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Kensington Market: Gallery Ignites Dancing Black In Canada

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Dancing Black Exhibition - Weekend Viewing By Stephen Weir 92-year old Ola Skanks hasn’t danced in public for twenty-years, but, there was no way that she was going to miss the opening of a Kensington Market gallery’s exhibition about the history of the Black community and Canadian dance.           York University’s Dr. Seika Boye curated  Dancing Black in Canada, 1900 to 1970 . “This exhibition illuminates the largely undocumented dance history of Canada’s Black population before 1970” Dr. Boye told a packed Ignite Gallery earlier last month. The exhibition is made up of photographs, media clippings and artefacts that detail how Black Canadians first got involved in dance – both professional and socially – beginning some 120-years ago. Featured are individual well-known dance artists such as Leonard Gibson, Ola Skanks, Ethel Bruneau, Joey Hollingsworth and Kathryn Brown. “The exhibit exposes the representation of Blackness on Canadian stages, as well as audience and