A directory of Black German and Black American artists and performers, together with wider Black European and BGHRA conference collaborators. Explore visual artists, actors, and live performers in their own sections. People with several creative roles may cross these boundaries; films, television series, and filmmaking remain in the separate Films & Viewing resource.
Find artists & performers
Featured artist
Elisabeth Clarke-Hasters
Actor, dancer, choreographer, educator · BGHRA Executive Director of Arts & Culture
Born in the United States and long active in Germany and Europe, Elisabeth Clarke-Hasters connects Black American dance traditions with German and international performance. Her work includes the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Maurice Béjart, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pina Bausch. BGHRA recognizes her creative practice and cultural leadership as essential forms of knowledge and memory.
The Pina Bausch Foundation documents her career under the name Elisabeth Clarke and preserves an extended oral-history interview. She is among the original dancers named in Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78, conceived and directed by Meryl Tankard, which brings archival film into conversation with the dancers in the present.
Artist biography · Watch the oral-history interview · Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78 · BGHRA role
In the press · The New York Times · November 18, 2024
Read the newspaper’s coverage of Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78, the production featuring Elisabeth Clarke-Hasters and fellow members of Pina Bausch’s original cast. Read the New York Times article (subscription may be required).
Portrait: existing BGHRA website image. Production and oral-history information: Pina Bausch Foundation.
Visual artists & conference artwork
Maseho
Visual art · BGHRA 2022
The Black German, Mosotho-Hanseatic visual concept artist, writer, curator, poet, and storyteller contributed artwork featured in BGHRA’s 2022 conference. Her work places Afrocultural storytelling and artivism at the center.
Zari Harat
Visual art · Conference collaborator · 2023–2026
A Hamburg-based artist with a long history in Berlin and South Asian heritage, Zari has contributed artwork to BGHRA conference programs, including Space for All (2023) and 22 June, 2023 (2024 program). Her 2026 Artistic Self Expressions workshop continues her work with the community. Her art explores dialogue, healing, and connection. Visit Zari’s portfolio
LelonDoa
Digital art · Berlin · BGHRA 2026
The 2026 conference page credits Berlin-based digital artist LelonDoa. This entry preserves that contribution and directs readers to the original conference context.
Joe Kiel
Visual art · Graphic design & illustration
Joe Kiel’s artist portfolio includes painting and computer graphics, with a biography documenting his design training and work in Munich. Included following a recommendation from BGHRA President Rosemarie Peña.
Stephen Lawson
Visual art · Sculpture
A sculptor and visual artist whose work also connects with antiracist education. BGHRA’s existing Tupoka & Stephen page documents his connection with the community.
Lena Whooo
Visual art · Poetry · Multimedia · BGHRA 2024 & 2026
A Berlin-based artist whose work centers Black queer life, reflection, emotional awareness, and healing. Their BGHRA presentation connected creative practice with working through pain and joy.
Sandrine Micossé-Aikins
Visual art · Curation · BGHRA 2013
An artist and curator featured alongside Sharon Dodua Otoo at BGHRA’s 2013 conference. Their edited volume The Little Book of Big Visions: How to Be an Artist and Revolutionize the World connects creative practice with cultural change.
Jordan Rita Seruya Awori
Interdisciplinary art · BGHRA 2022 & 2023
A Kenyan interdisciplinary artist based in Frankfurt whose practice includes installation, collage, sound, and questions of ancestry and colonial memory. BGHRA’s archive records participation in its 2022 cultural-production panel and 2023 arts program.
Salima Faye
Art · Family memory · BGHRA 2025
A Berlin-based artist whose conference biography connects creativity, languages, travel, and family life. Her BGHRA participation belongs in the record of art and rekinning across generations.
Actors: theater, television & screen
Charles M. Huber
Actor · Television · Black German
As criminal investigator Henry Johnson in Der Alte, Huber became a familiar presence on German television. This actor entry is distinct from his books and from the series listing. Explore Der Alte.
Lamin Leroy Gibba
Actor · Writer · Black German
The creator, head writer, lead actor, and co-producer of Schwarze Früchte. In the series he plays Lalo, one of two Black queer friends navigating life in Hamburg. Explore the series.
