Founding Sokamba Scholars
Rissi - CoFounder & Creative Director
Rissi D’Gouso has a great passion for nature’s language. Growing up in the forest showed her the resonance of earths cycles in life’s creative patterns.
Her journey led to becoming a POSSE leadership-scholar of LA, where Sokamba was founded.
With great influence from her West-African Master teachers Daunte Fyall, Pape Diouf, Fode Sissoko and Babacar N’Diaye, Rissi became Spirit Dancer of Peace.Rise.Bloom: Mother Earth Prayer.
Learn more about Rissi and her work here.
Jamie - Art Director
Jamie Issuh (she/her/they, aka Jamie Lew) has produced, directed, designed & hosted touring concerts, live spectacles, community events, virtual panels, music videos, art installations, NFT collections, and love letters all over the world.
From pitch deck to opening show night, Jamie’s work harnesses the power of art, technology & storytelling to create immersive experiences that foster genuine community & generational healing through the magic of joy & wonder.
Her passion for pop culture and the ephemeral nature of live performance has led her to work with visionaries such as Amy Tinkham / Zixi Inc., Josh Zangen, Nick Whitehouse, Nikos Lagousakos, Nina McNeely and Takeshi Kata for clients such as Harry Belafonte, James Taylor, Dancing with the Stars, Ringling Bros. Circus, Steven Tyler, Aerosmith, Paula Abdul, Disney, Hulu and Star Wars.
By magnifying the intangible heart to audiences full of strangers, Jamie hopes to make the world a more colorful, joyful, and magical place to coexist.
www.jamieissuh.com
Neaz - Director of Choreography
Her work is known for being rooted in emotional connectivity—offerings that tell a story and dive into the heart with raw, undisguised emotions.
From live performances to music videos, teaching classes to designing movement for artists, actors, companies, and teams, Neaz creates works that speak to the soul.
She creates to provide catharsis.
She creates to heal.
She creates to evoke deep remembering.
As a teacher and choreographer, Neaz creates movement that fosters community and facilitates healing. She creates spaces that encourage people to process, release, rejoice, and discover so that they can quiet their minds and come home to their hearts. Neaz has been fortunate enough to work with teachers from different lineages and practices from around the world. They have helped her unlock and channel the power of her own medicine, and now she concentrates her work on building spaces where others can unlock theirs.
www.neazkohani.com
Christian - Multimedia Coordinator & Co Music Director
Christian Robinson has been releasing music under the name: Correlator. He wears many hats within the Correlator project (including guitar, vocals, keys, sound design, programming, arranging, mixing, animation, and more), & works diligently alongside a gamut of future LA legends in the jazz + beat + indie + electronic + pop scenes. He got his start in the scene while DJing at USC’s KXSC Radio and has since appeared as a guest on LA’s internationally acclaimed Dublab Radio.
As a multimedia artist, he’s worked alongside Allie X, Joey Bada$$, Felly, & more. Recently, he’s served as the production manager for BAYNK, music director/multi-instrumentalist/producer for Juliette Goglia, mastering engineer/multi-instrumentalist/producer for Stardawg, and continues to collaborate with a variety of musical talents including Sokamba’s Aaron Reihs, and Psychedelic Civilian's Kiavi. He’s deeply committed to upholding the spirit of Sokamba and has been creating alongside us since 2014!
Stevie Rae Gibbs - Creative Director & Choreographer
Stevie Rae Gibbs is a dancer, photographer, and creative director. As a multi-disciplinary artist, dance has always served as an expressive tool for Stevie, lending itself as the foundation for everything she creates. Through her experiences working in live performance, film, and music, Stevie brings alive a dynamic energy in her creations and teachings.
As a creative director she is known for her Coldplay: Humankind (2022), Coldplay: Biutyful (2022) and A Ring for Christmas (2020).
Tonatiuh Elizarraz - Actor & Writer
A native Los Angelino, Tonatiuh Elizarraraz is an actor in Film and Television. An advocate of storytelling for social change, Tonatiuh believes that it is the artist's responsibility to help create a more empathetic and tolerant society. If media can be used to separate and isolate, it also can be used to unite and heal. His latest works include Promised Land (2022), Vida (2018) and Angelyne (2022).
Rachelle Clark - Dancer & Choreographer
Rachelle Clark is a dancer from Atlanta, Georgia, currently signed with Go 2 Talent Agency. Technically trained, Rachelle started dancing at the age of 3. She attended the University of Southern California where she graduated with a degree in Narrative Studies and a minor in Dance. Additionally, she has had the opportunity to train at American Dance Festival and Hubbard Street Dance focusing on Modern, and with Cameron Lee under his mentorship in commercial street jazz and hiphop. Rachelle’s most recent projects have been ProActiv, Brandy’s “Baby Mama” music video, and Youngr’s “Lost in Translation” music video. She is known for her work in Perfect Cowboy (2014), Uncle P (2007) and Eve (2003).
Lindsey Townley - New Media Producer
Lindsey Townley is an Emmy nominated New Media Producer and Manager of Creative Innovation Productions at Universal Pictures- focusing on game engine virtual production, VR, AR, projection mapped shows, immersive audio experiences and immersive theater. Lindsey has managed and/or contributed to immersive experiences for Jurassic World, How To Train Your Dragon, First Man, Bride of Frankenstein, Croods, Kung Fu Panda, Fifty Shades Darker, The Mummy, Trolls, Boss Baby and Invisible Man.
Yo-yo Lin - Interdisciplinary Media Artist
Yo-Yo Lin 林友友 is a Taiwanese-American, interdisciplinary media artist who explores the possibilities of self-knowledge in the context of emerging, embodied technologies. She often uses video, animation, live performance, and lush sound design to create meditative ‘memoryscapes.’ Her recent body of work reveals and re-values the complex realities of living with chronic illness and intergenerational trauma.
She was a 2019 Artist in Residence at Eyebeam, a 2020 Open Call Recipient for The Shed, and the 2021 Red Burns Fellow at NYU Tisch ITP/IMA. She has shown works at international multimedia art galleries (Human Resources, Lincoln Center, La Corte Contemporanea), film festivals (New York Film Festival, SXSW), performance venues (Gibney Dance, Ars Nova), and conferences (Allied Media Conference). Her work has been featured on NOWNESS, Art in America, and Surface Magazine. She is the co-founder of ROTATIONS, a collaborative movement practice working towards deepening our understanding of artistry, disability, and access.
Lara Marcin - Immersive Designer & Choreographer
Lara’s heart is easily captured by unabashed grooves. She is a choreographer of movement in the immersive space and an enthusiast of the stories bodies can tell. From her work devising a dance language for the immersive theater production, The Mortality Machine, to spending months absorbed in the music and world of musicians to develop movement that felt authentic to them for their tours--Lara is obsessed with communicating ourselves through the body.
