Esie Mensah is someone whose work – every performance, project, and partnership – embodies the multifaceted artist, and whose creative footprint extends to many genres, disciplines and regions. As a dancer, choreographer, movement director and speaker, Esie brings her mastery in storytelling to audiences as diverse as her experience. From working with megastars like Rihanna, Drake, Arcade Fire, and Janelle Monae to historied brands like Coca Cola, Luminato, TIFF, ROM, AGO, Shaw Festival, Soulpepper Theatre and Toronto Raptors (to name a few), Esie Mensah’s creations show no sign of limits or slowing down.
For her own work, Esie has committed to using Afrofusion to explore more personal narratives of her blackness, belonging and Ghanaian heritage. Years have been spent developing her own style of dance, which fuses traditional and contemporary African styles with Urban, Latin, Caribbean and Modern styles of dance. Her company Esie Mensah Creations has created 3 original works; Akoma, ZAYO and Shades. ZAYO is being presented by DanceWorks in spring 2022. Esie has a unique ability to transform movement into a physical language and has been doing so as a movement director for the past few years. Recent involvement includes the Shaw Festival’s Russian Play and Victory, Soulpepper’s MaRainey’s Black Bottom to Musical Stage Company’s Caroline, or Change.
Last year Esie and her other company Black Stars Collective were amongst the Canadian Contingency hosted by dance Immersion who performed at Panafest 2019, a Ghanaian festival that honours the mass tragedy of the transatlantic slave trade. Their performance was received by local chiefs, international dignitaries, and President Akufo-Addo of Ghana. Through her work in dance, Esie stepped out of her comfort zone to dive into public speaking. She was a featured speaker at the TedXToronto talk in 2019 and spoke about her experience as a dark-skinned dancer and creating her Dora nominated production Shades. Dora Award-nominated Shades is a work that uncovers the process of healing from shadeism/colorism in the Black community. Esie’s capacity as an artist keeps growing and expanding as she touches more and more communities that surround her worldwide.