Malick Bauer
Acting · Theater & screen · BGHRA 2024–2026
The actor featured in BGHRA’s recent conferences is known internationally for the title role in Sam – A Saxon. His work connects contemporary Black German representation across theater and screen.
Sheri Hagen
Acting · Filmmaking · BGHRA 2026
An actor and filmmaker featured at BGHRA’s 2026 conference. Explore her work alongside the films in BGHRA’s separate viewing resources.
Lara-Sophie Milagro
Acting · Writing · Directing · BGHRA 2022 & 2026
The Berlin-born actor, author, and director works with Label Noir and across theater, film, and voice performance. Her work is represented in BGHRA’s conference programming.
Jerry Hoffmann
Acting · Filmmaking · BGHRA 2024
An actor and filmmaker whose short film I AM and conference participation connect screen performance with questions of identity and representation.
Dana Winston-Day
Acting · BGHRA 2023
A New York-born actor whose work includes Shakespeare performance and community collaboration, featured in the 2023 program.
Paula Essam
Acting · Writing · BGHRA conversation
An actor, writer, and host whose creative practice centers women’s stories and diverse characters. BGHRA’s audiovisual archive preserves a conversation with her.
Joshua Kantara
Acting · Directing · BGHRA conversation
A Berlin-born actor, director, and producer represented in BGHRA’s conversation series. His screen work and filmmaking connect with the separate Films & Viewing resources.
Miriam Ibrahim
Theater direction · Dramaturgy · Performance
A director, curator, and dramaturg trained in singing, acting, and dance. BGHRA’s conversation series documents her work and perspectives.
Music, dance, spoken word & performance
Ivy Quainoo
Singer · Actor · The Voice of Germany
Winner of the first season of The Voice of Germany in 2012. Her artist biography also describes her development as an actor alongside her music career.
Kim Sanders
Singer · The Voice of Germany
A finalist in the first season of The Voice of Germany, finishing second in 2012. Her presence belongs in an account of Black performers reaching German television audiences.
BB Thomaz
Singer · The Voice of Germany
A performer featured in The Voice of Germany. The broadcaster documents her participation in the 2020 competition; explore her performances alongside a wider music career rather than treating a casting show as an artist’s whole identity.
Sophie Yukiko
Dance · Ballroom · BGHRA 2023
A dancer and cultural practitioner whose conference presentation explored power within subcultural spaces and whose work connects commercial dance with ballroom and voguing.
Joana Tischkau
Choreography · Performance · BGHRA 2025
Artist, director, and choreographer whose work examines German popular culture and constructions of Blackness. A co-founder of the Deutsches Museum für Schwarze Unterhaltung und Black Music.
ZOE
Performance · Ballroom · BGHRA 2025
A performer, lecturer, and curator associated with ballroom culture and the collective Shapes&Shades. The 2025 program places her work in a conversation about cultural appropriation and community spaces.
Brenda Dixon-Gottschild
Dance · Performance scholarship · Black American · BGHRA 2023
An artist and scholar who uses dance to examine the cultural histories and politics of embodied practice. The 2023 conference features her creative and scholarly approach to performance.
Mariama Diagne
Dance · Scholarship · BGHRA 2024
A dance scholar with a professional dance background, featured in BGHRA’s 2024 conference. Her work bridges artistic practice and the study of movement, history, and representation.
Oxana Chi & Dr. Layla Zami
Dance · Music · Poetry · PerforMemory
Their collaborative practice connects performance with diaspora, memory, feminism, and the life and work of May Ayim. BGHRA has featured their work in its performance resources.
Olumide Popoola & Philipp Khabo Koepsell
Spoken word · Literature · BGHRA 2012
BGHRA’s 2012 conference featured readings by these Black German poet-performers. Their creative work connects transnational experience, language, and cultural self-representation.
Jocelyn B. Smith
Music · Black American · Berlin
The New York-born singer chose Berlin as her home in 1984. Her work joins concert performance with community projects, including Different Voices of Berlin.
Nasheeka Nedsreal
Dance · Choreography · Black American · Berlin connections
A multidisciplinary artist from Louisiana and co-founder of Soul Sisters Berlin. Her solo New Growth examines Black women’s hair, power, and self-representation.
Magda Korsinsky
Visual art · Choreography · Berlin
Her work brings Black women’s experiences, family memory, and everyday knowledge into performance, including productions at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.
