Vancouver arts groups mark Black History Month with film screenings, live music, and more
Artists like Dee Daniels, Brandon Thornhill, and Krystle Dos Santos are performing around the city this February
À travers tes yeux
Pianist-composer Andy Milne. Photo by Anna Yaskevich
Akofena Afro-Theatre Society. Photo by Javier Sotres
FEBRUARY MARKS Black History Month in Canada—and 2026 marks the 30th year that organizations around the country have been acknowledging the occasion.
This year’s theme involves honouring Black brilliance across generations.
Here are a selection of the arts and culture events happening in and around Vancouver that capture some of that vividness and talent.
Valerie Jerome (left) and Harry Jerome on August 20, 1960. Photo courtesy NVMA 14862
An Evening With Valerie Jerome
February 5 at 7 pm, The Polygon Gallery
African Canadian athlete and educator Valerie Jerome was destined for athletic greatness from a young age. At just 15, she became a Canadian National Track and Field Champion, going on to compete at the 1959 Pan American Games, the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, and the 1966 British Commonwealth Games, before starting a teaching career that lasted three decades. The octogenarian details many of those stories—including the success of her late younger brother, Harry, who was an Olympic medal–winning sprinter—in her 2023 book Races: The Trials and Triumphs of Canada’s Fastest Family, which she’ll be reading excerpts of at The Polygon Gallery.
Black Futures, Ananse Tales: Diasporic Storytelling in Motion
February 5 at 7 pm, Museum of Anthropology at UBC
The Akofena Afro-Theatre Society weaves theatre, music, dance, and oral narrative into this performance that draws on Anansesem, the Ghanaian storytelling tradition that revolves around a trickster spider named Kweku Ananse. The organization draws on the wisdom of the past to imagine a liberated, creative, and humour-driven Black future.
Sidney Poitier (left) and Rod Steiger in 1967’s In the Heat of the Night.
Black Brilliance on Screen: In the Heat of the Night (1967)
February 6 at 2 pm, VPL Central Library
The Vancouver Public Library is hosting a Black History Month film series that features screenings (all of which involve themes of Black identity and resilience) in the Montalbano Family Theatre at the Central Library branch on Fridays. It all kicks off with In the Heat of the Night, the Philadelphia-set ’60s thriller that follows a Black homicide detective who is accused of murder, and then asked to solve the case. Later in the month, the VPL is screening Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Boyz N the Hood, and Crooklyn.
Krystle Dos Santos Sings Jackie Shane
February 7 at 7 pm, VIFF Centre
Jazz, soul, and R&B songstress Krystle Dos Santos takes the stage with drummer Jonny Holisho, guitarist Gavin Youngash, and pianist Bryan Binnema to perform a rare set of ’60s hits by the late soul pioneer Jackie Shane. Any Other Way, an NFB documentary about Shane’s life—including how she broke ground in Toronto as a Black trans singer—screens directly afterwards.
Dancers of Indangamirwa.
Indangamirwa: Traditional Dance from Rwanda
February 9 at 7 pm, VPL Central Library
In partnership with Mdundo Arts, this women-founded dance troupe dedicated to preserving traditional Rwandan culture is performing a piece that involves plenty of joyous audience participation; it’s followed by a moderated conversation about the dance, history, and culture of Rwanda, all in the Alice MacKay Room on the Lower Level of the Central Library.
À travers tes yeux
February 11 at 7 pm, Alliance Française Vancouver
Visions Ouest Productions and Alliance Française Vancouver are partnering up to present Montreal director-actor Brigitte Poupart’s À travers tes yeux (Through Her Eyes), a documentary in which her adoptive daughter, Fabiola Pierre Monty, returns to her birth country of Haiti to understand what her life might have been like if she had grown up in the land of her ancestors. The film screens in French with English subtitles.
