To Be Dub, Female and Black: Towards a Womban-Centred Afro-Caribbean Diasporic Performance Aesthetic in Toronto1

This essay traces the contributions of Afro-Caribbean women, particularly Rhoma Spencer, ahdri zhina mandiela, and d’bi.young anitafrika, to a developing performance aesthetic in Toronto that is grounded in Caribbean cultural texts. It focuses on ways in which the work of these women has consciously challenged and queered Canadian and Caribbean theatrical and performance forms as well as heterosexist and masculinist cultural nationalisms and colonial modernities. Spencer, through her company Theatre Archipelago, employs a “poor theatre” aesthetic, a presentational sensibility, exhuberant performances, and a richness of language, all grounded in Caribbean traditions such as carnival, ’mas, and calypso, to speak in complex ways about the politics of class, gender, and race with a clear emphasis on women. mandiela, through her company bcurrent and especially through her plays dark diaspora…in dub! and who knew grannie, has invented and developed a new form, dub theatre, out of the Jamaican-based traditions of dub poetry. d’bi.young anitafrika has followed in mandiela’s footsteps, contributing to the women’s dub tradition through the invention of what she calls “biomyth monodrama” as exemplified in her sankofa trilogy. These women have constituted a Toronto within the city that functions as a transformative space operating at the intersection of nations, sexualities, and performance forms to queer traditional theatrical hierarchies, together with the largely masculinist ethos of much Caribbean performance and the narrow chronopolitics of modernist colonial “development.” They have created and continue to develop entirely new, empowering, “womban-centered,” and “revolushunary” Afro-Caribbean forms that are (re)grounded in traditions of the grannies, the griots, the nation languages of the people, and movement and language that emerge from and celebrate Black women’s bodies in a transnational Canadian-Caribbean diaspora.Cet article retrace les contributions des artistes afro-caribéennes Rhoma Spencer, ahdri zhina mandiela et d’bi.young anitafrika à la création d’une esthétique de la performance à Toronto, fondée sur des textes issus de la culture caribéenne. Il s’intéresse aux façons dont le travail de ces femmes a remis en question les formes du théâtre et du spectacle au Canada et dans les Caraïbes, de même que les nationalismes culturels hétérosexistes et masculinistes ainsi que les modernités coloniales, en y inscrivant une sensibilité homosexuelle. Avec sa compagnie Theatre Archipelago, Spencer emploie l’esthétique du «  théâtre pauvre  », une sensibilité aiguisée aux divers aspects de la présentation, un jeu exubérant et une langue riche qui prennent appui sur des traditions caribéennes comme le carnaval, les festivités de Noël et le calypso pour traiter de manière complexe de la lutte des classes, des sexes et des races, en accordant une importance marquée aux femmes. mandiela, avec sa compagnie bcurrent et surtout dans ses pièces dark diaspora…in dub! et who knew grannie, a créé et perfectionné une nouvelle forme, le théâtre dub, en partant de la tradition poétique jamaïcaine, la poésie dub. Suivant l’exemple de mandiela, d’bi.young anitafrika a participé à la tradition dub au féminin en inventant ce qu’elle a appelé le « monodrame du biomythe », un style qu’illustre sa sankofa trilogy. Ces femmes ont créé au sein de Toronto un espace de transformation à la croisée des nations, des sexualités et des formes spectaculaires qui sert à donner un caractère homosexuel aux hiérarchies traditionnelles du théâtre, à l’éthos principalement masculiniste du spectaculaire caribéen en général et à la chronopolitique étroite du « développement » moderniste colonial. Elles ont créé, et continuent de créer, des formes tout à fait nouvelles, « révolushionnaires » et centrées sur la femme, qui servent à pousser plus loin son émancipation. Ces formes afro-caribbéennes (re)prennent racine dans les traditions des grands-mères, des griots, des languages nationaux du peuple, des mouvements et des langues qui, au sein d’une diaspora canado-caribéenne transnationale, émergent du corps des femmes noires et le célèbrent

ICS Testbed Tetris:Practical Building Blocks Towards a Cyber Security Resource

Cyber attacks on Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) can be hugely detrimental to society, notably via compromising Industrial Control Systems (ICS) that underpin core CNI functions. In order to explore in-depth ICS Cyber Security challenges, testbeds are an essential tool, avoiding the need to experiment exclusively on live systems. However, ICS testbed creation is a complex multidisciplinary challenge, with a plethora of conflicting requirements. This paper, based on over six years of ICS testbed research and development that spans multiple diverse applications, proposes a flexible high-level model that can be adopted to support ICS testbed development. This is complemented by a baseline set of practical implementation guidance incorporating related and emerging technologies. As a collective, the model and implementation guidance offers a go-to guide for a wide range of end-users. Furthermore, it provides a coherent foundational structure towards establishing an online "living" resource, which can be expanded over time through broader community engagement