Young, Gifted, and Black is Obsidian Theatre’s arts training program dedicated to supporting Black theatre practitioners in non-performance disciplines. This four-month intensive explores Black diaspora theatre and performance aesthetics.
In Honour of Black Womyn in Theatre is an evening of recognition and celebration of Black womyn whose work has shaped theatre across North Turtle Island. Held in celebration of International Womyn’s Day, the event includes the launch of the Black Womxn Theatre Digital Archive Project.
After a successful Pilot Season in 2025, d’bi.young anitafrika launches the inaugural year of the Black Theatre School. Visit Black Theatre School for more Info.
Watah Theatre proudly presents esu crossing the middle passage: orisha trilogy part one, a landmark work of dub theatre by d’bi.young anitafrika, returning to the stage for its 10-year anniversary at the newly established Watah Studio Theatre. The production launches Watah Theatre’s 2026 season and invites audiences to experience anitafrika’s biomyth monodrama work in an intimate studio setting.
The Black Theatre School invites applications for its nine-month immersive professional theatre training residency. Applications must be submitted electronically to contact@blacktheatreschool.com by 11:59 PM ET on February 28, 2026. We will host an Online Info Session on Monday, January 19, 2026, from 6-7pm.
Friday afternoon on Oct. 17, you’re invited to join d’bi.young anitafrika, Wayde Compton, Sonnet L’Abbé and Paul db Watkins for performances and conversation embodying and enlarging on the power of human sound to make, unmake, and remake the ways in which we feel, engage with, and know ourselves and the world around us.
Sound/Song/Story is going to get into the nuances of sound and the way it can shake the world.
Join us on September 24th at the Opening of The 20th Anniversary Production of the Sankofa Trilogy at Theatre Centre for the launch of d’bi.young anitafrika’s dubbin theatre vol 1: the sankofa trilogy.
Welcome to d’bi.young anitafrika’s virtuosic three-week repertory production celebrating the 20th anniversary of the critically acclaimed Sankofa Trilogy featuring the plays blood.claat, benu, and word! sound! powah!
Starring d’bi.young anitafrika, this production presents a new vision on the classic works, with each play running for one week and all three plays running in rep for a marathon culminating weekend featuring a dancehall party at the end of Saturday night (Oct 11, 2025).
On August 28 & 29 at 7pm, we invite audiences to the First Term Academy Sharing in the Weyni Mengesha Theatre at Soulpepper. The Academy will share five works-in-progress developed through their first term module, Decolonial Performance Praxis and Biomyth Making facilitated by d'bi.young anitafrika.
Free admission. Click the link below to book your tickets.
Join us in a panto dub theatre griot posse workshop presentation of d’bi.young anitafrika’s acclaimed trilogy at the Summerworks Festival, featuring a dynamic mix of mid-career and emerging artists at the Summerworks Festival, presented by the Watah Theatre.
Set in present day Toronto, the play follows Lulu Kromanti, a fun-loving headstrong girl of Jamaican descent and the only granddaughter of Grandma Clarice.
Lilian Adom, Germaine Konji, Arianna Lilith Moodie, Riel Reddick-Stevens and Sharine Taylor.
Under the guidance of program director d’bi.young anitafrika, this cohort explored Black diaspora theatre and performance aesthetics through a decolonial and intersectional lens. Participants also benefitted from masterclasses and apprenticeships, culminating in an ensemble creation devised, directed, and designed by the YGB cohort entitled returning, reshaping, re….
d’bi.young anitafrika is one of five artists to be named winner of the 2025 Johanna Metcalf Arts Prize.
The Black Theatre School provides a decolonial, immersive, and interdisciplinary training ground where Black performance aesthetics, embodied learning techniques, and liberatory worldbuilding take center stage, through the Anitafrika Method's three-stage process of Self-Transformation, Creative Expression, and Community Embodiment. blacktheatreschool.com
Earlier this year we were proud to announce Watah Theatre as our inaugural Company in Residence, as a cross between our LTR program and Residency. As we continue to explore new ways to address gaps in how our sector supports creation, this new program will provide Watah Theatre with a 3-year commitment of space while also providing financial support and mentorship. Rather than supporting the development of a single project from idea to production, they will receive The Theatre Centre’s commitment to their overall organizational growth, including structural, fiscal, and artistic support.
One of our first joint ventures will be the 20th anniversary presentation of d’bi.young anitafrika’s groundbreaking series of plays, The Sankofa Trilogy, playing September 2025. theatrecentre.org/dbi-young-anitafrika
Award-winning playwright-performer, director-dramaturge and activist-scholar d’bi.young anitafrika is this year’s Lehan Family Activism & the Arts Lecturer, who will be speaking on the topic of “Dub Performance as Decolonial Praxis”. Book launch & signing to follow talk.
