Speaking Truth To Power...

For those of yous eager beavers out in that place corking to mass a position on the side past times side large-scale gratis North West Arts & Health Network event, it volition last the a follow-up to the Creative Health study launch held inward the summertime at the Manchester School of Art. HOLD THE DATE >>>>TUESDAY sixth FEBRUARY<<<< as well as details amongst how to contribute as well as attend volition last hither really shortly.
 

The Centenary for Women’s Suffrage is 2018
The centenary of property-owning women, over thirty years of historic menstruum as well as all men receiving the vote volition last celebrated inward 2018. Shouldn't nosotros at i time last acknowledging those pioneers, ordinary people who did extraordinary things, to farther the care to gain the vote? It was these people who helped highlight the chance for ALL women to participate inward republic past times uncovering the achievements of those who both fought for the Representation of the People Act 1918 as well as thus went on to participate inward the opportunities it created. The aim of the this project is to position as well as celebrate the lives of 100 women as well as men who were active inward the travail for extending the vote to all women as well as who went on to role their extended rights of citizenship inward a positive agency inward their local areas. This could last your grandmother, aunt, or other household unit of measurement member. If thus allow us receive got some information almost them as well as perhaps they volition instruct i of those 100 pioneers nosotros want to recognise.

So - are yous aware of women from the North West who deserve to last recognised? If so, yous receive got until the halt of Dec to nominate them. Click HERE to nominate.

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH?
Question: How much is a post service Dr. arts as well as wellness researcher worth? 

Answer: With a starting price, it seems - £17,326!
(Now what is the average pupil debt I wonder…?)

Want to know more? 
Want to locomote for the job? Click HERE.

Orwellian nightmare or fairer scheme for all? What Quality Metrics volition hateful for arts funding.
“Can yous mensurate the character of art? Well, no. You can’t accept out a ruler as well as uncovering how expert a play is, though yous tin mensurate things that hover to a greater extent than or less it, such every bit how many people came to run into it as well as how much it cost. Instead, deciding what is expert is a human as well as subjective affair – as well as who gets to arrive at upward one's heed is a tender as well as touchy subject. When, recently, it became clear that Arts Council England was intending to brand information collection on the character of a operate compulsory for the largest organisations it funds – rolling out a “Quality Metrics” programme – in that place was an outcry. “Horseshit,” tweeted creative mortal Tim Etchells. Composer Thomas Adès wrote: “Tell me this is a hoax. What happened to human opinions, judgment, discernment? Knowledge, taste? Not plenty likes?” There were fears that the arts council was almost to see on England an Orwellian scenario inward which funding decisions would last based on algorithms as well as boxes ticked.” This is an extract from Charlotte Higgins’ total article which yous tin read HERE.

Reflections on a dance
On Sabbatum I had the pleasance of seeing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre perform. In truth I’d gone along to this functioning nether a piffling duress, having overindulged on Thomas Adès's - The Exterminating Angel - an opera based on the wonderful Luis Buñuel celluloid of the same name, but an opera which left me cold. There’s something longer to write almost opera, life experience as well as a sure enough white inward looking smugness, but I’ll instruct out that i for some other day. 

But beingness an aficionado of Strictly Come Dancing - I idea I’d plow over the Alvin Ailey a go, as well as to last honest, it’s been i of the to a greater extent than profound as well as moving things I’ve experienced inward my fourth dimension inward the US, as well as for reasons which receive got completely surprised me. My background is staunchly white working class, as well as trip the low-cal fantastic toe as well as opera were never on the radar - never - (and after all the hype to a greater extent than or less the Adès, opera all the same inhabits a infinite which has the ability to repel). In fact inward the belatedly 70’s when punk was evolving into some variety of novel wave, I recall I bought a re-create of Peter as well as the Wolf purely because Bowie was doing the narration on it. Walking home, I bumped into my dad as well as he asked me what I’d bought. I showed him the album, as well as he looked a piffling worried, his furrowed forehead a piffling deeper than usual. Later that same day, he asked to receive got a relaxation discussion amongst me. He’d been talking amongst my mum, as well as advised me that I was getting into some serious materials listening to classical music, as well as I should last careful.

So sitting inward the god’s at the trip the low-cal fantastic toe performance, I was surprised to detect myself thinking of my parents again, as well as my dad’s words of caution. There were 2 moments which struck me. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 functioning called After The Rain Pas De Deux - which used i of those ‘classical’ pieces of music that receive got thus corrupted me over these year; Spiegel Im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt. Two dancers - Jacqueline Green as well as Yannick Lebrun - transfixed me. I’d listened to this operate a K times, but never seen the operate made existent - physical. All I could do, was think of my mum. Think how she also loved Strictly, as well as how every bit a missy she loved to trip the low-cal fantastic toe inward Morecambe’s ballrooms of the 30’s as well as 40’s. To my knowledge, she never went to run into trip the low-cal fantastic toe performed - yet I know - she also would receive got been moved thus deeply past times this.

Then a 2nd moment, as well as some other trunk of curt pieces performed past times the company, nether the championship of Revelations amongst choreography past times Alvin Ailey inward 1960. These were what I tin solely depict every bit shorter trip the low-cal fantastic toe sequences laid to African-American spiritual songs amongst titles similar I Been ‘Buked and Didn’t My Lord Deliver Me Daniel, written past times Hall Johnson.

With my atheistic as well as working degree labour roots, this operate had an fifty-fifty to a greater extent than complicated touching on on my bio-chemical as well as neurological pathways! What was happening? For a expert one-half sixty minutes of poignant fables as well as impossibly beautiful motility - I was bleary eyed - transfixed as well as completely cocooned from the white-trash president who was inward town for the day. But the biggest surprise for me, was that I was cocooned amongst my dad, who inward my heed would receive got been thus deeply moved past times the whole experience. It was listening to this spiritual music as well as seeing all that human potential (and beingness aware of the darker depths of the work) that I remembered the music of my childhood that he as well as my mum loved as well as which I solely always actually considered after he died, as well as which I chose for his funeral - largely that of Paul Robeson. Deep, resonating as well as really black.

I didn’t grow upward inward a urban essence - thus the variety of London, Paris or New York was irrelevant to me, my variety quota beingness served upward past times the TV courtesy of Love They Neighbour, Rising Damp as well as the Wheel Tappers as well as Shunters Social Club. Don’t ask! 

So in that place I was - watching, hearing, feeling something resonating through my trunk which took me dorsum abode to the music of my childhood as well as to a conversation that I'd had amongst my dad inward his afterwards years - almost Paul Robeson. What was it almost him that had appealed thus much to this hardworking Morecambe man? It’s solely thus that he told me almost Robeson’s fourth dimension inward front end of the The House Un-American Activities Committee as well as his operate supporting Welsh coal miners; an unfolding floor of injustices as well as something heroic beyond the private as well as towards wider social good. You tin read a far to a greater extent than eloquent concern human relationship of his life HERE. You tin also instruct a flavor of Roberson’s eloquence inward this curt as well as powerful celluloid below. Talk almost speaking truth to power.

In that theatrical infinite - I felt some variety of deep connectedness amongst my parents - a existent post-mortem treat. Some mightiness impose wider supernatural influences on these kinds of moments, but I don’t. It was exhilaration at the beauty of human athleticism, of beingness inward i of those spaces (like a church building - but stripped of all its superstition) as well as immersed solely inward the thing. Nothing else existed, but this wonderful familial connectedness rooted inward the moment, inward the aesthetic as well as inward a shared poetry, yet born of poverty as well as systemic inequalities.  

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