Grenfell Towers: Red Cross and government corruption and neglect

I am sharing this information and message on my research pages because of its utmost importance. Research and academia cannot and should not dislocate itself from politics and humanity:

"I know this video share is late but it must be said again. The £millions raised by the nation is not reaching Grenfell Fire survivors and relatives. I have heard this too often - survivors with no shoes, not being fed, they are evicted from spaces of respite in the early hours of the morning, the Red Cross is intercepting Grenfell bound survivor donation vans to sell off YOUR donations else where... I do not have time for good intentions for conscience appeasing feel good factor. We must be fully awake to what is happening with Grenfell else we will never comprehend the full extent of the neglect and deception this government is capable of. We must check where we are being conned.

That aside, an outcry about this injustice will hasten Justice, and set precedent in the annuls of UK history documenting moments of community organisation, care and mobilisation.

We must find out what is really going on on the ground and share information like this repeatedly. Repeatedly. Repeatedly, because the misinformation the mainstream media keeps feeding us transmutes into devastating and treacherous politics, not simple manufactured untruths. It is deadly.

Please Share.

Peace.

#JusticeForGrenfell

Pops Mohamed

PoP turns 10: Celebrating the Popular, Practicing the Urban: Call for Papers

A reminder about the Call for Papers for the annual PoP MOVES conference on Saturday 18th November 2017. This year is a special one as it is also our 10 year birthday! The deadline is Friday 7th July.

PoP turns 10: Celebrating the Popular, Practicing the Urban

Saturday, 18th November 2017

University of East London, Stratford, London, U.K

 The PoP [Performances of the Popular] Moves committee, in partnership with the CPAD research group at the University of East London, is now inviting submissions for the 2017 conference

Call for Papers

Ten years after the UK’s first popular performance conference, PoP MOVES, the international research group for performances of the popular, continues to advance the field through cross-institution sharing whilst creating space for rich discussions between scholars, students, performers and practitioners.

Also celebrating its 10th year, the University of East London’s BA (Hons) Dance: Urban Practice degree continues to break the mould of traditional dance degrees. Inspired by the cultural vibrancy and diversity of East London, the programme offers students the opportunity to practice, perform, and theorise hip-hop, club, social and popular styles, contemporary techniques from across Europe and the African and Asian diasporas, and classical and martial movement traditions.

To celebrate these decennial milestones, this conference asks scholars, practitioners and artists to engage with the intersections between popular practices and the Urban: the city as a space where culture is created, represented and disputed.

 

Some key areas and questions to consider include:

The Urban Landscape

·         What are the risks and opportunities that Urban environments provide for the emergence, spread and survival of popular practices?

·         How do the designs of city spaces converge or diverge with popular performance? How do practices gain currency through this relationship?

 

The Urban Jungle

·         How do different migrations and communities who have helped shape urban identity engage with popular practices?

·         What are the ways in which the urban intersects with race and class, and how does this shape and evolve popular practices?

·         How do notions of hybridity and cultural exchange operate between the Urban and the popular?

·         How might popular practices operate with the political in occasions of mass protest and Urban activism?

 

Urban Regeneration

·         How do popular practices operate historically within Urban environments?

·         How might Urban environments create opportunities for the revival of popular practices?

·         How does cultural memory intersect with popular practice in city environments?

Urban Gentrification

·         How do popular performance practices legitimize and negate Urban gentrification?

·         Who is priced out of popular dance and music practices, and to what effect?

·         What are the cultural effects of digital technologies upon popular performance in Urban contexts?

·         What are the representations of city and bodies on screen?

 

Urban Decay

·         How do notions of deprivation and decline impact upon popular practices?

·         To what extent does the vibrancy of moving bodies rupture ideas of deprivation and degeneration?  

·         What are the risks and possibilities of clubbing in the wake of nightclub closures?

More Information: https://popmoves.com/archive/november-2017-conference/

UK Hip hop dance artists making dance/theatre: It's time to debate.

Where is the debate? Well here is an idea, why don't all those hip hop dance/theatre platforms, where artists say they are politically engaged and not engrossed and subjugated by 'the industry', invite activists like Ishmahil Blagrove to speak about working outside of the UK media, and government formulated creative industries? Or just to share undocumented experiences of real UK history. Just a thought...........the debate is long overdue! Jumping through funding hoops or subjugating agency and voice under NPO prerogatives has made many artists lazy and apolitical: scared to bite the hand that feeds them, or that doesn't but might.

