User:SalemTsegaye/sandbox/Voza Rivers

Voza Rivers is a leading African-American theater, music, and events producer and an award-winning documentary filmmaker, born in Harlem New York on December 27th 1942.

Rivers is the executive producer of Gertrude Jeanette's The H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players,executive producer and founding member of the New Heritage Theatre Group (established in 1964) and executive producer and co-founder of IMPACT Repertory Theatre, the OSCAR nominated youth division of New Heritage Theatre Group which is led by U.S. director, activist and educator Jamal Joseph. He has produced and co-produced theater, music, and television projects, film festivals, and music tributes in the United States, Japan, South Africa, and the UK including producing Mbongeni Ngema's TONY and GRAMMY nominated South African plays Asinimali!(1987) and Sarafina!(1988). . The series of groundbreaking South African plays produced by Voza Rivers and New Heritage Theatre Group in the 1980's educated Harlemites about the apartheid struggle. Films produced by Rivers include A-Alike (2003), Lifted (2007) and The Savoy King: Chick Webb & the Music That Changed America (2012).

Voza Rivers also serves as first vice chairman of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and executive producer of HARLEM WEEK, which began in 1974 as a one-day tribute to Harlem that has evolved over 40 years into a month-long celebration of the community's rich economic, political and cultural history attracting over 2 million attendees from all over the world. .