Interesting short article about African clubs in Israel:
'On a chilly Friday in a basement on a graffiti-lined street, about 100 African men and a handful of women move to upbeat, deep-voiced Nigerian music. Red and green disco lights swirl overhead. Bolli Impanem wears a red-and-white soccer jersey as he flits between dance floor and DJ stand.
“I don’t go to Israeli clubs,” says Mr. Impanem. He moved to Israel in 2000 from Nigeria to play soccer for Hapoel Beer Sheva, a pro club, but stayed when he married a Dutch woman. "Somebody slapped me once at a club and it was embarrassing.... So I made a place for me to dance.”
Israel’s African population numbers about 20,000, although no exact figures exist because of illegal migration. First, Ghanaian migrant workers came in the 1980s, followed by other laborers. Today most Africans in Israel are asylum-seekers from Sudan and Eritrea...
... Impanem’s basement disco is camouflaged. The heavy metal front door is down a staircase at the back of a nondescript, fluorescent-lit driveway. For Nelone Key, a South African without working papers, the basement is a place to forget about his frustrations, such as not finding a job despite a university education. “I just like to dance sometimes,” he says.
Full article: Christian Science Monitor, 16 March 2010.
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Friday, March 19, 2010
Friday, February 13, 2009
Free Radio
Must admit I know very little about pirate radio outside of England, but here's a few interesting stories that caught my attention:
Florida: One Love Radio (ABC Action News, 12 February 2009)
.... the Winter Haven Police Department arrested Anthony Davis after searching his Lee Avenue in Winter Haven. Detectives found audio mixers and DJ equipment and a 100 watt transmitter that they say Davis was using to broadcast his reggae music style radio station on 87.9 FM.
Complaints about his station came from a local Orlando TV station, Channel 6 which uses the freqency for their TV audio. Davis called his station format "One Love Radio". A third degree felony charge of unlawful transmission of radio frequency was filed against Davis who told detectives he worked as a security guard in Haines City.
Israel: RAM FM (Ynet news, 4.7.08)
RAM-FM, an English-language radio station broadcasting from a Jerusalem studio, was shut down by police on Monday for transmitting without a proper permit. The West Bank station broadcasts Western music in an attempt to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer together. The station's headquarters are located in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where it broadcasts on 93.6 FM.... The station's headquarters are located in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where it broadcasts on 93.6 FM...The station attracts a diverse audience of tens of thousands, from Israeli soldiers and Palestinian students to West Bank villagers, English speaking immigrants, migrant workers and foreign diplomats. It is one of the numerous pirate radio stations broadcasting throughout Israel, which are often blamed for dangerous disruptions in airport air traffic communications and interference in regular radio broadcasts. (see also this)
Free Radio Berkeley - Liberating the Commons
'Within the first year after the initial broadcast of Free Radio Berkeley [in 1993], it became clear that the Free Radio Movement was part of a much larger global endeavor. Community radio is rooted in the struggles of people for a just and humane existence. Whether it was: Bolivian tin miners establishing radio stations in the late 1940’s as part of a campaign to improve working conditions; Radio Rebelde’s role in the Cuban Revolution; Czech citizens creating clandestine radio stations after the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968 by the USSR; or the supportive role of community radio in the recent uprising by indigenous people in Bolivia to reclaim their natural resources – community radio has always been a tool of expression and organization... After the first coup against Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Free Radio Berkeley supplied transmitters to peasant organizations fighting against the coup. Transmitters also went to both the Chiapas jungle and the urban streets of Mexico City... Embracing Free Radio as a form of media expression that is genuine and real is the first step on the road to liberation from the society of the spectacle. Only by coming together as communities can people begin to: form the relationships that really matter, tell the stories which impart a collective identity, history and purpose; dance, sing and celebrate life together; and forge new bonds of commitment and support. Free Radio is the Peoples Drum'.
Florida: One Love Radio (ABC Action News, 12 February 2009)
.... the Winter Haven Police Department arrested Anthony Davis after searching his Lee Avenue in Winter Haven. Detectives found audio mixers and DJ equipment and a 100 watt transmitter that they say Davis was using to broadcast his reggae music style radio station on 87.9 FM.
Complaints about his station came from a local Orlando TV station, Channel 6 which uses the freqency for their TV audio. Davis called his station format "One Love Radio". A third degree felony charge of unlawful transmission of radio frequency was filed against Davis who told detectives he worked as a security guard in Haines City.
