Tuesday, February 9, 2010

In French. Les Filles Électriques, in partnership with Planète Rebelle publishers, invites you to the launch of Passagères: Voix de changement, an audio book featuring the voices of women who have spent time at Passages, a shelter and community resource for women at risk, ages 18 to 30. More than forty women contributed to the anthology including residents, ex-residents and caregivers. Their voices are raw, vulnerable and authentic. These poems and short prose pieces lift the veil on lives that too often remain in the shadows. These are women saying, I love life! Come out to be touched and to celebrate.

www.passageres.com

“Few performers have the raw charisma of d’bi.young, her ability to command attention every second she’s on stage… (benu is) a riveting journey through her psyche, equal parts blood and magic.” —Serafin Lariviere, Eye Weekly

Having recently given birth and now negotiating her own mortality, benu, a 30 year old woman, contemplates life and death. Her blood pressure mysteriously rises, like a phoenix, in a Toronto hospital, triggering a series of strange physical and mental ailments that lead her down a path of fear, discovery, and renewal. Reality meets myth, magic meets ritual, and a bio-myth-o-graphical narrative unfolds in firesome ways, paralleling the mythology of the Egyptian predecessor to the phoenix, the benu bird.

d’bi.young is an Afrikan-Jamaican-Canadian visionary who has performed, published, and lectured internationally. An award-winning dubpoet, writer, and theatre practitioner, she has produced five dubpoetry albums, authored two dubpoetry collections and is the playwright/performer of the published double Dora Award-winning, one-person show blood.claat. d’bi.young recently launched the radical arts centre anitAFRIKA! dub theatre and she is presently completing her first non-fiction on dubpoetry and dubtheatre.

A La Chapelle and Festival Voix d’Amériques coprésentation. An anitAFRIKA! dub theatre production.

In French. A proposition by Ying Yang Ladies (Myléna Bergeron & Caroline Hayeur). Installation / performance where voice, video and music echo beneath the trees. Creatures lurking, ghostly light, stories of hunters… and huntresses.

Open mic, bilingual. Who hasn’t dreamt of seeing the vibes in the room morph onto the stage? These poets are attuned to the connection between audience and stage because they are interested in the effect of their words on the public. Different voices meet and oh!… the words that fly. This Night Shift will take you beyond your comfort zone!