In Conversation: South Asian Women in Creative Leadership

• Part of our International Women’s Day 2025 commemorative programme

Presented by Sampad Arts and Culture Forward as part of the University’s International Women’s Day 2025 commemorations, this will be an opportunity to hear first-hand from a panel of South Asian women who are leaders across their cultural and creative fields.

Hosted by Piali Ray OBE, Director of Sampad Arts, the panellists will be:

DJ Ritu MBE

• Pioneering world music guru and turntablist.

DJ Ritu, pioneering international turntablist and former BBC Radio presenter, hosts/produces A World in London at SOAS Radio, University of London, and at Resonance 104.4FM. In the ‘90s she co-founded Outcaste Records, signing Nitin Sawhney and Badmarsh & Shri, and also sourced the first record deal for the then fledgling Asian Dub Foundation at Nation Records.

She has toured extensively in over 35 countries with her bands Sister India and the Asian Equation, performing at major venues and festivals including Glastonbury, The Big Chill, WOMAD, Sfinks, Roskilde, The Royal Festival Hall and Trafalgar Square.

Joining BBC London in 2006, she inherited Charlie Gillett’s slot, and then created a new platform for global music artists called ‘A World In London’. Guests include international stars like Tarkan, Angelique Kidjo, Bebel Gilberto, AR Rahman, and Esma Redzepova, though the show aims to champion local up and coming talent. Her other weekly show for BBC Three Counties Radio ran for 22 years and was syndicated in Germany, Turkey & Sweden, and was a primary platform for promoting British Asian music abroad.

Ritu has also broadcast for BBC World Service, Kiss 100, and the BBC Asian Network. A Rough Guides CD compiler, and London Music Board + EBU chart panel member, Ritu co-created the world’s longest running South Asian club nights: Kuch Kuch and Club Kali. A musical chameleon, her repertoire includes Soul, Disco, Motown, Pop, House, Drum n’ Bass, as well as Turkish, Greek, African, Latin, and Middle-Eastern sounds. She is renowned as a Bollywood & World Music specialist, plus was a pivotal catalyst of the 90s Asian Underground Scene. Ritu comperes events and DJs at various festivals & venues like The Southbank Centre, Rich Mix, BFI, Tate Britain and numerous nightspots!

Rafia Hussain

• Independent producer and Strategic Producer of In Good Company, the flagship artist development programme for theatre makers the Midlands.

Rafia is a dynamic executive producer collaborating with Britain’s most exciting Black and Brown artists on socially engaged projects locally, nationally, and internationally. Her portfolio spans small and middle scale productions, co-creation, programming and artist development. Rafia produces because she finds joy in working creatively to bring great ideas into reality. She is an advocate for social justice, the role of the independent producer in the performing arts sector and fair pay. She firmly believes that the best stories are born from perspectives that reflect the richness and diversity of the world we live in.

Rafia is Artistic Director of Rafia Hussain Productions, a new theatre company dedicated to commissioning and producing Black and Brown work nationally and internationally.  Rafia Hussain’s producing practice is a blend of activism, productions and artist development; she sees the role of the work she does in the cultural sector as a means to working towards collective liberation. She is also the Strategic Producer at In Good Company - the artist development organisation for Midlands performance makers.

Rafia is currently a participant of Stage One’s Bridge The Gap programme for 2024-25. In 2024 she co-authored the ‘Producing Producers’ report - the culmination of a two year nationally significant research project to shape arts policy and develop the infrastructure for the training and development of racialised producers. In 2023 she was selected to be an IETM Global Connector from a global open call of 225. 

Professor Annie Mahtani

• Professor of Electroacoustic Composition and Practice, University of Birmingham.

Annie is an electroacoustic composer, sound artist and performer. Her output encompasses electronic music composition from acousmatic music to free improvisation. As a collaborator, Annie Mahtani has worked extensively with dance and theatre, and on site-specific installations. With a strong practice in field recording, her work often explores the inherent sonic nature and identity of environmental sound, amplifying sonic characteristics that are not normally audible to the naked ear. Her music explores abstract and recognizable sound worlds and all the spaces in between. Annie works extensively with spatial audio both in fixed medium works and in live performance.

Annie is co-director of BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre) and lead for both Sustainability and Creative Industries in the School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music at the University of Birmingham.

Chairing the panel is:

Piali Ray OBE, Director, Sampad Arts

Piali has been a performer, teacher and choreographer in the UK since 1982. Her formidable energy and vision led to the setting up of Sampad in 1990. Under her leadership, Sampad has flourished into a dynamic, forward-thinking arts and heritage organisation, which continues to play an influential role in creating and promoting opportunities for South Asian arts and artists in Birmingham, across the UK and beyond.

Piali was awarded with an OBE in 2002, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Central England in 2006 and Outstanding Business Person of the Year by Birmingham Chamber of Commerce in 2009. In 2012 she was commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad to produce two large-scale shows: Moving Earth, one of Sampad’s biggest dance productions to date, and Mandala, the dazzling multimedia finale of the prestigious London 2012 Festival.

She was highly commended by the judges at the Asian Women of Achievement and received British Indian Award for raising arts and culture awareness in 2015. In 2017 she was appointed as a Festival Director for Birmingham’s biggest arts festival, the award-winning Birmingham Weekender. In 2018 she was Artistic Director for the Athletes’ Homecoming and brand launch of the forthcoming Commonwealth Games event in Birmingham in 2022.

The chaired panel will be followed by a Q&A session where attendees can further explore the reflections, perspectives and thoughts of our panellists. The event will provide an insight into the experiences of South Asian female cultural and creative leaders.

The University of Birmingham is celebrating its 125th Anniversary this year through a diverse programme of events.

Sampad South Asian Arts and Heritage exists to support the development of the South Asian arts sector to be strong and resilient. Check out their events programme for 2025.