Israel: RAM FM (Ynet news, 4.7.08)
RAM-FM, an English-language radio station broadcasting from a Jerusalem studio, was shut down by police on Monday for transmitting without a proper permit. The West Bank station broadcasts Western music in an attempt to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer together. The station's headquarters are located in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where it broadcasts on 93.6 FM.... The station's headquarters are located in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where it broadcasts on 93.6 FM...The station attracts a diverse audience of tens of thousands, from Israeli soldiers and Palestinian students to West Bank villagers, English speaking immigrants, migrant workers and foreign diplomats. It is one of the numerous pirate radio stations broadcasting throughout Israel, which are often blamed for dangerous disruptions in airport air traffic communications and interference in regular radio broadcasts. (see also this)
Free Radio Berkeley - Liberating the Commons
'Within the first year after the initial broadcast of Free Radio Berkeley [in 1993], it became clear that the Free Radio Movement was part of a much larger global endeavor. Community radio is rooted in the struggles of people for a just and humane existence. Whether it was: Bolivian tin miners establishing radio stations in the late 1940’s as part of a campaign to improve working conditions; Radio Rebelde’s role in the Cuban Revolution; Czech citizens creating clandestine radio stations after the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968 by the USSR; or the supportive role of community radio in the recent uprising by indigenous people in Bolivia to reclaim their natural resources – community radio has always been a tool of expression and organization... After the first coup against Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Free Radio Berkeley supplied transmitters to peasant organizations fighting against the coup. Transmitters also went to both the Chiapas jungle and the urban streets of Mexico City... Embracing Free Radio as a form of media expression that is genuine and real is the first step on the road to liberation from the society of the spectacle. Only by coming together as communities can people begin to: form the relationships that really matter, tell the stories which impart a collective identity, history and purpose; dance, sing and celebrate life together; and forge new bonds of commitment and support. Free Radio is the Peoples Drum'.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Haredim move to eradicate 'foreign' pop
Haredi Judaism is often labelled as 'ultra-orthodox', but that hasn't stopped many people in Haredi communities in Israel from enjoying and making pop music - evidently incurring the wrath of some Rabbis.
Musicians who use rock, rap, reggae and trance influences will not receive rabbinic approval for their CDs, nor will they be allowed to play in wedding halls under haredi kosher food supervision, according to a new, detailed list of guidelines drafted with rabbinical backing that differentiates between "kosher" and "treif" music. The guidelines, which are still being formulated, also ban "2-4 beats and other rock and disco beats;" the "improper" use of electric bass, guitars and saxophones; and singing words from holy sources in a disrespectful, frivolous manner.
"Michael Jackson-style music has no place in our community," says Mordechai Bloi, a senior member of the Guardians of Sanctity and Education, an organization based in Bnei Brak that enforces what it sees as normative haredi behavior. We might be able to adopt Bach or Beethoven, music with class, but not goyishe African music and beats. We haredim want to protect ourselves from what we see as negative foreign influences. We are trying to maintain our own authentic music styles. We admit that times are changing, but we are trying to stay loyal to our roots."
This is the first time that specific, detailed criteria, including comments on playing styles, will be used to add transparency to the delineation between acceptable or "kosher" Jewish music and forbidden or "treif" music. The man responsible for drafting the list is Rabbi Efraim Luft of Bnei Brak, who heads an organization called the Committee for Jewish Music. Luft works in conjunction with Bloi's organization and with the Jerusalem-based Council for the Purity of the Camp headed by Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Safronovitch. These are the two most important and influential "modesty patrols" in the haredi community.
Bloi and Safronovitch have managed over the years to consolidate their power by successfully courting the backing of the major halachic authorities. A large portion of the haredi community, which numbers between 500,000 and 700,000, is loyal to its rabbis. Calls by rabbis to boycott a business, to take to the streets to demonstrate or to vote for a particular candidate are taken seriously... Similarly, enforcers of haredi norms are monitoring, supervising and censoring the haredi pop music scene, with Luft spearheading the campaign. Luft has already issued a list of "kosher" and "non-kosher" bands and musicians. He said that dozens of yeshiva heads have agreed to refuse to come to the wedding of a student who hires a non-kosher band. Halls with haredi kashrut supervision who host non-kosher bands run the risk of losing their supervision, and hence their clientele. Companies that help promote haredi concerts expose themselves to the danger of a consumer boycott.
Luft said that music is just part of a much larger problem in haredi society. "We see that the same people who are involved in the treif pop scene are also the ones in the unapproved news media, in the so-called religious radio stations, in film and in advertising," said Luft. "All of these things come together to demoralize haredi society and to lower the spiritual level of our youth. This is an issue that people over 30 understand very well what I am talking about and those under 30 have more difficulty understanding," Luft continued. "This music is pushing into our community a generation gap similar to one created by the rock music of the '50s in the US. The whole idea is that there are types of music that have no place with respectable people. Respectable people listen to decent music and immoral people list to indecent music, and it does not make sense that a community that has high moral standards should be listening to this type of music. The influence of music has a very profound effect on people in general. It has been proven that rock music has a very negative effect on people and on animals and plants, while classical music has a very positive effect."
Over the past several years haredi activists have enlisted almost all the major rabbinical authorities to stifle a burgeoning haredi pop music scene. Last year, a letter forbidding all public music concerts, even when men and women in the audience are separated, was signed by a who's-who of Israeli rabbinical authorities...
This summer, haredi activists banned a concert in Netanya that featured popular haredi singer Avraham Fried, who appeared together with secular performers. Despite the ban, there was a large turnout... However, performers who do not appeal to a wider, non-haredi audience have been hurt by the rabbinic ban. For instance, Yaakov Shwekey's concert this summer in Kiryat Motzkin, near Haifa, was a failure. Instead of attracting a few thousand, Shwekey managed to draw an audience of just a few hundred.
