Honor Maria Ford-Smith (born 1951 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Jamaican
actress, playwright, scholar, and poet. The daughter of a brown
Jamaican mother and an English father, Ford-Smith is sometimes
described as "Jamaica white," signalling a person of mixed race who
appears white.Ford-Smith, who studied theatre at the University of
Wisconsinâ€"Madison, was a co-founder and artistic director of
Sistren, a theatre collective of working-class Jamaican women
established in 1977. Sistren created its own plays collaboratively,
and performed in Jamaica and abroad; the group also worked extensively
in community theatre and popular education, particularly around issues
affecting women. Sistren played a leading role in the Caribbean
women’s movement, providing feminist analysis of women’s issues in
Jamaica and entering into transnational alliances with women’s
organizations in the Caribbean region, North America, the UK, and
Europe. Ford-Smith was also a member of the Groundwork Theatre
Company, created in 1980 as the repertory arm of the Jamaica School of
Drama; it became an autonomous company in 1987.She edited and
contributed to Sistren's book Lionheart Gal: Life Stories of Jamaican
Women, published in 1986 and re-issued, with a new afterword by
Ford-Smith, in 2005. Her collection of poems, My Mother's Last Dance,
appeared in 1996. Among her many theatre projects have been a dramatic
adaptation of My Mother's Last Dance, and Just Jazz, an adaptation of
Jean Rhys's Let Them Call It Jazz. Ford-Smith is a founding mother of
the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action
(CAFRA)Ford-Smith moved to Toronto in 1991, receiving her doctorate in
education from the University of Toronto in 2004. She continues to
write, to work in theatre and to teach in Toronto.
actress, playwright, scholar, and poet. The daughter of a brown
Jamaican mother and an English father, Ford-Smith is sometimes
described as "Jamaica white," signalling a person of mixed race who
appears white.Ford-Smith, who studied theatre at the University of
Wisconsinâ€"Madison, was a co-founder and artistic director of
Sistren, a theatre collective of working-class Jamaican women
established in 1977. Sistren created its own plays collaboratively,
and performed in Jamaica and abroad; the group also worked extensively
in community theatre and popular education, particularly around issues
affecting women. Sistren played a leading role in the Caribbean
women’s movement, providing feminist analysis of women’s issues in
Jamaica and entering into transnational alliances with women’s
organizations in the Caribbean region, North America, the UK, and
Europe. Ford-Smith was also a member of the Groundwork Theatre
Company, created in 1980 as the repertory arm of the Jamaica School of
Drama; it became an autonomous company in 1987.She edited and
contributed to Sistren's book Lionheart Gal: Life Stories of Jamaican
Women, published in 1986 and re-issued, with a new afterword by
Ford-Smith, in 2005. Her collection of poems, My Mother's Last Dance,
appeared in 1996. Among her many theatre projects have been a dramatic
adaptation of My Mother's Last Dance, and Just Jazz, an adaptation of
Jean Rhys's Let Them Call It Jazz. Ford-Smith is a founding mother of
the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action
(CAFRA)Ford-Smith moved to Toronto in 1991, receiving her doctorate in
education from the University of Toronto in 2004. She continues to
write, to work in theatre and to teach in Toronto.
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