Niqabi Ninja

Associate Director, Niroshini Thambar
Composer, BalQeis
Sound Designer, Nik Paget-Tomlinson
Illustrator, Gehan Mounir
Performer, Rebecca Banatvala
Performer, Juliana Yazbeck

Niroshini Thambar (Associate Director) is a musician, composer and sound designer. She works across live theatre, audio drama, installation and film, and has previously been a session musician on violin and keyboards, performing on the UK live circuit and on album recordings. Her theatre work includes Ghosts (National Theatre of Scotland), Hindu Times(Royal Lyceum /Pitlochry Theatre/Naked Productions), Here (Curious Monkey/Northern Stage), Gagarin Way (Dundee Rep), Home is Not the Place(Annie George), Chronicles(National Theatre of Scotland/Project X/Thulani Rachia), Secret Life of Suitcases(Ailie Cohen Puppets), Drift(Vision Mechanics). 

She has been nominated for a Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland in the category Best Music and Sound, and has had artist residencies or commissions with Imaginate, National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh Mela, Drake Music Scotland and Magnetic North Theatre. Other recent work includes music and sound design for the audio-poetry work The Girls that Hide and Seek(Rupinder Kaur/BBC New Creatives/Rural Media), and music for the documentary film in development The Album(BofA Productions) from filmmaker Sana Bilgrami. niroshinithambar.com  

BalQeis (Composer) an Egyptian live looping artist/Oud player, has been playing Oud for more than 15 years, classically trained in traditional oriental music and has evolved over the years to craft her own unique sound. Being a multi-instrumentalist, BalQeis takes control of every element of her music, as she steps onto the stage, she projects a wide spectrum of sound described as a fusion between Electronic, Alternative, Rock, and Oriental Music which comes from a vast musical knowledge, a multi-sided artistic background, and wide imagination, BalQeis delivers a captivating performance as a one-woman show with her live looping project “BalQeis Live”. BalQeis Live on Soundcloud

Nik Paget-Tomlinson (Sound Designer) is a musician, composer and sound designer, creating work for theatre and dance. He is an audio producer at Offbeat Studios in Edinburgh, an associate artist with Platform Theatre and a regular live accompanist at Dancebase, Scotland’s National Centre for Dance. As a studio music producer and instrumentalist, Nik has performed live on the gig circuit and had track releases in Europe and the US.

Nik has worked with a range of dance and theatre companies including Scottish Youth Theatre, National Theatre of Scotland, Curious Seed, Cultured Mongrel Dance Theatre, Imaginate, La Nua, Starcatchers and TAG Citizens Theatre. He has also been nominated for a Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland in the best use of music and sound category.

Credits include Hindu Times(Royal Lyceum /Pitlochry Theatre/Naked Productions), As.Was.Could Be (Cultured Mongrel/Mara Menzies), Vent (SYT National Ensemble) Chronicles (National Theatre of Scotland/Project X/Thulani Rachia) Aluma (Merav Israel), Ice House (Ailie Cohen Puppets/Aberdeen Performing Arts), Enso (La Nua), Drift (Vision Mechanics). www.nikpt.com

Gehan Mounir (Illustrator) is an illustrator and concept artist from Egypt, who upon graduation she has been professionally working both in local studios and eventually as a full time freelancer. Having graduated from AUC in 2017 with a bachelor in Architectural Engineering, she afterwards made the decision to career shift into being an artist and followed her childhood passion. Ever since then she has been open to the concept of exploration in terms of what she does, but found herself constantly swaying between implementing industrial design and artistic expression, thus finding passion in both concept art and in storytelling illustrations. 

Having worked on multiple projects both locally and internationally along a variety of inspiring teams, her short yet still ongoing journey has been quite enlightening to her. Experiences with different productions such as advertisements, TV shows, comics, game designs, and other forms of artistic integrations constantly remind her of the broad influence art constantly has on the world. 

As a result her main goal is to stay true to her craft, always enjoy what she does, and hopefully do her best to serve good causes. In addition to drawing, Gehan does voice over professionally, is a music hobbyist, and a part time singer. She believes that artistic expression comes in all shapes and forms and is both connected and boundless.

Rebecca Banatvala (Performer) Rebecca’s theatre credits include: Mrs Puntilla and Her Man Mutti (Lyceum), A Tingle in the Plumbing: Love and Work, (Lord Stanley), Rotterdam (UK Tour, Hartshorn-Hook), Reveal (Collusion), The Three Musketeers (The Dukes), Rapport (Caravan Theatre), N.P.B.D. (Lyric Hammersmith), Deadly Dialogues (Atticist), Trident Moon (The Finborough). Screen credits include: The Princess Switch 3 (Netflix), The Syndicate (BBC), Love, Death and Robots (Netflix) and Emmerdale (ITV).

Rebecca is also a writer and devisor. Her show, Boxtickers, codivised with LJ Parkinson, is programmed for 2022 at Camden People’s Theatre. Rebecca has been shortlisted for Nisha Parti’s Asian Writers Initiative in conjunction with the BBC for her series Zoo House. She is currently working with Deborah Groves on her new book, The Neurodiverse Actor and has also written for The Independent.

Juliana Yazbeck (Performer) is an award-winning actor, writer & musical artist. She is best known for her roles as Roza Salih in Glasgow Girls (National Theatre of Scotland) and Yara in the Emmy-winning series Shankaboot (BBC World Service). Her solo poetry performance (titled Ana El Mukhalles / I am the Saviour) debuted at London’s Grand Junction in March 2021 (MARSM/Grand Junction). A cross between a spoken word set and a one-woman show, Juliana is performing it at this year’s Olavsfest (Trondheim, July 2021). 

As a musical artist, Juliana’s debut record ‘SUNGOD’ was awarded PRS Foundation’s Women Make Music Award. In March 2020, Juliana played the iconic Electric Ballroom. In 2019, she double-billed London’s ULU alongside Sudanese icon AlSarah, headlined the National Theatre River Stage and Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, and was nominated for the Arab British Centre’s Award for Culture. 

Juliana writes regularly. Her words feature in gal-dem magazine and on Medium.