2016 Biennial Africa House Gala

Name: 2016 Biennial Africa House Gala Celebration — NYU Africa House
Start: 2016-04-13T18:00:00-0400
End: 2016-04-13T20:00:00-0400

Images from the event.

On Wednesday, April 13, 2016, NYU Africa House hosted the Inaugural Africa House Gala Dinner Celebration at New York University’s Kimmel Center for University Life, Rosenthal Pavilion, from 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm. During the gala, we celebrated Africa House’s achievements, progress, and vision for the future.

The gala featured a cocktail reception and dinner with African cuisine, special musical entertainment, and the Africa House Awards Presentation. During the presentation, we honored individuals and organizations that embody the spirit and values of Africa House and inspire us in the pursuit of our mission.

2016 Africa House Awards:

Africa House Hero Award

*Image of Amran Hussein being awarded by Yaw Nyarko.*

Ms. Amran Hussein
Partner
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Amran Hussein was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She started her world travels at the age of one and has lived in New York, Islamabad, Dhaka, Gaborone, and Kampala. During her senior year of high school, Amran moved to New York, where her father was stationed with the United Nations Development Programme. After graduating from Smith College, where she received her B.A. in Government, Amran worked at the Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO), an international advocacy organization focused on promoting gender equality in global policy. She represented WEDO at various United Nations’ conferences, including the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Amran received her J.D. from NYU School of Law, where she was a Staff Editor of the Review of Law & Social Change. Amran is a Partner in the Corporate Department of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and a member of the firm’s Private Funds Group. She focuses on the organization and operation of private investment funds and she regularly speaks and writes on a variety of topics relating to private investment funds.

Africa House Vision Award

*Image of Dr. Alisa LaGamma being awarded by Yaw Nyarko.*

Ms. Alisa LaGamma, Ph.D.
Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Curator in Charge
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alisa LaGamma is the Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Curator in Charge of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her work there over the last twenty years has been instrumental in rethinking the history of sub-Saharan African art and culture. In 2012 the Bard Graduate Center recognized this with the Iris Award for Outstanding Scholarship. Her most recent exhibition Kongo: Majesty and Power received critical acclaim and its publication has been recognized by this year’s George Wittenborn Memorial Award by the Art Libraries Society of North America, the International Tribal Art Book Prize, and Honorable Mention for the PROSE Award for Art Exhibition Book. LaGamma’s Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures received the 2012 International Tribal Art Book Prize and in 2007 the Association of Art Museum Curators recognized Eternal Ancestors: Art of the Central African Reliquary as among the profession’s outstanding exhibition catalogs. Among the over a dozen influential exhibitions she has organized, Mothers and Warriors: Epic Mbembe Art (2014) foregrounded one of West Africa’s earliest but least familiar sculptural traditions and The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End (2011) addressed historical continuities between classical forms of expression from sub-Saharan Africa and the work of leading contemporary artists from the region.

LaGamma is a 1988 graduate of the University of Virginia and received her MA and Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University. Her 1995 dissertation: “The Art of the Punu Mukudj Masquerade: Portrait of an Equatorial Society” was based on a year of fieldwork in southern Gabon. Born in Lubumbashi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, LaGamma spent formative years living in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Nigeria, Togo, and South Africa. She has taught as a visiting professor in the art history departments at Columbia University, Rutgers, the University of Pennsylvania, the Bard Graduate Center, and New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of African Arts. From 2009-10 she served as Chair of the Metropolitan’s Forum of Curators, Conservators, and Scientists.

Africa House Leadership Award

*Image of Mr. Stanley Bergman being awarded by Yaw Nyarko.*

Mr. Stanley M. Bergman
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Henry Schein, Inc.

Since 1989, Stanley M. Bergman has been Chairman of the Board and CEO of Henry Schein, Inc., a Fortune 500® company and the world’s largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental, animal health and medical practitioners, with nearly 19,000 Team Schein Members and operations or affiliates in 33 countries. Henry Schein is a member of the S&P 500® and NASDAQ 100® indexes. In 2015, the Company’s sales reached a record of $10.6 billion. Henry Schein has been a Fortune World’s Most Admired Company for 15 consecutive years and is ranked #1 in its industry on Fortune’s 2015 World’s Most Admired Companies List.

Mr. Bergman serves as a board member or advisor for numerous institutions including New York University College of Dentistry; the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine; the Columbia University Medical Center; Hebrew University; Tel Aviv University; the University of the Witwatersrand Fund; The World Economic Forum’s Health Care Governors; the Forsyth Institute; the Business Council for International Understanding; and the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Bergman is an honorary member of the American Dental Association and the Alpha Omega Dental Fraternity. His awards include being the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the CR Magazine Corporate Responsibility Lifetime Achievement Award; a Doctor of Humane Letters from A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health, and from Case Western Reserve University; Honorary Fellowship of King’s College London, Dental Institute and the International College of Dentists.

Stan and Marion Bergman and their family are active supporters of organizations fostering the arts, higher education, cultural diversity, grassroots health care and sustainable entrepreneurial economic development initiatives in the United States, Africa and other developing regions of the world.

Mr. Bergman is a graduate of The University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and is a South African Chartered Accountant and an NYS Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Africa House Partnership Award

NYU Africa House/CTED Research and Community Partners in Kumawu, Ghana

Accepted by:

*Image of Honorable Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare being awarded by Yaw Nyarko.*

Honorable Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare
Minister; Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Creative Arts
Republic of Ghana

and

Ms. Theresa Effia Ataa
Boafuorhemaa of Kumawu Traditional Area,
Republic of Ghana

Special Performance by NYU Steinhardt
Music & Dance of Uganda

The performance group is comprised of graduate students and alumni from the Dance Education program at NYU Steinhardt who have participated in the Uganda study abroad program over the past 10 years, founded and directed by Dance Education Professor Deborah Damast (NYU) and Professor Jill Pribyl (Makerere University, Uganda). Leading the group was a special guest from Uganda, Mr. Bagonza Herman, who has been participating as a faculty member and collaborator for all 10 years of the study abroad program in Kampala. Mr. Bagonza is an esteemed musician, dancer, artist, and educator who has traveled here to NYU to stage this work for the 2016 Distinguished Faculty Dance Concert at the Frederick Loewe Theatre, April 15-17, and the Africa House Gala Celebration.