Aisha Sasha John is a choreographer, dancer and poet whose most recent collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017) was finalist for the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize. Her solo performance the aisha of is premiered at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018 was presented by the MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) and Toronto’s 2018 SummerWorks Festival. A new work-in-progress, HEAT, will be presented at the 2019 Images Festival.

Aisha’s previous poetry collections include The Shining Material (Book*hug 2011) and THOU (Book*hug 2014), finalist for both the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and the ReLit Poetry Award. Aisha was the 2018 University of Toronto (Scarborough) Writer-in-Residence and in 2015–2017, choreographed, performed and curated as a member of the performance collective WIVES whose performance Feeled earned the collective the 2016 Offta Festival Audacity Prize. Aisha’s video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries) and was commissioned by Art Metropole as part of a performance residency Aisha led: Let’s understand what it means to be here (together).

Aisha has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, and a B.A. in African Studies and Semiotics from the University of Toronto.

http://aishasashajohn.tumblr.com