This is not business as usual. This is not gala as usual.
This is the BeingAfrican Experience.
A powerful evening of culture, identity, heritage, storytelling, and community unlike anything you have experienced before.
It’s a night of elegance, celebrating in unity, restoring identity, building community and strengthening relationships.
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Reserve Your Seat
Featuring
ChiChi WeMbira
Cultural Artist · Musician · Storyteller
Chiedza Melody Wheeler — known professionally as ChiChi WeMbira — is a versatile mbira (Zimbabwean thumb piano) player, dancer, vocalist, songwriter, and percussionist. Originally from Zimbabwe and ancestrally belonging to the Korekore people.
She has performed as both a solo artist and a band member throughout Zimbabwe and at international festivals — including Ethno Sweden 2018, Ethno USA 2021, Ethno Zimbabwe 2023, Bia Afrika Roots Zambia 2021, and the Miombo Magic Festival (2017, 2022 & 2025).
At the gala, ChiChi will help set the tone for an evening dedicated to preserving heritage and empowering generations — reminding us that culture lives not only in books and museums, but in music, rhythm, and shared experience.
The rhythm of our heritage. The heartbeat of our people.
Plus a live DJ keeping the floor moving with Afrobeats all night.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Foreman Bandama
Archaeologist · Curator of African Anthropology · Field Museum, Chicago
What if much of what you thought you knew about Africa was only part of the story?
Join us for a rare opportunity to hear Dr. Foreman Bandama — African Iron Age archaeologist, Assistant Curator of African Anthropology at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, and faculty member in Anthropology at the University of Illinois Chicago — whose work is helping uncover and preserve the remarkable stories of Africa’s past.
From great civilizations and ancient technologies to innovation, achievement, and cultural knowledge developed centuries ago, Dr. Bandama invites us to look beyond the narratives we inherited and discover what the evidence reveals about Africa’s extraordinary contributions to human history.
Honoring our past. Inspiring our future.
Featuring
Madeline Ndambakuwa
Poet · Artist · Speaker · Author · Communication Consultant
Madeline Ndambakuwa is a powerful voice of culture, identity, and transformation.
Through poetry, education, art, and storytelling, she preserves African heritage and empowers communities to embrace their roots with pride.
Founder of Zanhi Influence · Honored with the Heritage Preservation Award.