Saturday, 26 February 2011

is this the start of a new movement.

The events,protests,revolutions coming out of the middle east over the past weeks throws light on the possibilities of people power in our own country.These rebellions taking place in other countries should be a warning to the "democracies" of Western dominated capitalism .I don't fully hold with the argument perpetuated by the West,that thus out pouring of peoples power in about a shift towards democracy.Rather these rebellions,are about fundamental rights to work,education.and equality. If anything they are represent the first stirrings of a fight back against the all powerful greed of the ruling elite.
Suddenly people are not only not afraid of the murderous dictators who have been ruling over them,with the backing of Western Democracies,but they are pulling into focus the role of unelected banks and their off shots in dictating how countries and by implication societies should operate.Out of nowhere people have said enough!!Get out!!
The banks and their greed may find the new order will not play by the rules of the old order.
At last people are fighting back.
In this country,which always talks above its weight,we have an unelected Conservative Coalition who have embarked on the dismantling of society in order to implement the discredited values of the free market. The Trade Union Movement is out dated.A once proud ideal is floundering in the past.Its the young,the students, creative minds who are showing how to launch a fight back against the arrogant greed which for so long as been destroying the moral and social fabric of our culture and society.
But the media is almost silent.It sets a right wing agenda then the PM follows.
The kingdom never voted for this onslaught.We have a Gov making up laws on a daily basis,laws which to all intents a purpose appease the city,there by appeasing the banks and there by appeasing there weak but inflated egos.
Its the young who have taken it upon themselves to show what and how greed as corrupted this kingdom.Everything feels old and cruel but the young are leading the way foreword.
Like the whirlwind sweeping through parts of the world we need to embrace that dynamic energy and may bury the outdated notions of democracy into the dustbin where it belongs.

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

a tired mind

Its always the same this time of year,every year its the same,year after year after year I always forget how this season of slow change creeps into my spirits, this is the season of slow rebirth and all the while the Banks stand supreme in their utter contempt for humanity, the whole system is more akin to a cult, something tells me we have been living under some crazy religion, some hysterical idea based on one over riding principle, greed, we have been conned by the oldest con in history,greed,when I walk around I smell greed,what does greed smell like, it smells raw, where is culture in all this/ where is Art in all this/ something is wrong we are losing the will to fight back,art is stagnant/its there and not there/like losing confidence it drags you into a series of misguided criticism of the self/ something is wrong/all the artists have discovered the life of the mortgage/like all of us they sold out to the advertising men and women/we conned ourselves and the seasons are chaging/and still the streets hum with hum.

Sunday, 6 February 2011

been away again

How long now two weeks? Been a while and society is moving in some strange patterns,leaving traces of the past behind whilst culture is heading so far back its difficult trying to capture what we are losing. Some time ago myself and my generation bemoaned the fantasy that the young were not as politically engaged as my own/our generation was.Well that as proved to be a stupid and arrogant assessment. Today the young are leading a fight back against one of the most rotten and weird Government's this country as had to confront in its recent history.We never voted for this arrogance. But at least Class is back on the agenda. More on at a latter date.
Strange ideas emerge from the sleep of the cultural industries. Like a dream coming into life,out of place yet with all the venom of a vipers bite the actuality of aspects of the "industry" is showing signs of fear.The young are not all addicted to becoming instant sickos on a production line entertainment factory,they don't go round blasting themselves out of existence,they don't all live in hopeless apathy declining into states of mental retardation, they don't all rob each other and they are not all wasted out on cheap booze and crazy drugs. They are holding the adult world to account.They haven't yet declared war on their elders,bot something is shifting, the culture world which lived on a false high and false sense of its own fantasy is confronting some kind of anger,some kind of irrational exploration,some kind of self discovery, something out of nowhere is blasting away at all those unsafe foundations put in place by out of touch seekers after self. For to long the conservatives who have colonised the expression and the identify of culture under the guise of "arts" have been able to cloak themselves in a shield of invisibility.
A sense of self deception is now being exposed and what is coming out from the shadows of delusions and fear is a kind of authoritarian absurdity.
I have been speaking to some young people recently about their ideas and need to quest after a self identify away from the recent past. Language and the realty of their culture existence plays a role in uncovering tensions which young people need to confront and hit out at. Language is a way into power, it is also a means of underarming power. young people will always develop codes and signifiers which hold at arms length the suffocating embrace of adults who need to control.
Power resides in language,language is our means of holding onto each other, it is some kind of entrance into a world we know and feel part of,even though we can exclude other people and communities. Language is power no matter who resides over and within that power.
When a small elite start to colonise another person,another group and start to dictate the direction of language we enter the realm of power elites.Authoritarian attitudes dominate the cultural industries.Young people are only welcomed into the embrace of the inner sanctum if and when they are deemed to have conformed to a secret set of unwritten codes.
One such code is don't upset the media.
This was brought home to me the other day when I was informed that a small one off play was criticised by a group of adults who disapproved of some language in some context in some scene.
Theatre should be concerned with the exploration of ideas,first and foremost theatre must be a laboratory of improvisation and challange. If it doesent upset it doesent work. if itdoesent challange and move ones senses it doesent work, if theatre is a comfort zone for preconcieved ideas its enterd the dead zone.
Most theatre is now safe in the grayness of the dead zone.
Its good to be back...