World in Panorama

A Community Interest Company brings arts of the world to the United Kingdom. Company No. 11973654

The Team..

Cllr Paul Kane (Advisor)

(passed away in Nov. 2019)

The councillor of Dewsbury since 1995 and former Mayor of Kirklees. Paul is a lifetime socialist and always believed in education as the power of social mobility. He’s behind this company from the outset. He named it, set its vision and he designed its logo (the eagle).    

Cllr Aleks Lukic (Advisor)

Aleks is a councillor for Dewsbury East, an IT specialist and a former secondary school teacher. As an experienced brass musician and a regular visitor to galleries, museums and the theatre, Aleks is eager to support local opportunities to showcase and learn more about the world through the arts.

Xiujing Liang (Director)

A lecturer at University of Leeds with a Ph.D. from Aalborg University in Denmark. Besides being the Chief Editor of Siyu Chinese Times, Manchester, Xiujing worked on several research projects, including: "Migration and Ethnicity study" (ESRC project); “Cityscapes of Diaspora: Images and Realities of London Chinatown” (AHRC project) and "Exploring the Ethnic Identity of Overseas Chinese Community Leaders in Europe" (a Ph.D. project funded by the Danish Ministry of Education. Xiujing is an art lover and amateur singer.

Jay Micklethwaite (Finance Manager)

Jay was born in 1976 at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and grew up at Holmfirth in West Yorkshire. At the age of 22, he started working for Kirklees Council - Housing Services department now Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing (KNH). He quickly developed his skills as a frontline worker to engage with all types of people, cultures and faiths, witch lead him to become a community engagement officer for KNH for over 6 years where he became fully trained in asset based community development and charity/group governance. Jay also holds higher level qualifications in adult learning, community coaching and mentoring, project management and community engagement what he uses for the benefit of the wider community by coaching and coordinating the charitable purpose of a number of charities that deliver targeted provisions in priority locations to tackle a broad range of issues that affect everybody.

Pradnya Kulkarni (Event Organiser) 

An IT specialist with work experience in banking and education, yet, she’s an artist by nature with interest in exploring different mediums like Charcoal, Water Colours, Oil Paints and Acrylic’s. A working mother of two children, Pradnya still have time for painting and volunteering for the community.  

Sonia Zoref (Event Organiser) 

Studied at the university of Huddersfield and currently runs Serendipity Creative Writing charity organisation. Sonia is a published poetess and a freelance writer. She runs creative writing and mindfulness workshops in and around Kirklees, believing that the use of creative writing through mental health can be a rewarding therapy.

Olga McPhail (Advisor)

A writer, a translator and an educator. Brought up in Russia and lived in the UK for decades, Olga had great exposure to the arts of both cultures as well as of the world. She is passionate about theatre and music in particular.

Ben Caswell (Advisor)

Ben is a barrister in Leeds with degrees in Law and Philosophy from Wadham College Oxford and University College London respectively. Also trained as an actor he has appeared in numerous local amateur stage productions throughout Yorkshire. His other hobbies include music, football and travel.

Sammi Scott (Advisor)

Currently undertaking PhD research into nineteenth-century relief sculpture, Sammi has a working background in museums and arts education. She has been involved with curating exhibitions, running festivals and community events, as well as delivering and developing programmes of educational and outreach activities. Sammi is a keen visitor of historic sites, galleries and exhibitions and enjoys painting and reading in her free time.

Mira Fadel (Director)

A computer scientist, a freelance journalist, a translator and an educator. In her works, Mira combines both the technology and the literature to help humanising the use of technology and utilising the technology to promote the human values.

Vera Pavlova (Production Manager)
Graduated from the Russian University of Theatre Arts-GITIS in 2004 then obtained a PhD in Theatre Studies. As a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, Vera delivered a number of lectures on theatre and arts history.
Vera is a stage director, a script writer, a producer, a drama teacher and sometimes a performer.
She has been working in professional and amateur theatre environment for over 10 years, and runs The Open Theatre Studio in Leeds and also directs theatre productions within THE Refuge, a pop-up project based in Leeds. Vera worked with several companies like University of Leeds, Open Source Arts, Live Art Bistro, The Baltica School, Morley Arts Festival and many others. She released a number of productions for both adults and children, staged in Leeds, Liverpool, Warrington, London, Belfast, and Cologne (Germany).

Paul Dixon (Event Organiser)

With a working background in the electronics industry and technical writing, he always had an interest in the arts. He did drama classes at Anna Scher Theatre and Jacksons Lane, where he was involved in creating plays and doing some amateur dramatics.

As an art lover, he often goes to galleries and art fairs. He enjoys music and does work for the Headingley Music Festival. Paul also involved in books design, editing and proofreading, mainly as a volunteer.

He’s still doing contract technical writing and also writes a wine blog.