YENSA Festival 2024 Program
YENSA Festival 2024 program
AUG 23 & 24 at 8PM
Betty Oliphant Theatre
WELCOME from Artistic Director and Curator, Lua Shayenne
YENSA Festival serves as a vibrant celebration of the extraordinary talents of Black female artists, both from Canada and beyond, while also nurturing meaningful connections within the Toronto community.
With its commitment to providing a vital platform for Black female artists to share their gifts with a wider audience, YENSA Festival stands as a beacon of empowerment and cultural enrichment. As the festival’s curator, my mission is to illuminate the intricate tapestry of dance as conveyed by Black women, honoring their myriad and profound contributions.
YENSA Festival 2024 brings together Black female dance artists, providing a space for them to experiment, reimagine, and destabilize conventional notions of dance making. This year’s festival themes center on the role of the Black body as a vessel of memories, as well as movement as a source of wellness, transcendence, and joy.
Building on the insights from our inaugural year, this year’s festival is intentionally crafted to elevate the YENSA (let’s dance) YENKA (let’s talk) experience. We have significantly enhanced our support for the 2024 choreographers, providing them with more resources for their creative processes. Additionally, we are strengthening our approach to strategic collaborations and team building. These advancements showcase our ongoing growth and our commitment to realizing our distinct artistic vision.
It is with great satisfaction that I stand back and witness the growth of this endeavor, whose aim is to bring to the forefront the voices of my sisters.
Lua Shayenne
BLACK FLAMES performance Program
FEMININE
Performed by Olivia Okonkwo (Toronto)
The FALL into FLOW
Performed by Rosie Harbans (Toronto)
PAUSE (5 to 10mn)
Please remain seated
FREEFORM
Performed by I’thandi Munro (Halifax)
SEZAM
Performed by Oredans (Montreal)
YENSA Festival’s BLACK FLAMES performance program proudly presents four audacious black women choreographers who fearlessly experiment, reimagine, and disrupt conventional dance norms. Hip hop embraces technology through tangible wire and steel objects, sparking thought-provoking inquiries. Tradition dances hand in hand with contemporary influences, unveiling new perspectives that invite us to immerse ourselves in the vibrant rhythms, lush culture, and sacred practices of Haiti. Blazing trails, a new generation of choreographers embarks on a journey of self-exploration, delving into profound questions that ignite their artistic practice.
Be ready to be set aflame!
FEMININE
Feminine explores the exclusionary boundaries surrounding femininity in the Western context. This piece reflects an understanding that femininity within certain spaces and communities often fails to recognize the qualities of Black female beauty as feminine. This solo work demonstrates the duality of Black women, portraying them as beings who possess not only power and strength but also elegance and gentleness.
Music: “Snow Drop” by Kevin MacLeod (2014, Free Music Archive, CC BY)
OLIVIA OKONKWO (Toronto)
Choreographer & Dancer
Olivia Okonkwo (she/her) is a biracial Nigerian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, with a creative practice based in dance creation, performance and choreography. Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Olivia currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. Graduating from Toronto Metropolitan University’s (formerly Ryerson) BFA Performance Dance program in 2024, Olivia has trained in various dance disciplines under the direction of Tanya Evidente, Vicki St.Denys, Louis Laberge-Côté, and other renowned dance educators. She has performed in both stage and film works by Robert Glumbek and Roberto Campanella (ProArteDanza), Kaitlyn Seibold, Vicki St. Denys, Guillaume Côté (Côté Danse), and several others. In recognition of her artistry, versatility, technical proficiency, diligence, and collaborative spirit, Olivia was a recipient of the Karen Green in Memoriam Scholarship at the ProArteDanza 2023 Summer Intensive Program. As an emerging choreographer, Olivia’s works have been debuted with Fall for Dance North and TO Live’s: Innovative Ballet Theatre. Olivia’s passion for dance and movement is a driving force, allowing her to further develop her artistry as a mover, performer and a creator.
THE FALL INTO FLOW
The Fall Into Flow is a journey into the depths of self discovery, into the place where questions to the Self go unanswered and the discomfort of unclarity asks us to seek new pathways from within.
The Fall Into Flow is movement exploration that embodies the ebbs and flows of learning to trust one’s intuition and the universe.
Music: Marcescent by cktrl (2022, cktrl)
Spoken word: Rose-Mary Harbans
ROSIE HARBANS (Toronto)
Choreographer & Dancer
Rose-Mary “Rosie” Harbans (she/her) is a multifaceted performer, choreographer, and dance educator from Toronto, Ontario. She is a Dora nominated artist whose artistic practice centres art as a vessel for inner transformation and movement as a powerful form of medicine and healing. Rosie is of Caribbean ancestry, and this greatly informs her passion for rhythm and storytelling. She is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University (BFA). Some of her credits include, Dixon Road (Musical Stage Co./ Ray Hogg), A Revolution for Love (Esie Mensah), Kira, The Path | La Voie (Lua Shayenne Dance Company), After Midnight (Norwegian Cruise Lines/ Warren Carlyle), and Trinity: Music, Dance & You (Vicki St. Denys). She is currently a teacher at Etobicoke School of the Arts and Canada’s National Ballet School. She is excited to continue expanding and growing within her artistic practice and beyond.
