Curator’s Message

It’s About Time brings together new research alongside recorded dance histories of Canada’s Black population, 1900-1970. The result is an overview of the dance floor and the stage, dance lessons, protests and activism, insight into representations of blackness and media reception of performances. Accumulated here are various artists, choreographers, dance forms, venues, geographic locations, cultural and heritage backgrounds, artistic visions and community initiatives.

What binds the exhibit together is the socio-political context of these years, which preceded changes to immigration laws, the subsequent increase of the Black population during the 1970s and forward, and multicultural policy. Through this lens we see the nuanced negotiations and triumph of Black people dancing. Looking to Black people dancing in Canadian history carries the potential for insight into social, artistic and leisure cultures, legislation, transnational relations, racism and integration. There is so much to learn, the source material is all around us. We just have to know how and where to look for it.

The archival exhibit spans the years 1900-1970. From 1900-1967, Canada’s immigration policies were increasingly racist and exclusionary, providing the government with power to arbitrarily deny unwanted peoples admission into the country. In 1910-1911 the Black population was targeted when “unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada” was added to the list of traits considered inadmissible — a response to the influx of Black migration from Oklahoma into Alberta. This government policy should influence how we perceive the individuals and communities celebrated in this exhibit and impact our understanding of Blackness in Canada from the dance floor to the stage to the street — in the present moment.

For the first time in the exhibition’s history contemporary performing, visual and literary artists from or based in Alberta have been invited to respond to the archive presented here. Their responses reflect on both the ongoing legacy of Black people dancing — or not dancing — and the importance of looking back through dance in order to fully connect with local and community histories.

To date, the history of dance within Canada’s Black population is significantly under-documented in Canadian dance history and in African-Canadian history. Without it Black dance students and artists, and Black dancing citizens cannot know the legacy of our dancing actions in Canada. Without it we miss out on so much joy, agency, peaceful gathering en masse, resistance, artistic brilliance and individual expression. Without it we are incomplete in our self-knowledge and so our potential.

We must continue to dig deeper into this history … a history that is about all Canadians.

It’s about time.