OUR PEOPLE

Patrice Naiambana: Founder, Producer-Creator

Patrice is an African per­form­ing artist from Sierra Leone, cur­rently based in Birm­ing­ham. He founded Tribal Soul in 1991 as a means to make vis­i­ble sto­ries from African Dias­pora expe­ri­ences, in response to sim­plis­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Africans in the West. Patrice’s pro­fes­sional back­ground includes work with the Royal Shake­speare Com­pany, most recently play­ing the title role in Kathryn Hunter’s Oth­ello, and War­wick the King­maker in the Olivier Award-winning His­to­ries Cycle Ensem­ble. 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 been tour­ing inter­na­tion­ally for the last two years. His pas­sion is per­for­mance for social transformation.

Lara Week: Asso­ciate Producer

Lara is a pro­ducer and the­atre artist 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 an actor and cos­tumer in the Galli The­atre, and facil­i­tated cre­ative work­shops in a local kinder­garten. She left Berlin to study the­atre, lit­er­ary stud­ies and human geog­ra­phy at Roo­sevelt Acad­emy, The Nether­lands, where she was direc­tor of the stu­dent the­atre company. From 2011-12 she lived in Israel, mak­ing cos­tumes for a children’s show in the Israeli Opera. She is co-editor of Ped­a­gog­i­cal Styl­is­tics (with Burke, Csabi, & Zerkowitz; Con­tin­uum Press, 2012), and her research on self-styled “trav­ellers” was recently pub­lished in the jour­nal Tourist Stud­ies. Lara has a spe­cial inter­est in the power and pos­si­bil­i­ties of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. She is ded­i­cated to cre­at­ing spaces where peo­ple with dif­fer­ent skills and per­spec­tives can share ideas and pro­duce work together. She lives in Melbourne.

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

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.

www.fosuwa.com

Juwon Ogungbe: Com­poser, musician

Com­poser, singer, and pianist Juwon was born in Lon­don to Niger­ian par­ents. He was edu­cated in Nige­ria and the UK, where he stud­ied voice and com­po­si­tion both pri­vately and at the Guild­hall School of Music and Drama. While at the Guild­hall School, he stud­ied com­po­si­tion for media with the film com­poser Fran­cis Shaw. His com­pos­ing and music direct­ing cred­its include work on pro­duc­tions for the Royal Shake­speare Com­pany, Lon­don Inter­na­tional Fes­ti­val of The­atre, Green­wich and Dock­lands Fes­ti­vals, Union Dance Com­pany, BBC Radio Drama, Thames Tele­vi­sion, and Chan­nel 4/Sankofa films amongst many oth­ers. He is an accom­plished music work­shop facil­i­ta­tor, hav­ing con­ceived and run major music-in–the– com­mu­nity projects for the Horn­i­man Museum,  British Coun­cil (Mace­do­nia and Nige­ria), Eng­lish Pocket Opera and the African and Caribbean Music Cir­cuit amongst many others.

www.juwonogungbe.co.uk

Wela Mbusi: Asso­ciate Director

Wela is an actor, direc­tor, and acro­bat from South Africa. He stud­ied act­ing at the Guild­hall School of Music and Drama in Lon­don. From 2006 to 2008, Wela per­formed the entire His­to­ries Cycle with the Royal Shake­speare Com­pany, as part of Michael Boyd’s Olivier Award-winning ensem­ble. In 2010, he played the title role in the inter­na­tional tour of Fourth World Pro­duc­tions’ Black Jesus, which pre­miered at the Harare Inter­na­tional Fes­ti­val of Arts in Zim­babwe. His other act­ing cred­its include work at The Royal Opera House, BBC Radio, River­side Stu­dios, Soho The­atre, and Sal­is­bury Play­house. Wela is an advo­cate for social trans­for­ma­tion through art. He lives in Birmingham.

Usifu Jal­loh: Musi­cian, sto­ry­teller, filmmaker

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 the 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.