About Us
Black Theatre School
Founded by d’bi.young anitafrika following the culmination of their PhD dissertation, Black Womyn Theatre: Personhood, Practice, Pedagogy, the Black Theatre School emerges from over two decades of Black-led decolonial theatre training and community-building. It is the continuation and convergence of fiwi aat space, ArtStarts Dub Theatre Program, anitafrika! dub theatre, and The Watah School, and is rooted in the legacies of African-Caribbean Black womyn arts educators Anita Stewart, Amah Harris, ahdri zhina mandiela, and Djanet Sears whose praxes have shaped generations of artists.
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The Black Theatre School is a nine-month immersive professional theatre training residency, led by d'bi.young anitafrika and guided by the Anitafrika Method, a holistic pedagogy for decolonial theatre practice. Presented by The Watah Theatre, in residency with The Theatre Centre, the School cultivates holistic Black theatre makers grounded in embodied practice, Black performance aesthetics, and liberatory worldbuilding.
Designed for multi-hyphenate theatre practitioners, the program supports artists who work across—and/or seek to develop across—writing, devising, dramaturgy, directing, design, producing, stage weaving, and performance. With biomyth monodrama and pantodub theatre at its creative core, the Black Theatre School prepares practitioners to generate original work and take up multi-leadership roles within contemporary theatre ecosystems.
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Rooted in African diasporic philosophies—Ubuntu, Sankofa, and Iwa Pele—and grounded in Black feminist thought, the Black Theatre School operates as a decolonizing, intersectional training space that centres global majority artists. Through practitioner-centred learning, ensemble integrity, and Critical Dub Pedagogy, the School nurtures artists committed to transforming both their practice and the conditions under which theatre is made.
