Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Canadian debut at Toronto’s Royal Cinema By Stephen Weir It took four years and a worldwide Kickstarter project for the Jamaica Dance Hall documentary Bruk Out to Break Out in Toronto. On Friday night the movie was given its Canadian premiere to a wildly cheering audience at the downtown Royal Cinema. The Caribbean Camera Bruk Out – starts with the real thing. Men and women dancing in the streets and steamy dance halls of Kingston, Jamaica with reckless abandon.   Men and women flaunt their sexuality, on the dance floor, in the streets of Kingston and even on the hoods of slow moving cars.   Wining? That is too tame for Dance Hall – this is where the term daggering was born. The camera rolls with a clubber’s point of view of the hot hot dancing, while notable dancehall artists including Beenie Man and Elephant Man explain how the music and dancing feed off each other. The 69-minute movie moves from the ghetto to America, Poland and Spain, following

Student, Author and Recording Star Antonio Michael Downing Receives a new Mentorship Award. By Stephen Weir for Caribbean Camera Photograph:  Antonio Michael Downing   Antonio Michael Downing grew up in southern Trinidad before moving to Canada He is a musician, writer and activist based in Toronto and he has just been chosen to be part of the new RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers Mentorship Program. This is a professional development program designed to support the next generation of Canadian writers on their career journeys. It is all part of the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers Award, a distinction that is given annually to a Canadian author whose work embodies the pursuit of excellence in literary non-fiction. The Mentorship program is being made available to five Canadian non-fiction writers, who are selected in partnership with a national network of university and college writing programs. These students have been paired with the 2018 RBC Taylor Priz

(But others may swing) By Stephen Weir for the Caribbean Camera Zoe Doyle (l), Vlad Alexis and Sarah Afful (r) -  Obsidian Theatre Company photo A big part of Black History Month in Toronto is celebrating the Diaspora on “the boards”.   This month, Canada’s leading black theatre organization opened hang,   a very dark comedy that is a #MeToo take on crime and punishment. Maybe it is because February’s dance card is so filled with events it takes a lot to get noticed. hang speaks to what is going on in the world and is desperately in need of an audience.   The first play of the season for Obsidian has been running for a week and has yet to attract its traditional base, or even a critical review – till now. Obsidian Theatre Company, now in its 16 th year, says it was born out of a passionate sense of artistic responsibility. The mandate is” to bring the Black voice, in its many artistic dialects, to Canada’s cultural forefront”.  The theatre company attracts some

Bering Expedition Island of Blue Foxes makes 2018 shortlist for RBC Taylor Prize By KJ Mullins As published on Newz4U Canadian Author Stephen R. Bown   sees and writes about dead people.    Long deceased    explorers to be precise. Bown is fascinated by brave men who are knowingly sailed out of their comfort field as they explore the unseen world of two centuries ago. Communing the dead has been good for Bown.    His latest nonfiction book 'Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph of the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition' is receiving rave reviews across Canada and was recently shortlisted for this year’s RBC Taylor Prize. Don’t let the title fool you. While blue foxes do have a place in Bown’s book, it is really about the failure of Danish mapmaker Vitus Jonassen Bering to overcome the harsh climate of what is now the Bering Straits, and the bungling of the Russian government who commissioned him to sail from Russia to North America. Bering