Jireh Gospel: Hearts in Chorus
Black Communities in Canada
All month online, nfb.ca
This NFB web channel is free to access 24/7, and comprises a collection of more than 45 films by award-winning Black artists and allies. There’s everything from Stefan Verna’s Night Watches Us, which examines systemic violence through tragic death of Nicholas Gibbs, a 24-year-old Black man from Montreal, to Wylem Decaille’s Jireh Gospel: Hearts in Chorus, a look inside Montreal’s luminous Jireh Gospel Choir.
Panel Discussion: Photography, Memory and Social Justice
February 14 at 3:30 pm, Vancouver Art Gallery
Revolving around historical resistance, this panel discussion is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama as part of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Celebrating Black Futures programming. Judy Richardson and Masaru Edmund Nakawatase—both former staff organizers with the 1960s American-formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which fought segregation—discuss socially engaged photography with community advocate Kiyoko Judy Hanazawa and moderator Desirée Valadares. It’s held in the gallery’s Room 4East.
Ebony Roots artist Russell Jackson.
EBONY ROOTS
February 20 at 7:30 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre
B.C.–based artists of African descent trace a historical journey through 300 years of soul, R&B, blues, and Motown music in this powerful Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre concert. Producer Brandon Thornhill is joined during the show by vocalist Leo D.E Johnson, guitarist Olaf de Shield, bassist Russell Jackson, percussionist Carlos Joe Costa, and keyboardist Ben Sigerson.
Reflections of Vancouver’s Black History – The Art of Resilience
February 20 at 7 pm, Riddim & Spice
Led by Fade to Black Entertainment Society, this multifaceted evening with a focus on dialogue and healing features performances by local musicians, poets, and influencers—including a closing set by DJ Earl da Pearl—plus, a cultural dinner experience catered by host restaurant Riddim & Spice, which has been serving Caribbean food on Commercial Drive for over four decades. Those in attendance can also view a visual-art exhibition called The Art of Resilience, which highlights both established and emerging Black artists.
Kor Kase of Afro Van Connect.
BC Heritage Week: Black History Walking Tour & Tasting
February 21 at 1 pm, Museum of Vancouver to Vancouver Maritime Museum
Kor Kase, co-founder of Afro Van Connect, guides folks through the lived historical experiences of Black and African-descent communities in B.C. during this tour. The route weaves from the Museum of Vancouver through the Kitsilano neighbourhood, then along the southern shore of English Bay, stopping at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Expect to learn about such important figures as Fielding Spotts, Sylvia Stark, Howard Estes, and the Alexander family while enjoying culturally relevant food from local vendors Kiss Yo Mama (a.k.a. Jamaican soul-food chef Lisa Brown) and Elbo Jamaican Patties. Black Space Media and Vancouver Heritage Foundation are presenting partners.
Black History Month: Documentary film screenings
February 25 at 7 pm, North Vancouver City Library
The library screens three short National Film Board documentaries in one evening: Toronto-based friendship narrative “King’s Court”, African-Canadian hockey story “Ice Breakers”, and dance-choreographer portrait “Zab Maboungou”. If you can’t catch them in person, the NFB has hundreds of films available for free online streaming, including “Ice Breakers”.
Dee Daniels
Black History Month Showcase
February 27 at 5 pm, Museum of Vancouver
Canada Black Music Archives is presenting this sold-out evening of soul and R&B music by Dee Daniels, Khari McClelland, Ndidi Cascade, and Henri Brown, with sets by DJ Carl Allen. There’s a meet and greet with the artists prior to the show, and drinks and merch available for purchase onsite.
True North: Andy Milne in Concert + Film Premiere
February 28 at the VIFF Centre
VIFF and the Vancouver Art Gallery are teaming up to host this event as part of the gallery’s Celebrating Black Futures programming. Michèle Stephenson’s documentary True North illuminates the 1969 anti-racism protests at Concordia University (then Sir George Williams University) in Montreal. Juno Award–winning jazz pianist and composer Andy Milne—who’s behind the film’s score—is playing a 45-minute live set copresented by Infidels Jazz, and then a 15-minute Q&A, before the screening. 
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