Ballet Nimba from Guinea is an African dance theatre company and music recording artist. It is the first of its kind to be based in Wales, UK. It was founded in 2010 by Guinean choreographer Idrissa Camara with its home in Cardiff and is made up of a collective of about 15 dancers and musicians.
Ballet Nimba, Wales's first and only professional Black dance company, was founded by Guinea-born choreographer Idrissa Camara in May 2010, following receipt of a grant from the Arts Council of Wales. [1] [2]
Ballet Nimba features traditional and contemporary West-African Dance and Music, with a strong presence in the Black Dance Sector. Idrissa Camara was named as one of the top 10 people to meet at the 2010 Decibel Performing Arts Showcase, Arts Council England's biggest bi-annual event promoting diversity and equality in the Arts. [3] In 2013 Idrissa Camara was awarded a Trailblazer Fellowship from the Association of Dance of the African Diaspora. [4] These 2013-14 trailblazer bursaries were given "in recognition of creative spark, ambition and leadership potential". Ballet Nimba is based on the "African Ballet" tradition which was born in Guinea to tell the stories of the Griots (travelling musicians and the region's oral historians) using artistic choreography and made famous by Les Ballets Africains. The name Ballet Nimba not only reflects the inspiration behind their work but is also a political statement regarding the reclamation of the term "Ballet" and challenges the perception that African dance is something from the past to be viewed with nostalgia, rather than the dynamic and exciting art form which it is.
In 2012 Ballet Nimba became recording artists with their first album Saiyama, and performed on the world stage, headlining festivals in the UK and in Europe. Their album was digitally released in 2013. [5] They were asked to attend the Trac Cymru programme for International Development in 2013 and subsequently were successful in being picked for the WOMEX legacy tour for October 2013 [6]
In 2014 Ballet Nimba produced its first film, a Documentary Film by Idrissa Camara. It was first screened at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff at the Wales Dance Platform Event. It had its North American Premiere at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival [7] where it won the award for Best Documentary Short.
Ballet Nimba are self-styled ambassadors for West African Art and culture in the UK. The artists are from several West African nations and they have performed all over the UK at festivals, art centres and rural touring venues, most significantly at London's Southbank Centre [8] and WOMAD's UK festivals. [9] Their performances incorporate acrobatic dancing, traditional musicians and drama. Productions are based on traditional mythology but performed by young contemporary artists with an original sound track. [10]
A djembe or jembe is a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. According to the Bambara people in Mali, the name of the djembe comes from the saying "Anke djé, anke bé" which translates to "everyone gather together in peace" and defines the drum's purpose. In the Bambara language, "djé" is the verb for "gather" and "bé" translates as "peace."
WOMAD is an international arts festival. The central aim of WOMAD is to celebrate the world's many forms of music, arts and dance.
Lisa Dwan is an Irish actress, director, and writer. She is best known for her work in theatre, performing in Samuel Beckett adaptations among other works. She began her career in the Fox Kids series Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog (1998–1999). More recently, she starred in the Netflix series Top Boy (2019–2023). She also appeared in the RTÉ soap opera Fair City (2006–2007) and the ITV drama Rock Rivals (2008).
Bembeya Jazz National is a Guinean music group that gained fame in the 1960s for their Afropop rhythms. They are considered one of the most significant bands in Guinean music. Many of their recordings are based on traditional folk music from the country and have been fused with jazz and Afropop styles. Featuring guitarist Sekou "Diamond Fingers" Diabaté, who grew up in a traditional griot musical family, the band won over fans in Conakry, Guinea's capital city, during the heady days of that country's newfound independence. Bembeya Jazz fell onto harder times in the 1980s and disbanded for a number of years, but reformed in the late 1990s and toured Europe and North America in the early 2000s.
The Baga are a West African ethnic group who live in the southern swampy lands of Guinea Atlantic coastline. Traditionally animist through the pre-colonial times, they converted to Islam during the mid-eighteenth century under the influence of Muslim Mandé missionaries. Some continue to practice their traditional rituals.
Akram Hossain Khan, MBE is an English dancer and choreographer of Bangladeshi descent. His background is rooted in his classical kathak training and contemporary dance.
The music of Cardiff has been dominated mainly by rock music since the early 1990s with later trends developing towards more extreme styles of the genre such as heavy metal and metalcore music. It, along with the nearby music scene in Newport, has brought a number of musicians to perform or begin their careers in South Wales.