Moving Politically: A turbulent approach

Session 6
11.45 – 13.15

Panel 6A Performance and Politics

Panel Chair: Noel Brown (Liverpool Hope University) 

  • Emma-Jayne Reekie (University of Liverpool) ‘“The Times They Are A-Changin”: Politicians, Musicians and the Political Award’ 
  • Paul Sadot (University of Chichester) ‘Moving Politically: A turbulent approach’ 

THE LAUGHING STOCK OF EUROPE - translated by Paula Kirby

This article appeared in a Swiss  Newspaper and was translated by Paula Kirby (17th June 2017)

This article in a Swiss newspaper today is so ruthlessly clear-sighted in its assessment of just how screwed we are that I just had to translate it for the non-German speakers. Hold on to your hats:

THE LAUGHING STOCK OF EUROPE

If it weren't so serious, the situation in Great Britain would almost be comical. The country is being governed by a talking robot, nicknamed the Maybot, that somehow managed to visit the burned-out tower block in the west of London without speaking to a single survivor or voluntary helper. Negotiations for the country’s exit from the EU are due to begin on Monday, but no one has even a hint of a plan. The government is dependent on a small party that provides a cozy home for climate change deniers and creationists. Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary. What in the world has happened to this country?

Two years ago David Cameron emerged from the parliamentary election as the shining victor. He had secured an absolute majority, and as a result it looked as if the career of this cheerful lightweight was headed for surprisingly dizzy heights. The economy was growing faster than in any other industrialised country in the world. Scottish independence and, with it, the break-up of the United Kingdom had been averted. For the first time since 1992, there was a Conservative majority in the House of Commons. Great Britain saw itself as a universally respected actor on the international stage. This was the starting point.

In order to get from this comfortable position to the chaos of the present in the shortest possible time, two things were necessary: first, the Conservative right wingers’ obsessive hatred of the EU, and second, Cameron’s irresponsibility in putting the whole future of the country on the line with his referendum, just to satisfy a few fanatics in his party. It is becoming ever clearer just how extraordinarily bad a decision that was. The fact that Great Britain has become the laughing stock of Europe is directly linked to its vote for Brexit.

The ones who will suffer most will be the British people, who were lied to by the Brexit campaign during the referendum and betrayed and treated like idiots by elements of their press. The shamelessness still knows no bounds: the Daily Express has asked in all seriousness whether the inferno in the tower block was due to the cladding having been designed to meet EU standards. It is a simple matter to discover that the answer to this question is No, but by failing to check it, the newspaper has planted the suspicion that the EU might be to blame for this too. As an aside: a country in which parts of the press are so demonstrably uninterested in truth and exploit a disaster like the fire in Grenfell Tower for their own tasteless ends has a very serious problem.

Already prices are rising in the shops, already inflation is on the up. Investors are holding back. Economic growth has slowed. And that’s before the Brexit negotiations have even begun. With her unnecessary general election, Prime Minister Theresa May has already squandered an eighth of the time available for them. How on earth an undertaking as complex as Brexit is supposed to be agreed in the time remaining is a mystery.

Great Britain will end up leaving its most important trading partner and will be left weaker in every respect. It would make economic sense to stay in the single market and the customs union, but that would mean being subject to regulations over which Britain no longer had any say. It would be better to have stayed in the EU in the first place. So the government now needs to develop a plan that is both politically acceptable and brings the fewest possible economic disadvantages. It’s a question of damage limitation, nothing more; yet even now there are still politicians strutting around Westminster smugly trumpeting that it will be the EU that comes off worst if it doesn’t toe the line.

The EU is going to be dealing with a government that has no idea what kind of Brexit it wants, led by an unrealistic politician whose days are numbered; and a party in which old trenches are being opened up again: moderate Tories are currently hoping to be able to bring about a softer exit after all, but the hardliners in the party – among them more than a few pigheadedly obstinate ideologues – are already threatening rebellion. An epic battle lies ahead, and it will paralyse the government.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said that he now expects the Brits to finally set out their position clearly, since he cannot negotiate with himself. The irony of this statement is that it would actually be in Britain’s best interests if he did just that. At least that way they’d have one representative on their side who grasps the scale of the task and is actually capable of securing a deal that will be fair to both sides. The Brits do not have a single negotiator of this stature in their ranks. And quite apart from the Brexit terms, both the debate and the referendum have proven to be toxic in ways that are now making themselves felt.

British society is now more divided than at any time since the English civil war in the 17th century, a fact that was demonstrated anew in the general election, in which a good 80% of the votes were cast for the two largest parties. Neither of these parties was offering a centrist programme: the election was a choice between the hard right and the hard left. The political centre has been abandoned, and that is never a good sign. In a country like Great Britain, that for so long had a reputation for pragmatism and rationality, it is grounds for real concern. The situation is getting decidedly out of hand.

After the loss of its empire, the United Kingdom sought a new place in the world. It finally found it, as a strong, awkward and influential part of a larger union: the EU. Now it has given up this place quite needlessly. The consequence, as is now becoming clear, is a veritable identity crisis from which it will take the country a very long time to recover.

http://www.derbund.ch/ausland/standard/lachnummer-europas/story/29320034

Theorising the Popular Conference June 21st-22nd 2017

I will be presenting my work at this event.

