Black Pledge is excited to bring together some of the country’s incredibly skilled and talented artists and teachers for day long workshops. Participants can choose one workshop per day. These workshops are exclusively for Black creatives with a relationship to performance. Compassion care funds for child care, transportation or other needs are available courtesy of Balancing Act. Participants can indicate if they need the compassion fund in the registration form. Lunch will be provided. Email ggrant@theblackpledge.ca for the promo code for no cost registration
REGISTER
Workshop Descriptions
Djanet Sears
A Masterclass in playwrighting
Multi award winning playwright, director and trailblazer in theatre in Canada, shares a masterclass on playwrighting.
Djanet Sears is a multi-award-winning and internationally-renowned African Canadian playwright, director, editor and assistant professor. She is the driving force behind the AfriCanadian Playwrights’ Festival, a founding member of the Obsidian Theatre Company, and editor of Testifyin Vols. I & II, the first anthologies of plays by playwrights of African descent in Canada.
Janelle Cooper
The Voice Within - A Musical Theatre Masterclass
Join Janelle Cooper, a multidisciplinary artist who has worked nationally for a special music theatre masterclass in music theatre. Bring your songs and let’s dig in.
Janelle Cooper is a multidisciplinary Artist, specializing in cultural excavation through multi-genre storytelling and devised creation.
Diane Roberts and Natasha Eck
Arrivals Legacy Project's Weaving New Legacies of Knowing
What are the legacies we carry in our mind, body and spirit? What legacies call us and what must we leave behind? This workshop invites you into an exploration of your root cultural voice, rhythm and performance. Through this offering you will be invited to enter an embodied self-reflexive moment to engage your culturally storied bodies in a dynamic dance between self and other. Join Arrivals Legacy Project AD Diane Roberts and members of her co-facilitation team as they lead you through an embodied story-weaving process that explores ancestry as a jump-off point for creative expression.
Funmi Adewole Elliott
Explore the interplay: dance, text, and imagination
The workshop will begin with warm-up and improvisation exercises inspired by African dance styles, leading into creative improvisation that explores textures, rhythm, and movement qualities. Dancing in a circle will encourage connection, spontaneity, and a shared sense of presence.
In the second part of the session, participants will engage in storytelling, writing poetic text inspired by the movements explored in the first half. These materials will serve as the foundation for short compositions that combine movement and voice, speaking through movement and moving through speech.
Open to all levels of experience, this workshop offers a playful yet focused approach to performance-making, inviting participants to explore the interplay between body, text, and imagination.
'Funmi Adewole Elliott is a movement artist, dramaturg, and educator. She is the founder of FAE Studios and Enact Arts, working across professional and community contexts in Europe, Africa, and Canada. Her practice bridges storytelling, dance, and intercultural collaboration.