Community projects · Film · Music
I bring generations and cultures together through music, dance and film.
Founder and artistic lead of the One Community Project. For museums, cultural institutions, cities and funders looking for a partner who has done this work for years.
Watch
Noch einmal Walzer · official trailer of the documentary, 2023 · Watch on YouTube
The Power of Small Encounters · TEDx Linz, 2026 · 18 minutes · Watch on YouTube
The approach
Prejudice survives in the absence of contact. Trust is built through repetition.
The One Community Project creates repeated encounters between people who would otherwise remain strangers to one another: care-home residents, schoolchildren, international students, refugees and long-standing residents of a city.
Its methods are music, dance, storytelling and shared meals. Participants are invited to sing, dance, share stories and contribute in ways that feel comfortable to them. They meet week after week, and what they make together is shown in public.
What has been built
Weekly music sessions with residents of the Marienheim care home in Dessau-Roßlau, started as a student initiative.
Founded in cooperation with Hochschule Anhalt and the city’s integration office. First place, Integration Prize of Saxony-Anhalt, in the same year.
Five months of waltz classes brought together residents of three care homes in Dessau-Roßlau, among them the Marienheim, with refugees, migrants and international students. They ended in a public gala with performers aged 9 to 96.
A 50-minute documentary with German, English and Ukrainian subtitles. Sold-out premiere at the Bauhaus Museum Dessau with 300 guests. The film grew out of my master’s in Expanded Media at Hochschule Darmstadt: I initiated it, selected the interviewees and accompanied it from the first idea to the premiere. Robert Boehnèl directed and edited it.
38 documented bookings in Germany, Ireland and Austria: screenings with discussion, workshops and staff trainings, with 1,618 recorded attendances.
Training material for facilitated screenings is in development, so that other organisations can use the approach themselves.



Who has hosted it
Fewer than a quarter of the bookings were public cinema screenings. Many took place in organisations that used the film with their own staff and the people they serve.
Among them: a Jobcenter, a dementia network, a psychiatric clinic, a youth welfare office, a migration museum and three NGO trainings in Dublin. Figures come from the project’s attendance record, kept with the integration office of the City of Dessau-Roßlau and cover June 2023 to September 2026. They reflect the records available, so the real numbers are likely to be higher. Attendance for the September 2026 workshop is still to be added.

One example
The museum placed the film in its Intercultural Dance Week: an afternoon of dances for all generations in the foyer, then “Noch einmal Walzer” and an open conversation, with free admission.
The audience spanned several generations and included people who had found refuge in Germany. The discussion moved between German, English and Arabic, and people with little German still took part. Several said they felt encouraged to contribute something themselves to the place that had taken them in.
“You have put a smile on the faces of very different people, old and young, residents and newcomers from other parts of the world. Your idea and its realisation should serve as a model for many other places.”Museum Friedland, public comment on Instagram after the screening
Working together
We start with your participants, your setting and the time available. Together we agree the format, responsibilities and resources, from a single facilitated screening to a programme of repeated encounters. I lead the concept and the artistic work; rooms, access to participants and organisation on site are agreed with the host.
Developing a programme with a partner institution, from the first idea to the public event, and leading it artistically.
Weeks of music, dance and storytelling with mixed groups, such as older people, newcomers and school classes, ending in something shown in public.
“Noch einmal Walzer” with a facilitated conversation, for staff, service users or the public, in German or English.
Half-day and full-day sessions for teams in care, education, culture and integration work, built around the film and the experience of the project.
Film, short-form video and written stories of a project, planned from the start and produced with a small team.
Recognition
“I am delighted that Adetayo Tutipsy Manuwa is committed to our city and that his work is now receiving such recognition. This makes him a role model for others and an ambassador for civic engagement.”
Robert Reck, Mayor of Dessau-Roßlau, in the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 20 September 2025 (translated)“They dance and talk together, and what does it do to people? It gives the audience goosebumps.”
Heidi Thiemann, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, on “Noch einmal Walzer” (translated)“Thank you Adetayo ‘Tutipsy’ Manuwa for showing 1,000 attendees of Urban Future 2025 how to change lives with compassion and empathy.”
Gerald Babel-Sutter, CEO, Urban FutureAwards and recognition: 1st place, Integration Prize of Saxony-Anhalt (2019) · Prize-winning project, Federal Agency for Civic Education, “Aktiv für Demokratie und Toleranz” (2023) · Guest of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Bürgerfest, Schloss Bellevue (2025)
Partners and hosts: Integration office of the City of Dessau-Roßlau · Hochschule Anhalt · Altenpflegeheim Marienheim, Anhaltische Diakonissenanstalt Dessau · Bauhaus Museum Dessau · Anhaltisches Theater Dessau and the Anhaltische Philharmonie · BOEHNÈL Films · Alexianer Dessau · Heiligenfeld Kliniken · Netzwerk Demenz Vulkaneifel · Trägerwerk soziale Dienste, Erfurt · Museum Friedland · Universität Jena · NGO partners in Dublin
“Noch einmal Walzer”: directed by Robert Boehnèl. Executive producers: Adetayo “Tutipsy” Manuwa, Jolene Rätz, Robert Boehnèl and the integration office of the City of Dessau-Roßlau.
About me
I moved from Nigeria to Germany in 2017 and thought I was leaving music behind. Visits to a care home in Dessau became friendships, and the friendships became a project. From 2021 to 2022 I also worked in that care home as a working student, leading group activities for residents.
I hold two master’s degrees, in Expanded Media and in Architecture and Cultural Heritage, and I work in communications alongside this. I am based in Frankfurt am Main and work in German and English.
Keynotes, interactive sessions and hosting, including the TEDx Linz talk and the opening of Urban Future.
As Tutipsy I write and perform Afro-influenced songs. Music is often how I bring people together.
Contact
Tell me about your institution, the people you want to bring together, and what you have in mind. I will reply personally.
adetayomanuwa39@gmail.com
Photos: One Community Project.
