DUB POET D’BI.YOUNG IN DEBUT PRINT COLLECTION, ART ON BLACK
Date: Thursday, February 09 @ 00:09:23 UTC
Topic: Black Habits Articles


WOMEN’S PRESS CELEBRATES DUB POET D’BI.YOUNG IN DEBUT PRINT COLLECTION, ART ON BLACK

“After Marx, Freud, Marcuse, and Jung, Tune to Marley, Fanon, and d’bi.young” – George Elliott Clarke, Laureate, 2001 Governor-General’s Award Winner;

d’bi.young is a sought-after and award-winning performer, actor and playwright, and now a published poet. Women’s Press has just released her debut print collection of poetry, art on black (111 pp, Can $19.95; U.S. $17.95).

The multi-talented d’bi.(pronounced Debbie) young won Now Magazine’s 2003 Critic’s Pick for “Best dub poet and storytelling actor”. She has made numerous recordings and CD’s of her poetry, including d’bi.young: xperimentin dub in havana cuba, and the recent blood demo, a musical/cultural/political exchange with some of havana’s leading musicians. Her poetry has appeared in Fireweed and the Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing. Winner of the regional round of the 2004 CBC Poetry Face-Off – Toronto, she is also a member of the dub poet’s collective with Lillian Allen, Afua Cooper, Clifton Joseph and Chet Singh.

As a playwright, Ms. young made waves in 2005 with blood.claat, her one-woman show about a Jamaican girl’s journey to womanhood. It earned five stars in eye weekly, won her the best actor award in the Summerworks festival, and will be published summer 2006 by Playwrights Canada Press.

It is probably as an actor that Ms. young has captured her widest audience. Her performance of Stacey-Anne in the stage play Da Kink in My Hair received both national and international attention. Critics have described this performance as “remarkable”, “miraculous” and “a revelation of deft modulation. This role garnered her a Dora nomination for best actor. She is regularly seen on Vision TV and Showcase Television in Lord Have Mercy, the first Black TV sitcom produced in Canada. Other stage credits include the plays yagayah, Stuck, and 3 Parts Harmony.

As poet, playwright and actor, she has been featured on Bravo! Television’s Playwrights and Screenwriters, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam III, BPM TV’s Urban Groove, CBC’s Zed TV, and Havana Cuba’s Cuerda Viva with the Paso Firme Reggae Band and Anonimo Consejo.

Jamaican-born and raised, d’bi.young studied English literature at McGill University and Theatre at Concordia. Coming into womanhood and being a woman are key elements in her work, as is the Pan-African sensibility that gives her insight about her own sense of being in the world.

art on black is a must-read for fans of dub poetry, feminist poetry, and post-colonial poetic forms – all dynamic parts of the global cultural landscape and Canada’s cultural discourse.



Toronto Women’s Bookstore & Women’s Press are launching art on black:

date: tuesday, march 14, 2006
entrance: $15 (sliding scale)
time: 7pm doors 7:30pm show
film: blood. dub. and the matriarch 8pm
location: lula lounge
1585 dundas st. west (west of dufferin)
guests: lillian allen / anita stewart
band: dubbin.revolushun.gangstars (d’bi.young’s dancehall.rock band)
dj: soulsistah
info: 416.434.1823 / 416.922.8744
artsadmin@dbiyoung.net
www.dbiyoung.net

lula lounge: 416.588.0307
reservations

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For further information, review copies, author interviews, high-res JPEG photos, contact: Linda Litwack
Linda Litwack Publicity
416-782-7837 – N.B. January 1-February 27, 2006:
954-920-8713
lalitwack@rogers.com
or
Kate O’Neill
Canadian Scholars’ Press
416-929-2774, ext. 17
koneill@cspi.org


BH See more of dbi young in BH Gallery and at www.dbiyoung.net



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