Dalhousie Art Gallery

6101 University Ave, Halifax, NS B3H 1W8

January 23 - April 12, 2026

It’s About Time is a nationally touring exhibition that brings long-overlooked histories of Black dance and performance in Canada into focus. Grounded in the socio-political context of the early to mid-20th century, in the decades preceding changes to Canadian immigration laws, the growth of Black diasporic communities, and the introduction of multicultural policy, the exhibition traces how dancers, choreographers, communities, and cultural movements shaped social life across the country. From concert stages and dance halls to studios, clubs, protests, and public gatherings, dance emerges as a vital site of cultural expression and social connection.

Curated by scholar, artist, and educator Dr. Seika Boye, the exhibition pairs archival research and materials with commissioned responses by contemporary Nova Scotia–based artists including Ibe Ananaba, Anja Clyke, Allen D. Crooks, Kay Macdonald, and Preston Pavlis. Their works reflect on how the past reverberates in the present, demonstrating how dance, music, and performance continue to serve as sites of memory, resistance, joy, gathering, and self-determination.

Dalhousie Art Gallery website

SFU Galleries

Audain Gallery
SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
149 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC, V6B 1H4
Vancouver, BC

Teck Gallery
SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street
Vancouver BC, V6B 5K3

October 13 — December 9, 2022

It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 – 1970 and Now illuminates the largely undocumented dance history of Canada’s Black population before 1970, with responses from contemporary performing and visual artists reflecting on how the archival resonates in this moment, and in British Columbia.

Guest curated by Seika Boye, PhD, this archival exhibition exposes the representation of Blackness on Canadian stages, as well as audience and media reception of Black performance in Canada during this era. It’s About Time also explores legislation of leisure culture, dance lessons and the role of social dances at mid-century. Featured are individual dance artists such as Leonard Gibson, Ola Skanks, Ethel Bruneau, Joey Hollingsworth and Kathryn Brown. This is the fifth presentation of the archival materials in It’s About Time, and includes new commissions from dance artist Justine Chambers, visual artist Ceilidh Munroe, poet and scholar Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, with a graphic response by Adriana Contreras.

It’s About Time was originally commissioned by Dance Collection Danse (2018) and further developed in partnership with The Mitchell Gallery (2020).

SFU Galleries website

John & Maggie Mitchell Art Gallery

Room 11-121, Allard Hall, 11110 – 104 Avenue, Edmonton, AB

September 15 — December 5, 2020

Illuminating the largely undocumented dance history of Canada’s Black population before 1970, with responses from contemporary performing and visual artists reflecting on how the archival resonates in this moment, and in Alberta.

This is the fourth presentation of the archival materials in It’s About Time. New to this iteration, Boye has invited contemporary performing and visual artists — either from or currently based in Alberta — to respond to the archive and consider what the history of Black people dancing in Canada reveals about our contemporary moment.

MAG website

More information about this iteration in the Responses page.

Progress Festival

Presented by SummerWorks
at The Theatre Centre, Upstairs Gallery
1115 Queen Street W, Toronto, ON

January 30 – February 15, 2019

It’s About Time was first commissioned by Dance Collection Danse Archives and Gallery and opened in January of 2018. From June-August 2018, it was at OCAD’s Ignite Gallery. In 2019, SummerWorks Performance Festival has invited the exhibition as part of Progress.

Progress Festival website

Ignite Gallery

165 Augusta Avenue, Toronto, ON

July 14 – August 12, 2018

Curated by Seika Boye, PhD, this exhibition illuminates the largely undocumented dance history of Canada’s Black population before 1970. Featured are individual dance artists such as Leonard Gibson, Ola Skanks, Ethel Bruneau, Joey Hollingsworth and Kathryn Brown. The exhibit exposes the representation of Blackness on Canadian stages, as well as audience and media reception of Black performance in Canada during this era. It’s About Time explores legislation of leisure culture, dance lessons and the role of social dances at mid-century.

Ignite Gallery website

Dance Collection Danse Gallery

301-149 Church Street, Toronto, ON

January 31 – June 22, 2018

Curated by Seika Boye, PhD, this exhibition illuminates the largely undocumented dance history of Canada’s Black population before 1970. Featured are individual dance artists such as Leonard Gibson, Ola Skanks, Ethel Bruneau, Joey Hollingsworth and Kathryn Brown. The exhibit exposes the representation of Blackness on Canadian stages, as well as audience and media reception of Black performance in Canada during this era. It’s About Time explores legislation of leisure culture, dance lessons and the role of social dances at mid-century.

DCD website