Queer artists/performers The Cocoa Butter Club and Bold Mellon Collective present two shows at London’s Bethnal Green Rich Mix arts space next week as part of Soul on Ice. This is the latest festival from Certain Blacks, the East London arts organization specializing in celebrating diversity. The program is named after the seminal 1968 book by the writer, activist, and Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver, challenging the way America understood the Civil Rights Movement and Black experience. Audiences are invited to enjoy a range of creative responses to questions about the human condition, diversity, identity and improvisation.
The Cocoa Butter Club began in 2016 as a protest. Frustrated with the lack of diversity, constant cultural appropriation, and limitations of the cabaret scene, founder and host Mwice Kavindele, AKA Sadie Sinner – The Songbird and producer Cassie Leon, set out to fill a cultural void. From queer voices shunned by the mainstream LGBTQ+ zeitgeist to non-white creatives, The Cocoa Butter Club strive to ‘decolonize and moisturize‘ stages, redistributing the narrative of bodies of color, providing agency and autonomy for artists they program at their events.
The Cocoa Butter Club presents a production exploring Black utopian ideas, euphoric spaces, community and transitions. On the night, expect Sadie Sinner’s powerhouse hosting skills as well as her signature interpretation and mix of songs. Alongside Sadie, Zaki Musa, circus and ‘boylesque’ performer, uses his background in design and movement to full effect, both on the ground and in the air. Jordan Charles, father of The Cocoa Butter Club joins Zaki and Sadie, he’s the winner of Pride’s Got Talent 2023. Circus artist Symoné, who has a Guinness World Record to her name, also performs. Mimi Sugarpill, a neo-burlesque performer provides her trademark velvety vocals. The line-up is completed by Ezme Pump, a Burlesque performer with a flair for the dramatic and a’ wheeze for the tease’. The Cocoa Butter Club’s new production honors the hidden legacy of the Creative ‘Other’.
Friday 15 March 7.30pm - Rich Mix The Cocoa Butter Club Tickets £12-15
Give or Take from Bold Mellon Collective is an interactive, intimate performance piece combining physical theatre with live electronic music. This is an afternoon live art commission from two exciting emerging practitioners. The work considers gift-giving as both an act of remembrance and a contract, bargain and transaction. Devised and performed by queer Tatar multidisciplinary artist and creative facilitator Emilia Nurmukhamet and queer trans artist and creative Dear Annie, Give or Take is inspired by Emilia’s memories of giving and receiving ‘sadaqah’, or voluntary offerings, at her Tatar family celebrations and days of remembrance. Give or Take celebrates the history of the Tatar diaspora with a focus on resistance and community while offering a queer critique of oppressive and imperialist bargains. The show begins as a game played with the audience, before becoming an emotive ritual for consent and accountability fusing dance, poetry, and live electronic music.
The performance will be followed by a panel discussion about how artists address and express issues of diversity, inclusion and identity.
Saturday 16 March 4pm - Rich Mix Bold Mellon Collective Tickets £7-10 including entry to performance and panel discussion.
Sounds like a fun weekend!
Soul On Ice festival March 1- 17, 2024 The Place, Rich Mix & Social Convention 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA. https://certainblacks.com
Queerguru’s Contributing Editor Ris Fatah is a successful fashion/luxury business consultant (when he can be bothered) who divides and wastes his time between London and Ibiza. He is a lover of all things queer, feminist, and human rights in general. @ris.fatah
