Meet the people behind the voices and the rest of the crew!
Tony Cealy
Tony Cealy is an arts practitioner, agitator and creative producer who makes work designed to engage the public in issues that are important for social change. Inspired by creative arts and service design thinking, he works collaboratively with communities, artists, organisations and institutions to design projects, programmes and arts experiences in the public realm. “
He has recently been commissioned by NHS, Public Health England & South London and Maudsley Trust (SLAM) to work with Older Men around issues of Black Mental Health. He has built a body of work which falls under the title ‘Community Dialogue and Transformations’ and seeks to explore how community interventions can both provide insight and incite action.
Since 1993 he has won contracts developing drama-based responses to health and wellbeing, mental health, social care, education, substance misuse, housing and regeneration, youth services and community development, and special educational settings across the UK.
Over the last 20 years Tony has built a strong reputation for innovative and experimental drama and theatre-based projects within the criminal justice system in the UK and across Europe. These projects are often workshops, plays, films, exhibitions, installations and radio broadcasts. Tony has spent many hours devising special challenges and new games and exercises, all with the intent of helping people stop coming back to prison.
His work is often focused on behavioural change, developing pro-social skills, increasing self-esteem and greater self-awareness with people at risk. This includes theatre and digital video projects in prisons as well as production of cross artform projects that span the divide between prison and the wider public.
He often works alongside other practitioners using performative methodologies in community ‘hotspots’ with BAME groups on issues of conflict and reconciliation. He tries to bring together members of hostile communities to find ways for them to recognise their shared humanity and a way for them to start to communicate. In addition to teaching he often guest lectures at Central School of Speech and Drama, Goldsmiths, Bristol, Leicester and Birmingham Universities.
He is Artistic Agitator Fellow at Brixton House - connecting strangers & beginning difficult conversations in shared spaces about Brixton and its people.
He is Curator of 81 Acts of Exuberant Defiance - a radical reclaiming of heritage - to imagine, experiment and create new futures in Brixton. Get involved here with this link:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=287694275664249&ref=watch_permalink
He is a facilitator & trainer at the Core Learning Group, a project that sets out to envisage how civil society in London might better share resources and power to drive change. https://smk.org.uk/what-we-do/power-sharing-project-whos-involved/
He is currently working pan London delivering training to young people in the use of role play and interactive theatre techniques for creative roundtable workshops with officers and staff from Metropolitan Police.
Writer - Judy Ferguson
Judy is a new writer that during the day works with community groups to help pay the bills and steals time to write in the earlier hours of the night. Getting involved with the 492 Korna Klub project, has allowed her to do two things which she enjoys; address issues in the community and create fictional characters in a social context. Judy finds inspiration in people she meets in her line of work; those who actively get involved to help make a difference and others who put in their complaints, secretly wishing they could move mountains with a word or two.
Crew
Max Graef
Max is our senior engineer. He is the Founder and Director of Radio Active Company. He has spent the last 9 nine years training and supporting community radio stations and recording programmes as a broadcast engineer and consultant. He has worked on radio projects in Chad, Cameron and Palestine and was one of the founder of Chicago-based Radios Populares, a group that supports community radio stations in Latin America. From 2002 to 2004, he worked at Kirkegaard Associates, one of the world's top acoustic and audio-visual design companies. Projects included the Royal Festival Hall in London, Atlanta Symphony Center and Orchestra Hall in Chicago. For more info visit www.radioactive.org.uk and Facebook.com/radioactive_radio
Nathaniel Bagot-Sealey
Nathaniel is a recent graduate from university. He is also drawn to photography and he has taken pictures from the pilot series recorded live in front of representatives of community radio stations.
You check out his works at: www.nathanielbagotsealey.com, ww.flickr.com/photos/bagot94/sets and http://organisedyouth.tumblr.com
Dimitra Nikolakopoulou
Dimitra is the Marketing and Social Media Officer. She has recently graduated from City University London with a master's degree in Culture, Policy and Management and she is interested in arts marketing. She has also studied photography and enjoys theatre, music and dance performances. To view her photography portfolio click here.
Some of the cast
Fay Gordon
Fay is a regular and popular volunteer with Disabilty Advice Service Lambeth since 2006 and has helped many people with their problems during that time. Fay is an extremely modest person but we would like to take this opportunity to thank her for everything she does to support her local community and congratulate her on the well-deserved recognition she has received. She has been nominated for a South London Heroes Award in recognition of her many years of voluntary work in the Brixton area.
Elaine Smithers
Elaine is trained at Morley College as an actress and has studied Voice Over at The London Academy of Radio Film and Television. She has participated in various radio, theatre and TV productions including roles in “Empathy” and “Little Miss Jocelyn” for the BBC and 'Skins' for E4 while in theatre she has played roles such as Valmai in “A Night Under Canvas” and Mattie in “The Beguiled”. She has also acted in several independent films including Theresa in “The Empire” and Agent Sonia, a time traveling secret agent in 'Bygones', which was shown at The Cannes Film Festival. Elaine was shortlisted for the Norman Beaton Fellowship Award for BBC Radio Drama and was a dancer in the opening ceremony of the Paralympics Games in 2012. She has recently participated in a radio play for Resonance FM playing a medic.
Shani Sundi
An accomplished actress Shani Sundi has performed in many plays. Her humble beginnings were in ‘roots’ plays beginning with Hugh Kings famous NIGHT WORK, where she played the lead role of Jenny. She went on to star in such plays as DIARIES OF A BLACK MAN. Her accomplishments included films and videos such as GLASS HOUSES and PRINCESS BLACK. A new direction in this radio production continues Shani’s love for the arts.
Rashford Livingstone Angus
Rashford is a Jamaican born actor. He moved to the UK in the mid 60’s. He has been a resident of Yorkshire, West midlands and London. His first occupation was as a Disc Jockey. He then moved on to work in the Motor car industry moving into welding. He later trained as a refrigeration engineer. To date Rashford is self- employed. He is a father of 2 and grandfather of 8. His hobbies include listening to music, watching sports, reading and amateur acting. Rashford has participated in local productions and he would like to have more involvement and varied roles in the acting fraternity. He hopes his grandchildren will follow his example by entering into performing arts.
Joseph Kwame Bentil
Joseph Kwame Bentil is a hardworking conscientious actor. He has been acting for a number of years . Although not formely trained he has worked with many well known theatre and film practioners . Joseph has appeared in many short films and theatre projects.
He recently appeared in his first feature
film entitled SWEETBOY which has received a lot of positive feedback.