CULTURE
Diverse dance Immigrant choreographers honour black heritage onstage By Margaret Jetelina
above Ghana-born Liliona Quarmyne performs in her solo Tide. Photo by Raphael Titsworth-Morin
F
ebruary is Black History Month, and six black choreographers from across the country, most of whom are also immigrants, are taking to the stage to express their culture and history through dance. Called Footsteps Across Canada, this mix of diverse works, which runs Feb. 26-27, 2016, at Harbourfront Centre Theatre in Toronto, is being presented by dance Immersion, a not-forprofit organization that produces, promotes and showcases dancers and dances of the African Diaspora. The choreographers, including Haitian-born Rhodnie Désir
(Quebec), Haitian-born Rodney Diverlus (Alberta), South African-born Mafa Makhubalo (Ontario), Jamaican-born Mikhail Morris (Ontario) and Ghanaborn Liliona Quarmyne (Nova Scotia), along with Ontario-born Esie Mensah, each represent a unique Canadian voice from the African Diaspora, and present dance works influenced by both their past and present journey. Born in Ghana, West Africa, choreographer and dancer Liliona Quarmyne is presenting her solo work Tide, a reflection on the power of the ocean and its ability to absorb humanity’s hopes, fears, joys and sorrows.
She told Canadian Immigrant of her own immigration experience as a state of motion like the tide. “Being a black immigrant in Canada is living in motion, rather than in a state of static identity,” she says. “As an artist, it means constantly referring back to my feet. Where are they from? Where have they taken me (literally and metaphorically)? Where are they planted now, and what stories have they carried with them as they have journeyed? It is a process of always being both at home, and also being completely displaced.” Rodney Diverlus, originally from Haiti and currently danc-
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February 2016
ing with Calgary’s Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, presents his work for four dancers, Two to See, which he describes as a reflection on things we wish we could say, and things we wish we didn’t. As a black artist in Canada, however, he wants to ensure there is plenty of room for immigrant dancers like him to express exactly what they have to say. “Being a black immigrant … for me means operating within a system and an art form in which I rarely see myself represented. I do art to remedy this and to provide space for our communities to thrive and be free.” Both Rhodnie Désir and Mikhail Morris are making their voices heard, as they draw on their countries of origin in the works they are presenting, Bow’t and Dichotomy, respectively. Mafa Makhubalo, who started dancing at the age of five in South Africa and continued his training at Ballet Creole School in Toronto, not only strives to showcase his own cultural voice onstage, as in his Footsteps piece Songs of the Soil, but he also wants to help give a platform to the next generation. “I utilize my creative talent to promote and communicate dance and the arts not only through the proscenium arch with gestures of dance, but across underprivileged youth communities and recreation centres with open gestures of trust and artistic excellence across Canada, Africa and African Diasporas,” he says.
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