Kuumba Artist Feature: Esie Mensah
Harbourfront Centre’s Kuumba festival is spotlighting a different Black artist each day of February. Today we’re sharing the story of Esie Mensah.
When the pandemic swept over Canada, shutting down almost the entirety of the performing arts, Esie Mensah had to ask herself what truly mattered to her as a dancer. The answer she came to was honesty and truth. Her mastery of her craft has earned her an enviable career. Esie’s list of clients and collaborators include megastars and mega-brands, and yet commercial success also comes with its own costs, and she admits that she’s “had her share of fluff.” With a moment to breathe, she’s felt inspired to dive deeper into the depths of her work, and discover new truths to reveal.
To seek truth is her mission. She says, “All of this funnels towards creating a change that will promote conversation amongst those who witness it.” She looks to her ancestors for guidance in this mission, and this is reflected in her work, which she imbues with historical awareness. As an example, in 2015, her production ZAYO, which debuted at Harbourfront Centre, was created with the intention of reminding Africans of the greatness associated with their bloodlines. Her goal is to heal. Her capacity to bring people together and foster healing is her greatest achievement, but accomplishing that takes patience. The process of creating honest work takes work.
As part of the Kuumba feature series, Harbourfront Centre asks artists to give their thoughts on the relationship between Blackness and culture, either within their own lives or within the arts and culture world more broadly. However, Esie astutely points out how inclusivity initiatives can reinforce the othering of racialized voices. “Being raised in a Ghanaian household and facing the many realities that coincide with being a dark-skinned woman, I often question what gets sacrificed when I have to speak about my race in relation to my artistry,” she says. She notes that those same questions are not asked of her white counterparts, and continues, “It is evident that their existence is woven into the fabric of many institutions and that their whiteness is not often attributed to their art.”
Esie’s contention is with how institutions often ask Black artists to validate their artistry by speaking about their experiences, rather than focusing on the artistic processes behind their work. She clarifies that this doesn’t mean that Blackness should be hidden, and, indeed, she takes pride in her intersecting identities, but she sees the preoccupation with this experience as dancing around the root of the issue. She concludes, “What is preventing us Black artists from being seen as whole? How do we get to a place where we are focused on the human creative expression and process first, before focusing on the racial box?”
To publish Esie’s stances on Blackness risks reproducing the racial essentialism that she resists. However, Harbourfront Centre has included them in this article, with Esie’s consent, to illustrate the breadth of critical approaches that can be taken to diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Esie Mensah is an award-winning artist whose chosen relative footprint extends to many genres, disciplines and regions. As a dancer, choreographer, movement director and speaker, Mensah has worked with megastars like Rihanna and Drake, as well as top-tier brands like Coca-Cola, TIFF, and the Royal Ontario Musuem. Her production, Shades, was nominated for a Dora Award, and she was a featured speaker at TEDxToronto in 2019. You can find her work on her Instagram and Twitter (@esiemensah), as well as her website (www.esiemensah.com).
