Breakdancing. Voguing. A live theatre reading. A Bob Marley tribute performance. Mental-health workshops.
Toronto’s biggest, longest-running Black Futures Month festival, KUUMBA, is celebrating its 30th anniversary with more ambitious programming than ever.
This year, the theme is healing through arts. “Wellness is a central concept around the programs we are offering,” according to Diana Webley, manager at Harbourfront Centre, where the festival is being held throughout February. “It’s about maintaining longevity in a healthy way: mind and body.”
There will be a special focus on Black men, who, Webley says, are often overlooked. Panel discussions will explore mental health and the multiracial Black experience and the Black refugee experience in Toronto, while the keynote will explore the intersection of body positivity and social justice. Attendees can also try out sound therapy and meditation.
“It’s important to normalize mental health in our conversations to cross generational barriers and stigmas, and do better for the younger generations,” said Webley. “It’s often overlooked in our society that is more focused on superficial and physical wellness. We have a captive audience. It’s important to get real with this conversation.”
Music is another through-line of the festival. This year would have been Bob Marley’s 80th birthday, so the festival is marking the occasion with a tribute performance from musicians including Juno Award-winning Jay Douglas and the All Stars, Liberty Silver, Eddie Bullen and Kairo McLean.
Dance performances are another highlight of this year’s edition. The Rock Harder breakdancing competition returns, and Adeline Kerry Cruz and Siaska Chareyre will perform their krump and contemporary piece “Silent Legacy.” Harbourfront’s Power Plant gets the spotlight through dance performance “365 Steps: Of Sea and Colour,” which was inspired by exhibitions at the gallery.
Folks who want to join in the revelry themselves can attend one of the festival’s dance workshops.
“Dance is a powerful medium for self-expression,” Webley said. “There’s healing in movement.”
Lua Shayenne will teach some traditional West African mandé dance, while Syreeta Hector will lead a movement session that explores the intersection of identity, race and classical ballet.
Toronto is also home to many talented ballroom performers; one of the legends of the scene is Twysted Miyake-Mugler, who is the founder of the kiki house of Siriano and the Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance, as well as the Canadian father of House of Miyake-Mugler. He will head a voguing workshop.
It’s important to have ballroom representation at the festival, he said, because the medium unites the Black, queer and trans communities globally.
“It’s important to actually recognize the movements that are already active and in play in these places, not only in Canada but around the world, on the ground, in the front lines doing the actual work, and you will see ballroom there present. Being included and having representation is important because it validates and affirms the work we are doing out here,” he said.
The workshop is taking place as part of the festival’s Journey to Black Liberation Symposium, which is co-organized by the Toronto Kiki Ball Alliance and the Black Daddies Club, and explores the Black struggle for justice and liberation. This year’s theme is “finding home in our bodies.”
Miyake-Mugler was drawn to lead this initiative by something as simple — yet powerful — as the name of the festival.
“It’s meaningful to me to not only live the mission but also shifting the language of Black History Month to Black Futures Month or Black Liberation Month is a part of why we are doing this symposium,” he said.
“The mission is to honour the past, but also to learn from it in the present to shape a better future, to shape a Blacker future, a more liberated future. It’s meaningful to me because I am at a place in my life where I recognize the impact of choices can shape my future.”
Festivals like KUUMBA are critical in amplifying the voices of Black artists and helping to secure a more liberated future, according to writer, composer and performer Nicole Brooks.
“KUUMBA is a pioneer of championing the voices of Black artists, giving us a platform to express ourselves in a myriad of ways artistically,” she said.
“Art for me has always been a revolutionary tool, one that gives power to the people and ultimately has the ability to make necessary change in society through its works. KUUMBA reminds us that representation matters and our voices matter and, in such political times as these, these kinds of events are needed more than ever before.”
Brooks will present a live reading of an excerpt from her new play “The Eighth Day.”
It takes patrons back to Lelu’s Cave, a Black-owned speakeasy in 1928 Montreal, where burlesque performers are preparing to take the stage. “My piece is an homage to Black artists in the 1920s in Black Montreal, the Harlem of the North during the budding jazz era,” Brooks said. “I am happy to be giving them a voice, to take the stage and share their stories to a contemporary audience.”
She remembers how, during the pandemic, she would be asked what her contingency plan would be if the world continued with online-only performances. Her response? “I said immediately I refuse to believe that the world couldn’t return back: the world needs live performance, whether we see it or not.
“There is something (about) theatre and live performance onstage that film, television, social media cannot give. There is an immediate relationship and experience between the actors, musicians, whomever is onstage and an audience that could never be repeated,” she said.
“It is a moment in time that is sacred, to engage and share a story live.”
The KUUMBA Festival runs Feb. 1 to 28 at Harbourfront Centre. See harbourfrontcentre.com for information.
