Ocean Calling

Collaborator Bios

Ocean Calling, 2017, and What-Lives-Beneath, 2016, Collaborators:

The Brooklyn Jumbies Inc. is an organization whose sole purpose is to heighten the community’s cultural awareness of African and African-Caribbean culture. Brooklyn Jumbies perform stilt-dancing, which is one of the numerous cultural elements of the African and Caribbean Diaspora. The founding members of Brooklyn Jumbies Inc. are Ali Sylvester and Najja Codrington. Since 2007 the Brooklyn Jumbies Inc. have worked closely with Laura Anderson Barbata presenting collaborative and outreach projects in Mexico, Jamaica, Singapore and the US. Since 2008 they have collaborated with the Zancudos de Zaachila (traditional stilt-dancers from Oaxaca). With Barbata they have performed in various Museums, among the Modern Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museum of Modern Art, MoMA in New York; Centro Nacional de las Artes in Monterrey, Mexico; and Museo de la Ciudad de México. Among their most significant performances are Jumbie Camp, 2007 presented on 24th Street Chelsea, New York; Intervention: Wall Street, presented in the Financial District of New York, 2011; STRUT! Madison, Wisconsin 2015; Intervention: Indigo, 2015, presented in Brooklyn, The Macy´s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, New York; What-Lives-Beneath, Kingston, Jamaica, 2016; Ocean Blue(s), 2017, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; Ocean Calling, 2017 commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Academy and  presented at the United Nations Plaza, andIntervention: Ocean Blues, 2018, commissioned and performed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, and in DUMBO, Brooklyn as part of New York Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice week organized by No Longer Empty.

Based in New York, Najja Codrington is a co-founder of the Brooklyn Jumbies along with Ali Sylvester, and is also Musical Director of the KowTeff School of African Dance. Najja was born into a family that is deeply rooted in both African and African-Caribbean culture. At the age of 10, under the guidance of Obara Wali Rahman, he received his first formal training of the Sabar orchestra as a member of Sabar Ak-Ru-Afrique. Najja’s studies encompass music and dance from both the Caribbean and West Africa. Najja has traveled abroad to Senegal, West Africa where he studied under the tutelage of the Drame/Diabate griot family. As a result, he was exposed to an extensive amount of lore. As Najja has studied African dance and drumming intensively for many years, several people have contributed to his learning, such as Sewaa Codrington, Aissatou Diop, Wilhemina Taylor, Gregory Ince, Karim Braithway, Kissima Diabate, and Souleyman Diop, to name just a few. Currently, Najja is involved in many cultural activities such as Cultural Youth International’s Brooklyn Jumbies, Adlib Steel Pan Orchestra KowTeff African Dance Company, Bakh Yaye and A Touch of Folklore & More. Najja firmly believes that the cultural arts are not merely an economic tool. It is an inherent part of his spirit, which is a dominant driving force. It is with this driving force that he unselfishly mentors youth, instilling discipline, direction and pride. He also gives special thanks and praise to his mother because he would not be who he is today if it were not for her. Najja brings high-spirited energy to all groups that he embraces.

Chris Walker is a professor of dance and founding artistic director of the First Wave program in the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-artistic director for the #BARS Workshop at The Public Theatre in NYC, a lab series for artists to investigate the intersection between contemporary verse and theater, created by Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs. He is also a senior choreographer with the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, and program director for the New Waves Dance & Performance Institute in Trinidad & Tobago.

Walker creates contemporary dance, theater and performance artwork rooted in the visual and performance cultures of the African Diaspora. He works in the disciplines of dance, theater, film/video. He served as movement director for two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage’s Mlima’s Tale, which ran at the Public’s Martinson Hall and he is the recent choreographer for The Secret Life of Bees, The Musical produced by Atlantic Theatre in NYC. Since 2015 Walker has collaborated with Laura Anderson Barbata, some of their most significant projects are STRUT!, a multi layer cross-community project that involved more than 500 participants from both the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the local community during Barbata´s semester as IARP of UW, Madison; they also worked together to develop Jus Luv/Rolling Calf a Jamaican ‘mas’ for Intervention: Indigo, a performance that in 2015 was presented in Brooklyn, New York and the 2015 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and most recently in Mexico City in 2020. Walker and Barbata also created and performed What-Lives-Beneath, 2016 and Ocean Calling presented at the UN Plaza, 2017. Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Academy. 

His concert dance work has been presented in Europe, Asia and throughout the Americas. His collaboration with Kevin Ormsby and KasheDance in Toronto titled FACING Home: Love & Redemption is currently and has been on tour internationally since its premiere in 2015. He has received numerous international and national grants and honors for his creative research work. He recently completed a Romnes Fellowship, which supported his research on homophobia in the African Diaspora and in 2020 he was named one of the School of Education’s Impact 2030 Faculty Fellows.

