BLACK FLAMES
performance program
FRI AUG 21 & SAT AUG 22, 2026
7:30 PM - Pre-show chat with artists
8:00 PM - Film & Live Performances
Under the resonant theme AS I AM, YENSA Festival’s BLACK FLAMES features two electrifying evenings of performance by five exceptional Black women choreographers. Each evening includes a pre-show conversation inviting audiences into deeper dialogue with the artists and their works.
Featured in BLACK FLAMES are the following exceptional Black women-led artists and companies:
Ayodele Drum & Dance, Ern In Motion, Liyah Simbulan, Holla Jazz and a guest appearance by Lua Shayenne Dance Company.
Join us for our pre-show chats at 7:30 PM each evening and get to know the featured BLACK FLAMES artists before the premiere of the dance film WAVES and live performances at 8:00 PM. The program is identical both nights, so choose whichever evening works best for you!
Awaken to Rhythm.
Program Length: approx. 2hrs
Location: Betty Oliphant Theatre, 404 Jarvis St, Toronto, ON M4Y 2G6
BLACK FLAMES ARTISTS
Don’t miss out on any event with our festival pass that includes:
A LIVE PERFORMANCE and three workshops!
Experience YENSA!
AYODELE DRUM & DANCE
In 2007, seven African dancers came together to learn the art of the drum to enhance and improve their dancing. The sisters were led by Tosha ‘Ayo’ Alston and the seed of Ayodele Drum & Dance was planted.
Ayodele, a Yoruba word meaning “Joy in the home”, is now a diverse sister-circle of performing artists committed to studying and performing drum and dance as a wellness modality. We’ve grown from that circle of seven to over twenty Queens who use African drum and dance to educate and motivate young women and children through performances, community engagement, and our youth program.
Whether we’re teaching children, healing the community with classes, producing sold out concerts, studying with female Samba Masters in Brazil, Master Djembe and Dununfolas of West Africa or spreading our healing energy through performances; Ayodele Drum & Dance remains an unending circle firmly rooted in joy.
Beauty and The Beat : Masked
Beauty and the Beat : A Warrior Reborn
(Excerpts)
Lead Choreographer: T. Ayo Alston
Choreographic contributions by: Imania Fatima Detry, Souleymane Sano and Ayinde Von Hendricks.
Live music
Ayodele Drum & Dance brings an electrifying celebration of traditional African dance and live drumming to YENSA Festival 2026. Rooted in cultural storytelling, rhythm, and community, the performance journeys through a vibrant tapestry of West African dance traditions from Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. Through powerful movement, dynamic percussion, and collective energy, the work honours ancestral memory and the enduring cultural practices that bring people together through weddings, harvests, music, ritual, spiritual cleansing, and collective joy. Inviting audiences into an immersive experience of connection and ancestral resonance, Ayodele Drum & Dance celebrates dance as both cultural preservation and a living force of resilience, transformation, and community spirit.
LIYAH SIMBULAN
Liyah Simbulan is a Toronto based dance artist, choreographer and dance educator. Liyah’s work through dance and choreography engages with social issues, specifically racial and feminist movements.
Ms. Simbulan collaborates with fellow black North American creatives such as Pulga Muchochoma, Raoul Pillay, Kahvontay Slaughter, Clarence Ford & Sekou McMiller.
She holds a BFA for Performance Dance from Toronto Metropolitan University. Liyah pushes social boundaries through the art of dance and upholds the importance of representation by proudly claiming her Jamaican & Filipino heritage.
NO MATTER WHAT
Choreographer: Liyah Simbulan
NO MATTER WHAT is a social commentary explored through 3 acts.
ACT 1 “The Man” explores how the patriarchy also impacts men and how a man must explore what truly defines masculinity.
ACT 2 “The Women” addresses ‘The Man” through a telling of how the patriarchy impacts women on a greater scale and how women support one another through this.
ACT 3 “The Community” highlights how both men and women must listen to and support one another through varying experiences as victims of the patriarchy.