Avrahim Fried - banned in Netanya:
Menahem Toker, a popular haredi DJ who was reportedly fired from Radio Kol Chai under pressure from haredi activists because he promoted "treif" shows, said that the blanket prohibition against all shows is doing more harm than good. "Maybe a lot of people will listen to the rabbis and stop going to shows altogether," said Toker. "But there will be tens of thousands of people who, deprived of a kosher option, will end up going to mixed shows. And not just to frum, wholesome performers like Fried and Elbaz, but to secular performers also. So maybe in a way the anti-pop music activists have won a victory. But they also lost because they have not offered a kosher alternative."
Sources in the haredi music scene who spoke off the record for fear they would hurt their relationship with the rabbinic representatives said they doubted the rabbinic establishment would succeed in their newest crusade against CDs. "What are they going to do listen to every single disc that is released? What about the thousands of discs that are already in the market?"
Luft admitted that listening to all the discs on the market would be a formidable challenge. "The main aim is to focus on new songs before they get to the recording studio. So far there have only been two cases in which discs have been banned by rabbis", said Luft. "One by controversial haredi vocalist Lipa Schmeltzer called Bli Ayan Hara (Without the evil eye) and a Yiddish rap CD by David Kalish. There are certain types of music, such as rap and reggae, that are disgusting and have no place in our community."
(source and full article: Jerusalem Post, 9 September 2008)
Musicians who use rock, rap, reggae and trance influences will not receive rabbinic approval for their CDs, nor will they be allowed to play in wedding halls under haredi kosher food supervision, according to a new, detailed list of guidelines drafted with rabbinical backing that differentiates between "kosher" and "treif" music. The guidelines, which are still being formulated, also ban "2-4 beats and other rock and disco beats;" the "improper" use of electric bass, guitars and saxophones; and singing words from holy sources in a disrespectful, frivolous manner.
"Michael Jackson-style music has no place in our community," says Mordechai Bloi, a senior member of the Guardians of Sanctity and Education, an organization based in Bnei Brak that enforces what it sees as normative haredi behavior. We might be able to adopt Bach or Beethoven, music with class, but not goyishe African music and beats. We haredim want to protect ourselves from what we see as negative foreign influences. We are trying to maintain our own authentic music styles. We admit that times are changing, but we are trying to stay loyal to our roots."
This is the first time that specific, detailed criteria, including comments on playing styles, will be used to add transparency to the delineation between acceptable or "kosher" Jewish music and forbidden or "treif" music. The man responsible for drafting the list is Rabbi Efraim Luft of Bnei Brak, who heads an organization called the Committee for Jewish Music. Luft works in conjunction with Bloi's organization and with the Jerusalem-based Council for the Purity of the Camp headed by Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Safronovitch. These are the two most important and influential "modesty patrols" in the haredi community.
Bloi and Safronovitch have managed over the years to consolidate their power by successfully courting the backing of the major halachic authorities. A large portion of the haredi community, which numbers between 500,000 and 700,000, is loyal to its rabbis. Calls by rabbis to boycott a business, to take to the streets to demonstrate or to vote for a particular candidate are taken seriously... Similarly, enforcers of haredi norms are monitoring, supervising and censoring the haredi pop music scene, with Luft spearheading the campaign. Luft has already issued a list of "kosher" and "non-kosher" bands and musicians. He said that dozens of yeshiva heads have agreed to refuse to come to the wedding of a student who hires a non-kosher band. Halls with haredi kashrut supervision who host non-kosher bands run the risk of losing their supervision, and hence their clientele. Companies that help promote haredi concerts expose themselves to the danger of a consumer boycott.
Luft said that music is just part of a much larger problem in haredi society. "We see that the same people who are involved in the treif pop scene are also the ones in the unapproved news media, in the so-called religious radio stations, in film and in advertising," said Luft. "All of these things come together to demoralize haredi society and to lower the spiritual level of our youth. This is an issue that people over 30 understand very well what I am talking about and those under 30 have more difficulty understanding," Luft continued. "This music is pushing into our community a generation gap similar to one created by the rock music of the '50s in the US. The whole idea is that there are types of music that have no place with respectable people. Respectable people listen to decent music and immoral people list to indecent music, and it does not make sense that a community that has high moral standards should be listening to this type of music. The influence of music has a very profound effect on people in general. It has been proven that rock music has a very negative effect on people and on animals and plants, while classical music has a very positive effect."
Over the past several years haredi activists have enlisted almost all the major rabbinical authorities to stifle a burgeoning haredi pop music scene. Last year, a letter forbidding all public music concerts, even when men and women in the audience are separated, was signed by a who's-who of Israeli rabbinical authorities...
This summer, haredi activists banned a concert in Netanya that featured popular haredi singer Avraham Fried, who appeared together with secular performers. Despite the ban, there was a large turnout... However, performers who do not appeal to a wider, non-haredi audience have been hurt by the rabbinic ban. For instance, Yaakov Shwekey's concert this summer in Kiryat Motzkin, near Haifa, was a failure. Instead of attracting a few thousand, Shwekey managed to draw an audience of just a few hundred.
