Lua Shayenne, known best to Toronto audiences as a dancer and choreographer, is moving out in big and ambitious ways. Shayenne is donning the hat of producer/curator to launch a festival that celebrates Black women dance artists. Shayenne has named it Yensa, drawing on a word that means “let’s dance” from her mother, singer Ranzie Mensah’s West African Fanti heritage.
“I already had in mind that I wanted to do a festival,” says Shayenne, “but it was over several years of informal discussions with leading Black female dance practitioners that it became clear to me there was a dire need to provide a platform to highlight the diversity of forms and expressions within our community; that it had to be for Black women, by Black women, but celebrated by everybody.”
, a word coined in 2010 by African-American scholar and activist Moya Bailey to encapsulate a toxic blend of anti-Black racism and sexism. Says Shayenne: “We do not want to be put in a box. The whole idea of the festival is to showcase the diversity of black women’s artistic practices, and to show that we come from different stories, different life experiences, all of which is reflected in our work.”
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