Book launches, dance festivals, and fashion mark month
#FNLROM returns Feb. 5 with Encore: One Love, a celebration of Bob Marley. The evening includes music, great food, and an art exhibition.
Courtesy ElectriCITY Events
By Dilara Kurtaran
It’s been a little over two decades since Canada officially recognized February as Black History Month, and this year, the wide range of events aimed at honouring the legacy of Black Canadians includes book launches, lectures, and fashion installations.
Local independent A Different Booklist (746 Bathurst St.), which specializes in books from the African and Caribbean Diaspora, will host the launch of Snowball: Brothers 4 Life by former Toronto District School Board director of education Christoper M. Spence at Fuse Restaurant (366 Queen St. E.) on Feb. 11 at 6 p.m. The following night at 7 p.m., the bookstore presents Lauren Francis-Sharma and her novel ’Til the Well Runs Dry, which opens with a young seamstress raising two boys in a village in Trinidad.
Later in the month, University of Toronto graduate Robert A. Hill, a historian of Black Radicalism, will present “And Still We Rise: A New Generation Arises for a New Time” on Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. at the Earth Sciences Centre (22 Russell St.), as part of the Munk School’s Centre for United States Studies and F. Ross Johnson Distinguished Speaker Series. Hill is currently Research Professor of History at UCLA and Editor in Chief of the multi-volume edition of The Marcus Garvey & Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, a multi-volume long-term research project of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at UCLA.
#FNLROM — Friday Night Live at the Royal Ontario Museum (100 Queen’s Park) — returns Feb. 5 with One Love, a special tribute to Bob Marley. DJ K.I. will play on the Currelly Gallery Mainstage with his hottest reggae, jazz, and R&B tracks, while Toronto natives Feeling the One Drop will showcase their reggae fusion sound from 9.30 to 10 p.m.
In Bronfman Hall, Wan and Chi with DJ Revy B will host an Afrofusion dance class in which attendees will learn the latest dance moves from Africa and the West Indies, as choreographed by Pulga Muchochoma and Esie Mensah.
And don’t miss the Glass Room for Water Carry Me Go, a fashion-art installation featuring Afrodiasporic designers from around the world. Curated by Toronto-based designer Chinedu Ukaba, the designers have each created a garment inspired by water.
For a different kind of art show, consider Black Future Month 3016, OCAD University’s fourth annual exhibition showcasing work from students, alumni, staff, faculty, and the Black community that explores themes of Afrofuturism, Black identity, and culture. The exhibition will open on Feb. 3 at 6 p.m. with a reception at the Graduate Gallery (205 Richmond St. W.), and will run until Feb. 20 at the Graduate Gallery and the Ada Slaight Student Gallery (100 McCaul St., 2nd Floor).