As a performance artist, educator, scholar, and parent, d’bi.young anitafrika possesses a unique voice that crosses cultural boundaries and transcends artistic disciplines.
d’bi.young anitafrika is one of several poets whose work provides public art for riders of the subways in Toronto. Their poem love speak invites commuters to contemplate how we communicate from a place of love with each other.
d’bi.young anitafrika shares an excerpt from Trey Anthony’s ‘da kink in my hair in celebration of Weyni Mengesha’s Legacy Awards
d'bi.young anitafrika Speaks on Panel with Artists Winsom Winsom, Pamela Matharu, Moderated by Sara Edo to Open the Toronto Biennial 2024.
Black artists, join acclaimed artist d'bi.young Anitafrika on Thursday, July 25 for Self-in-Transformation: Introduction to the Anitafrika Method & Decolonial Performance Praxis.
Dear Global Village, on behalf of our Soulpepper Academy artists, we would like to invite you to a public sharing of their works-in-progress on August 3 & 4 from 7-10pm in the Tank House Theatre.
d’bi.young anitafrika teams with both their Siminovitch Playwright Award Protege nominees Sashoya Simpson and daniel jelani ellis to direct “Lulu” a new play written by Sashoya Simpson, and starring daniel jelani ellis and a phenomenal cast.
July 19-27, 2024 Westdale Theatre
d’bi.young anitafrika designs and facilitates the Community Music Schools of Toronto’s premiere Performance Arts Leadership Summer Program culminating in a community performance.
Journey into the world of playwriting using the groundbreaking Anitafrika Method. This 12-week online course, led by renowned artist and Siminovitch Prize playwright finalist d'bi.young anitafrika, offers participants an opportunity to dive deep into decolonising, indigenising, and interiorising modes of playmaking, using the ground-breaking Anitafrika Method. Dismantle colonial tropes and models and unearth your unique storytelling process.
Ubuntu! Fest & Symposium SATURDAY MARCH 30, 2024 FROM 10AM-6PM EST
THE WATAH THEATRE AND UBUNTU! DECOLONIAL ARTS CENTRE PRESENT THE DECOLONIAL FRAMEWORKS SYMPOSIUM FEATURING WORKSHOPS BY NINE BLACK ARTS PARTICIPANTS OF THE DECOLONIAL FRAMEWORKS PROGRAM; FACILITATED BY D’BI.YOUNG ANITAFRIKA USING THE ANITAFRIKA METHOD AND FUNDED BY CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS
I am my Black Joy is a self-transformation and creative writing course for Black womxn and non-binary artists, hosted by Ubuntu! Decolonial Arts Centre and facilitated by d’bi.young anitafrika using the Anitafrika Method.
Ubuntu! In collaboration with Spolrusie Press, Decolonial Arts Centre offers a unique opportunity for writer-performers, dub poets, spoken word artists, and storytellers to publish their creative works. This 3.5-month online publication residency, led by d’bi.young anitafrika, will immerse participants in the Anitafrika Method, providing comprehensive mentorship, editing, and design services. The program, from March 3 to May 2, includes professional cover design, ISBN registration, and 10 free printed copies of the final work. Alumni of d’bi.young anitafrika's previous courses receive a discounted rate for this transformative journey towards becoming a published author in 2024.
d’bi.young anitafrika has been invited back to Regent Park School of Music to facilitate the third Anitafrika Method Decolonial Arts Residency: I AM, supporting youth musicians to develop critical thinking, reflexivity and a holistic music and life practice.
d’bi.young anitafrika will launch their first published collection of award-winning plays. More info to come…
d’bi.young anitafrika performs poems from their recently launched Dubbin Book Series featuring dubbin theatre: the collected plays of d'bi.young anitafrika and dubbin poetry: the collected poems of d'bi.young anitafrika at the Drake Hotel as the featured performer in the Toronto Poetry Slam.
d'bi.young will be reading excerpts of their internationally celebrated performance works written over the last twenty-five years at Black Theatre Workshop launch of Dubbin Book Series.
d'bi.young will be reading excerpts of their internationally celebrated performance works written over the last twenty-five years at Black Theatre Workshop launch of Dubbin Book Series.
d'bi.young anitafrika is an African Jamaican playwright-performer, director-dramaturge and educator-scholar whose art addresses issues of gender, sexuality, race, class, ability and the human experience.
