complices
Benita Bailey is an Ethiopian-German artist who moved to Montreal in 2016. Having studied International Relations and African Studies at the University of Leipzig and at Hong Kong Baptist University she worked in this field in NYC and Beijing, followed by a position as a research assistant in the Human Rights department at the German parliament in Berlin.
In 2012 she decided to quit her job to study acting full-time. Since graduating in 2015, Benita has appeared on German cinema and national television, worked with acclaimed director Robert Wilson and collaborated with theatres in Berlin such as Ballhaus Naunynstraße and Haus der Berliner Festspiele. In Montreal she was part of the renowned BTW Artist’s Mentorship Program (2017/18), and has worked with Imago Theatre, Scapegoat Theatre as well as with Revolution They Wrote Festival in staging plays, staged readings, repertoire adaptations and original pieces in venues such as the Rialto, MAI, Centaur Theatre, and Mainline Theatre.
In 2017, Bailey was part of the cast of six Black actresses for a production of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf at McGill University marking an historical occasion – the institution’s first ever all-Black production. In the beginning of 2019 she became part of the Afro-German artist collective, Label Noir with whom she will start to perform in 2020. She is part of Théâtre La Chapelle’s 2019/2020 season with the production Chattermarks (Cabal Theatre). Benita is delighted to return to the MAI as member of the Alliance Program 2019-20.