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Black Theatre Workshop
Black Theatre Workshop (BTW) is a non-profit theater company based in Montreal and is one of the oldest Black English-speaking Quebecers, English-speaking professional theatre companies in the Canada. It was established by Clarence Bayne and Arthur Goddard, who previously also founded the Trinidad and Tobago association. The Black Theatre Workshop is known for featuring many prominent artistic directors over the years. History Black Theatre Workshop was incorporated in 1971 in Canada, 1971 after its official beginnings in February 1970, and has roots going back to the Drama Committee of the Trinidad and Tobago Association. The Drama Committee was launched by, among others, Clarence Bayne and Arthur Goddard, both of whom were the founders of the Trinidad and Tobago Association, and wrote its first Constitution and By-law, by-laws. Bayne and others of the group of Trinidad students at McGill University, McGill and Sir George Williams University invited a number of professional blac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theater Company
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe"). Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. An African American church leader and the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, he led targeted, nonviolent resistance against Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination. King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Elliot Clarke
George Elliott Clarke, (born February 12, 1960) is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015 and as the 2016–2017 Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work is known largely for its use of a vast range of literary and artistic traditions (both "high" and "low"), its lush physicality and its bold political substance. One of Canada's most illustrious poets, Clarke is also known for chronicling the experience and history of the Black Canadian communities of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that he has coined "Africadia". Life Clarke was born to William and Geraldine Clarke in Windsor, Nova Scotia, near the Black Loyalist community of Three Mile Plains, and grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He graduated from Queen Elizabeth High School in 1978. He earned a BA honours degree in English from the University of Waterloo (1984), an MA degree in English from Dalhousie University ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michelle Sweeney
Michelle Sweeney is a Canadian actress and soul singer. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she moved to Montreal, Quebec in the 1980s to perform with the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir, and has remained based in Montreal since. In addition to performing jazz, soul and blues music, she appeared alongside Ranee Lee and Anthony Sherwood in a 1986 production of '' Ain't Misbehavin'''. She formed her own group, Michelle Sweeney's Good News Singers, in 1987, and released her first recorded single, "Our Love", that year. In 1988, she appeared on Quebec television alongside Céline Dion and Johanne Blouin, performing a medley of " Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" from the musical '' Hair'' with "Quand on arrive en ville" from the musical '' Starmania'', which saw Sweeney widely labelled as the star performer of the show. In 1989 she starred in a production of the jazz review ''Eubie!'', and the following year she appeared as a tour guide in the docufiction film '' The Company of Strangers'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austin Clarke (novelist)
Austin Ardinel Chesterfield "Tom" Clarke, (July 26, 1934 – June 26, 2016), was a Barbadian novelist, essayist, and short story writer who was based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Among his notable books are novels such as '' The Polished Hoe'' (2002), memoirs including ''Membering'' (2015), and two collections of poetry, ''Where the Sun Shines Best'' (2013) and ''In Your Crib'' (2015). Early life and education Austin Clarke was born in 1934 in St. James, Barbados, where he received his early education in Anglican schools. He taught at a rural school for three years. In 1955 he moved to Canada and attended the University of Toronto's Trinity College for two years.Murray Whyte"Acclaimed Toronto author Austin Clarke dead at 81" ''Toronto Star'', June 27, 2016. Career Clarke was a reporter at the '' Timmins Daily Press'' and the '' Globe and Mail'' before joining the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a freelance journalist. He subsequently taught at several American universities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Sherwood
Anthony Sherwood is a Canadian actor, producer, director and writer. Biography Sherwood was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Sherwood's grandmother, Alice Kane (née Alice White), was a musician and music teacher, his mother was an amateur singer, and his first cousin once-removed was Canadian opera singer, Portia White, Canada's first African Canadian opera singer. Sherwood's family moved to Montreal, where he grew up in the neighborhood called Little Burgundy. Sherwood commenced an eight-year career as a R&B singer before switching focus to acting. He has acted in both Canadian and American feature films and television series and received several awards for his work in the entertainment industry. Career Sherwood began his acting career on stage and started in musical theatre in Montreal starting in 1975. He starred in such stage musicals as '' Ain't Misbehavin''', ''Cabaret'', and ''The Music Man''. He began acting in several Canadian and American feature films starting in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorraine Klaasen
