KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration, now in its 28th year, continues supporting Black artists and Black culture. Dance, music, workshops and literary events highlight contemporary artists and thought leaders from the Afro-diaspora in Canada.
In celebration of Kuumba 2023, the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) is pleased to re-release a selection of archived video presentations from recent programme seasons. These videos are available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Don’t miss this limited opportunity to experience stimulating and thought-provoking discussions and performances from some of the world’s greatest artists and storytellers.
Harbourfront Centre presents Kuumba
February 1–28, 2023
Original content release dates are noted below.
Consider Disabled, Deaf and Mad futures through a riveting set of performances by Black artists. Curated by Syrus Marcus Ware, this New Embassy event (originally aired April 26, 2022) from the Toronto International Festival of Authors explores the effects of the pandemic and white supremacy with performances by spoken word artist Britta B., actor and Deaf Olympian Courage Bacchus, and dance/movement artists Jaz Fairy J and Rodney Diverlus.
This event is presented with ASL interpretation and visual captions.
The New Embassy is a digital mini-series of spoken word, poetry, prose, theatrical readings, music and dance, inspired by Toronto’s renowned, historic Bohemian Embassy. It introduces a new generation of artists shaping Canada’s ever-evolving literary scene. This event is presented as part of the CoMotion Festival.
CW // This event contains strong language and images of a sexual nature. Discretion is advised.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video is available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.
Curated by Syrus Marcus Ware
Produced by Toronto International Festival of Authors
Co-Presented with CoMotion Festival
The New Embassy event series is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts through the Digital NOW program.
Join the Toronto International Festival of Authors and Canadian award-winning poets and activists Kelisha Daley, Martin Gomes, Khiem Hoang, Shahaddah Jack and Zara Rahman for an empowering archived presentation of the power of performance (originally aired on October 27, 2021). In conversation with Desiree Mckenzie, the poets share the tools that youths need to create their own poetry and writing, and the necessary techniques to reflect the challenges and change they’d like to inspire in the world around them.
All presenters are mentees of the iAM Programme: a youth-led arts and social justice mentorship for equity-seeking youth in Canada aged 12–26. Desiree Mckenzie is an award-winning performer and arts educator, who in 2019, earned the title of Canadian Festival of Spoken Word National Champion.
Recommended for ages 11 and up.
English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video is available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.
This event is presented in partnership with the Reading is Magic Festival.
Every poet plays with language to reveal the inexpressible. Tune in to meet a new generation of Canadian poets who are pushing the possibilities and challenging the rules. Curated and hosted by Britta B., this archived presentation from the Toronto International Festival of Authors, celebrates the influence and indelible impact of dub poetry, featuring Afua Cooper and Lillian Allen. Originally aired on October 28, 2021.
English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video is available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.
This event is presented in partnership with JAYU.
Jamaican poet, essayist and novelist Kei Miller presents his critical and lyrical collection of interconnected essays, Things I Have Withheld, as Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning writer Ian Williams brings fresh eyes to today’s urgent conversation on race and racism with his collection of essays Disorientation: Being Black in the World. This archived presentation from the Toronto International Festival of Authors (originally aired on October 21, 2021) illuminates and explores the experience of discrimination, the silences in which so many important things are kept, and how the meanings of our bodies can shift as we move through the world, variously assuming privilege or victimhood.
Interviewer: Fiona Raye Clarke
English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video is available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.
Enjoy this imaginative showcase of African diasporic worldviews that represents a wide spectrum of possibilities to alter your reality, from Afrofuturism, African futurism and Afro-surrealism to magical realism and science fiction. In this archived presentation (originally aired on October 26, 2021), host Levyi-Alexander Love introduces the vibrant and expressive vocals of D’Andrew Ricketts-Dunn and Markus Aurelyus – spellbinding artists who identify as belonging to the Black LGBTQ2S+ community. The multidisciplinary storytelling celebration includes intimate song associations, spoken word performances and candid conversations about elevating Black artists today.
In The Moment was a musical showcase curated by Levyi-Alexander J. Love with the assistance of a not-for-profit organization previously referred to as the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM) Canada. Since that time, the non-profit and its members, Nico Taylor and Queen Kukoyi, have gone on to operate as Oddside Arts, a cultural arts organization that merges art, technology and wellness through a Black speculative lens.
English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video will be available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.
Whether it be poetry written for the page, the silver screen, the poetry slam, or the melody, every poet plays with language to reveal the inexpressible. In this archived presentation (originally aired February 12, 2021), the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA), JAYU and the Bergen International Literary Festival present a new generation of Canadian poets who are pushing the possibilities and playing with the rules. Tune in to four distinguished Canadian poets as they take you on a journey through the physical, vocal and material elements of poetry.
Featured poets: Jillian Christmas (Vancouver), Tawhida Tanya Evanson (Montreal), Desiree McKenzie (Toronto), Motion (Toronto)
Curator and emcee: Poet Britta B. (Toronto)
This event is presented as part of the 2021 Bergen International Literary Festival, a five-day festival that celebrates international and Norwegian fiction and non-fiction. The event was originally showcased during Literature Live Around the World, a collaboration project composed of 12 festivals and literature centres from every continent, that joined forces to provide a unique 12-hour literary programme. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation presenters Siss Vik and Mona B Riise led this marathon multinational venture. Soundtracks & Stanzas: Changing Canada’s Black Future was a one-hour featured segment of this 12-hour broadcast.
TIFA is excited to join forces with JAYU, a leader in the space where the arts and human rights intersect, and Harbourfront Centre’s Kuumba (presented by TD Ready Commitment), Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration, to bring you this special event.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video is available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.
Lean in to a bold dialogue about the political movements and racial tensions that continue to rock the world and spark international debate. In this archived Toronto International Festival of Authors presentation, Dr. Cheryl Thompson (Uncle: Race, Nostalgia and the Politics of Loyalty) provides a uniquely Canadian perspective on Black racism and institutional oppression, as demonstrated through her latest works of non-fiction. This perspective-shifting conversation spotlights Black lived experiences and the societal consequences of staying the current trajectory. (Originally aired October 25, 2021)
Interviewer: Karen Lee.
English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video is available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.
The Toronto International Festival of Authors presents writers in candid, live conversation in reflection on the topics that matter most during this unprecedented time. In this archived Festival presentation (originally aired on October 24, 2020), authors and experts weigh in on the Black Lives Matter political and social movement that dominated headlines in 2020. They discuss the incidents and the histories of anti-Black racism in North America, and today’s revived protests against police brutality, state violence and anti-Black racism.
Featuring panelists: Rodney Diverlus, Dana R. Fisher and Robyn Maynard.
Moderator: Angelyn Francis
English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.
This event is currently re-released as part of Harbourfront Centre’s 2023 KUUMBA Presented by TD Bank Group, Toronto’s largest Black Futures Month celebration. The video is available to watch for free throughout the month of February. Learn more here.