University of Toronto to Honour Miss Lou

Dub-poet, Mutabaruka and University of the West Indies (UWI) professor, Mervyn Morris, will headline a special tribute to Jamaica’s late cultural icon, Louise Bennett-Coverley (Miss Lou) in Toronto, Canada.
Called ‘Louise Simone Bennett: A Commemoration,’ the cost-free event will be held tomorrow (March 9) at the University of Toronto’s William Doo Auditorium.
Others to participate in the tribute to Miss Lou, who died in Toronto last July at the age of 86, are: actor Owen “Blakka” Ellis; actress Denise Jones; playwright and actress Djanet Sears; dub-poet Lillian Allen; Toronto Mass Choir with Quammie Williams; the Jump Music Collective; and Maud Fuller, who played Liza in the ‘Lou and Ranny’ radio show and appeared in nine pantomimes with Miss Lou.
Miss Fuller, who is also President of the UWI Alumni Association (Toronto chapter), said she will be saying a few words about what it was like to share the stage with the cultural giant, who was her friend for 50 years.
The event, which came out of the Caribbean Studies Centre at the University of Toronto, is being held in collaboration with the university’s Humanities Centre; the Community Arts Program, Wild Garden Media Centre and the Centre for the Study of Black Cultures in Canada at York University; and the UWI Alumni Association (Toronto chapter).