Ola Skanks

Ola Skanks (née: Shepard) was born in 1926 in Toronto. Her father was from Barbados and her mother from St. Lucia; they immigrated to Toronto in 1918. Early on, Ola learned to tap dance by copying what she saw in movies and then performed professionally at various venues and events around Toronto including the Elks’ Club and Home Service Association events in the 1940s. After her four daughters were born, she returned to dancing and trained in western interpretive dance forms with Willy Blok Hanson. Inspired to learn more about her African heritage, she reached out to universities in Ghana and Nigeria and learned dances directly from Nigerian students on exchange at the University of Toronto in the 1950s. She also took classes with Pearl Primus in Buffalo. Skanks worked to merge western interpretive dance forms and dances of the African Diaspora in her choreographic work, teaching and fashion design. She performed, taught and choreographed extensively in Toronto and the U.S. for stage and television including CBC, Mariposa Folk Festival, Caribana and the San Diego Museum of Art. She was on faculty at the University of New York (Buffalo) and taught at the Three Schools Artists’ Workshop in Toronto. She opened her own studio in 1974 located on Yonge Street. Ola Skanks died August 13, 2018.

Ola Skanks was inducted into the Dance Collection Danse Encore! Dance Hall of Fame in 2018.