THE SANKOFA TRILOGY to be Presented at Summerworks Festival
Performances will run from September 23 to October 12, 2025.
Experience a pantodub theatre griot posse workshop reading of d'bi.young anitafrika's acclaimed trilogy, featuring a dynamic mix of practitioners from The Black Theatre School in collaboration with mid-career artists at the Summerworks Festival, presented by the Watah Theatre.
THE SANKOFA TRILOGY is anitafrika's two-time Dora Award-winning triptych of biomyth monodramas, featuring the plays blood.claat, benu, & word! sound! powah! Having recently completed their PhD in Black performance aesthetics, anitafrika reimagines the trilogy with an expanded cast. It journeys through extraordinary stories of three generations of powerful Jamaican womyn – Mudgu Sankofa, her daughtxr Sekesu, and her granddaughter Benu whose stories traverse the intersections of gender, race, class, hxrstory – and their resolute belief in blood, truth, and r/evolution. blood.claat was nominated for 5 Dora Awards including Outstanding Design, Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production. benu and word! sound! powah! has received numerous Critic's Picks and Audience Choice Awards.
In blood.claat Mudgu Sankofa, the 15-year-old protagonist, navigates hxr relationship with hxr menstruation, the blood of the violence she witnesses, and the cycles of love, life and death in hxr family. In the second play benu, Sekesu Sankofa, Mudgu's daughtxr, battles postpartum depression while navigating the alienation, invisibility and abuse Black womyn experience in the healthcare system. And in the final play word! sound! powah!, set amidst the socio-political upheaval of the 1980 election, Benu Sankofa (Mudgu's granddaughter) joins a collective of radical poets and together, they use their voices to challenge systemic injustice, wielding words as weapons against the political corruption that they witness every day.
This rendition of the trilogy is a precursor to the 20th anniversary biomyth monodrama production coming to The Theatre Centre from September 23 to October 12, 2025. Experience theatre as ceremony, as liberation, as power as we witness, biomythicist d'bi.young anitafrika returning to Tkaronto after seven years of graduate studies. Click the link to learn more about this production and secure your tickets now!
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Wine in the Wilderness Canadian Stage (9/19-10/04) |
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DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER or THE NOSFERATU PRINCIPLE Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (3/10-3/27) |
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Getting to Normal Red Sandcastle Theatre (9/08-9/18) |
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LABOUR The Theatre Centre (9/10-9/12) |
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Bee Gees Celebration Théâtre Capitole (12/16-1/02) |
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PREDICTABLE HOLIDAY ROM-COM: THE MUSICAL Terminal Theatre (12/17-1/03) |