https://www.dancenorthern.com/dvd.html -
"It's fit, it's fun and very, very soulful." - is the catch phrase and marketing. So is it?
Is it just me, or is this like a new line-dancing thing?
Can anyone explain what it has to do with any scene that was meant to inspire individual spirit, anarchy through individuality and LISTENING to the music yourself and developing accordingly.
Shockingly bad and nothing to do with Northern Soul?
Or should i just forget that moniker and what it meant and accept it has been hijacked by a bunch off sad, opportunistic, self-appointed, self important, self contained, self - congratulatory, controlling re-emergers?
World Northern Soul Dance Championships? Really? What world? Is that because the Blackpool event is so multi-cultural and representative of the World scene? Should it not be The Blackpool Dance Competition? I mean who makes this stuff up?
Its all so plastic and weirdly in-bred.
For those who say "forget politics and dance" well maybe you were not there in the first place. I got into it as an act of rebellion against the mainstream offerings of the time when i was young and kept that spirit through the 80's and 90's when a lot of Wigan goers had just packed in and a group of dedicated, soulful, anarchistic, caring people kept the scene alive. Developing it in the spirit of discovery that had inspired it in the first place.
SO, politics gave 'birth' to the scene, it was an act of rebellion that inspired many of us to nurture it and ourselves within it.
Now the phrase "forget politics and dance" seems to cover a multitude of acts such as Dance Dvds and their accompanying guru's, World Championships, Dancing on crap TV and listening to the same 500 records over and over again..........
Politics is a necessary thing, not a dirty word as many proffer in their simplistic arguments for doing what is basically a load of old tat.
Thank the soul gods for the small clubs and true people that maintain and nurture the original political spirit of rebellion through their love of music. No DVD's to tell people how to dance, no top 500 hammered to death like nails in a coffin, no World domination through competition and a memory of the astronautical spirit of exploration and discovery that inspired many of us in the first place.
So I say "Remember politics and dance"...
Just my opinion of course....