Iris Malcolm Housing Co-op is a trilogy exploring ambition, currency, and community; featuring the plays Rosie, Kwik Pick, and i-and-i.
Set within a housing co-op in the east end of Scarborough, the works speak to the ingenuity of Black dreaming. What happens to a dream deferred? A question posed in the poem Harlem by Langston Hughes. Hughes asked in 1951 when limitations on Black living, much less dreaming, were extremely unyielding and often physically violent. IMHC is asking in a context where the limitations manifest more covertly but with the same potent searing of the soul.
daniel jelani ellis is a multidisciplinary artist raised in Jamaica by a village of theatre artists, poets, and educators. His art practice includes performance-installation creation, playwriting, dub poetry, and acting. danjelani challenges colonial cultural authority by examining and exploring the ways this authority clashes, connects and intersects with Afro-diasporic traditions and methodologies. As a Black queer immigrant, he is committed to celebrating those of us who live within the margins.