Gabriella Ghermandi
Music · Storytelling · Ethiopian-Italian · BGHRA 2023
A musician, performer, and writer whose storytelling draws on Ethiopian oral and musical traditions. Her participation places BGHRA in dialogue with wider Black European creative communities.
Darrel Toulon
Dance · Choreography · Docu-Dance-Theatre · BGHRA 2023
A choreographer and performance maker whose work brings professional performers and people with lived experience into shared creative spaces.
Lauren Cox
Dance · Choreography · Poetry · BGHRA teaching & conversations
Her TEDxAsburyPark dance and spoken-word performance A Spark of Passion that Shaped a Lifetime tells the story of her grandparents, Elsa and Eugene. BGHRA has featured Lauren in conversation and in the Davidson teaching program.
Noah Sow / Swami Dhyānānanda Saraswati
Music · Writing · Conceptual art · BGHRA 2011, 2018 & 2025
BGHRA’s inaugural keynote speaker is also a musician, composer, performer, author, and conceptual artist, with music released as NOISEAUX. The 2025 program introduces Swami Dhyānānanda Saraswati, previously Noah Sow, and documents their subsequent teaching work.
Sharon Dodua Otoo
Literature · Storytelling · BGHRA 2013 & conversations
An author and creative collaborator featured with Sandrine Micossé-Aikins at the 2013 conference and in BGHRA’s later conversations and teaching. Her literary work is also represented in Books & Reading.
Goitseone Montsho
Poetry · Storytelling · Performance · BGHRA 2023
A South African poet, storyteller, and performance artist based in Berlin. BGHRA’s archive includes a dedicated conversation and the 2023 panel on poetry, film, and cultural expression.
Rhea Ramjohn
Poetry · Multimedia · Film · Podcasting · BGHRA 2023
A Berlin-based multimedia writer, performer, and producer whose work explores ancestry and memory through vernacular poetics. BGHRA’s 2023 program features Live chile!; her projects also include Tanti Table and Hormonal.
Malik Nagorsen
Music · Production · BGHRA 2025
A Berlin-based musician whose conference biography connects music production and digital culture with early-childhood education and challenging racial stereotypes.
Amal Abbass
Art · Poetry · Community practice · BGHRA teaching
An artist, poet, community-builder, and psychotherapist who joined the Davidson College Black German Art & Resistance course. The course record documents the relationship between creative work, belonging, and lived experience.
Melba Joyce Boyd
Poetry · Documentary film · BGHRA 2018
A poet, author, and documentary filmmaker whose BGHRA presentation connected Black Detroit and Bremen through transcontinental radical politics.
Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor
Performance · Film · Community organizing · BGHRA 2018
An artist and filmmaker whose practice includes performance, text, dialogue, and dance. Her conference presentation, “Archiving as Resistance,” addressed ancestral narratives of the diaspora.
Karina Griffith
Moving-image art · Film · Curation · BGHRA 2018
A moving-image artist and curator whose films and installations explore fear, fantasy, and identity. Her BGHRA biography documents the relationship between filmmaking, research, and Black Berlin cultural work.
Guest artists in BGHRA’s conference roundtables
These participating artists extend BGHRA’s creative conversations across communities. The original recordings preserve their contributions and do not imply that every collaborator identifies as Black German.
Venuse Samesova
Guest artist · BGHRA 2023
Featured in the conference roundtable “Zari’s Artists.”
Safaa Farid
Guest artist · BGHRA 2023
Featured in the conference roundtable “Zari’s Artists.”
Eliane Kesrouani
Guest artist · BGHRA 2023
Featured in the conference roundtable “Zari’s Artists.”
Cherine Yazbeck
Guest artist · BGHRA 2024
Featured in the conference session “Zari & her Artists.”
Elena Victoria Pastor
Guest artist · BGHRA 2024
Featured in the conference session “Zari & her Artists.”
Ruchika Wason Singh
Guest artist · BGHRA 2024
Featured in the conference session “Zari & her Artists.”
Conference images are reused from BGHRA’s existing program pages. Artist names and histories follow those pages and the linked artist or broadcaster records. Zari Harat and other conference collaborators are described according to their documented backgrounds.
Berlin: Black History, Culture & Places · Films & Viewing · AfricAvenir