Lorraine Klaasen (born 1957) is a London, Ontario-based world music singer. Her mother was South African jazz singer Thandi Klaasen. She has performed at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and her international itinerary has included the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. She and her mother are also reputed as two of Nelson Mandela's favorite musicians. In 2013, at the 42nd Annual Juno Awards, Klaasen won a Juno in the World Music Album of Year category for her latest album ''A Tribute to Miriam Makeba''. Biography Lorraine Klaasen was born and raised in Soweto, South Africa. She was influenced by South Africa's musical giants of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Miriam Makeba, Dolly Rathebe, Dorothy Masuka, Sophie Mgcina and Busi Mhlongo, contemporaries and friends of her mother, Thandi Klaasen. She launched her career at a very young age, accompanying her mother to live performances all over South Africa and neighboring states of Mozambique and Swaziland. Later s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salome Bey
Salome Bey (October 10, 1933 – August 8, 2020)While ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' gives her year of birth as 1939, other sources say she was born in 1933 or 1944. was an American-born Canadian singer-songwriter, composer, and actress who lived in Toronto, Ontario, since 1966. In 2005, she was made an honorary Member of the Order of Canada. In 2022 she was honoured by Canada Post with a commemorative postage stamp for her contributions to Canadian music and theatre. Biography Born to a middle-class African-American family in New Jersey, Bey formed a vocal group with her brother Andy Bey and sister Geraldine Bey (de Haas), known as Andy and the Bey Sisters, performing in local clubs and touring North America and Europe. After moving to Toronto in 1964 and playing the jazz club circuit, she became known as "Canada's First Lady of Blues". Bey appeared on Broadway in ''Your Arms Too Short to Box with God'', for which she was nominated for a Grammy Award for her work on the cast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daisy Peterson Sweeney
Daisy Elitha Peterson Sweeney (May 7, 1920 – August 11, 2017) was a Canadian classical music and piano teacher, known for having taught many of the most notable figures in Canadian jazz music. Sweeney was born Daisy Peterson in Montreal in 1920. Her students included Oliver Jones, Ken Skinner, Joe Sealy, Reg Wilson, and her brother, Oscar Peterson. Sweeney would take her students to McGill University for preparatory exams and performances. Beyond teaching, she also co-founded the Montreal Black Community Youth Choir (now called the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir) with Trevor W. Payne in 1974. She was also the mother of Canadian Olympic athlete and television journalist Sylvia Sweeney. Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre tweeted in August 2017 that he intends for the city to name a street after her. In 2018, Sweeney was honoured with a community mural on a building in Montreal's Little Burgundy neighbourhood. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Jones (pianist)
Oliver Theophilus Jones, (born September 11, 1934 in Little Burgundy, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian jazz pianist, organist, composer and arranger. Musical career Born to Barbadian parents, Oliver Jones began his career as a pianist at the age of five, studying with Mme Bonner in Little Burgundy's Union United Church, made famous by Trevor W. Payne's Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir. He continued to develop his talent through his studies with Oscar Peterson's sister, Daisy Peterson Sweeney, starting at eight years old. In addition to performing at Union United Church when he was a child, he also performed a solo novelty act at the Cafe St. Michel as well as other clubs and theaters in the Montreal area. "I had a trick piano act, dancing, doing the splits, playing from underneath the piano, or with a sheet over the keys." He started his early touring in Vermont and Quebec with a band called Bandwagon, and in 1953–63 played mainly in the Montreal area, with tours in Queb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Biddle
Charles Reed Biddle, (July 28, 1926 – February 5, 2003) was an American-Canadian jazz bassist. He lived most of his life in Montreal, organizing and performing in jazz music events. Early life and education Biddle was born and grew up in West Philadelphia. He joined the United States Army on January 26, 1945, and served in China, India and Burma during World War II. After the war, he studied music at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he started playing bass. Career In 1948, Biddle arrived in Montreal while touring with Vernon Isaac's Three Jacks and a Jill. Biddle was impressed by the fact that in Canada, particularly Quebec, black jazz musicians often played alongside white jazz musicians as friends and bandmates. He decided to settle down in Montreal, and fell in love with a French-Canadian woman, Constance. The two eventually married and raised three daughters – Sonya, Stephanie and Tracy – and a son, Charles Biddle Jr. Biddle was employed as a car sal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ranee Lee
Ranee Lee, CM (born October 26, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American jazz singer and musician who resides in Montreal, Quebec. She is also an actor, author, educator and television host. Referred as “''Montreal's Queen of Jazz,''” Lee is a Juno Award winner, two-time Top Canadian Female Jazz Vocalist by Jazz Report Magazine and was honored with the International Association of Jazz Educators Awards for her outstanding contribution to jazz music. Biography Born in Brooklyn, Lee moved to Montreal at the age of 28 in 1970. She toured North America in the 1970s as a jazz drummer and tenor saxophonist. She subsequently landed a starring role playing Billie Holiday in ''Lady Day'', and won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance. She subsequently began recording as a vocalist, releasing her first album ''Live at the Bijou'' in 1984. She wrote and starred in ''Dark Divas, The Musical'', a tribute to the lives and careers of seven of the most popular female jazz si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
