FLAWA: Latinas Presente

Tradition gives origin to new trends; new generations embrace their roots and combine them with the perspectives gained from growing up in a multicultural hectic city like London. This event, featuring DJ La Jeva, dancer Luanda Pau and musicians Imperio Bamba, gives a platform to the often unseen and underrepresented creativity that belongs to the streets of this busy city.

Schedule
DJ La Jeva: 5.30pm – 6pm
Dance class with Luanda Pau: 6pm – 8pm
Live music from Imperio Bamba: 8.15pm – 9.15pm
DJ La Jeva: 9.15pm – 10.30pm

Valerie Rosa aka DJ La Jeva is a Puerto Rico-born singer, musicologist and DJ based in London. You can find her spinning records around London, as well as working with local charities advocating for Latinxs and ethnic minorities in the city. As a DJ and scholar, she has been working on projects that contribute to the analysis, preservation, creation and promotion of Puerto Rican, Caribbean and Latin American music and artists, as well as its relationship with society and the world.

Luanda Pau is known for her positive energy, knowledge, enthusiasm, passion and the teaching method that she uses to transmit the cultural richness of Afro-Cuban dance. Born in 1976 in Havana, Cuba, in 1991 she began her studies at the National School of Arts before entering the renowned National Folkloric Ballet of Cuba, where she danced as a soloist and principal dancer. Currently she is the Afro-Cuban dance curriculum manager/director of Carlos Acosta Dance Centre.

Imperio Bamba was born from migrational nostalgia in North London in 2016. They define their sound as ‘rebel chicha’, which is their own take on the exciting and traditional Peruvian chicha, and is infused with psychedelic rock guitars and synths, and hypnotic rhythms like cumbia, salsa and merengue.

At the heart of Imperio Bamba there is the leading duo, Jules Drade (Perú) and Javiera Limarí (Chile). They collaborate with Titi Damasso and Mariel Cámara (Argentina), and Cleyder Figeroa (Peru). Telling their stories through songs, they create moments to feel community, building a home far away from home and pushing for togetherness.

Curated in collaboration with FLAWA, this event is part of a weekend showcasing the diversity of the Latin American artistic community through music, performances and new proposals, inviting audiences to engage with this versatile culture.

FLAWA is an organisation that works to give visibility to and celebrate art created by women (cisgender, queer, non-binary). They strive to create multidisciplinary events for anyone interested in the many angles and trajectories of Latin American culture.

This summer, we’re collaborating with a range of London-based collectives and organisations to curate the Riverside Stage in response to the theme of our season, You Belong Here, enabling these collaborators to welcome different audiences and recognise how they want and choose to belong here at the Southbank Centre.