Moving with Equity: A panel discussion on body politics South Africa, UK Mamela Nyamza, Kelechi Okafor, Azieb Pool

Join us for a panel discussion, designed to interrogate and move forward discussions around the body, its politics and movement practices, and the current discourse with colonial history. 

Facilitated by author, journalist and Bernie Grant Arts Centre Artistic Director & CEO Azieb Pool, the panel will include author, actress, director and public speaker Kelechi Okafor, who is the host of the Say Your Mind podcast, as well as being a highly skilled pole and twerk fitness instructor.  

They will be joined by choreographer Mamela Nyamza whose autobiographical work, which will be shown at the Barbican for four nights, addresses social injustice. She seeks to show the significance and particularity of each dancer’s movement that have been moulded by many diverse contexts and backgrounds through their history as classically trained dancers, permeated with embodiments of personal, public and political experiences as artists in South Africa. 

Credit Esa Alexander

South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza, trained in ballet at Zama Dance School in Gugulethu, went on to attain a formal National Diploma at the Tshwane University of Technology, and continued at The Ailey School in New York, deconstructs classical dance in groundbreaking works like The Dying Swan (1998) and Hatched (2007). Her pieces challenge norms with autobiographical themes and address social injustices in works like Black Privilege. Nyamza’s accolades include recognition at the Makhanda Standard Bank National Arts Festival and JOMBA! Dance Festival as Legacy Artist for the Year 2023. She was named the Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance in 2011 and received the IMBOKODO Award for Dance in 2016. Invited to participate in events around the world, she aims to use dance for social commentary through her non-profit company, MAMELAS ARTISTIC MOVEMENT.

Kelechi Okafor is a storyteller.

Whether it’s through her podcasts or books as well as informative video essays – Kelechi explores and challenges what it means to navigate modern society based on what we remember of our histories.  

The spiritual is political and this is why Kelechi’s Tarot, astrology Yoruba cosmology offerings are instrumental to her understanding of liberation, on an individual and collective level. 

Credit Rashif Oehlers

Azieb Pool is Artistic Director & CEO of the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, London and founder of the Tottenham Literature Festival. Azieb was previously the Senior Programmer for Contemporary Culture at the Southbank Centre, London where she curated the Africa Utopia Festival and was a lead programmer of the WOW Women of the World festival, which included taking WOW to Somaliland, Nigeria and Baltimore USA.  

A Guardian journalist for over a decade, Azieb has written for many international publications including The Times, Stylist and Vogue Magazine UK. Formerly Associate Editor of Arise Magazine, Azieb is the author of two books: Fashion Cities Africa and My Fathers’ Daughter. Azieb is a trustee of LIFT (the London International Festival of Theatre), a former Artistic Advisor of the Manchester International Festival (MIF), a patron of the SI Leeds Prize, the bi-annual award for unpublished fiction by UK Black and Asian women and sits on the Mayor of London’s Cultural Advisory group for the annual Black on the Square event in Trafalgar Square.