FREEFORM
Lighting design: Louisa Addamson
Dramaturgy: NAT Chantell, Sara Coffin, Dawn Shepard, Reequal Smith, Susanne Chui, Liliona Quarmyne , Kay Macdonald, and Sara Prosper
Music production: Jordan Farmer
“As a choreographer, mover, and metalsmith, I combine mediums to create expansive landscapes of thought.”
Freeform explores the tension between movement and restriction, examining how we navigate confined spaces and find freedom within set parameters. This piece reflects I’thandi Munro’s reality as a racialized person in a post-colonial society, where movement has been a healing source for the bonds placed upon our communities.
Using wire structures, Munro creates an improvisational dance that embodies our histories, traumas, and bounded lifestyles. Through this performance, Munro aims to transform constraints into new paths forward, finding beauty and liberation within and beyond the limits.
Music credits: Pacer by Doechii (cover), Petal by Ravenna (cover)
I’THANDI MUNRO (Halifax)
Choreographer & Dancer
I’thandi Munro is a mixed Afro-Euro L’nu Professional performance and Visual artist living in K’jipuktuk, Miꞌkmaꞌki, the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. As a racialized person living in a postcolonial environment, Munro uses the representation of line and of lineage as the underlying concepts through her fine art, craft, and dance. Often merging different mediums into finished pieces there is always a sense of multiplicity within her work, melding notions of the digital and the physical within her craft. Leaving space for her pieces to naturally evolve through reaction and discussion, Munro creates an ever-changing body of work that can be explored and realised in different ways.
SEZAM
Dancers: Aurélie Ann Figaro, Coralie Millet, Mya Métellus, Anais Gilles
Artistic advisor: Katya Montaignac
Production assistant: Véroushka Eugène
Lighting designer: Carl Girard
Sezam is a reflection on human experiences, and on the desire to move towards oneself and towards others. An invitation to open doors, this work delves into the wisdom of water and examines the transformative phases of life.
Sezam immerses us in a choreographic universe inspired by ancestral Haitian dances, challenging us to change our perspectives. It is a deliberate leap into wonder and a commitment to human kindness.
Music credits: “Deli” by Rokia Traoré (2004, Nonesuch Records, Inc); “Papa Legba” by Boukman Eksperyans (1995, Island Records); “Haïti Stomp Danse” by Free of right; “Haïti Vodou 6” by Société Diab en deuil/ Haiti Vodou: The Voodoo drums of Haiti (2010, Red Eye Music; “Canto a Eleggua” by Sexto Sentido (2016, Sexto Sentido); “Manman mwen” by Pierre Chériza/Haïti : Musique du Vodou (2005, Buda).
CIE OREDANS ( Montréal)
SHÉRANE FIGARO – Artistic Director & Choreographer
Shérane Figaro is a dancer, choreographer and teacher based in Laval (Canada). After more than 20 years evolving as a dancer, Shérane founded her dance company Oredans in 2009. She works with different groups of dancers, teaching them the basics of traditional Haitian dances.
Through the ESANS method that she has designed, Shérane wants to deepen what defines the gestures of traditional Haitian dances. As a choreographer, she is interested in different themes related to social issues, history and spirituality.
For Shérane, tradition is a thread that keeps alive the dialogue between generations. In her creative process and her choreographic works, one can observe the connection between tradition and contemporaneity. Shérane was nominated in 2021 for the CALQ prize: Artist of the Year, in Laval. She is also a professional member of the Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD), and of Culture Laval.
YENSA Festival
Staff
Artistic Director, Curator & Producer: Lua Shayenne
Administrator: Monica Pain del Rio
Accounting Manager: Marc Terrance
Assistant Producer: Miranda Liverpool
Assistant Producer: Émeraude Mbuku
Publicist: Damien Nelson
Social Media Coordinator: Miranda Liverpool
Marketing: Lua Shayenne
Production Team
Production Manager: Maya Royer
Lighting Designer: Arun Srinivasan
Stage Manager: Tara Mohan
PARTNERS
Canada's National Ballet School
Artistic Director: Mavis Staines
Executive Director: John Dalrymple
Production & Theatre Operations Manager: Susan Worthington
Technical Director: Paolo Collantes
Assistant Technical Director: Sharlanne McStay
Manager, Venue and Food Operations: Amanda Camilleri
Venue Services Manager: Tristan Tye
The School of Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University
Director of Dance & Associate Professor: Vicki St.Denys
Associate Professor: Tanya Evidente
Associate Professor: Louis Laberge-Côté
Chair, School of Performance & Associate Professor: Caroline O’Brien
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS & SPONSORS
This production was made possible with the financial support of:
Toronto Arts Council
Ontario Arts Council
Canada Council for the Arts
Government of Canada
TD Bank Group (TD Ready Commitment)
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We acknowledge that Lua Shayenne Dance Company and YENSA Festival are on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Wendat peoples. We recognize the ongoing presence of diverse Indigenous communities and the historical and present-day impact of Treaty 13. We commit to respectful engagement and learning towards reconciliation.
Additionally, we honor the first Black people in colonial Canada, who, despite being brought by force and facing enslavement, fought for freedom and left a lasting legacy.