Kensington Market: Gallery Ignites Dancing Black In Canada
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 sta...