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

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Left: Donna and Marianne Skanks in newspaper clipping, c. 1963. Right: Justine A. Chambers, "Untitled," c.1996.

Left: Ola Skanks Private Collection, Dance Collection Danse. Right: at Debbie Wilson's studio on Richmond St. West, Toronto. Courtesy of the Gallery.

Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Justine A. Chambers, Adriana Contreras, Ceilidh Munroe

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, literary and visual artists reflecting on how the archival resonates in this moment. Guest 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 fifth presentation of the archival materials in It’s About Time, and includes new commissions from dance artist Justine A. Chambers, visual artist Ceilidh Munroe, poet and scholar Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, with a graphic response by Adriana Contreras.

It’s About Time was originally commissioned by Dance Collection Danse (2018) and further developed in partnership with The Mitchell Gallery (2020). Partners: SFU School of Contemporary Arts; Mitchell Art Gallery; MacEwan University; Dance Collection Danse Gallery.