d'bi.young anitafrika

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born and raised in Jamaica. She moved to Canada when she was 15 years old.

FOR SOULPEPPER: for colored girls..., Three Penny Opera, Three Sisters. OTHER THEATRE: Sankofa Trilogy: BloodClaat, Benu & Word! Sound! Powah by anitafrika (Tarragon), Orisha Trilogy: Esu Crossing The Middle Passage, Mami Wata & The PussyWitch Hunt & Lukumi by anitafrika (Storefront & Passe Muraille), Da Kink in My Hair (Princess of Wales). FILM & TELEVISION: Lord Have Mercy, YesNo, Sunday Afternoon. OTHER: Canadian Poet of Honor, United Nations Speaker, YWCA Woman of Distinction.

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Soulpepper Academy: The Anitafrika Method

Pedagogy and Curriculum Designer & Faculty 

d’bi.young anitafrika is an African-Jamaican-Canadian London-based dub poet, theatre interventionist and decolonial scholar, committed to embodying art that ritualises acts of recovery from violence inflicted upon the people and the planet. The multi-award-winning Poet of Honor, author of twelve plays, seven albums and four collections of poetry, was recently recognised as a Global Leader in Theatre & Performance by Arts Council England. After receiving hxr Masters from University of London, d’bi.young was awarded a Dean's Scholarship by London South Bank University (LSBU) to conduct doctoral research in decolonial performance praxis. An alumni of Soulpepper Theatre Academy—who also acted in Three Penny Opera and Three Sisters—d’bi.young is now its Director of Curriculum Design and Pedagogy, using hxr Anitafrika Method. Shx lectures at Rose Bruford College and LSBU in the UK and continues to teach the Anitafrika Method worldwide. d’bi.young most recently worked as Theatre Interventionist in the UN's Global Initiatives Fellowship and as Director of Kaie Kellough’s Jah in the Ever-Expanding Song for Obsidian Theatre’s 21 Black Futures. Shx is currently curating Inner Character—hxr PhD related web series exploring trauma and transformation in Black womxn’s theatre and is completing Dubbin Theatre, an anthology of hxr plays from 2000-2020.

The Anitafrika Method

The Anitafrika Method is an integrative, critically-reflexive, trauma-informed, decolonial-Black-feminist framework created by d’bi.young anitafrika. It is practitioner-centred-arts-based intervention that nurtures self-transformation, creative expression & community embodiment. Practitioners move through an integrative psychosomatic process of introspection; metabolising challenges from their past and present, while applying critical-reflexivity to deepen awareness of self and how one chooses to position socio-culturally and politically, in relation to others. These discoveries catalyse personal and professional growth that culminate in biomyth artistic formulations.