 June 22nd: Panel 6B - 11.45am - 1.15pm

Performance and Politics

Panel Chair: Joshua Gulam (Liverpool Hope University) 

  • Emma-Jayne Reekie (University of Liverpool) ‘“The Times They Are A-Changin”: Politicians, Musicians and the Political Award’ 
  • Mark O’Thomas (Newcastle University) ‘The Rhetoric of Hamilton and its emancipated spectators’ 
  • Paul Sadot (University of Chichester) ‘Moving Politically: A turbulent approach’ 

The Forward (E)motion of Northern Soul Dancing

I have a chapter in this new book coming out in 2017

Chapter Nine: I'm Still Looking for Unknowns all the Time: The Forward (E)motion of Northern Soul Dancing

Paul Sadot 

Description

Drawing on the author’s embodied knowledge as a Northern Soul dancer, and his work as a practice research scholar investigating popular dance forms, this chapter investigates two distinct Northern Soul scenes: the ‘oldies’ and the ‘newies’. It places in dialogue notions of space, temporality and musical taste to examine how each scene constructs and relates to Northern Soul history and the different movement vocabularies that result. In doing so, the chapter discusses evolving musical diversity on the northern soul scene, set against notions of fixity, historical re-enactment and pastiche, and their relationship to a version of northern soul dancing that has gripped the imagination of outside UK media and academics for some time. It explores how these corporeal myths are often acted out by insiders on the oldies scene and examines the possible impact on the dancing styles of younger participants.

https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=31283

"I don't do Politics"

I have spoken to artists who say they "don't do politics", which is a statement that I find almost absurd. Art, involved with then? In a time of such massive conflict, coercion and censorship, artists  voices and platforms must engage with the precarity of such a state. If you are employed in the arts, funded, paid, sponsored, if you perform in venues, if you spend your time working to get the work, you are a part of that political economy, to ignore that is to bury ones head in the sand. It often appears to be a case of "I'm alright Jack" or "Don't bite the hand that feeds you", which is what the system aims to do by individualising people as if they are unique. But, the fact is they/we are not if we just roll along in that system, it is a strategy aimed at the homogeneity of precarity: designed to fracture communitas, artistic or otherwise.

“An artists duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times”
— Nina Simone

Theorising the Popular Conference at Liverpool Hope University

I am looking forward to sharing my work and a paper at this event.

‘Moving Politically: A turbulent approach’ - Paul Sadot

June 21st - 22nd 2017

“The funding of gatekeeping institutions in UK arts is directly linked to Conservative government prerogatives that are explicitly “increasing investment to organisations that produce and present art of international significance, and that also contribute to tourism and the local economy” (Hill, 2014). It can be argued that these artistic policies, driven by the globalised, corporate economisation of the arts, produce a simulacrum of culture and democracy. In doing so they raise concerns for artists making work in the UK regarding issues of agency and mobility. My practice research focusses on one of these enclaves, hip hop dancers in the space of UK contemporary dance/theatre”

Spoken Movement presents 'Obibini' (London June 6th, 2017)

“Obibini tackles the concept of identity within black culture and how its influences exist in our time and space. Experience the block of work and how its sense of evolution is evoked into today’s modern day society.”

Spoken Movement is a company that have taken the elements of street dance and contemporary dance to create their own vocabulary in movement. Using different genres of music, Spoken Movement look to push boundaries by undertaking concepts, issues and day to day life experiences, to create thought provoking pieces of work.

MBE's, honours awards and surrendering agency.

Personally, I am always bemused and disappointed when artists accept these so called 'honours', which are in fact, the antithesis of art and agency. Surrendering to memories of a brutal empire..............

“The whole honours system stinks of class privilege and social snobbery […] It is a relic of feudalism, with a taint of nepotism and corruption. […] In addition, too many honours have imperial titles, such as Member of the British Empire. The Empire is rightly long gone. When it existed, hundreds of millions of people in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific were colonised by Britain, ruled against their will, enslaved, exploited as cheap labour and had their lands stripped of natural resources. This sordid imperial history is not something worthy of commemoration with honours such as MBEs, OBEs and CBEs.”

 (Tatchell, 2016).

UK Artists using Hip Hop elements: Spoken Movement

 

Spoken Movement:  https://www.spokenmovement.org/single-post/2017/03/15/Wisdom-Wednesday-UK-Artists-using-Hip-Hop-Elements

 

"Wisdom Wednesday" UK Artists using Hip-Hop Elements

March 15, 2017

Photos:  Benji Reid                                                           Jonathan Burrows

Photos:  Benji Reid                                                           Jonathan Burrows

“In the UK there is a small group of artists using elements of hip hop in the creation of dance/theatre who I describe as marginal figures. They dance the precarity of our times, as they search for a new performance alchemy. Their work seeks to evade stylistic boxes, responding instead to a powerful, unstoppable, need to question the sociocultural and political environment in which they live. They seek a new voice, a new state of movement and another way of doing things. Kwame Asafo-Adjei is one such artist. ”

(Paul Sadot, 2017)