Avrahim Fried - banned in Netanya:
Menahem Toker, a popular haredi DJ who was reportedly fired from Radio Kol Chai under pressure from haredi activists because he promoted "treif" shows, said that the blanket prohibition against all shows is doing more harm than good. "Maybe a lot of people will listen to the rabbis and stop going to shows altogether," said Toker. "But there will be tens of thousands of people who, deprived of a kosher option, will end up going to mixed shows. And not just to frum, wholesome performers like Fried and Elbaz, but to secular performers also. So maybe in a way the anti-pop music activists have won a victory. But they also lost because they have not offered a kosher alternative."
Sources in the haredi music scene who spoke off the record for fear they would hurt their relationship with the rabbinic representatives said they doubted the rabbinic establishment would succeed in their newest crusade against CDs. "What are they going to do listen to every single disc that is released? What about the thousands of discs that are already in the market?"
Luft admitted that listening to all the discs on the market would be a formidable challenge. "The main aim is to focus on new songs before they get to the recording studio. So far there have only been two cases in which discs have been banned by rabbis", said Luft. "One by controversial haredi vocalist Lipa Schmeltzer called Bli Ayan Hara (Without the evil eye) and a Yiddish rap CD by David Kalish. There are certain types of music, such as rap and reggae, that are disgusting and have no place in our community."
(source and full article: Jerusalem Post, 9 September 2008)
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Ben Atar eviction: a cosmopolitan response
In November 2007, the Ben Atar squat in Tel Aviv was evicted by police. According to Indymedia Israel, the squat was located in Florentin, ‘a lower class neighborhood in south Tel Aviv that is going through a process of gentrification’. The building had been empty for many years when ‘Around 3 years ago, a group of young Anarchists and Punks, many of them homeless, decided to move into the building, live in it and start a social center for the activists scene and the neighborhood. During the three years of existence the squat hosted many events, film screening, shows, exhibitions, parties and many more. It also was a center for many political groups, artists and musicians, and a place for people who were looking for a warm place to stay in. It also became a home for the small but very active anarchist community in Israel, for the Anarchists Against the Wall group, for the animal rights activists, for ecological feminists and radical queers’.
In other words it was the kind of autonomous social space found all over the world, and as with many other such spaces it ended up facing eviction. As in most cases, news of this was posted at Indymedia UK, to be greeted in some cases by a very strange response. Prompted by a claim that this was Israel’s only squat, one person posted the following comment: “The whole ‘country’ is squatted. Only squat? NOT. Evict Israel. Evict the lot” (24.11.07).
Now amongst the self-defined radicals who post and comment at Indymedia we might expect to see a range of positions on Israel and Palestine: ‘Two State Solution, ‘One Secular Democratic (and/or Socialist) State for Jews and Palestinians’ or some kind of anarchist variant of a stateless society where Jews and Arabs live in harmony.
A statement like ‘Evict the Lot’ is saying something else again. It implies that the millions of Jewish people living in that part of the world should be somehow swept away. ‘Evict the Lot’ is as clear a racist statement as you could hope not to find, since by ‘the Lot’ can only be understood the people defined as being Jewish who are to be distinguished by cultural, religious or pseudo-racial characteristics from the people allowed to remain. Of course that is exactly the view of Bin Laden who states that ‘We will not recognize even one inch for Jews in the land of Palestine’ from the ‘river to the sea’.
It may be true that the state of Israel, like most states, was born in violence and dispossession, and that the state continues repressive measures is unarguable. Of course exactly the same could be said about the USA and Australia, where unlike in Israel whole populations were exterminated as their lands were seized. Whatever radical measures are proposed to ensure social justice for the remaining indigenous peoples in the US and Australia nobody would suggest that all the descendants of settlers could or should be expelled. It would be a human catastrophe to even attempt it, just as it would in Israel.
For some interesting reflections on this issue I would recommend a recent discussion paper by David Hirsh, Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism – Cosmopolitan Reflections. Aside from the specific points Hirsh makes about the use of antisemitic tropes by parts of the left, I was struck by his call for a cosmopolitan critique that ‘disrupts a methodological tendency to view the division of the world into nations as being more fixed than it is’ (e.g. the notion of Israel or Palestine as homogeneous entities) and focuses instead on the idea that, in the words of Robert Fine ‘human beings can belong anywhere, humanity has shared predicaments and… we find out community with others in exploring how these predicaments can be faced in common’.
Part of the interest at this site in music/dance scenes is precisely this cosmopolitan aspect – how common human experiences of rhythm, sound and movement can undermine fixed certainties of social categories and point towards alternative ways of being. We can see this in Israel not just in places like the Ben Atar squat and the small anarcho-punk scene, but in the popularity of dance cultures with an implicit critique of military values (and sometimes an explicit one – see the Rave Against the Occupation parties). We might also consider the way that in Israel, as in many other countries, dance scenes have been a means for the assertion of a confident queer culture in the face of intense conservative/religious fundamentalist opposition – no mean feat in a region of the world where gay men can still face execution in some countries.
