Shayna Jones is an award-winning professional performance artist specializing in the Traditional Oral Storytelling of African and Afro-Diasporic Folklore. With funding from the BC Arts Council and now as a Resident Artist of Nelson’s Civic Theatre, Shayna is embarking on a year of investigation, exploration, and contemplation of the question: What is it to be Black and Rural?
As a Black woman living in Kaslo, BC, a rural town of 800 people with less than a handful of souls who share her heritage, Shayna’s aim, fueled by her own sense of isolation, is to seek out other Blacks in rural settings to record their stories of Belonging (or lack thereof). Further still, she aims to weave these stories together with traditional West African Folklore to create a performance piece through which, for a moment, she (and others) may feel at Home.
Shayna is tremendously grateful to the Civic Theatre for their pledge to facilitate, support and amplify her work by installing her as a Resident Artist.
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