It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 – 1970 and Now

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Preston Pavlis, "when the jig is up, when the act is finished, when the curtain descends (detail)," 2020 (courtesy of the artist)

HOUR UPDATE 

The MAG's physical gallery space is temporarily closed

We are committed to supporting the well-being of our community as best we can, and have made the decision to cancel gallery hours for the following week. We will re-open via appointment beginning Tuesday, December 1.

Virtual Conversations with the Curator, Seika Boye

Over the next four months, Seika Boye, curator of our latest exhibition It's About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970 and Now, will be engaging in discussions with contributing artists and performers via Webex!

The first event in our series took place on Wednesday, September 23 and featured dance artist Ashley "Colours" Perez, and visual artist Adriana Contreras. If you weren't able to join, you can catch up here, and make sure to mark your calendars for our next events: 

In Discussion with Mpoe Mogale and Cheryl Thompson November 3, 6-7:30 

Mpoe Mogale, a local artist and dancer, will be discussing It's About Time, curated by Seika Boye, with scholar, assistant professor, and Toronto-based writer Cheryl Thompson, author of Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada's Black Beauty Culture. Thompson's current SSHRC-funded research aims to examine Canada's history of blackface performance at the theatre, in the community, and as advertised in the newspapers.

Watch this virtual program on Facebook Live or Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/471050966

The Social Aspect of Dance with Michèle Moss and Cheryl Foggo December 2 at 6-7:30pm

Michèle Moss is the co-founder of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in Calgary and Cheryl Foggo is a Calgary-based writer and historian. Together, Moss and Fogo will be discussing their personal experiences and the social aspect of dance, in relation to It's About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970 and Now, curated by Seika Boye.

Watch this virtual discussion on Facebook Live or Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/471102265

It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 – 1970 and Now illuminates the largely undocumented dance history of Canada’s Black population before 1970, with responses from contemporary performing and visual artists reflecting on how the archival resonates in this moment, and in Alberta.

Curated by Seika Boye, PhD, this archival exhibition exposes the representation of Blackness on Canadian stages, as well as audience and media reception of Black performance in Canada during this era. It’s About Time also explores legislation of leisure culture, dance lessons and the role of social dances at mid-century. Featured are individual dance artists such as Leonard Gibson, Ola Skanks, Ethel Bruneau, Joey Hollingsworth and Kathryn Brown.

This is the fourth presentation of the archival materials in It’s About Time. New to this iteration, Boye has invited contemporary performing and visual artists — either from or currently based in Alberta — to respond to the archive and consider what the history of Black people dancing in Canada reveals about our contemporary moment.

Featuring dance artists Michèle Moss and Ashley Colours Perez, visual artists Braxton Garneau and Preston Pavlis, author Cheryl Foggo, with graphic response by Adriana Contreras and photography by Mike Tan.

Archival exhibition commissioned by Dance Canada Danse.