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FACING Home: Love & Redemption

Toronto choreographer Kevin A. Ormsby and Jamaican choreographer Christopher Walker source the legendary music of reggae musician Bob Marley in their new collaboration, FACING Home: Love & Redemption.

“We’re inviting audiences to think of the global influence of Bob Marley’s music and its connection to larger social issues. We’re inviting them to ask themselves, ‘When did I first hear Marley’s music?’ and ‘When did I first fall in love?’” says Ormsby. “We hope audiences fall in love all over again while thinking about love and redemption in light of the real stigmas of homosexuality, especially in the West Indian/Jamaican community.”

Danced by Ormsby’s KasheDance, FACING Home is about the love and redemption of its title, meeting with the the active, deep-rooted homophobia in Jamaican/West Indian Culture. This excerpt features Ormsby and dancer Pierre Clark performing to the words of American poet Danez Smith, whose poetry is featured throughout the work.

FACING Home premieres November 26 and runs through November 29 at the Aki Studio Theatre in the Daniels Spectrum arts hub.

Posted November 25, 2015

Caribana is Our Stage

Themes of becoming, shaping from and returning to are central to Caribbean performance arts. As one of these art forms, Carnival is a nuanced performance art practice rooted in the cultural memory of the lives of Caribbean peoples throughout Canada and the diaspora. But whose story is told (or not told) and in what context? The telling or omission of stories can be traced to a lack of understanding of the complexity of the Caribbean and its Carnival – a performance tradition that is more than the mass commodification, sexuality and “loud music” we often associate it with.

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