The 2021 edition of the Awakenings Artist Mentorship program is in partnership with Weyni Mengesha and Soulpepper Theatre Company. Five artists will be selected in this Open Call to work alongside five participants of the 2021 Soulpepper Academy. Over the course of twelve months, the selected artists will develop a site-specific live performance artwork to be presented at one of the ten Toronto History Museums across the city.

This work will be largely self-directed, with mentorship from Weyni Mengesha and additional guidance from world renown educators d'bi.young anitafrika as a writing mentor and Esie Mensah as a movement mentor, as applicable. Last year these three outstanding talents came together to create the inaugural Awakenings performance art piece “A Revolution of Love”, which now serves as a point of departure for this year’s Awakenings mentorship program.

Acknowledging the colonial past of the historic sites and the entire city, the program primarily explores the question: where do we go from there? What shape does a revolution take when its end goal is love and healing for all? How do we change the world through creation rather than destruction? These are the questions that “A Revolution of Love” brought forward, and ones we invite participants of the 2021 program to explore in their artistic practice.