OUR PEOPLE

Patrice Naiambana: Founder, Producer-creator

The Bible minis­eries and Three Sides of a Coin directed by Tom Lawes. He starred as Gen­eral Mukata in the Chan­nel 4 sit­com In Exile, and has pro­vided voices for the award-winning BBC ani­ma­tion series Nina and The Neu­rons and Tinga Tinga Tales. His Edin­burgh Fringe First Award-winning solo show The Man Who Com­mit­ted Thought has toured inter­na­tion­ally. He has writ­ten and facil­i­tated The Accused, The Gospel of Oth­ello, Per­cep­tion Gap and GraveDiggers.

His pas­sion is per­for­mance for social transformation.

Lara Week: Asso­ciate Pro­ducer, designer

Lara is a designer and pro­ducer from Syd­ney, Aus­tralia. In Syd­ney, she co-created the monthly com­mu­nity music event Deja, now in its eighth year. She later lived in Berlin, where she was a per­former at Galli The­atre, and led play-building work­shops for chil­dren. She left Berlin to study at Uni­ver­sity Col­lege Roo­sevelt, The Nether­lands, where she was direc­tor of the stu­dent the­atre com­pany. In 2011-12 she lived in Israel, mak­ing cos­tumes for a children’s pro­duc­tion in the Israeli Opera. Lara holds a BA Hons in Arts & Human­i­ties and Human Geog­ra­phy, and a PG Dip in Per­for­mance Cre­ation (Design). Lara has been asso­ciate pro­ducer for Tribal Soul since early 2011. She is ded­i­cated to cre­at­ing spaces where peo­ple with dif­fer­ent skills and per­spec­tives can share ideas and pro­duce work together.

Harold George: Chore­o­g­ra­pher, dancer

Harold was born in Free­town, Sierra Leone, where he trained in African and Jazz dance. He stud­ied bal­let and con­tem­po­rary dance in Lon­don and in New York where he attended the Martha Gra­ham School of Dance. As a dancer, Harold has worked with com­pa­nies such as Loza Dance, in Brus­sels, the Martha Gra­ham Dance Ensem­ble, and the Pas­cal Rioult Dance The­atre in New York. As a chore­o­g­ra­pher, his works have been per­formed in the United States, Europe and Africa. Harold has taught dance work­shops in the US, Jamaica and the UK and co-founded Watéba dance, a dance-training pro­gramme in Lomé, Togo. Harold lives in Brus­sels, where he is the artis­tic direc­tor of Dunia Dance The­atre, which presents work in which sto­ry­telling and ele­ments of African mythol­ogy merge with mod­ern and African dance tech­niques to cre­ate a con­tem­po­rary dance expe­ri­ence that con­stantly pushes the lim­its between artis­tic disciplines.

www.duniadance.net

Fos­uwa Andoh: Visual griot, Com­pany Direc­tor TSA CIC

Fos­uwa is an artist, crafts­man, edu­ca­tion­al­ist and musi­cian. Her work is inspired by the tra­di­tional and visual aes­thet­ics of African’s oral tra­di­tion, work­ing with var­i­ous mate­ri­als includ­ing glass, batik and sand. Fosuwa’s work hon­ours the chain of trans­mis­sion from the ances­tors for the cre­ative jour­ney; con­vey­ing and main­tain­ing her deep spir­i­tual her­itage, pro­duc­ing an imme­di­ate and direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion between viewer and the work. She is presently under­tak­ing research for her Ph.D at the Prince’s School of Tra­di­tional Art in Lon­don, research­ing tra­di­tional African crafts with spe­cial focus on the visual lan­guage and ways of pass­ing on knowl­edge in order to keep craft alive. She lives in Leeds, and is a direc­tor of Tribal Soul.

www.fosuwa.com

Paul Auber: Com­pany Sec­re­tary TSA CIC

Paul has exten­sive com­mu­nity enabling expe­ri­ence includ­ing Leeds-based char­ity Com­mu­nity Action Lit­tle Lon­don and Servias and Finance & Mon­i­tor­ing Offi­cer for the Leeds West Indian Cen­tre Char­i­ta­ble Trust. He holds hon­orary direc­tor­ships with the Chapel­town Cit­i­zens Advice Bureau, Leeds (1991-), The Afrikan Cur­ricu­lum Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion, Leeds (1991-), and The People’s Arts Coun­cil, Leeds (1995-). His inter­ests lie in com­mu­nity pub­lish­ing, envi­ron­men­tal projects, sus­tain­able enter­prise devel­op­ment and art facil­i­ta­tion. His main hob­bies are walk­ing, writ­ing and volunteering.

Usifu Jal­loh: Musi­cian, Sto­ry­teller, Filmaker

Usifu comes from Kamak­wie, a large trad­ing town in north­ern Sierra Leone where eth­nic groups have merged to form a rich envi­ron­ment of lin­guis­tic, musi­cal and artis­tic diver­sity. Usifu has made two short films on the sub­ject of refugees. The most recent was Jour­ney Man, which starred Usifu along­side Ruth Madoc. The film has been shown at sev­eral inter­na­tional fes­ti­vals and has won five awards to date. Usifu also made Lion Moun­tain in col­lab­o­ra­tion with BBC2, about two Sierra Leone refugee young­sters in Eng­land. Schooled in Free­town, Usifu’s musi­cal influ­ences reflect the cul­tural mul­ti­plic­ity of his sur­round­ings. Kre­ole, Jamaican, Euro­pean and Amer­i­can music left an impres­sion­able mark on him, as did the Bol­ly­wood songs that were emerg­ing from cin­e­mas at that time. His early life was one of great musi­cal vari­ety. Today he lives in Lon­don, where he per­forms with his band Maambena.

Iza Kor­sak: Graphic designer

Iza is a photographer/designer, pas­sion­ate about all aspects of art. Born in Poland, she is now based in Birm­ing­ham. She stud­ied Inte­rior Design and Archi­tec­ture at Birm­ing­ham City University’s School of Archi­tec­ture. She has been an inte­gral com­mit­tee mem­ber of the Birm­ing­ham Archi­tec­tural Asso­ci­a­tion (BAA) and was involved in the research and deliv­ery of the BAASH exhibition—featured at the RIBA WM Awards Event in Birm­ing­ham 2011—BAA Show­case, and BAA Archi­tec­tural Lec­ture Series. Cur­rently, Iza’s archi­tec­tural work has her engaged in inte­rior design projects for both res­i­den­tial and office needs. Iza is a ded­i­cated pho­tog­ra­pher aspir­ing to show a story of what inspires her in life. Recently, Iza has taken her long-time hobby of graphic design to a pro­fes­sional level. She is a curi­ous indi­vid­ual, ready to indulge in enrich­ing activ­i­ties, and most of all doesn’t shy away from fun-filled opportunities.

Rita Abra­ham­sen: Patron

Rita is Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in the School of Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment and Global Stud­ies and in the Grad­u­ate School of Pub­lic and Inter­na­tional Affairs, Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa. Her research inter­ests are in African pol­i­tics, secu­rity and devel­op­ment, secu­rity pri­va­ti­za­tion and post­colo­nial the­ory. She is the author (with M.C. Williams) of Secu­rity Beyond the State: Pri­vate Secu­rity in Inter­na­tional Pol­i­tics (Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 2011) and Dis­ci­plin­ing Democ­racy: Devel­op­ment Dis­course and the Good Gov­er­nance Agenda in Africa (Zed Books, 2000). She is joint-editor of African Affairs, the high­est ranked jour­nal in African stud­ies. Rita is a proud sup­porter and friend of Tribal Soul.