It is in spaces like this, and their even more precarious counterparts in Arab countries, that the possibilities of breaking out of the cycle of nationalism and war can be posed in various ways. Limited as they may be, they deserve our solidarity, not only against the usual police and corporate interests that tend to squeeze them out but against those who want to bomb them out of existence and drive their denizens into the sea.
About Indymedia: the comment criticised above was the view of one person and all kinds of idiots leave random posts in reply to Indymedia articles. I am not therefore claiming, for instance, that Indymedia is antisemitic – only pointing out how racist comments can slip into some 'anti-Zionist' discourse in all kinds of places.
In other words it was the kind of autonomous social space found all over the world, and as with many other such spaces it ended up facing eviction. As in most cases, news of this was posted at Indymedia UK, to be greeted in some cases by a very strange response. Prompted by a claim that this was Israel’s only squat, one person posted the following comment: “The whole ‘country’ is squatted. Only squat? NOT. Evict Israel. Evict the lot” (24.11.07).
Now amongst the self-defined radicals who post and comment at Indymedia we might expect to see a range of positions on Israel and Palestine: ‘Two State Solution, ‘One Secular Democratic (and/or Socialist) State for Jews and Palestinians’ or some kind of anarchist variant of a stateless society where Jews and Arabs live in harmony.
A statement like ‘Evict the Lot’ is saying something else again. It implies that the millions of Jewish people living in that part of the world should be somehow swept away. ‘Evict the Lot’ is as clear a racist statement as you could hope not to find, since by ‘the Lot’ can only be understood the people defined as being Jewish who are to be distinguished by cultural, religious or pseudo-racial characteristics from the people allowed to remain. Of course that is exactly the view of Bin Laden who states that ‘We will not recognize even one inch for Jews in the land of Palestine’ from the ‘river to the sea’.
It may be true that the state of Israel, like most states, was born in violence and dispossession, and that the state continues repressive measures is unarguable. Of course exactly the same could be said about the USA and Australia, where unlike in Israel whole populations were exterminated as their lands were seized. Whatever radical measures are proposed to ensure social justice for the remaining indigenous peoples in the US and Australia nobody would suggest that all the descendants of settlers could or should be expelled. It would be a human catastrophe to even attempt it, just as it would in Israel.
For some interesting reflections on this issue I would recommend a recent discussion paper by David Hirsh, Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism – Cosmopolitan Reflections. Aside from the specific points Hirsh makes about the use of antisemitic tropes by parts of the left, I was struck by his call for a cosmopolitan critique that ‘disrupts a methodological tendency to view the division of the world into nations as being more fixed than it is’ (e.g. the notion of Israel or Palestine as homogeneous entities) and focuses instead on the idea that, in the words of Robert Fine ‘human beings can belong anywhere, humanity has shared predicaments and… we find out community with others in exploring how these predicaments can be faced in common’.
Part of the interest at this site in music/dance scenes is precisely this cosmopolitan aspect – how common human experiences of rhythm, sound and movement can undermine fixed certainties of social categories and point towards alternative ways of being. We can see this in Israel not just in places like the Ben Atar squat and the small anarcho-punk scene, but in the popularity of dance cultures with an implicit critique of military values (and sometimes an explicit one – see the Rave Against the Occupation parties). We might also consider the way that in Israel, as in many other countries, dance scenes have been a means for the assertion of a confident queer culture in the face of intense conservative/religious fundamentalist opposition – no mean feat in a region of the world where gay men can still face execution in some countries.
It is in spaces like this, and their even more precarious counterparts in Arab countries, that the possibilities of breaking out of the cycle of nationalism and war can be posed in various ways. Limited as they may be, they deserve our solidarity, not only against the usual police and corporate interests that tend to squeeze them out but against those who want to bomb them out of existence and drive their denizens into the sea.
About Indymedia: the comment criticised above was the view of one person and all kinds of idiots leave random posts in reply to Indymedia articles. I am not therefore claiming, for instance, that Indymedia is antisemitic – only pointing out how racist comments can slip into some 'anti-Zionist' discourse in all kinds of places.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Ten Years On: 1997, a year of dancing dangerously
This chronology of raves, clubs and policing was compiled from the dance music press at the time (Mixmag, Muzik, Eternity, DJ etc.). Much of it is the familiar story of cat and mouse chases between police and sound systems in East Anglia, Wales etc. - just as happened in 2007. But some things have changed - no more Reclaim the Streets parties in England, and more positively people being able to go out dancing in the north of Ireland without having to worry so much shootings and plastic bullets.
January 1997, Scotland: Fusion close down operations in Grampian after police threaten the licence of any venues allowing them to put on events
January 1997, London: Club UK in south London loses its licence. The club had appealed against the council withdrawing its licence, but this was upheld by a magistrates court.
February 1997, Holland: Police confiscate vans containing tripods, sound systems and banners to prevent a Reclaim the Streets party outside the Amsterdam motor show. After police baton charge the crowd, there is free food, music and dancing with a huge bonfire in a market square [Earth First Action Update, March 1997]
February 1997, USA: A nail bomb explodes at the Otherside Lounge, a lesbian club in Atlanta, Georgia, injuring five people. The attack is claimed by the far right Army of God saying it is aimed at “sodomites, their organisations and all who push their agenda”.
February 1997, London: Battersea police licencing section announce they are to oppose the renewal of the public entertainments licence for the club Adrenalin Village, up for renewal by Wandsworth Council.
February 1997, Leicester: Hardcore club Die Hard raided by 50 police - everyone searched.
February 1997, London The Cool Tan the building in Brixton, previously evicted, is resquatted for two parties and then evicted after a fortnight.
April 1997, London: A man dies from a heart attack and 8 people are arrested when riot police raid a squat party in Putney.
April 1997, Luton: The Exodus collective win the right to appeal against eviction from their site by the Department of Transport
April 1997, London: Linford Film Studios in Battersea, south London loses its licence
April 1997, N.Ireland: Robert Hamill a 25 year old Catholic father of two, is kicked to death by Loyalists while on his way home from a dance at St Patrick’s Hall in Portadown. The attack happens in full view of police who refuse pleas to intervene. In March 1999 his family’s solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, is killed by a car bomb. She has been preparing to bring private prosecutions against those involved and the Royal Ulster Constabulary
April 1997, London: 5000 party in Trafalgar Square at the end of march for social justice in support of Liverpool dockers, organised by Reclaim the Streets. Police seize sound system at the end and arrest four people in the van, charging them with conspiracy to murder for allegedly driving through police lines (charges later dropped). 1000 riot police clear people out of the square
May 1997, London: Southwark Council refuse licence to Urban Free Festival (formerly held in Fordham Park, New Cross), after earlier given permission for it to take place in Peckham in July
May 1997, Wales: Police use helicopters and road blocks to stop free party at a disused quarry in North Wales, seizing the T.W.A.T. sound system and dispersing a 4 mile convoy of party cars to the English border (despite this two parties go ahead later)
May 1997, Manchester: Police and bailiffs evict treetop and tunnel protesters, including the Zero Tolerance sound system tied into the trees, at the site of the proposed Manchester Airport Terminal 2
May 1997, Brighton: Police action prevents parties at three venues in Brighton, but one goes ahead on a travellers site at Braepool on the outskirts of town. A Noise Abatement notice is served, and the Council begins legal action to evict the site [Big Issue, 4.8.97]
May 1997, Hull: 300 party at Hull Reclaim the Streets, with sand pits and dancing for three hours (no arrests)
June 1997, Bristol: Police make 22 arrests at Bristol Reclaim the Streets and confiscate the Desert Storm sound system
July 1997, N.Ireland: Police open fire with plastic bullets on young people returning from a teenage disco on the Falls Road, Belfast. A 14-year-old boy is left in a coma.
July 1997, USA: The Stonewall Inn in New York is once again under threat, scrutinised by the city’s Social Club Task Force because of concerns about noise levels and ‘illegal dancing” [Pink Paper, 8/8/97]
August 1997, Wales: Two people on their way to set up an open air party in Deiniolen, North Wales are stopped and strip searched by police, who set up road blocks to prevent the party going ahead.
August 1997, London: Local councillor calls for the Dog Star pub/club in Brixton to be closed, claiming it is a magnet for drug dealers.
August 1997, Surrey: Hundreds of people turn up at a free party in old chalk pits in the Mole Valley in Surrey by the time police turned up the next morning to serve a notice under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act most people had gone home [Guilfin, September 1997]
August 1997, Portsmouth: Police with dogs and video surveillance teams ring a common in Portsmouth and search people trying to attend the Smokey Bears Picnic; council byelaws banning music on the common are enforced and 10 people are arrested [Guilfin, September 1997]
Summer 1997, Surrey: Police close down a free party in a forest near Guildford put on by Timber sound system.
September 1997, France: Police in Paris close down five mainly gay clubs supposedly because of ecstasy dealing (Le Queen, Le Cox, L’Enfer, Le Scorp and Les Follies Pigalle). 2000 people march in protest with one banner declaring “Paris, capitale de l’ennui” (Paris, capital of boredom).
October 1997, Russia: Moscow gay club Chance is raided by “a team of men wearing special troops uniform, black masks and carrying automatic guns”. The special police claim to be searching for drugs; dancers are beaten up and abused a 90 people are arrested [Pink Paper, 17.10.97]
.
October 1997, Wales: 24 police raid a party in a private house in North Wales and impound the sound system. The Country Landowners Association have set up a Rave Watch scheme in the local area encouraging local farmers to tip off the police about possible parties
November 1997, Greece: police violently raid the ACID trance club in Thessaloniki.
November 1997, Norfolk: Police bust squat party at Thelveton Hall, an unoccupied country house in Norfolk, seizing the Brighton-based Innerfield Sound System and carry out intimate body searches. The house belongs to Sir Rupert Mann, but had been empty for seven years.
