Tarik Frimpong is an Australian actor, singer and dancer. He was born in Melbourne and is 23 years old. Tarik trained from a young age at his mother's performing arts school 'Dance Explosion'. He made his professional theatre debut and gained wide prominence playing the role of 'Young Simba' in Disney's 'The Lion King'. Tarik yarns with Gman on KoolNDeadly. He was then invited to perform the role in Shanghai, China. Tarik has appeared in television commercials for K-mart & Pringles. And, in 2017 he received a huge break landing the role of 'Angus' in feature film 'Mary Poppins Returns' (2018) shot in London, United Kingdom.
The Artists of Colour Initiative (AOC) has launched a scholarship competition designed to provide financial assistance and industry support to six exceptionally talented theatre performers based in Australia that identify as Bla(c)k, Indigenous or as People of Colour (POC). Submissions for the scholarship will occur in three rounds with the first submission deadline on Monday 28 September. From there, a top 30 will be announced followed by a top six then ultimately, one winner. To assist in curating the semi-finalists and finalists, a panel of longstanding performers, choreographers, directors, musical directors, writers and activists of the theatre industry who identify as Bla(c)k, Indigenous or as People of Colour will lead the charge.
The 2020 panelists for the AOC Initiative are Barry Conrad, Bree Langridge, Callum Francis, Cessalee Smith-Stovall, Chenoa Deemal, Daniel J Puckey, Dean Drieberg, Fiona Choi, Kurt Kansley, Laura Tipoki, Leah Howard, Miss Cairo, Olivia Vasquez, Ruva Ngwenya, Sello Molefi, Sophia Laryea, Steph Tisdell, Tarik Frimpong, Thando Sikwila, Tim Omaji, Tyrel Dulvarie, Vidya Makan, Will Centurion, Yasmin Kassim and Yvette Lee. “I am honoured to be a panelist for the AOC initiative. Growing up in Australia as an immigrant from a mixed raced South African background in the 80s and 90s and dreaming of being on the stage, I hardly saw anyone who looked like me being represented on stage or behind the scenes in the theatre. I had to work harder than my peers who came from Caucasian backgrounds to be seen and taken seriously,” says Kurt Kansley .