We are delighted to welcome two new Trustees to the Tavaziva Board of Directors. Sinibaldo De Rosa (PhD, ResMA) and José Hendo bring their expertise to support the delivery and growth of the Company ambitions.
Sinibaldo De Rosa (PhD) is an ethnographer, dramaturg, and notator researching dance and ritual for people at the margins across multiple performance practices and contexts. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the project Negotiating Abjection: Performance and Politics among Turkey’s Diasporas in Lombardy at Università Statale di Milano. In 2022, he earned an Advanced Diploma in Movement Notation (Laban) from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) after reconstructing extracts of Donald McKayle’s Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulders (1959) and completing the project Staging Kurdish Alevi Rituals: 4Kapı 40Makam also thanks to the support of an Ivor Guest Research Grant and a Study Grant from the British Institute in Ankara. His AHRC-funded doctoral research (University of Exeter and Cardiff University, 2020) on contemporary adaptations of the Alevi semahs for the stage was funded by the AHRC SWW DTP and by a Research Grant at the Orient Institut-Istanbul. Since 2021, he serves the Society for Dance Research as Events Secretary and works as Associate Lecturer at Roehampton University, Bird College and Rose Bruford College. Sinibaldo is also a member of the artist-led collective Interval and a massage therapist for his own company Ursa Major Movement and Massage.
José Hendo is a Ugandan-born British eco-sustainable designer who takes a fresh approach to fashion design, challenging the throwaway culture. She is the founder of the José Hendo brand, Bark To The Roots (B2TR) initiative and the R^3 Campaign. José promotes the use of organic eco-textiles and recycled materials to create unique – often avant-garde – garments and accessories.
José chooses to work extensively with barkcloth, considered to be the oldest cloth made by man and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Material in 2005. As the tree regenerates another bark to be harvested every year for up to sixty years, this organic cloth is the best ambassador for sustainability.
In 2014 José launched her BARK TO THE ROOTS (B2TR) initiative and is now connected to the Bukomansimbi Organic Tree Farmers Association (BOTFA) in Uganda who has preserved this heritage of making cloth. The same year, propelled by the Rana Plaza building collapse, she also launched her R^3 (Reduce Reuse Recycle) Campaign utilising workshops, talks and exhibitions. José currently has her barkcloth garments in permanent exhibitions in museums and institutions across the world and her work has won multiple awards.