The Anitafrika Method (part of the Anitafrika Dub Praxis) is a decolonial Black queer feminist performance system, holistic human development model, and transformative pedagogical framework created by d’bi.young anitafrika, rooted in the dub poetry theory of their mother, pioneer dub poet Anita Stewart. The Method integrates creative, somatic, spiritual, intellectual, and communal practices into a cohesive system designed to facilitate self-transformation, artistic expression, and community embodiment. Drawing from African-diasporic and Caribbean epistemologies, trauma studies, Black feminist thought, Indigenous knowledge systems, decolonial theory, and dub theatre traditions, the Method reframes performance training as a rigorous, intersectional, and oppression-aware practice of worldmaking.
At its core, the Anitafrika Method is built upon nine foundational principles—Self-Knowledge, Politics, Orality, Language, Rhythm, Urgency, Sacredness, Integrity, and Experience—which guide practitioners through cycles of inquiry, creation, and transformation. These principles are embodied through nine interconnected bodies: the Physical/Physiological, Emotional, Mental, Creative, Exchange, Spiritual, Community, Energy, and Earth Bodies. Together, they form a multidimensional architecture that honours the complexity of human existence and centres practitioners' lived experience as theory, epistemology, and creative material.
The Method also includes a robust constellation of practices—Decolonial Somatic Practice, Breath-Led Free Movement, Shaking Practice, Quietude, Circleturgy, Ensemble Integrity Practice, Character Adjacency Practice, Interiority Practices such as the Tree of Me and Journey Inside Out—that cultivate embodied presence, relational ethics, regulation of the nervous system, and trauma-informed artistry. These practices support practitioners in moving through three stages of transformation: Selfhood (Self-in-Transformation), Creative Expression (Self-in-Practice/Performance), and Community Embodiment (Self-in-Society).
Beyond serving as a technique for actors, directors, and playwrights, the Anitafrika Method functions as a comprehensive field of study—one that challenges the dominance of Eurocentric theatrical paradigms and introduces a holistic, Afro-diasporic, intersectional framework for performance creation, pedagogy, and cultural leadership. It articulates a new terrain of knowledge production in performance studies, where artistic training is inseparable from somatic awareness, embodied memory, generational lineage, ethical relationship, and socio-political analysis.
As part of d’bi.young anitafrika’s long-term research trajectory, the Anitafrika Method is being developed into a multi-volume book series that will define this emerging field. The foundational monograph, The Anitafrika Method, articulates the system’s philosophical roots, principles, bodies, practices, and aesthetic genealogies. Subsequent volumes—focused on acting, directing, playwriting, devising, critical pedagogy, and human development—expand the Method into discipline-specific applications, offering scholars, educators, and creators a comprehensive and rigorously theorised framework for decolonial performance training and artistic innovation.
The Method’s ongoing evolution is supported through interdisciplinary creative research, including the Sankofa, Orisha, and Ibeyi Trilogies; through scholarly initiatives such as the Black Womyn Theatre Digital Archive; and through institution-building efforts like the Black Theatre School and the proposed Black Womyn’s Theatre Lab. Across these play-spaces, the Method acts as a living, relational, community-rooted system—growing through collaborative inquiry and shaping a new generation of artists and thinkers committed to cultural transformation.
The Anitafrika Method is a praxis and a philosophy, a technique and a cosmology, a pedagogy and an emerging academic field. It offers a holistic, rigorous, and liberatory approach to performance and personhood, inviting practitioners to cultivate creative sovereignty, embodied clarity, ethical relationality, and socially engaged artistry.
d’bi.young anitafrika conducts Anitafrika Method training globally and has most recently facilitated modules in the framework at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance and London South Bank University in the UK. The Anitafrika Method is the pedagogical framework of the new Soulpepper Theatre Academy in Canada, where d’bi.young a conducts a six-week module on biomyth monodrama making through a decolonial lens as lead faculty. The Anitafrika Method has been taught in the past at SOAS, the University Arts London, the University of Glasgow, York University, the University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, the University of Victoria, and Vancouver Island University. It has been utilised by organisations in Canada such as MaRs, the Stephen Lewis Foundation, R.I.S.E, Regent Park School of Music, ArtStarts, PuSH Festival, Women’s Health in Women’s Hands and by international events such as South Africa Book Fair, Sommarscen in Sweden and Nigeria’s Ake Book & Arts Festival.
Anitafrika Method (FKA the Sorplusi Method) mini documentary
Anitafrika Method alumni include globally celebrated soca king Machel Montano, actor-playwright and co-Producer of ‘da kink in my hair television series Ngozi Paul; Manifesto founder and photographer Che Kothari; Poet Laureate of Ontario Randell Adjei, lecturer and performance artist Ria Righteous from the UK; from Zimbabwe, writer-activist Rudo Chigudu; CBC The Exhibitionist's host Amanda Parris, Handmaid’s Tale Bahia Watson, Theatre Centre Associate Artistic Director Liza Paul, Associate Artistic Director of Soulpepper Theatre Luke Reece, and singer/songwriter/filmmaker TiKA Simone, along with hundreds of other artists in the global south and north.
Biomyth Monodramas Devised Using The Anitafrika Method - Dramaturged and Directed by d’bi.young anitafrika (selected)
Brown Girl in the Ring by Actor/Playwright Miranda Edwards
11:11 by Writer/Performer Samson Bonkeabantu Brown
Speaking of Sneaking by Writer/Performer daniel jelani ellis
Addicted by Writer/Performer Raven Dauda
I Cannot Lose My Mind by Writer/Performer by Najla Nubyanluv
Oughtism by Writer/Performer Faduma Mohammed
The Emancipation of Ms Lovely by Writer/Performer Ngozi Paul
Who Am I by Writer/Performer Webster McDonald
Other Projects Developed with Support from the Anitafrika Method (selected)
Jah in the Ever-Expanding Song by Kaie Kellough
Shades by Esie Mensah
Venus’ Daughter by Meghan Swaby
32C by Amanda Parris
The Anitafrika Method and Canada’s Women’s College Hospital: Arts Based Intervention into The Health of Black Womxn
Together in collaboration with Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Centre, globally renowned Canadian Poet of honor and 2015 YWCA Woman of Distinction in the Arts, d’bi.young anitafrika was funded in 2014 by Women’s Xchange through Women’s College Hospital to explore the effectiveness of The Anitafrika Method as a holistic arts-based health intervention in the improvement of Black Womxn’s health entitled the Black Womxn’s Sacred Health Research Project. The intent of the project was to promote optimal holistic (creative, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) health services, resources and toolkits to Black and diverse womxn, by critically exploring innovative health education and advocacy through the development of the Anitafrika Method an arts informed health intervention. Six series of 2 day intensive workshops were facilitated by d’bi.young anitafrika over a 6 month period from January to June 2015. Research Question To explore how engaging with an arts informed health intervention can positively influence the holistic embodiment of health for womxn of colour. Secondary to this, was to also explore how artistic engagement facilitates the development of agency around health within the broader community.
Podcast - The Anitafrika Method
Short Video - The Arts Based Intervention - The Anitafrika Method
Evidence-Based Research - The Anitafrika Method - Black Womxn Sacred Health Website
Scholarly Articles on d'bi.young and the Anitafrika Method - Black Plays Matter, Black Queer Divinity