Dreams Disturb Reality / The Wasteland Trilogy:
Manchester Festival Commission 1988
Nominated for a Manchester Evening News Award
Set within 3 locations /
The Britannia Hotel
Mnishull Street
The Rochedale Canal
What lies beneath our feet? What do the sites of Waste Lands offer us? In times of political strangulation what dreams can be offered that disturb reality? what beauty, what horror can we manifest that will enable for a liberation of the spirit, an expression of freedom, a sign of hope and a revelation for humanity?
The Britannia Hotel
Mnishull Street
The Rochedale Canal
What lies beneath our feet? What do the sites of Waste Lands offer us? In times of political strangulation what dreams can be offered that disturb reality? what beauty, what horror can we manifest that will enable for a liberation of the spirit, an expression of freedom, a sign of hope and a revelation for humanity?
This was a long time ago but with the Tories back in power who are playing out a nostalgic theatrical game of divide and rule
I experience the eighties once again. With the cuts / the splits between rich and poor, the divide within a nation, the ransacking of public services, the brutal engagement with a population it is all slightly more destructive.
I experience the eighties once again. With the cuts / the splits between rich and poor, the divide within a nation, the ransacking of public services, the brutal engagement with a population it is all slightly more destructive.
I began this site specific performance in a flash swank kitsch hotel in the centre of Manchester.
The Britannia Hotel was built as a ware house and re-developed into a hotel.
There was something totally 80's about it - Over the top extravagant wealth . . . it was and still is slightly crass in it's veneer, it was a front to a wasteland of lost dreams and hope. It was a location that summed up the period, offering anyone the opportunity to live for a night with tat.
Non of it was real, it was all Porches and big ties, flash suits and crushed carpets.
We met our audience in this front to Thatcherism and offered them a 'Better Place'.
Moving the audience through the streets, Minshull Street, the gay village, past the law courts and into the subterranean landscape of the Rochdale Canal.
The fluid veins of the city, the cruising areas for men to meet man on man, the location for men to grapple with bought sex with prostitutes up against the wall.
Leading an audience down beneath the streets into the psyche of the city, where Opera singers floated on water, trapeze artists suspended beneath the ground, drummers hacked out beats, dancers were raised from the deaths of the water, explosions of song and the assassination of song, this was a dangerous world, unruly, anarchic, unseen from the world above.
The Dreams that Disturb Reality was raw beauty of hope.
The Britannia Hotel was built as a ware house and re-developed into a hotel.
There was something totally 80's about it - Over the top extravagant wealth . . . it was and still is slightly crass in it's veneer, it was a front to a wasteland of lost dreams and hope. It was a location that summed up the period, offering anyone the opportunity to live for a night with tat.
Non of it was real, it was all Porches and big ties, flash suits and crushed carpets.
We met our audience in this front to Thatcherism and offered them a 'Better Place'.
Moving the audience through the streets, Minshull Street, the gay village, past the law courts and into the subterranean landscape of the Rochdale Canal.
The fluid veins of the city, the cruising areas for men to meet man on man, the location for men to grapple with bought sex with prostitutes up against the wall.
Leading an audience down beneath the streets into the psyche of the city, where Opera singers floated on water, trapeze artists suspended beneath the ground, drummers hacked out beats, dancers were raised from the deaths of the water, explosions of song and the assassination of song, this was a dangerous world, unruly, anarchic, unseen from the world above.
The Dreams that Disturb Reality was raw beauty of hope.
Photos by Charlie Baker
