THE WORD! SOUND! POWAH! FESTIVAL PROVIDES A SHOWCASE FOR TORONTO STREET YOUTH ON JULY 31, 2009

THE LEAGUE OF CANADIAN POETS, in association with THE ONTARIO TRILLIUM FOUNDATION and SKETCH, is pleased to announce the final presentation and performance of the writing of ten youth from Toronto at the Word! Sound! Powah! Dub Theatre Festival.

Who: Street involved and homeless youth from Toronto.
What: A performance of writing produced from a series of workshops with poet mentor d’bi young.
Where: anitaFRIKA! Dub theatre, 62 Fraser Avenue (3 blocks SE of King and Dufferin)
When: Friday, July 31 at 7:30 pm (Doors Open 7:00 pm)

Earlier this year, ten youth attended a series of workshops led by Jamaican-Canadian dub poet, and Dora Award winning actor and playwright d’bi young. During a series of 6 sessions which took place at SKETCH in Toronto, d’bi and a group of 10 participants gathered to create empowering individual and collective spoken word and dub poetry pieces.

This program for workshops and performances was created by THE LEAGUE OF CANADIAN POETS and generously funded by THE ONTARIO TRILLIUM FOUNDATION. The purpose of this program is to partner youth with an established mentor in order help participants express themselves through writing and performance, and to encourage youth to create their own projects, events and collectives in their community.

In Toronto, these workshops took place in association with SKETCH, a community organization designed to create opportunities for street involved and homeless people ages 15-29, to engage in the arts in a cross-discipline studio environment or in the community. www.sketch.ca

“We work to build the opportunities for youth to build connections in the greater Toronto arts community thereby strengthening the capacity of young people to engage in culture, to build supportive networks for themselves and reduce long-term dependence on SKETCH or on any ‘service agency’. This workshop series has helped SKETCH and 10 young people to meet that goal,” say SKETCH organizers.

This inspired and empowering event will take place during the final performance of the Word! Sound! Powah! Dub Theatre Festival, and will include d’bi and other established performers. www.anitafrika.com

Teacht i dTír: Voices from Ireland Park

Like the atmospheric park in which it is set, this theatre project memorializes the devastating events surrounding the arrival of 38,000 Irish immigrants to Toronto during the potato famine of 1847.

Teacht i dTír: Voices from Ireland Park will introduce people to the memorial who have not yet experienced it. By extension, it will share the history of the Irish in Toronto with this new demographic. Equally as significant, it will offer the Irish community in Toronto and southern Ontario an extraordinary theatrical event that reflects their roots and experiences as members of the Irish Diaspora. August 12-22, 2009 (show on the 12th is sold out).

StaceyAnn Chin reading

Come get your tickets to see the fabulous StaceyAnn Chin! Tickets are now available for sale at the Toronto Women's Bookstore and you can reserve yours over the phone today! : )

$5 - $15 sliding scale



Details...
...join us for the launch of...

The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir
by Staceyann Chin
(Scribner Book Company)

Co-Sponsored by A is for Orange

SATURDAY AUGUST 15th
7pm
Blue Moon Pub
725 Queen Street East

$5 - $15 sliding scale

Acclaimed performance artist Staceyann Chin brings her passionate lyricism to the page in a powerful memoir chronicling the resilience of one woman faced with a lifetime of struggle. Born on Christmas Day in Lottery, Jamaica, Staceyann was thrust into the arms of a mother who did not want her.

It was her grandmother who stepped in to nurture and provide for her and her older brother, but when the three are separated, Staceyann was again left to survive in an unfamiliar and unwelcome home in Paradise, Jamaica.

The Other Side of Paradise is an unforgettable story told with grace, humour and strength.

AND StaceyAnn will be here in Toronto in all her glory to launch this wonderful book with the Toronto Women's Bookstore and give all of us hungry Toronto fans a LIVE reading!

