The Rich Mix Summer Season Launch Party

Earlier this evening I went along to the free summer season launch party at Rich Mix, sponsored by Havana Club, to promote the upcoming events and activities at what many would say is the east end’s best arts and culture venue.

The Rich Mix building is an interesting space, developed in 2006 to serve the local community as an arts centre. On the ground floor it includes a main performance space, where you’ll find live music and spoken word in the evening (and sometimes conferences during the day – I went to one there last year), a BBC studio and a cafe that has a huge selection of Movenpick icecream (they make Haagen Dazs look like amateurs – it’s the best icecream going if you ask me!). There are also several cinema screens that show independent films from across the world and a theatre which hosts dance and drama performances. The complex is also home to several local creative companies. In my view it’s a great asset to Shoreditch and the surrounding area, and I’ve enjoyed every event I’ve been to there.

So on to tonight’s launch party then. While we sipped on our Havana Club cocktails we were treated to a couple of topical poems from Rich Mix’s ‘artist in residence’ Shane Solanki, and then settled down for the first performers of the evening, the three piece Ruby and the Vines. The band, with their bass-playing female lead vocalist, have a great modern take on both the white reggae and funk genres. ‘Red Storm’ in particular is a very catchy number, and if you think the vocalist has something of the Joan Armatrading about her, you’re not the only one. I’d love to see them again! As well as streaming tracks from their Myspace page you can also keep up with the latest news on their gigs by following them on Twitter.

We didn’t have to long to wait for the main event – the suitably latin sounds of Wara and what a show it was with 10 wildly energetic performers expertly melding rap, funk and reggae with an authentic Cuban flair. Everyone was on their feet and grooving, and at one point we even had a display of salsa dancing on stage courtesy of one of the friends of the band – fantastic!

As this was the launch party for the upcoming season I should close this post with some highlights of the upcoming season that particularly appeal to me. In terms of live music, the legendary Balkan Beatbox will be appearing on 28 May (as I’ve been to Belgrade in the last year and will be in Macedonia soon I should check that out) and the Big Mix festival will be held at the centre on 18 June in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. In the theatre, fairies will be putting in an appearance in June with the Crick Crack Club on the 21st, and in the gallery space ‘Don’t Call Me Urban – Time of Grime‘ will be showcased (and which I mentioned a few months ago).

Being a community venue, events are Rich Mix are generally very cheap or indeed free, and I would encourage you to pop along to see something over the next few months – there’s something for everyone in the upcoming programme and we need to value places like this if we’re going to continue to have an alternative to the hyper-commercialism of the West End scene.