Interdisciplinary creative/performer

Professionally trained in Caribbean Folk/Contemporary and Classical Ballet 20+yrs/choreography 10+yrs, self taught emerging singer 15yrs/song writing 15yrs, emerging theatre performance 4yrs.

A past recipient of Black Theatre Workshop’s Victor Phillips award in 2002, Jamila has continued performing, creating, and learning while using her tools to add texture to her expression and color to her stories. Raw honesty and emotion are what you get when you get from Jai, no matter which medium is being used, Jamila works from the authentic, honest heart and sits it right on her sleeves.

With the need to expand and explore her creative expression more through writing and song, Jamila found herself her performing at events and venues across Montreal from 2007 to as JaiBelle. Today, it adds as a foundation to her interdisciplinary projects and works.

In 2015 Jamila started JaiDanse, a dance facilitation/dance performance company and has performed, produced and co-produced shows at venues within the city including Montreal, Arts intercultural and Mainline Theatre. 2017 – 2019 were highlight years for Jamila as she had the pleasure of joining the acting casts such as  'How Black Mothers Say I Love you', (actor) written by Trey Anthony (Black Theatre Workshop 2019) & Nicole Brooke's a Capella “musical odyssey” 'Obeah Opera' (actor, dance performer, vocalist) (ASAH Productions 2019) in Toronto, with her debut stage role being back in 2017 where is portrayed 'Lady in Purple' in the Ntozake Shange's "For Colored Girls..."(McGill University' Tuesday Night Café Theatre) & the 2018 iteration of the same play produced by the cast ourselves (Les 6 Productions), was a participant in Dancemakers 2019-2020 Peer Learning Network program in Toronto.

The last 2 years, Jamila used the time to explore, play and has added some new skills to her toolbelt.  She completed Playwright Montreal’s Dramaturgical Digital Residency earlier this year, and recently their Spatial Dramaturgy Workshop, choreographed for The National Theatre Schools 2022 graduating Acting class in the production of “Venus” by Suzan-Lori Parks, Directed by Mike Payette and was welcomed as Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal and MAI (Montréal, Arts Interculturel) Joint Support for Artists recipient with her work “Wild Roots” where an excerpt of Wild Roots was presented as a publicly inside Mai’s café June 11^th 2022