Architect Mariam Kamara, the principal of design firm Atelier Masomi is well-known for her sustainable and context-based work, like the mosque in the village of Dandaji in her home country of Niger which was recently built using locally fabricated compressed earth bricks. She teams up with her mentor, the Ghanaian-born British architect Sir David Adjaye who was behind the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to present their ideas for a new cultural centre in Niger capital Niamey.

Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite is often regarded as one of the finest names in the ballet scene for what The New York Times described as “with a movement style that combines a slippery, buckling fluidity with an unusually emotional theatricality”. She collaborates with her protege, Senagalese urban street dancer/choreographer Khoudia Toure who runs the hip-hop-based dance company Compagnie La Mer Noire. Toure will premiere a number called When the Night Comes which fuses hip-hop with other dance disciplines.

Irish writer, playwright, essayist and critic Colm Toibin who penned acclaimed novels like Brooklyn (2009) and The Testament of Mary (2012) play mentor to aspiring novelist and fellow countryman Colin Barrett for his first completed book The English Brothers. An extract from the book – which addresses the two writers’ fascination with questions of belonging and existentialism – will be adapted for a public reading by local actors.

Marcus Gilmore, the grandson of legendary jazz drummer Roy Haynes, is the prodigious 34-year-old New York drummer who has collaborated with musical heavyweights like Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis and Steve Coleman. Under the tutelage of tabla master and chief architect of the contemporary world music movement Zakir Hussain, Gilmore will premiere of his composition, pulse, commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra.