SNOW...KNOWS...CLOUDY...PINES

This blogger will be signing out until the start of January, but small moments may float on and off the blog over the coming weeks…

For now:
Save the Date 23rd January 2018
The Harmonic Oscillator with Vic McEwan and Clive Parkinson
Where: HOME - Manchester
Tickets and details: HERE

Save the Date 6th February 2018 
Creative Health Revisited: Culture and the Arts as Social Determinants of Health
Where: The Manchester School of Art
Want to be involved? Want to register your interest in sharing your work? Just want to attend?
Email a short and sweet message to artsforhealth@mmu.ac.uk and remember, priority is given to those in the North West and particularly those with strong grass-roots experience.
 
Save the Date 5th - 7th March 2019
Advanced notice of the World Health Congress (Europe) 2019.
I am very pleased to let you know that over 2019 Manchester Central will be holding the World Healthcare Congress - and that I am proud to be working alongside the Whitworth’s Esme Ward, and together we'll be curating a dedicated arts and health theme for both of these, three day conferences.

This is huge in terms of arts and health connecting into mainstream global health events, and offers us a unique opportunity. Greater Manchester leads the way in the development of arts and health: its influence has international reach. From small-scale projects and multidisciplinary research, to systemic cultural change and a history of radical thinking, we believe in doing it differently. 

Participation in culture and the arts has the potential to enrich life experience, public health and human potential. This conference theme will interrogate the arts as a social determinant of health. Greater Manchester will act as the incubator to this global conversation and I'll share a lot more on this as our planning unfolds.

YAWN As the arts and health community begins some great shifts and changes, 2018 looks all set to be a spectacular year - a mix of bun-fights and enlightenment - and more on that very, very soon.

I see too, that Arts Council England has welcomed Elizabeth Murdoch into its National Council as the former head of Sky Networks established a £1.5 million fund for young visual artists. This is certainly one to watch. I can just imagine those tap-dancing venture philanthropists, champing at the bit to get her involved with their personal pet projects! All we can do, in the words of our Strictly Hosts, is - Keep Dancing!

...and finally As my research leave draws to a close, I extend my warmest thanks to all those people in the US who’ve shown an interest in Arts for Health and my evolving research focusing explicitly on inequalities and social justice. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to spend time with you, and to Carrie McGee particularly - my warmest thanks.

To friends old and new, my very best things for 2018 and all that is ahead of us…  ☁︎
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A pause to think of all the people called Mark - known, unknown, family and friends.

Then - a number of funding opportunities for those who work with children and young people...

Funding to support the core costs of youth organisations
Not for profit youth organisations that support young people (aged 14 - 25) facing disadvantage can apply for grants of between 10,000 and £60,000 through the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Youth Fund. The funding is available for up to two-years and will support the core operating costs of the applicant organisation. Examples of what can be funded include part-funding the salary of a key individual. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and up to 30 awards a year will be granted through this fund. Read more HERE. 

Helping Hand: youth project funding from #iwill 
Go Think Big are offering 10 grants of up to £500 to young people who have good ideas for projects that use volunteering as a way of boosting their own skills and experience and those of their peers. The Helping Hand Youth Project Initiative encourages young people aged 15 - 24 to make a difference to their communities by getting involved in a wide range of activities such as campaigning, fundraising and volunteering. The deadline for applications is Sunday 31st December 2017. Read more HERE. 

Funding for projects that use the arts & media to address the concerns of children
Not-for-profit organisations in the UK that are working with children and young people using the arts and creative media can apply for funding of up to £50,000 through the Ragdoll Foundation's Open Grants Programme. The Ragdoll Foundation's vision is to support projects where the concerns of childhood can be heard. Organisations can apply for both one-off short-term projects and for projects lasting up to three years. Preference will be given to those projects which have a deep commitment to listening to children and allow the perceptions and feelings of children themselves to be better understood. The Foundations is mainly interested in applications that involve children during their early years, but appropriate projects for older children (up to 18 years) will also be considered. Whilst the Foundation will fund work in and around London, they will prioritise projects taking place elsewhere in the UK. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Read more HERE. 

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Speaking Truth to Power...

For those of you eager beavers out there keen to book a place on the next large-scale free North West Arts & Health Network event, it will be the a follow-up to the Creative Health report launch held in the summer at the Manchester School of Art. HOLD THE DATE >>>>TUESDAY 6th FEBRUARY<<<< and details with how to contribute and attend will be here very shortly.
 

The Centenary for Women’s Suffrage is 2018
The centenary of property-owning women, over 30 years of age and all men receiving the vote will be celebrated in 2018. Shouldn't we now be acknowledging those pioneers, ordinary people who did extraordinary things, to further the struggle to gain the vote? It was these people who helped highlight the opportunity for ALL women to participate in democracy by uncovering the achievements of those who both fought for the Representation of the People Act 1918 and then went on to participate in the opportunities it created. The aim of the this project is to identify and celebrate the lives of 100 women and men who were active in the campaign for extending the vote to all women and who went on to use their extended rights of citizenship in a positive way in their local areas. This could be your grandmother, aunt, or other family member. If so let us have some information about them and perhaps they will become one of those 100 pioneers we wish to recognise.

