Portraits of Incantaion

Taso Papadakis, Director / Cinematographer/ Producer:

I'm a commercial art photographer and award-winning filmmaker.
My photography work has been published internationally and one of my films is part of the permanent collection of the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
I've photographed on multiple, recurring documentary assignments for outreach programs in El Salvador and Mexico.
I've also had the honor of photographing recurring documentary and portraiture assignments for hospice programs.
I have a degree in Religious Studies from the University of Southern California, where I studied by the aid of a full scholarship.

Robyn Nisbet, Performance / Choreographer / film's co- Producer:

Robyn Nisbet is a dance and visual artist based in Los Angeles. She has a lifelong relationship with a yoga based breath-centered philosophy. Robyn is also a practitioner of Ifa, a West African spiritual tradition. Introduced to this through practice Afro-Brazilian dance, which has its roots in West African Orisá (deity) devotion, Robyn continues to investigate what it means to be in synergy with energies driven by rhythm, spirit, and community.
Robyn’s performance work has been deeply influenced by personal studies with post Butoh based artists, Dana and Shinichi Iova-Koga. The work emphasizes complete presence of the body in relationship to time, space, and the environment. Robyn continues to travel to Senegal where she shares these ideas with fellow dancers and musicians, experimenting within the tradition of the dance and drum circle. For Robyn, the circle teaches the importance of being seen as an individual as well as witnessing the individual from the collective perspective. She also draws inspiration from the martial art of Capoeira and Afro-Brazilian dance.
Robyn currently works in Los Angeles in development of creative approaches and material with a core group of performance artists and musicians. She regularly performs with Ijo Emi, Rachel Hernandez’s Afro-Brazilian dance company, and also plays the Surdo drum for the Samba band, Baté Batuque.

Emile de Leon, sound score:

Emile de Leon has been a professional percussion musician for thirty years. His current focus is on Tibetan singing bowls and Indian tablas. A former off-campus percussion instructor for Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Mr. De Leon began playing singing bowls in 1996, and as part of the duet known as Temple Sounds, released the Tibetan bowl CD: "Mystic Bowls" in 1999. Tibetan singing bowls have been used for centuries for meditation, healing and sacred ceremonies in the ancient far off cultures of Tibet and Nepal. Mr. de Leon is one of a handful of musicians in the world who plays these ancient instruments in concert. He is also the owner of the metaphysical bookstore and gift shop Knight People in Middletown, CT.