Country: Iraq-Regional Kurdistan
The group’s performance “In a cultural No Man’s Land”, is about how culture leaves a strong impact on individuals, physically and emotionally during their life. The show also tackles how religion and traditional beliefs change the way of thinking towards the group’s homeland culture and identity. This is an artistic poetry movement and sound based show, to be understood by any audiences around the world.
Sulaimany Studio Actor comprises:
Azad Fatih Amin
Azad has played many roles as an actor in international plays such as Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, directed by Saman Qadir, La Leçon by Eugène Lonesco and The Zoo Story by Edward Albee, both directed by Gaylan Nazhad. Since 2003, his voice has also been used in narrative translations for Western films and animations.
Ban Ghazi Ahmed
Ban was born in the city of Sulaimany in 1983 and became interested in acting and playing since getting involved in almost all the weekly and monthly events at his school. After leaving high school Ban began five years of performance and drama studies at Sulaimany Institute of Fine Arts. Since graduating in 2005 he have been employed as art teacher and workshop leader at one of the primary schools in Sulaimany-Kurdistan.
As a member of (Sulaimany Actor Studio) which is one of the biggist and active theatre group in Kurdistan and Iraq, Ban has been involved in many plays and workshops of the group for nearly six years. His future goal is to develop his skills further with international artists around the world and to get involved in collaborations with other arts and theatre groups in and outside Kurdistan.
Sara Omar
Sara Omar is a young Kurdish / International poet & author from Iraki- Kurdistan and Denmark with a law degree from the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Until she was 10 years old, she lived in a dictatorial country, which was marked by corruption, war, abuse, rape, oppression of women, forced marriage, violence, etc. She is a volunteer activist in women’s rights area, because democracy and the words of low mean a lot for her. She is working within the criminal justice and not least with communication and translation of legal documentation. She has spent her childhood in both the West ( Denmark & Germany) and the Middle East ( Iraki-Kurdistan & Syria), while she has experienced big cultural contrasts and has insight into and a deeper understanding of the differences in thought patterns, that can easily lead to misunderstandings between the parties. She appears often in public with her poems in different languages in different parts of the world. Her poems are filled with spirituality, intimacy, sensuality, emotional expressions, forgiveness and life’s small details and all the surprises that follow. It’s about being abandoned and lonely in a deeply unfair world with homesickness. It’s about the human thirst for the search to feel like being home, but no matter how hard you try you still don’t feel like being home even in your own homes. Her poems are about the importance of a farewell kiss, a hug in need, and the invincible band in love. They have given her, the listener and the reader inspiration and motivation every time she has performed with a poem or published one.
Sura Susso
Sura (Surahata) Susso was born in a griot family in Bakoteh, Western Gambia on the 18th April 1986. [Griots are cultural figures in society across West Africa who carry the cultural knowledge and identity of the regions people. This hereditary legacy stretches back hundreds of years, and traditionally the knowledge and history surrounding the kora are passed on from father to son. Griots are orators, lyricists and musicians who are also respected as a source of advice and spiritual guidance. They are responsible for witnessing important events, delivering messages, and play an important role as peace-makers.]
Sura started his lifelong study of the cora (African harp) and a range of other percussion instruments at an early age. The family household was constantly filled with music - his musical immersion in such a natural environment growing up as a child provided the solid foundations for his musical development - the invaluable knowledge learned organically, as well as the freedom to express himself musically. Sura was always on his kora, and used to accompany his father everywhere to people’s compounds for different ceremonies. At school, he would play percussions on anything and with anything he’d find… desks, chairs, pencils.. to the delight of his classmates, but often getting in trouble with teachers! or please look at his website: http://www.surasusso.com/#!biography
Khdir Mohammed Mahmood
Since 1997 he has been an active artist in Kurdistan. This opportunity gave Khdir a chance to take a drama and theatre course for five years at Koya Institute of Fine Arts. He has won prizes from national theatre festivals as best director and best young actor in Iraq. From late 2008 he began working on social and environmental issues in Kurdistan through photography. His photos have been published in local newspapers and Khdir has opened photography exhibitions.