So - are you aware of women from the North West who deserve to be recognised? If so, you have until the end of December to nominate them. Click HERE to nominate.

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH?
Question: How much is a post doc arts and health researcher worth? 

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

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

Orwellian nightmare or fairer system for all? What Quality Metrics will mean for arts funding.
“Can you measure the quality of art? Well, no. You can’t take out a ruler and discover how good a play is, though you can measure things that hover around it, such as how many people came to see it and how much it cost. Instead, deciding what is good is a human and subjective thing – and who gets to decide is a tender and touchy subject. When, recently, it became clear that Arts Council England was intending to make data collection on the quality of a work compulsory for the largest organisations it funds – rolling out a “Quality Metrics” programme – there was an outcry. “Horseshit,” tweeted artist Tim Etchells. Composer Thomas Adès wrote: “Tell me this is a hoax. What happened to human opinions, judgment, discernment? Knowledge, taste? Not enough likes?” There were fears that the arts council was about to visit on England an Orwellian scenario in which funding decisions would be based on algorithms and boxes ticked.” This is an extract from Charlotte Higgins’ full article which you can read HERE.

Reflections on a dance
On Saturday I had the pleasure of seeing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre perform. In truth I’d gone along to this performance under a little duress, having overindulged on Thomas Adès's - The Exterminating Angel - an opera based on the wonderful Luis Buñuel film of the same name, but an opera which left me cold. There’s something longer to write about opera, life experience and a certain white inward looking smugness, but I’ll leave that one for another day. 

But being an aficionado of Strictly Come Dancing - I thought I’d give the Alvin Ailey a go, and to be honest, it’s been one of the more profound and moving things I’ve experienced in my time in the US, and for reasons which have completely surprised me. My background is staunchly white working class, and dance and opera were never on the radar - never - (and after all the hype around the Adès, opera still inhabits a space which has the power to repel). In fact in the late 70’s when punk was evolving into some kind of new wave, I remember I bought a copy of Peter and the Wolf purely because Bowie was doing the narration on it. Walking home, I bumped into my dad and he asked me what I’d bought. I showed him the album, and he looked a little worried, his furrowed brow a little deeper than usual. Later that same day, he asked to have a quiet word with me. He’d been talking with my mum, and advised me that I was getting into some serious stuff listening to classical music, and I should be careful.

So sitting in the god’s at the dance performance, I was surprised to find myself thinking of my parents again, and my dad’s words of caution. There were two moments which struck me. A performance called After The Rain Pas De Deux - which used one of those ‘classical’ pieces of music that have so corrupted me over these year; Spiegel Im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt. Two dancers - Jacqueline Green and Yannick Lebrun - transfixed me. I’d listened to this work a thousand times, but never seen the work made real - physical. All I could do, was think of my mum. Think how she too loved Strictly, and how as a young woman she loved to dance in Morecambe’s ballrooms of the 30’s and 40’s. To my knowledge, she never went to see dance performed - yet I know - she too would have been moved so deeply by this.

Then a second moment, and another body of short pieces performed by the company, under the title of Revelations with choreography by Alvin Ailey in 1960. These were what I can only describe as shorter dance sequences set to African-American spiritual songs with titles like I Been ‘Buked and Didn’t My Lord Deliver Me Daniel, written by Hall Johnson.

With my atheistic and working class labour roots, this work had an even more complicated affect on my bio-chemical and neurological pathways! What was happening? For a good half hour of poignant fables and impossibly beautiful movement - I was bleary eyed - transfixed and completely cocooned from the white-trash president who was in town for the day. But the biggest surprise for me, was that I was cocooned with my dad, who in my mind would have been so deeply moved by the whole experience. It was listening to this spiritual music and seeing all that human potential (and being aware of the darker depths of the work) that I remembered the music of my childhood that he and my mum loved and which I only ever really considered after he died, and which I chose for his funeral - largely that of Paul Robeson. Deep, resonating and very black.

I didn’t grow up in a metropolis - so the diversity of London, Paris or New York was irrelevant to me, my diversity quota being served up by the TV courtesy of Love They Neighbour, Rising Damp and the Wheel Tappers and Shunters Social Club. Don’t ask! 

So there I was - watching, hearing, feeling something resonating through my body which took me back home to the music of my childhood and to a conversation that I'd had with my dad in his later years - about Paul Robeson. What was it about him that had appealed so much to this hardworking Morecambe man? It’s only then that he told me about Robeson’s time in front of the The House Un-American Activities Committee and his work supporting Welsh coal miners; an unfolding story of injustices and something heroic beyond the individual and towards wider social good. You can read a far more eloquent account of his life HERE. You can also get a flavour of Roberson’s eloquence in this short and powerful film below. Talk about speaking truth to power.

In that theatrical space - I felt some kind of deep connection with my parents - a real post-mortem treat. Some might impose wider supernatural influences on these kinds of moments, but I don’t. It was exhilaration at the beauty of human athleticism, of being in one of those spaces (like a church - but stripped of all its superstition) and immersed only in the thing. Nothing else existed, but this wonderful familial connection rooted in the moment, in the aesthetic and in a shared poetry, yet born of poverty and systemic inequalities.  

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