Team – Liberacts

Every idea has a cause, LiberActs is an artistic bridge between the two sides of the Mediterranean.

TEAMWORK

Founders

Mahmoud El Haddad

Mahmoud El Haddad is an Egyptian actor and dancer, based in Paris since 2018. In 2014, he founded his own theater troupe “Act-two”, formerly known as “Hand-Made”. He has worked with big names from the Middle East and Europe such as Ahmed El-Attar, Thierry Niang, Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, Henri Jules Julien and others. He has participated in many international theater festivals including Festival d’Avignon in official selection for the years 2015 and 2019.

Billy Ka

Billy Ka is an Egyptian activist Poet and Heritage Professional who is living in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He finished a Bachelor of Arts, Department of Sociology and Media, Alexandria University, Egypt in 2010. He obtained a diploma of Media and Literature Translation from the American University in Cairo in 2015. He obtained a Diploma in Project Management from Sean Academy, Ireland, in 2020. He got his first master’s degree in Arts, Cultural Policies and Cultural Entrepreneurship from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands in 2022. He got his second degree in Applied master of Museums and Heritage Studies from Reinwardt Academy (AHK) in Amsterdam in 2023 He is currently working in the management of artistic and cultural projects. He also has experience in the field of communication and human rights, where he worked for many years as a consultant and media expert in Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. He founded the first youth media initiative in Egypt, “Press Action Group”, in 2006 by organising media campaigns using street theatre performances and storytelling. In 2015, he continued his passion for art and culture by working as a communication specialist and project coordinator with “Mahatat” for contemporary arts in Egypt. In 2016, he founded the company “LIBERALIS” which works on disseminating visual art in all its forms. In 2019, he co-founded the association Liberacts for the arts in France to support artists by creating a bridge between Europe and the Middle East and North Africa.

Members of the Board

Taha Metwally

Taha is an Egyptian graduate of Cairo University, College of Education. He began his journey as a human rights advocate prior to the 2011 Egyptian revolution, as a member of the Liberal Youth Union. His main focus is on defending the rights of minorities, including religious minorities, LGBTQIA+ and homeless children. In 2013, he worked as an office manager at the Egyptian ministry of Education. In 2016-2017, he was the director of a hosting refugee children and families center in collaboration with UNICEF and the Swiss NGO Terre des Hommes. He considers that queer art should take more space in Arab and Middle Eastern cultures. Settled in France in 2018, he regularly works as a consultant on collaborative projects between France and Egypt, for organizations such as UNICEF or UNESCO.

Natacha Thaon Santini

Trained as an actress at the Grenoble Conservatory of Dramatic Art and at the Stendhal University of Grenoble in cultural dissemination, she has a double role. Today she is a cultural engineering consultant and production administrator for the companies ALIS and Le Compost. Today she continues to explore the practice of directing as a teacher (most recently at the Lycée des Lumières in Mamoudzou, Mayotte). Happy to be at the intersection of several fields and practices of the performing arts, she conceives her relationship to art only in a close link with the means of production which founds it in time and space . Working with LiberActs, she also participates in the structuring of new artistic projects and at the intersection of practices and cultures.