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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Arts and Entertainment
- Category: Theatre
An interview with performing artists Sandra Caldwell and Amanda De Freitas about their experience on stage with the Stratford Festival's production of the musical Chicago. They discuss their careers and what the show says about women's empowerment and agency.
In this podcast episode, we speak to two performers from the Stratford Festival's current production of the well-known musical Chicago, holding the record as the longest-running American musical on Broadway and is now part of the festival's lineup until October 30th. Directed and choreographed by Donna Feore, the show captures the effervescence of the Roaring Twenties in a tale full of intrigue, adultery, revenge, murder and justice.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Arts and Entertainment
- Category: Theatre
Amaka Umeh, the first artist of colour to play Shakespeare's Hamlet in the history of the Stratford Festival, is no stranger to breaking norms. In this conversation, she shares how she has navigated her life upstream from conventions both on and off the stage.
"Art in general, there's no substitute for its healing capabilities, and I think it's some of the best of what we do as human beings."
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Articles
- Category: Arts and Entertainment
An episodic series created, co-written, and co-produced by Amanda Parris that follows Dr. Toni Shakur, a self-help guru whose singular mission is to cancel the entertainment industry's reliance on token Black characters....before she gets cancelled herself.
Do you recall the exact time in early childhood when you became aware of your place in the world? Whether you were born into a royal family in Europe or in an impoverished favela in Brazil, there comes a time when this reality hits. This moment of reckoning often determines whether or not you remain oblivious to the ideology behind, for example, cowboy and Indian movies. This coming of age may drive you to start questioning why you're cheering for the cowboy to win, even if the Indian looks more like you.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Arts and Entertainment
- Category: Spoken Word
An interview with the Spoken Soul Collective (Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony, Randell Adjei and Dwayne Morgan) on their curation work on the ArtworkxTo-supported exhibition called Scarborough: The Backbone. The exhibition runs until October 2022 at Scarborough Town Centre.
We speak with the Spoken Soul Collective on this episode, comprising three members representing a powerhouse of Toronto's spoken word poetry scene. The three groundbreaking artists are Scarborough Walk of Fame Inductee, Dwayne Morgan, who needs no introduction given his three-decade-long career as a deeply entrenched builder and pioneer of the local and national spoken word scene, award-winning artist, arts educator and executive director at SKETCH Working Arts, Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony, as well as Scarborough spoken word artist, founding director of R.I.S.E. Edutainment and Ontario's first Poet Laureate, Randell Adjei.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Articles
- Category: Arts and Entertainment
An interview with actress Shailene Garnett from CBC Television's legal drama, Diggstown. We delve into season 3, which explores a changed post-COVID society and the injustices threatening the lives of racialized communities.
The first Canadian drama series to feature a Black Canadian woman as its lead character, CBC Television's legal series, Diggstown, stars Vinessa Antoine as Marcie Diggs, a lawyer who leaves her high-powered corporate job to work for a legal aid clinic in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia after her aunt commits suicide.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Arts and Entertainment
- Category: Theatre
An interview with Philip Akin, the former artistic director of Obsidian Theatre Company and accomplished stage, voice and film actor. We discuss his current directorial work on Alice Childress' play 'Trouble in Mind' at the Shaw Festival and the importance of laying the path for Black storytellers and theatre practitioners.
Philip Akin is the former Artistic Director of Toronto's Obsidian Theatre Company. The award-winning Canadian actor and theatre director has built an illustrious career of over 35 years on the stage as a voice actor on television and in movies.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Arts and Entertainment
- Category: Music
An interview with Peter Toh, the Executive and Artistic Director of Music Africa Canada, the parent company of Afrofest, the largest free African Music Festival in North America. We speak about the festival's history, its driving mission, and why Music Africa has an important role to play in supporting Pan-African artists and the community at large.
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- Written by: News Editor
- Parent Category: Arts and Entertainment
- Category: Dance
Esie Mensah is a Dora-nominated choreographer, dance artist, educator, and public speaker. She's worked with megastars like Rihanna, Drake, French Montana and Arcade Fire. She recently conceptualized, wrote and directed a short film, TESSEL — which premiered earlier this week, on June 1, 2021 — and is currently streaming for free on tessel.film.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Parent Category: Articles
- Category: Arts and Entertainment
Alica Hall is the Executive Director of the Nia Centre for the Arts — Canada's first multi-disciplinary professional arts space dedicated to showcasing art from the African diaspora. The Toronto-based not-for-profit community arts organization has, for its primary mission, to be a key destination for the Black community to bolster and showcase the full range of creative diasporic expression.
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- Written by: Adele Ambrose
- Parent Category: Arts and Entertainment
- Category: Visual Arts
The AGA KHAN Museum presents Caravans of Gold Fragments in Time, from September 21, 2019 - February 23, 2020. The exhibit showcases pieces from around the continent, including Ekow Nimako’s Building Black Civilizations.
Caravans of Gold focuses on various collections to paint a compelling and expansive story about medieval sub-Saharan Africa.
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