Dunas

Josep Cerdá

PhD in Fine Arts, professor of sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona (UB), he is currently director of the Master’s Degree in Sound Art at UB and coordinator of the Doctorate at the Faculty of Fine Arts of UB. He was the Rector of the Faculty of Fine Arts of UB, Director of the Department of Sculpture and Director of the Department of Visual Arts and Design of the University of Barcelona. He has taught at different international universities, at UNESP in São Paulo, Brazil, UNAM in Mexico, at the University of Lisbon, at the Catholic University of Chile, at UAN in Colombia, at the University of La Paz, Bolivia, at the University of the Azores.

François Moïse Bamba (Burkina Faso)

Storyteller, actor, and producer from Burkina Faso. Of the Senoufo ethnicity and the blacksmith caste, the masters of fire and iron, he was initiated into the art of storytelling by his father and raised in close relation to the tradition of Burkina Faso griot culture and art. He collected and rewrote numerous tales from Burkina Faso, some of them giving rise to CDs, DVDs, and books published in France. For 20 years, he was the artistic director of the important Yeleen Festival and, since 2018 has created and annually holds FIASSE (formerly FIPI) – International Festival of Performing Arts and Endogenous Knowledge. In his more than 20 years of career, he is among the greatest storytellers in West Africa. He traveled the world with his workshops, conferences and presentations, which are an invitation to immerse yourself in the richness of the cultures of oral tradition of this region of the African continent. Since 2017, he has been traveling regularly to Brazil, in partnership with Brazilian artist Laura Tamiana, with whom he created Ba-kô Burkina Brasil, a cultural and artistic bridge between Brazil and West Africa, through the door of Burkina Faso.

Konomba Traoré (Burkina Faso)

Born in 1947 in Burkina Faso to a Senoufo family, Konomba Traoré is a man of multiple talents. Great defender of African cultural traditions, living human treasure, he is a musician, writer, artist, author-composer, singer, musicologist, teacher of traditional music, and builder of traditional instruments: balafon, kora, donzo n ‘goni and djembé. He is also adept at traditional African spiritual beliefs, which he has contributed to perpetuate, as a teacher. Graduated from the National School of Administration and Knight of the National Order of Merit, he held several important positions in public administration in Burkina Faso. He wrote several books about music and short stories, and a documentary about him was made by the filmmaker Porgo Rédo: « Konomba, le destin panaché». Konomba is regularly invited to present music shows and short stories, as well as to give workshops and conferences, and has performed several international tours in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Benin, Niger, Togo, and others. This is his first trip to Brazil.

Mauricio Panella (Brazil)

Maurício is an anthropologist and multimedia artist. He is dedicated to the creation of multilingual artistic projects and the coordination of transpedagogical programs that invite people to live immersive processes with their stories and places. His current challenge is to coordinate the Jornada Museum Program at Parque das Dunas in Natal, general coordinator of Dunas.

Helder Vasconcelos (Brazil)

Musician, actor and dancer, he is one of the trainers of the Pernambuco musical group Mestre Ambrósio, with whom he worked from 1992 to 2003, toured Europe, the United States and Japan. He played on all main Brazilian venues and events, and recorded three CDs.

He credits his training to the non-academic learning of the games of Cavalo Marinho and Maracatu Rural, and to the study of the actor’s art with the Lume group at Unicamp, Campinas-SP.

In his solo career, he created the shows “Espiral Brinquedo Meu” (2004), “Por Si Só” (2007) and “Eu Sou“ (2016). In partnership with Batebit Artesania Digital, he has been developing digital instruments for music and dance. He is the founder and coordinator of the Boi Marinho group, which has participated in the Pernambuco Carnival since 2000. In movies, he worked on the feature films “Baile Perfumado”, “O Homem que Desafiou o Diabo”, “A Luneta do Tempo” and, “Entre Irmãs”.

He has been developing training work through workshops, courses, and experiences since 1998. He also works in the creation of soundtracks and as a consultant, coach, and director. As a speaker, he participated in TedxUFPE in 2015 and 2017.

Now in 2023, he was one of the honorees of the carnival block O Homem da Meia Noite and the festival Janeiro de Grandes Espetáculos.

Laura Tamiana (Brazil)

Multidisciplinary artist, singer, songwriter, and producer. Based in Recife and born in São Paulo, she holds a degree in International Artistic Cooperation from the University of Paris 8, France. In her more than twenty years of career, she creates and executes projects that involve music, performing arts, word, visual arts and traditional cultures, always with the purpose of promoting encounters from an affective bias and around issues of identity, territory, belonging, and memory. She launched in 2021 and has been travelling with the Lunar project, album and musical show, which talks about the cyclical intelligence of life. She created Céu e Terra, a dialogue between the visual arts and agroecology, and has been co-directing Retrato: substantivo feminino, an audiovisual collective creation with women of traditional manifestations, since 2009. She is part of the groups of the Pernambuco carnival Boi Marinho and Maracatu Piaba de Ouro. Since 2018, she has been working in partnership with Burkina Faso artist François Moïse Bamba, with whom she created Ba-kô Burkina Brasil, a cultural and artistic bridge between their countries. She also works as a systemic therapist and leads groups and workshops around the cyclical nature, creative processes, and Brazilian songs.

Mari Corrêa

Filmmaker and founder of the Catitu Institute, Mari Corrêa develops audiovisual training projects as a tool for the cultural appreciation of indigenous peoples. She began her audiovisual work with indigenous communities in 1992, in the Xingu Indigenous Park. In 2009, Mari Corrêa founded Catitu Institute – Aldeia em Cena, where she develops projects with an emphasis on the appropriation of technologies and new languages by indigenous peoples, especially youth and women.

Maria Eugenia Salcedo

Maria is a cultural manager, curator, educator, and researcher in the field of museums, contemporary art, and culture. She has been working in the cultural area since 2002 as an educator, museum mediator, artist, teacher, speaker, and researcher for several institutions. Having participated in the team that started the programs of Inhotim Institute, she managed the integrated educational team for 10 years and joined the curatorial team as Deputy Artistic Director. She was an educational consultant at the 32nd Bienal of São Paulo, Incerteza Viva. María Eugenia also received awards such as the Rumos Itaú Cultural Award: Education, Culture and Art 2008 – 2010. She currently researches the dialogue between art and ecology.