WOMAD Charlton Park or WOMAD UK is the name given to the World of Music Arts and Dance (WOMAD) festival held in Charlton Park near Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, since 2007. It is the direct successor to WOMAD Reading, which was held in the town of Reading each year from 1990 to 2006, and previous WOMADs elsewhere in England since 1986.
Charles Matthew Egerton Hazlewood is a British conductor. After winning the European Broadcasting Union conducting competition in 1995 whilst still in his twenties, Hazlewood has had a career as an international conductor, music director of film and theatre, composer and a curator of music on British radio and television, Motivational Speaker and founder of Paraorchestra – the world's first integrated ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians. He was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in May 2019 and became Sky Arts' Ambassador for Music in January 2021. In 2023 Hazlewood was recognised for his 'outstanding contribution to the musical life of the UK' when awarded the Sir Charles Groves Prize by music charity Making Music.
DanceAfrica is a heritage and community celebration equable on the manifold dance forms of the African Diaspora held annually in New York City, Washington, DC, and Chicago. Included are indoor and outdoor performance including live music, a film series, master classes, education programs, and an outdoor bazaar. Its current artistic director is Abdel R. Salaam.
Manimou Camara is a master drummer and dancer from Guinea. Manimou specializes in several percussive instruments, namely the dynamic hand drum called djembe, three bass drums called dunun, sangban, and kenkeni as well as the kringni. He is the founder of Dounia Djembe, a Seattle-based percussion and dance company. He is a member of the Kpelle people and Malinke ethnic groups.
Siyaya are a music, dance and theatre group from Makokoba, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
Muntu Valdo is an [acoustic blues] guitarist, harmonica player, and singer from Douala, Cameroon. He has performed with Ali Farka Toure, Manu Dibango, Richard Bona, Lokua Kanza, Eko Roosevelt, Lionel & Stephane Belmondo, Keziah Jones, and Alpha Blondy, and has played at Womad music festivals.
Sohini Alam is a British singer of Bangladeshi descent who sings in the bands Khiyo, Lokkhi Terra, and GRRRL. She has performed internationally on stage, radio, and television and worked on music for dance, theatre, and film. Alam is a founding member of the arts company Komola Collective and co-music director of the documentary film Rising Silence. After providing vocals for dancer/choreographer Akram Khan's DESH, she spent three years touring internationally with his show Until the Lions.
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Festac '77, also known as the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture was a major international festival held in Lagos, Nigeria, from 15 January 1977 to 12 February 1977. The month-long event celebrated African culture and showcased African music, fine art, literature, drama, dance and religion to the world. Around 16,000 participants, representing 56 African nations and countries of the African Diaspora, performed at the event. Artists who performed at the festival included Stevie Wonder from United States, Gilberto Gil from Brazil, Bembeya Jazz National from Guinea, Mighty Sparrow from Trinidad and Tobago, Les Ballets Africains, South African artist Miriam Makeba, and Franco Luambo Makiadi. At the time it was held, it was the largest pan-African gathering to ever take place. The event attracted around 500,000 spectators.
Idrissa Camara is a dancer and choreographer originating from Guinea in West Africa. He has made the UK his home and is founder and director of Ballet Nimba, an african dance theatre Company which he founded in 2010. Idrissa is also a music recording artist having produced an album Sogay with his company's musicians and more recently he has turned his hand to film making producing the short documentary Fare Ta.
Chris Tally Evans is a Welsh disabled artist, actor, director, and writer. He was born in 1962 in Swansea, trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama as a performer and graduated from Trinity College, London, with a teaching diploma.
Unlimited is a commissioning programme that celebrates the work of deaf and disabled artists, originally conceived for by Arts Council England for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Since its inception, the programme represents a multi-million pound investment which to date has commissioned more than 70 pieces of work across theatre, dance, visual art, music, literature, film, poetry and performance art. Several Unlimited-commissioned pieces have gone on to have a global reach, such as Sue Austin's Creating the Spectacle, which has reportedly been seen by more than 150 million people worldwide. Others have won critical and industry acclaim within their field, such as Touretteshero's Backstage in Biscuit Land, which earned the company the 2014 Total Theatre Award for Best Emerging Company. Unlimited is currently delivered in partnership between Shape Arts and Artsadmin with senior producer Jo Verrent.