Our
Festivals
The Black Theatre School presents three annual festivals that anchor the School’s nine-month residency and mark each Movement of the program. Together, these festivals create a public arc of practice, process, and presentation—inviting community into the evolving work of practitioners as they move from self-transformation, to creative expression, to collective embodiment. Rooted in biomyth monodrama, pantodub theatre, and Critical Dub Pedagogy, the festivals function as play-spaces of decoliberatory experimentation.
Mikey Smith Raw Works Festival/April 11, 2026
Movement: Self-Transformation
The Mikey Smith Raw Works Festival centres early-stage biomyth monodramas developed during Movement I of the BTS residency. Focused on self-transformation, this festival invites practitioners to share raw, emergent work grounded in embodied inquiry, decolonial somatics, and Black performance aesthetics. The festival honours process over polish and creates a brave space for risk-taking, reflection, and communal witnessing.
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Audre Lorde Works-in-Process Festival/June 20-21, 2026
Movement: Creative Expression
The Audre Lorde Works-in-Process Festival highlights works-in-development as practitioners deepen creative expression and refine their biomyth monodramas. Emphasising clarity, craft, and political intention, the festival invites audiences into dialogue with artists as they shape form, language, and structure.
Word! Sound! Powah! Festival/Aug 8-9, 2026
Movement: Community Embodiment
The Word! Sound! Powah! Festival culminates Movement I by centring community embodiment and collective resonance. Practitioners share more fully realised iterations of their biomyth monodramas, activating the relationship between performer and audience through sound, word, rhythm, and ritual. The festival celebrates Black theatre as a living, communal practice—where story, presence, and shared energy generate power and possibility.
