Tag Archives: Art

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Perversions made possible by the machine age

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I’ve just been rereading George Orwell’s essay, Benefit of Clergy, a critique of Salvador Dali’s autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.

“As a record of fantasy, of the perversion of instinct that has been made possible by the machine age, it has great value.”

George Orwell, Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali

Which set me thinking. What kind of perversion is Orwell talking about here? The machine age has certainly made a lot of things possible, not all of them good. I suppose you could say that lying around in a centrally heated living room bingeing out on TV, junk food, social media and computer games is a kind of perversion made possible by the machine age.

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Blog, Paradise Lost

Phoenix Dance Theatre – Particle Velocity

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The Observer
Review
Luke Jennings

Phoenix dance theatre is on a high. With new purpose-built premises in Leeds, and a charismatic director in Sharon Watson, the 10-strong ensemble is ready to take on the world. On Tuesday night, with a cold wind slicing off the sea, a small but enthusiastic crowd bundled into the Connaught theatre to catch Phoenix’s latest programme, Particle Velocity.

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Blog, Paradise Lost

Reflections on the dance phenomenon at Harehills Middle School by Nadine Senior

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by Nadine Senior, dance UK

Nadine Senior, Founder of Northern School of Contemporary Dance, reflects on the incredible success of her work as a dance teacher at Harehills Middle School in the 1970s and 1980s.

How it began

In 1970, I was appointed Head of Physical Education in an all-girls high school in Leeds. Many of the girls in this inner city, multi-cultural school had behavioural problems and one of them eventually burnt the school to the ground, though fortunately no one was hurt. Thereafter, we simply moved into the boys’ school which was on the same campus.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Broadcast TV

Are The Kids Alright? Brass Tacks, BBC2 (1979)

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Radio Times,
14 August 1979
BBC2
8.5-9.0
Brass Tacks
Are The Kids Alright?

With unemployment running at twice the national average, and further redundancies in the shipyards, the age of leisure has come early for many of Sunderland’s youngsters.

Michael is 16, on the dole, and buying a £300 guitar on HP. His recently-formed group – The Rejected – is receiving encouragement from the local community theatre, which also faces redundancies as government cutbacks begin to bite.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

Plight of the youngsters

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Bradford Telegraph & Argus
14 August 1979

In Sunderland the problems of youth unemployment are writ large. There are 40 percent fewer small businesses than the national average. The shipyards and coalmines are threatened with closure. Dole queues and boredom are the lot of many youngsters in the area.

In Are the Kids All Right? BRASS TACKS (BBC-2, 8.5) talks to the young unemployed of Sunderland including Michael, a 16-year-old whose dreams of making it are all centred on his £300 guitar and his new band, The Rejected.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

NO JOB, JUST A £300 GUITAR

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The Liverpool Echo
14 August 1979
TV GUIDE
TONIGHT’S CHOICE

A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD who’s on the dole and whose dream of making something of his life centres on a £300 guitar is one of the most interesting characters in tonight’s Brass Tacks film (BBC-2, 8.10).

Although the film is about Sunderland, much of what it has to say about youth unemployment and bored youngsters could just as well apply to Liverpool.

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