The goal of Watah is to foster the professional development of Black artists as self-actualized creative leaders who foster a holistic, equitable and compassionate society.

Watah specializes in the professional development and mentorship of emerging artists and was founded in 2008 by d’bi.young anitafrika. The organization cultivates artists as mentor-leaders of integrity. Arts-engagement sits at the core of Watah’s commitment to provide Black artists with the tools to self-actualize, create relevant art and uncover crucial mentorship skills for each one to teach one. Year-long artist residencies, skill-building workshops, one-to-one mentorship with professional artists, community field placements, and the staging of ground-breaking new theatre, are the foundation of Watah’s programming.

HOW WE WORK

Watah contributes, supports and develops the legacy of Black Theatre in Canada by 

1) cultivating and sharing a unique African-Caribbean-Canadian theatre aesthetic, heavily informed by the radical performance tradition of Jamaica’s dub poetry and dub theatre; 

2) challenging systemic barriers that exclude Black theatre artists; and 

3) giving Black arts practitioners a local, national and international platform to showcase and celebrate their work.

• Watah advances a radically innovative approach to biomyth monodrama, panto dub theatre, self-actualization, creativity, equity, mentorship, and leadership.
• Watah offers artists the unique and accessible decolonial Anitafrika Method intersectional Method that equips them with the skills to lead non-hierarchically in their communities.
• Watah supports artists in identifying and practicing a self-defined process of self-empowerment through creativity.
• Watah fosters the artist’s creation of a significant solo work that emerges from their process of self-actualization.
• Watah nurtures artists as mentors, collaborating with them to connect the dots between self-actualization, art creation, and leadership.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

From inception to present, Watah has facilitated the growth and development of over 500 artists locally, nationally and globally through residencies, workshops and one-to-one mentorship. Watah Alumni include change-makers such as Amanda Parris founder Lost Lyrics, Randell Adjei founder of R.I.S.E, Che Kothari founder of Manifesto, Kim Katrin Crosby and Naty Tremblay co-founders of The People Project, Natasha Adiyana Morris founder of Piece of Mine Festival, Mriga Kapadiya co-founder of Nor Black Nor White Fashion House, Lishai Peel poet/arts educator, liza paul and Bahia Watson co-creators of internationally-celebrated play pomme is french for apple, and Ngozi Paul actor-playwright and producer of ‘da kink in my hair’ tv show. These artists are leaders in their own creative fields today, incorporating Sorplusi’s transformational skills-building and mentorship techniques as crucial facilitative, pedagogical and social frameworks in their creative and activist endeavors.

Watah has also published three popular anthologies through Sorplusi Publishing featuring the theatrical and literary works of alumni arts practitioners, making archiving a priority. The organization has also professionally produced 50 new plays (from 2008-2024) by resident artists in our annual festivals: Mikey Smith Raw Works, Audre Lorde Works-In-Progress and Word! Sound! Powah! Award winning productions include Addicted  by Raven Dauda, Lukumi Dub Opera by d’bi.young anitafrika and I Cannot Lose My Mind by Najla Nubyanluv.

Black Theatre School:

The Black Theatre School (BTS) is Canada’s only institution dedicated exclusively to training Black artists in theatre and performance arts. Founded in 2001 by d’bi.young anitafrika, BTS offers a year-long residency that centers Black aesthetics, poetics, epistemologies, and ontologies through the Anitafrika Method—a decolonial framework emphasizing self-actualization, critical analysis, and intersectional approaches. This program nurtures playwrights, directors, designers, performers, and producers through ensemble devising, world-building, and pedagogies of care that cultivate both technical skills and community leadership. BTS was inspired by the foundational work of Black womyn theatre stalwarts Amah Harris (Theatre in the Rough), Winsom Winsom (Fresh Arts Visual Arts), ahdri zhina mandiela (b current performing arts), and Djanet Sears (AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival). As mentors, these womyn instilled in me, d’bi.young anitafrika, the vital importance of community-centered mentorship, cultural resilience, and self-empowerment. Their commitment to building a foundation for Black performance arts in Canada profoundly influenced my path and inspired me to create BTS as a space where future generations of Black artists could benefit from these same teachings. BTS addresses a critical gap in Canadian theatre, where Black and Caribbean performance practices—such as Jamaican Pantomime, Dub Theatre, Biomyth Monodrama, and Choreopoetry—are rarely acknowledged in institutional settings. By providing a culturally specific space for Black artists to explore and preserve these traditions, BTS actively counters systemic exclusion in the arts, offering Black creators a platform to build sustainable careers and establish their own theatre companies.

d’bi.young is an internationally acclaimed visionary dub poet, playwright-performer, director-dramaturge, and activist-scholar, who creates, embodies, and teaches critical dub pedagogy. Culminating their PhD in Black womyn’s theatre at London South Bank University, their research centers on the epistemological, ontological, cosmological, ethical, aesthetic, and somatic emancipation of the oppressed self through storytelling. d’bi.young developed the Anitafrika Method—a nurturant Black-queer-feminist pedagogy of transformation—offering arts practitioners globally, an intersectional framework of knowing, doing, and being. A widely anthologized Siminovitch Playwright Prize finalist, three-time Dora award winner, and founding Artistic Director of Watah Theatre, Spolrusie Press, and Ubuntu Decolonial Arts Centre in Costa Rica, d’bi.young has authored twelve plays, seven albums, and four poetry collections. They currently serve as lead faculty in the training programs of Soulpepper and Obsidian theatre companies. The 2025 Lehan Arts & Activism Lecturer recently completed a term in UVic’s theatre department centering decolonial performance praxis. d’bi.young’s present initiatives include leading the Canada Council-funded national Black Womyn in Theatre Digital Archive project, establishing Watah Theatre’s new Black Theatre School which offers professional training in both performance and non-performance disciplines of theatre, and preparing for the 20th-anniversary staging and book launch of their multi-ward-winning classic—The Sankofa Trilogy—at the Theatre Centre.