A triple bill of plays about the relationship between Africa and the West makes its premiere at the Luminato festival in Toronto this June.

The Africa Trilogy, three one-act plays written for Luminato in an international collaboration, helps set the tone for a theatre and dance program that combines themes of east meets west with an examination of hard-won rights and freedoms.

On Monday, Luminato artistic director Chris Lorway unveiled four theatre presentations and three dance events for the 2010 festival, which runs June 11 to June 20.

African-American playwright Christina Anderson wrote Glo, one of three one-act plays in The Africa Trilogy. (Luminato) The Africa Trilogy is the anchor of the theatre program, along with Rufus Wainwright's opera Prima Donna, which was announced months ago.

Ross Manson, artistic director of Volcano, spearheaded the project, which aims to "tell stories that actually reflect what's happening" in Africa, Lorway told CBC News.

"He brought together a group of international playwrights and directors who he has relationships with," Lorway said. "People like Binyavanga Wainaina … his big thing is about figuring out how to negate this idea that Africa is just about starving children and poverty. It's actually a continent with really interesting things happening right now."

Wainaina, a Kenyan journalist turned playwright, now based in New York, has written Shine Your Eye, a high-tech musical in which he attempts to smash stereotypes about Africa. Award-winning German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig writes about mission work and Western expections in Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God and African-American playwright Christina Anderson looks at the journey of a Nairobi writer suddenly embraced by the West in Glo.

All three plays, with an international cast, will be performed together in the world premiere of The Africa Trilogy.

The other plays:

• One Pure Longing: Tahirih's Search: by Toronto playwright Erika Batdorf, based on the story of the Iranian poet and teacher Tahirih, who removed her veil and was condemned to death.
• Best Before, by Germany's Rimini Protokoll, which uses video-game consoles to interact with the audience.
• Homage,by Halifax's 2b theatre company, which recreates the building of a public sculpture based on artist Haydn Davies.

The dance program also incorporates "that idea of the playoff between east and west at a local level and a global level," Lorway said.

A performance of Julia Dumna by Syria's Enana Dance Theatre. (Luminato) Syria's Enana Dance Theatre will bring its unique form of dance to North America for the first time.

The Lebanese founder, Jihad Maflah, whose background was in folk dance, worked with his Soviet wife, trained in classical ballet, to create something new in the Damascus-based company which has toured throughout the Middle East.

"It's kind of like a classic storytelling through dance in which they tell the story of this famous empress Julia Domna, who went off to Rome and married the emperor," Lorway said. "It's very clear in its story-telling."

Also coming is Melbourne's Chunky Move, which Lorway describes as Australia's most acclaimed dance company.

The dance innovators specialize in playing with their audience in the work, Two-Faced Bastard, which is making its Canadian premiere.

"The piece explores the duality of space and of thought in that the audience is in a space where a curtain divides them in two, so one half of the audience sees one part of the performance and the other half sees a completely different bit," he said.

Also on the dance bill is a suite of dances that includes West Side Story and Opus 19 and the world premiere of a new work by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo.

The Luminato literary and music programs will be announced later this week. The annual festival of arts and culture began in 2007.