rock.paper.sistahz Festival, afteRock Plays and More Set for b current's 2014 Lineup

b current's new artistic directors, Jajube Mandiela and Ngozi Paul, are pleased to announce the company's 2014 line-up. Since taking the helm last fall, Mandiela and Paul have put together a thrilling season featuring some of Toronto's most exciting theatre creators.

The 13th annual rock.paper.sistahz festival

May 11-18th, 2014 at Daniels Spectrum

Having started in 2002 as a platform for Black Women Artists to theatrically play, the festival enters its teens with the theme: "Coming of Age". rps13 kicks off with a Mother's Day Brunch Gala Fundraiser on Sunday, May 11 at the Artscape Wychwood Barns followed by a week-long Alumni Series (May 12-16) offering exclusive workshops led by acclaimed b current rAiz'n Ensemble alumni including award-winning poet and playwright d'bi young and Governor General Awards Finalist Joseph Jomo Pierre. The popular, one-of-a-kind festival will close with 23 hours live!, a presentation marathon from May 17-18, featuring new works by trey anthony (Black Mothers Don't Say I Love You), Catherine Hernandez (I Cannot Lie to the Stars that Made Me), Montreal's Michaela di Cesare (8 Ways My Mother was Conceived), and Ngozi Paul (The 1st Time Project).

Freedom Carnival

July 21- August 3, 2014 at The Great Hall's BLK BOX Theatre

This fantastic new event will feature a workshop production of The Emancipation of Ms. Lovely by b current co-artistic director, Ngozi Paul. The 2-week event will also include community events and late night programming leading up to Toronto Caribana weekend, presented in collaboration with Headspace Radio and other industry partners.

afteRock Plays

October 6 - 26, 2014 at Buddies in Bad Times, Chamber Space

afteRock Plays returns for its 2nd edition with two new shows in production: Catherine Hernandez's Femme Playlist and Sébastien Heins's Brotherhood: the Hip Hopera. This play series is presented by b current as a part of the Buddies In Bad Times' 2014-2015 season.

Sébastien Heins presents a non-stop, high-energy, one-man show using music and physical theatre to tell the poignantly parodied story of two brothers living the Hip Hop Life. Taking the audience from the present to the 1970s, then fast forwarding thirty years into the future, it is written entirely in rhyme with cleverly crafted lyrics. Heins utilizes Hip Hop and R & B as well as elements of Reggae and Dancehall, an homage to the playwright's Jamaican roots.

Catherine Hernandez's new work is a theatrical soundtrack set to the life of the playwright. From masturbation to motherhood, body shame to burlesque, Hernandez uncovers the realities of living as a queer woman of colour. This multidisciplinary feast for the eyes reveals the delicious nature of being sexy and proud, slutty and loud, queer and brown.

afteRock Plays will also feature a special presentation of work-in-development, ORALToRIO, a theatrical mixtape written and performed by Motion and DJ L'Oqenz.

In addition, emerging artists in b current's professional training branch, the rAiz'n Ensemble, will complete their final year in the company's 3-year training cycle with a public presentation of their culminating works in the annual rAw Materialz Showcase in the Fall.

About b current: b current develops new works by diverse artists primarily rooted in the cultural, social, and political experiences of the Canadian and international Black Diaspora. In order to effectively do this the company has dramaturgy and workshop sessions, public readings, and workshop performances.

b current produces out of the box performancepieces and ideas in addition to their main stage theatre productions. Sinceinception they mounted over a dozen main stage plays, as well as 70+ other public performances.

For more information on b current's upcoming 2014 line-up, visit www.bcurrent.ca.

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