A show at the Regent Hall, Oxford Street on June 11 wowed the audience with a variety performance that brought people to their feet. The multi-cultural could not have been more eclectic.
The audience was kept on its toes with a break dance by the WAIT team - a teenage AIDS awareness performing arts group, an audience participation quiz on the UN Millennium Development Goals, and some emotive songs by X Factor semi-finalist Zyta.
The event was geared to raise awareness and garner support for the up-coming festival on November 22nd at ExCel London. Along with an international festival of music and dance, it will showcase projects and activities and host a number of conferences on the environment, family, women’s issues, interfaith relations, and community cohesion.
Presentations were made by the various working groups, and in a short explanatory speech before he presented exemplary activists with some awards for their good works, Simon Cooper quoted Amnesty International’s founder Peter Benenson, “It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
The event finale was a performance by Ola Onabule, considered by many to be one of the finest soul/jazz singer-songwriters of his generation and above all, one of Britain's most compelling performers. His shows last autumn have included five sell-out shows at Ronnie Scotts and two full houses at The Blue Note in New York. His performance was truly spellbinding, with his immense vocal range and above all his communication with the audience, which was second to none.
An audience member commented, “It was a fun evening with a nice selection of grassroots activists showing their work. Some of the stuff people are doing, particularly with community cohesion, is very exciting.”