dancing – BLANK CANVAS

Exercise

Obsessive about exercising, many people can’t resist the lure of the gym. Increasingly dipping into the well, great sadness overtaking when away and the local gym is not available. Endorphins. Fitness. Health. The need to sweat and really take your body to another level. Some people obsess with yoga, a downward dog view of the world, upside down looking at the ceiling. When you see humans walking from upside down it looks like they are dancing, moving more quickly, like an old film but with modern beauty. An unreality that is surprising. There is a religious energy to exercising, especially keeping it long and slow, bending over to put your hands under your feet, connecting the body to the ground and beyond. Resonating with the wooden floor of the local church hall, top to bottom, history seeping into the body as impossible angles are gradually achieved, the body contorted into relaxation rather than exhausted into the same state. Both can make you feel great, taking the mind through body to another world, a fantasy land where money, food, friends, family, politics and location don’t exist. A purity of feeling as your legs go increasingly faster or push against greater resistance. Breathing deeply, closing eyes and dreaming off whilst building up strength and stability. Body Balance, Pilates, Yoga all aim to relax you. Take your head away from itself, transporting to another world that is grounded but also in a dream state. A connection to the earth allowing the mind to wonder free or to be empty, the voices of the mind dumped for an hour or so, cleansed, pure. Sweat dripping from your eyes whilst cycling wildly is the ultimate experience in the gym, pushing from a position of strength, feeling powerful and alive, electronic dance beats propelling you forward. Pushing on as 80s nostalgia floods from the speakers, knowing smiles and the occasional accompanying voice from your fellow participants. Choosing to be here, not under contract, you do you babe. Music in exercise is an essential way of transporting your mind to another galaxy, another time, freeing your mind whilst getting fitter. Good for the body and mind. Spiritual. India. The gentle lilting tabla and tanbura or harmonium, providing a wavering drone and clipping beat, tones and rhythms pulling you into mystical worlds, the misty ghats of Varanassi or the cool breeze of the south, slower, easier, less spicy. Varkala. Upbeat driving beats in spin transform the gym to a glitzy flashing club, a pop neon plastic world where everything is full on, to the (Pepsi) max. Sugar and sweet rather than the green tea or chai of yogic energy. Both can make you feel amazing, especially transferring from one to the other. Ying and Yang. Movement and stillness. Speed and strength. Dripping with sweat from cycling, the heart racing increasingly faster, then stopping, transforming, getting the mat, slowing down, flexing, breathing in through your nose and out of your mouth. Slowing down. Stretching. Eyes closing.

Buena Bristol Social Club

So there are 5 nights until the next full moon, where you can leave the comfort of your house and safely venture out to the wonderful Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis where you will happen upon East Devon Soul presenting the wonderful music of the Buena Vista Social Club recreated with a Bristol swagger by some of the best UK latin musicians. What more do you want to usher in Spring and Summer 2025. What better sound or view will you get in the UK to experience latin tropical vibes. Enrollar, enrollar, come and join the moon!

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Book here: https://www.marinetheatre.com/buena-bristol-social-club/

Saturday 12th April 7.00 – 10.30pm

Let it all flow: 88888

I have been on a journey writing my second book for what has probably been about a year now. Everyday I get up at 6am and write for an hour, letting my unconscious lead me, a time where the troubled mind has yet to arrive, a pure blank canvas. Today the sign of prosperity and hope arrived:

I try to ignore milestones, just write and then later edit, allowing the flow to take control. These are the words as I passed 88888

Dancing is a way of staying fit without the conscious effort. In fact I sometimes go to a dance fit class at my local gym, where I am the only bloke. It’s a tough class that makes me laugh. Some people have been attending for years, creating their own mini scenius, joy unbound. Dancing with friends to great mixes, DJ’s who are really taking the group on a journey that resonates, reinforcing your connection to your friends, the feeling that you are in the best place in the world, the only space that matters at that time. You rely on the DJ and dancing, remembering those special moments when DJ and audience combined in rapturous harmony. DJ Rod Davies at the New Milton Town Hall in 1981 spinning early Depeche Mode or Heaven 17; the Unity St club in Bristol, 1986, water dripping from the ceiling to the deep dark underworld of the Dug Out; the Whirl-y-Gig at Womad festival, connecting world and electronic music in the open air; the Blue Note, Hoxton of course, a tunnel of love; Planet Shroom or Megadog, adding a large dose of psychedelics; to DJ Woodies mix at tiny, personal GrassRoots festival, a cohesive and reaffirming experience, taking you on a journey through pop, country, soul, hip hop, grime and dubstep with a drum and bass base. Dancing outside has a liberating and fresh feel. It feels right and celebratory of the earth rather than being surrounded by man-made objects. Everyones feet resonating with the ground and the earth coming back with its reflective vibrations. Dancing with stars flying over a Cornish sky, meteorites flashing occasional trails through the milky way. A unique feeling of connection with the world which the warmth of the English summer or paddling on a Thai beach can create. The collaborative flow between people who might have just met, each with their own small groups of mates sharing the love, all coming together, right now, over me. The rave, protest march, tube train on the first day back at work, the football crowd celebrating a last minute winner for the home team, watching a film at the cinema where the audience all gasp at the plot twist, a simultaneous flow., like traffic in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, interconnecting mopeds, each with individual lives and experiences circling around each other. They never seem to touch, let alone crash, in a whirlwind of impossibility millions of bikes head off in their individual directions for a common goal. Everyone going somewhere, existing, milling around.

group of people dancing at Shambala music festival

Social Rhythm

Hoedown at Hanks, Boomtown 2023

Musicologist Sophie Zehetmayer explores elements of music that resonate with the world. The social rhythm which we all undertake in our own unique ways, like the moped riders of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, out on their own journeys without ever intersecting with each other, kept apart by constantly blaring horns. Social rhythm connects to our working hours, economic laws, and daily scheduling. Affect and political power, representation, the body. Hate, fear, shame, disgust or happiness perhaps, aligning to affect and rhythm as theorised by Sarah Ahmed. From the Body to being embodied. SENSATION. The name of a life changing exhibition of Young British Artist’s work at the Royal Academy in London. A shark cut in half and preserved in formaldehyde. An artist can be a sensation, coming through the ranks to be a star, but also it is about how the work resonates, its sensory connections to our thoughts and feelings. Bodies replicate, take the shape of the movement, of the collective over time, morphing, changing due to feedback, resolution, and through repetition. I see this as connecting to the knobs and sliders of an electronic synthesiser, a machine which originally was trying to replicate traditional sounds but became its own instrument, with variances between makes and models due to the filters and routing of sound, the materials and the way they have been used. ADSR – attack, sustain, delay and release. Something which sounds like an operational delivery for a war machine but also to cybernetic concepts of organism. The five steps of operation in cybernetic systems: goal activation, action selection, action, outcome interpretation, goal comparison. A manmade instrument and social system in perfect harmony. Standing over a synthesiser, patching cables between the various sections so you can create your own unique sonic: oscillators vibrating, generating the raw triangular or square sound waves, which can be mixed and then filtered through cut off and resonance before being shaped by the ADSR. Synthesisers, like samplers and AI, were meant to ruin music, take away the role of the true musician but have become essential tools that vibrate with the intensity of society. The use of synths in modern dance music highlights the deep emotions they generate, where filter sweeps can take resonant sounds into the bodies of masses, vibrating core frequencies of ecstasy. In these moments we are connected, at one with the world and those around us, the tribe dancing to the same beat. Simplicity, repetition and movement. Forgetting the troubles of the world around us but just connecting on the same level. The social sonic.