November 1997, Oxford: Police use a helicopter and horses in an effort to stop Oxford Reclaim the Streets party. Despite the seizure of the solar powered sound system, and the Rinky Dinky Sound System being escorted out of the city, 400 people party in the road [Peace News, December 1997]
December 1997, N.Ireland: Loyalist Volunteer Force open fire on a disco in Dungannon, County Tyrone, killing a doorman. Another man is killed in an attack on a bar in Belfast.
December 1997, Scotland: Street party halts traffic for 1.5 hours outside the Faslane nuclear submarine base . Several people injured by Ministry of Defence police.
December 1997, Wales: 22 arrests in police drug raid on Hippo Club, Cardiff.
December 1997, Israel: Trance outfit Juno Reactor are deported from the country, where they were due to be playing at a 5000 capacity rave, prompting the launch of a Freedom to Party organisation. “Indoor parties are usually legal, as opposed to outdoor parties which are usually not. But even so, many of the indoor parties are constantly being raided by the police” (Dream Creation July 1997)
December 1997, N.Ireland: Edmund Treanor killed and five injured in a Loyalist Volunteer Force attack on New Year celebrations at the Clifton Tavern, Belfast.
December 1997, Brighton: 27 people arrested as police try and close down New Year’s Eve squat party in Brighton; people throw bottles at police.
January 1997, Scotland: Fusion close down operations in Grampian after police threaten the licence of any venues allowing them to put on events
January 1997, London: Club UK in south London loses its licence. The club had appealed against the council withdrawing its licence, but this was upheld by a magistrates court.
February 1997, Holland: Police confiscate vans containing tripods, sound systems and banners to prevent a Reclaim the Streets party outside the Amsterdam motor show. After police baton charge the crowd, there is free food, music and dancing with a huge bonfire in a market square [Earth First Action Update, March 1997]
February 1997, USA: A nail bomb explodes at the Otherside Lounge, a lesbian club in Atlanta, Georgia, injuring five people. The attack is claimed by the far right Army of God saying it is aimed at “sodomites, their organisations and all who push their agenda”.
February 1997, London: Battersea police licencing section announce they are to oppose the renewal of the public entertainments licence for the club Adrenalin Village, up for renewal by Wandsworth Council.
February 1997, Leicester: Hardcore club Die Hard raided by 50 police - everyone searched.
February 1997, London The Cool Tan the building in Brixton, previously evicted, is resquatted for two parties and then evicted after a fortnight.
April 1997, London: A man dies from a heart attack and 8 people are arrested when riot police raid a squat party in Putney.
April 1997, Luton: The Exodus collective win the right to appeal against eviction from their site by the Department of Transport
April 1997, London: Linford Film Studios in Battersea, south London loses its licence
April 1997, N.Ireland: Robert Hamill a 25 year old Catholic father of two, is kicked to death by Loyalists while on his way home from a dance at St Patrick’s Hall in Portadown. The attack happens in full view of police who refuse pleas to intervene. In March 1999 his family’s solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, is killed by a car bomb. She has been preparing to bring private prosecutions against those involved and the Royal Ulster Constabulary
April 1997, London: 5000 party in Trafalgar Square at the end of march for social justice in support of Liverpool dockers, organised by Reclaim the Streets. Police seize sound system at the end and arrest four people in the van, charging them with conspiracy to murder for allegedly driving through police lines (charges later dropped). 1000 riot police clear people out of the square
May 1997, London: Southwark Council refuse licence to Urban Free Festival (formerly held in Fordham Park, New Cross), after earlier given permission for it to take place in Peckham in July
May 1997, Wales: Police use helicopters and road blocks to stop free party at a disused quarry in North Wales, seizing the T.W.A.T. sound system and dispersing a 4 mile convoy of party cars to the English border (despite this two parties go ahead later)
May 1997, Manchester: Police and bailiffs evict treetop and tunnel protesters, including the Zero Tolerance sound system tied into the trees, at the site of the proposed Manchester Airport Terminal 2
May 1997, Brighton: Police action prevents parties at three venues in Brighton, but one goes ahead on a travellers site at Braepool on the outskirts of town. A Noise Abatement notice is served, and the Council begins legal action to evict the site [Big Issue, 4.8.97]
May 1997, Hull: 300 party at Hull Reclaim the Streets, with sand pits and dancing for three hours (no arrests)
June 1997, Bristol: Police make 22 arrests at Bristol Reclaim the Streets and confiscate the Desert Storm sound system
July 1997, N.Ireland: Police open fire with plastic bullets on young people returning from a teenage disco on the Falls Road, Belfast. A 14-year-old boy is left in a coma.
July 1997, USA: The Stonewall Inn in New York is once again under threat, scrutinised by the city’s Social Club Task Force because of concerns about noise levels and ‘illegal dancing” [Pink Paper, 8/8/97]
August 1997, Wales: Two people on their way to set up an open air party in Deiniolen, North Wales are stopped and strip searched by police, who set up road blocks to prevent the party going ahead.
