When it comes to activism and the arts, it’s hard to think of anyone more suitable than d’bi.young anitafrika. The author of 12 plays, seven albums and four poetry collections, they embody, create and teach decolonial performance praxis on a global scale.
The third presenter in our annual Lehan Family Activism & the Arts Series, d’bi.young anitafrika is a self-described “multi-hyphenic artist” — they are an award-winning poet-playwright-performer, director-dramaturge and activist-scholar. In addition to being a sessional instructor with UVic’s Theatre department, they currently serve as lead faculty for training programs at Soulpepper and Obsidian theatre companies, and at universities globally such as Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance and London South Bank University in the UK. Most recently awarded a $242,500 theatre archives grant, d’bi.young’s groundbreaking PhD research addresses fundamental research gaps in Black womxn’s theatre.
“The central idea in all of that work is, how I can support myself and the people I’m in community with in liberating ourselves?” they explain. “And then the second question is, what is liberation? My work is about creating the container to have that conversation with all practitioners. I’m most interested in creating an environment where we can be in circle with each other, investigating what it means to be liberated, emancipated. What resources and tools do we have available to us, and what do we have to create?”
In their Feb 25 talk, d’bi will connect their performance practice to the Anitafrika Method, exploring how they “decoliberate” — embodying liberation through decolonial action — in personhood, practice and pedagogy through theatre.
“My work is rooted in the African philosophy of Ubuntu,” they explain. “Essentially, Ubuntu means ‘I am, because you are, because we are’ — it’s quite simple and extremely complex at the same time. It points to the connectivity and symbiosis and interdependence of our existence, not only with each other as human beings, but with everything that exists on the planet.”
The Anitafrika Method — a nurturant Black-queer-feminist pedagogy of transformation — offers global arts practitioners an intersectional framework of knowing, doing and being.
Raised in activism
Born and raised in Jamaica by dub poetry pioneer Anita Stewart, d’bi came to Canada at 15 and was ushered into Toronto’s vibrant community of Jamaican Canadian artists / activists / educators / scholars.
“Art, poetry and theater for the liberation of people is a philosophical perspective that was a part of my foundational formative years,” they explain. “When I moved to Canada, I was introduced to communities here that were working on similar ideas, but also working with Indigenous people and disabled communities. Linking this anti-oppressive philosophy together was not difficult.”
But, after enrolling at Soulpepper Theatre Academy, they were disappointed to discover that their training would predominantly be in the tradition of the Western canon. “At the time it one of the top theater academies in the country . . . but teaching us about anybody else was not a priority,” d’bi recalls. “I was really quite surprised and disappointed and actually decided to resign— which, looking back on it now, was some serious radical action!”
Even more radical was their next decision: to start their own theatre school. “I was a talented, intelligent artist interested in learning about art from a global perspective but there was nowhere for me to go, so I decided to establish a training program that would center not only the practitioner but also the idea of world theater. And in doing that, I started working on a training methodology that has now evolved into what I call a ‘critical dub pedagogy’ that I developed throughout the world.”
Watch a video of d’bi’s 2025 performance/talk here:
Developing the Anitafrika Method
They then began moving around the world, teaching residencies with global practitioners in order to develop their own Anitafrika Method — which has now evolved into their soon-to-be complete PhD work and the development of a critical pedagogy that institutions can use to develop a new form of theater training.
“We’re talking about 20 years of work to develop a new system of theater training, and I now run decolonial training programs around the world,” they explain. “Once I finish my PhD, I’ll be establishing Canada’s first Black theater school rooted in critical dub pedagogy, in Toronto. This is where the journey has led me.”
The timing is ideal, as they’re well aware. “What are the chances that I would have started working on something 20-odd years ago — which might have been too soon at the time, but actually needed two decades to grow and develop into this new moment . . . which is exactly the right time!”
Working for change
With their primary mode of work in the performing arts as a playwright, actor, storyteller and poet — the Feb 25 Lehan Lecture will also feature a book launch and signing of their latest collection, dubbin poetry: the collected poems of d’bi.young anitafrika — they see their extension into education as a natural evolution.
“I design curricula looking at how we can develop theater training that speaks to a desire for emancipation and liberation,” they explain. “That is activism, but it’s also a way of existing on the planet: it’s everything that I do and am and create. The label of activism has its own traditions but, from my approach, this way of being, knowing and doing is just living. This is what living is for me: this is what it means to be an alive human being.”
Energy and action
They also feel Victoria, and UVic, is an ideal place to be exploring these issues — if properly engaged.
“Victoria is actually more suited than many other places in the country for this conversation,” they note. “With the surrounding land, mountains and water, Victoria has the energetic support for this. Toronto, for example, is energetically complicated — it’s so commercially focused that, for an artist, it’s really difficult to have the mental space to develop and grow. A big part of my training is connecting the self with the land . . . there’s room here to have an ecological grounding, to support that conversation about our future in a time of climate change.
“I think artists and practitioners from all over the country and the world would come here, if they were invited,” they conclude. “You can have a conversation here with artists about their role in in systems change, about their relationship to the planet and decolonization. If UVic was interested in being that place, it could be a pretty groundbreaking place that signals to the rest of the nation that we have a model for moving forward, that we have a meeting place to invite folks to come and have these conversations.”
“But the difference between a conversation and actualization is action . . . and in that action alone is this embodiment of Ubuntu: I am, because you are, because we are.”