3 concerts and save 20%. Tickets are available by calling the Young Centre box office at 416.866.8666 or online at www.youngcentre.ca or www.canwestcabaret.ca.