Candace Thompson-Sachery was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago and now local to Brooklyn, NY, operating between the spheres of dance, cultural production, fitness and wellness with a focus on the Contemporary Caribbean. She has had an established career as a performer, choreographer, fitness professional, cultural producer, teaching artist, community facilitator and Caribbean dance specialist. In addition to her work in these areas, she leads ContempoCaribe, an ongoing choreography and performance project and is the founder of Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE, an organizational platform for Caribbean dance in the diaspora that spearheads the New Traditions Festival in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Adelphi University’s BFA program for Dance, and has presented, performed and taught at major venues including: Queen´s Hall (T&T); John F. Kennedy Center; New York Live Arts; Brooklyn Museum and The Ohio State University. She was an inaugural member of the Dancing While Black Fellowship Cohort 2015/2016: was an awardee of Adelphi University’s 2017-- 10 Under 10 program; and a Dixon Place Artist-in-Residence for fall 2017. Candace holds an M.A. in Performance Curation from the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University and a Executive Program Certificate in Arts & Culture Strategy from National Arts Strategies and the University of Pennsylvania. As a cultural producer and strategist, Candace has worked with the Dance and Performance Institute of Trinidad and Tobago, WIADCA (NY), Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Renegade Performance Group, and curator Claire Tancons, for the 2019 Sharjah Biennial. Candace is currently the Senior Manager of Programming and Justice Initiatives at Dance/NYC - a non-profit umbrella organization for dance in New York City.

Jarana Beat is a world music band that incorporates dance and activism. With Afro-Amerindian Mexican sounds, it offers a new interpretation that blends the origins of Mexican music with contemporary elements and draws from other cultures in the New York scene that share the same roots. Jarana Beat has collaborated with Barbata since 2015 for Intervention: Indigo and Ocean Calling, 2017.

Amina Blackwood Meeks is a writer and Director of children’s plays and contemporary stories for adults and children; performer, award-winning actress, and custodian of the oral tradition. PhD candidate in Cultural Studies. 

Blackwood Meeks is a highly acclaimed international storyteller, featured in festivals in the UK, the USA, Canada and around the Caribbean; credited for having made a major contribution to the recent revival of storytelling in the Caribbean. Founder and artistic director of Ntukuma, The Storytelling Foundation of Jamaica, staging Ananse SoundSplash the annual storytelling festival/conference in Jamaica, dedicated to exploring the connections between the ancient wit and wisdom of the African ancestry and the ways in which this heritage has immediate redemptive applications for the growth, development and continuation of civilization. 

She is a  Political Scientist, Educator, specialist in early childhood education and lecturer in Caribbean Literature and Orature at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts and UWI Mona. Has participated in the development of the National Cultural Policy and the Culture in Education Programme as well as the development of the Culture and Education sector plans in Vision 2030  and developed the Teachings of Garveyism in the New National Civics Programme as well as the Civics Curriculum for schools in Jamaica. For 10 years served as Director of the Culture In Education Programme in the Ministry of Education. (Jamaica)  and recently appointed as Member of the National Steering Committee revising the National Culture Policy. Blackwood Meeks holds several awards for her skills as a culinary artist, actress, writer and broadcaster. 

Ocean Calling, 2017, United Nations Plaza, New York, Collaborators:

The Brooklyn Jumbies: Najja Codrington, Keil Alibocas, Khyle Lambert, Dhaunte Richardson. Queen: Jahde Huntley, Bird Fish Prince: Cheikh Gueye, Jumbie Handler: Konate Primus

Water Spirit: Chris Walker

Coral: Mei Yamanaka

Snail: Candace Thompson

Egungun: Alicia Delimore

Jarana Beat Musicians: Sinuhe Padilla, Martín Vejarano, Lautaro Burgos, Jonathan Gómez, Luis Fournier Soto.

Andrew Spyrou: Music based on the following Papua New Guinea field recordings: Garamut performance at Kanganamo Haus Tambaran, East Sepik region, Papua New Guinea; Crocodile skin-cut scarification initiation music at Kamindibit, East Sepik region, Papua New Guinea.

Still photography: Frank Veronsky Videos: Turquoise Films and David Hartz

What-Lives-Beneath, 2016, Kingston, Jamaica, Collaborators:

The Brooklyn Jumbies: Najja Codrington, Keil Alibocas, Ali Sylvester and Jabari Rollocks.
Chris Walker, Amina Blackwood Meeks, Owan Simpson, NDTC Music and Dancers

Still photography: Wade

Ocean Calling and What-Lives-Beneath by Laura Anderson Barbata, commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Academy