August 1997, London: Local councillor calls for the Dog Star pub/club in Brixton to be closed, claiming it is a magnet for drug dealers.
August 1997, Surrey: Hundreds of people turn up at a free party in old chalk pits in the Mole Valley in Surrey by the time police turned up the next morning to serve a notice under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act most people had gone home [Guilfin, September 1997]
August 1997, Portsmouth: Police with dogs and video surveillance teams ring a common in Portsmouth and search people trying to attend the Smokey Bears Picnic; council byelaws banning music on the common are enforced and 10 people are arrested [Guilfin, September 1997]
Summer 1997, Surrey: Police close down a free party in a forest near Guildford put on by Timber sound system.
September 1997, France: Police in Paris close down five mainly gay clubs supposedly because of ecstasy dealing (Le Queen, Le Cox, L’Enfer, Le Scorp and Les Follies Pigalle). 2000 people march in protest with one banner declaring “Paris, capitale de l’ennui” (Paris, capital of boredom).
October 1997, Russia: Moscow gay club Chance is raided by “a team of men wearing special troops uniform, black masks and carrying automatic guns”. The special police claim to be searching for drugs; dancers are beaten up and abused a 90 people are arrested [Pink Paper, 17.10.97]
.
October 1997, Wales: 24 police raid a party in a private house in North Wales and impound the sound system. The Country Landowners Association have set up a Rave Watch scheme in the local area encouraging local farmers to tip off the police about possible parties
November 1997, Greece: police violently raid the ACID trance club in Thessaloniki.
November 1997, Norfolk: Police bust squat party at Thelveton Hall, an unoccupied country house in Norfolk, seizing the Brighton-based Innerfield Sound System and carry out intimate body searches. The house belongs to Sir Rupert Mann, but had been empty for seven years.
November 1997, Oxford: Police use a helicopter and horses in an effort to stop Oxford Reclaim the Streets party. Despite the seizure of the solar powered sound system, and the Rinky Dinky Sound System being escorted out of the city, 400 people party in the road [Peace News, December 1997]
December 1997, N.Ireland: Loyalist Volunteer Force open fire on a disco in Dungannon, County Tyrone, killing a doorman. Another man is killed in an attack on a bar in Belfast.
December 1997, Scotland: Street party halts traffic for 1.5 hours outside the Faslane nuclear submarine base . Several people injured by Ministry of Defence police.
December 1997, Wales: 22 arrests in police drug raid on Hippo Club, Cardiff.
December 1997, Israel: Trance outfit Juno Reactor are deported from the country, where they were due to be playing at a 5000 capacity rave, prompting the launch of a Freedom to Party organisation. “Indoor parties are usually legal, as opposed to outdoor parties which are usually not. But even so, many of the indoor parties are constantly being raided by the police” (Dream Creation July 1997)
December 1997, N.Ireland: Edmund Treanor killed and five injured in a Loyalist Volunteer Force attack on New Year celebrations at the Clifton Tavern, Belfast.
December 1997, Brighton: 27 people arrested as police try and close down New Year’s Eve squat party in Brighton; people throw bottles at police.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Kill the Spirit of Gravity: Nietzsche on Dance
The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche clearly appreciated dance, and in his imagining of the “the glowing life of the Dionysian revellers” he seems to be not only looking back to Ancient Greece but anticipating future raves. I would be interested in finding out more about his own experiences of dancing, as opposed to writing about it, so if anybody has any knowledge of this, let me know.
“Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but Nature which has become estranged, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man.... Now the slave is free; now all the stubborn, hostile barriers, which necessity, caprice or ‘shameless fashion’ have erected between man and man, are broken down... Each one feels himself not only united, reconciled, blended with his neighbour, but all as one with him... In song and in dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk and speak; he is about to take a dancing flight into the air... He feels himself a god, he himself now walks about enchanted, in ecstasy... He is no loner an artist, he has become a work of art: in these paroxysms of intoxication the artistic power of all nature reveals itself to the highest gratification of the Primordial Unity” (The Birth of Tragedy, 1872)
"I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance. And when I beheld my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: it was the Spirit of Gravity - through him all things are ruined. One does not kill by anger but by laughter. Come let us kill the Spirit of Gravity!" (Of reading and writing, Thus spake Zarathustra, 1883)"Do not cease your dance, sweet girls! No spoil sport has come to you with an evil eye, no enemy of girls... How could I be enemy of divine dancing, you nimble creatures... A dance-song and a mocking-song on the Spirit of Gravity, my supreme, most powerful devil" (The Dance Song, Thus spake Zarathustra, 1883)
"And once I wanted to dance as I had never yet danced: I wanted to dance beyond all heavens. Then you lured away my favourite singer. And then he struck up a gruesome, gloomy melody: alas, he trumpeted into my ears like a mournful horn! Murderous singer, instrument of malice, most innocent man! I stood prepared for the finest dance: then you murdered by ecstasy with your tones! I know how to speak the parable of the highest things in the dance - and now my greatest parable has remained in my limbs unspoken!" (The Funeral Song, Thus spake Zarathustra, 1883).
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