***Saturday August 15th, 7pm, Blue Moon Pub, 725 Queen Street East***

***tickets available at the door or in advance at the Toronto Women's Bookstore, 73 Harbord Street***

word! sound! powah! dubtheatre festival this week

anitAFRIKA! dub theatre presents
word ! sound! powah! dubtheatre festival
featuring solo performance works by '08-'09 resident artists along with sketch, amlakawi beteseb, abstract random and many more…

tues july 28 jamilah malika | bahia watson
weds july 29 cola humphrey | liza paul
thurs july 30 leah stinson | d'bi.young
fri july 31 ~ book launch | s is for storytelling: an anthology of canadian solo performance works vol 1 | film screening: in the round: a documentary film featuring resident artists of anitafrika! dub theatre vol 1

admission: $10
venue: anitafrika! dub theatre
62 fraser ave. @ king and dufferin
time: 7:00pm doors | 7:30pm show

anitafrika! dub theatre is a radical arts centre founded on 7 principles of dubpoetry and dubtheatre: the use of rhythm, language, political protext, orality, urgency, integrity, and sacredness as mediums of social change through storytelling.

YOUTH ARTS JAM, Friday, July 31

FREE programming for ages 14 to 21
Pre-registration is required

5 - 8 pm - FREE workshops and youth performances
8 pm - FREE performance of The Tempest
Dream Site in High Park

Calling all budding, young artists between the ages of 14 and 24! You are invited to an unforgettable FREE event involving theatre, dance, music and art. Celebrate and explore Toronto's exciting arts opportunities in an evening filled with interactive artist and youth-led workshops, youth performances and displays, backstage tours and a community potluck. Participants will have the opportunity to network, share a sample of their work, facilitate workshops and promote their own exciting initiatives with other young people. For more information, email youth@canstage.com or call 416-367-8243 x 280.

Masala! Mehndi! Masti! 2009

http://masalamehndimasti.com/2009/

Making 'The Refugee Hotel' by Carmen Aguirre

http://www.refugeehotel.blogspot.com/

The Language of the Heart

Set in Harlem during the 1920s, ‘The Language of the Heart’, is a full length musical about ayoung expatriate Canadian who moves to New York and befriends Wallace Thurman, one of theleading literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance. In doing so, he becomes the catalyst for an eventthat changes the lives of everyone around him.

Written by Andrew Moodie (‘Toronto the Good’, 'The Real McCoy', 'Riot'), and with music written by Joe Sealy (Juno award winning musician for Africville Suite, touring pianist with the band Blood Sweat and Tears, and host of Joe Sealy’s Duets on Jazz FM 91) the musical is a romantic celebration of the redemptive power of love.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=217078535211

Article on Toronto's Little Ethiopia

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/07/02/little-ethiopia-story-goes-here.aspx

Kite Flying with Local People

Sunday, July 5, 3 - 6 p.m.

Kapisanan Phillipine Centre for Arts and Culture, 167 Augusta Ave., Kensington Market. (West of Spadina, north of Dundas)
FREE
Back by popular demand!
Asian Arts Freedom School is collaborating to bring Niwa's kite workshop back to Kensington Market for another Sunday!

Yoshinori Niwa - Kite Flying with Local People

Come with your used clothing or materials such as shopping bags, pizza and cereal box packages. Niwa will show you how to make and customize a kite, and we will fly them together at the car-free streets of Kensington Market!

This event is one step toward the goal of making at least 300 kites during Niwa’s residency in Canada. Yoshinori’s “Kite Flying with Local People have been performed and shown around the world since 2006. Your kite made with Niwa will be exhibited and remembered internationally as part of this ongoing performance project.

After this presentation, the kites will be installed in the gallery together with unused materials and kite making workstations and further juxtaposed with drawings by Niwa as a chronicle of his experience. Later visitors to the exhibition will be welcome to sign out a kite to borrow and fly while visiting Gendai Gallery and the JCCC.

All participants of this workshop are encouraged to come see and fly their own custom-made kites as part of the exhibition at the Gendai Gallery on the opening date of July 11, when the biggest Japanese festival event in Toronto, Natsu-Matsuri, will also be happening in the JCCC.

Youth These Days: the Scream Youth Event

Rico Rodriguez
Paul Sackichand

What’s old is new again — narrative hip hop music is a dynamic occurrence of a thriving oral literary tradition. Led by hip hop artist Paul Sackichand and professional storyteller Rico Rodriguez, this year’s youth event provides an opportunity to learn how to add suspense to your rhymes and rhythm to your stories.

Sunday July 12, 1-4 p.m.
The Loop Studio at Wychwood Barns - 601 Christie Street

info@thescream.ca

Links for Toronto Fringe and Summerworks Theatre Festivals

http://www.fringetoronto.com/

http://www.summerworks.ca/2009/home.php