E.R.N IN MOTION
E.R.N. in Motion is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary dance company and creative direction platform led by Ern (pronounced “earn”), an award-winning dance artist, choreographer, and movement director. Rooted in Afro-Caribbean movement languages and grounded in Dancehall culture, the company creates work that bridges performance, collaboration, and embodied research. Ern’s work has been presented nationally and internationally, including collaborations with Toronto Dance Theatre, Myst Milano, Nuit Blanche, and the Polaris Music Prize Awards, alongside work with artists such as Sean Paul and Machel Montano. E.R.N. in Motion cultivates spaces where artists can develop, experiment, and deepen their connection to craft and culture. Guided by dedication, ambition, and collective growth, the company centers authenticity, cultural integrity, and lived experience, holding space for artists to create without limitation while honouring the roots that shape the work.
April 7, 2020 – …
Choreographer: E.R.N. in Motion, pronounced Ern
April 7, 2020 – … is a 10 -15-minute in-progress ensemble work choreographed by Ern that explores intimacy beyond romantic connection, centering the evolving relationship between self, spirit, and community. Rooted in Dancehall, Afro-Caribbean and Contemporary movement languages, the work engages the body as archive, memory, and guide. This piece lives in the moments where one is called to face themselves — to unlearn, to listen, and to surrender. It reflects the quiet and disruptive encounters with self, where internal shifts begin, and where the presence of others becomes both mirror and support. As each performer navigates their own process, the work asks: what does it look like, feel like, and move like to be seen while becoming?” Through rhythm, resistance, vulnerability, and release, the dancers move between individuality and collective experience, holding space for transformation as it unfolds in real time. This work exists as an ongoing research practice grounded in cultural memory, spiritual awareness, and the lived realities that shape how we connect, evolve, and return to ourselves.
HOLLA JAZZ
Holla Jazz is an award-winning dance company based in Toronto that explores contemporary approaches to authentic jazz dances. The Holla Jazz experience is marked by their cool and contemporary way of producing fresh dance works, all while inspiring a lasting love and appreciation for jazz dance and music. Established in 2016 by Artistic Director Natasha Powell, Holla Jazz was founded as a forum for developing and presenting artists that work and improvise together, to create harmonious and transformative experiences. The company aims to reinvigorate jazz dance with various forms of Black-American vernacular dances, as innovative and important vehicles for expression, while showcasing freedom and one’s own identity through the spirit of jazz.
THE ROOM UPSTAIRS
Choreographer: Natasha Powell
Photography: Kendra Epik
Holla Jazz will present an adapted excerpt of their latest Dora nominated work, The Room Upstairs. Inspired by the life and music of American musician John Coltrane, the work explores themes of devotion, creative practice, and doubt.
LUA SHAYENNE DANCE COMPANY
Lua Shayenne Dance Company (LSDC) has been a vital force in the Canadian contemporary dance scene, bringing the vibrant, diverse energy of its African heritage to stages around the world. Through dance, music, and storytelling rooted in West African culture, the company creates work that is both deeply rooted and powerfully present, blending tradition with contemporary art forms and bold social commentary.
From six full-length productions to the biennial YENSA Festival spotlighting Black female dance artists, LSDC has built an extraordinary legacy of artistry and community. They have been featured at major venues and festivals including Fall for Dance North, Dancing on the Edge in Vancouver, Moving Inspiration Dance Festival in Winnipeg, and the International Conference and Festival of Blacks in Dance.
BALANTA
Choreography: Imania Fatima Detry, T. Ayo Alston
Lua Shayenne Dance Company (LSDC) is thrilled to make a guest appearance alongside Ayodele Drum & Dance!
The Balanta, meaning literally “those who resist”, are an ethnic group found in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal particularly in the Casamance , and Gambia. The tabanka of the Balanta, performed during the harvest season, expresses gratitude for agricultural abundance.
WAVES
Director & Choreographer: Lua Shayenne
WAVES, LSDC’s new dance film, follows Ancestor in the Ancestral Realm and the Waves, who are sent to the human world, the Realm of the Living, with a mission to ignite humanity with spiritual energy. Through text inspired by the Bahá’í Writings and traditional Ghanaian spirituality, original choreography, and rhythms and dances from Guinea, WAVES immerses us in the metaphysical realm, reminding us of our deep connection to the spiritual realm. WAVES invites viewers to contemplate the choice to rise and “safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race” (Bahá’í Writings).