Front Cover Image: One Second In A Dance by Oscar Romp
A pre-Instagram analogue image informed and inspired by the real experience of
listening to music and dancing at allnighters in the late-eighties.
“Whether your first experience of Northern Soul was trying to backdrop to a scratchy cassette at the youth club or nodding to the beat and trying not to stare at the spinners and swallow-divers in a regional ballroom in the wee hours, you’ll probably be asking yourself (like me and Marvin) -what’s going on? Who are these people on the web, peddling this insipid travesty of what has been our passion for decades? How did the scene become the preserve of pretty young things? And what the hell can I do about it?
In this book, Paul Sadot exposes the social media interpretation of Northern Soul for what it is – theft. A heist of perhaps the most underground movement in British popular culture. Drawing on 40 years’ experience as a dancer, record collector and DJ in the soul scene, Sadot interrogates the influencers and calls out the 21st century custodians of a culture which they have cheapened and faked for personal gain.
Honest, incisive and entertaining, Insta(nt) Soul hits back at the tide of blandness that has stultified the scene and packed it in a pretty parcel of cosy nostalgia for smartphone surfers.
”
EXTRACTS
‘Why am I writing this? It’s a question that I asked myself many times, and after much reflection and soul searching, I returned to the answer that I must. My soul needs to set things straight, to put it down in writing before the scene that changed my life’s trajectory forever, disappears for good in a sea of online curation, parody and product placement.’
‘As the title suggests, the arrival of ‘Insta(nt) Souls’ around a decade ago changed everything, and upon closer examination it has the markings of a well-produced cultural heist. The newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst suggested that “News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.” It is the incessant advertising of a parody version of Northern Soul dancing that has led to the creation of this book. Is it news? Let’s take a look shall we…’
‘So, what happened? Why, since 2014, have we been constantly bombarded by trite, superficial online videos of smiley ‘happy’ dancers prancing about on their own and declaring it Northern Soul dancing? Some even going so far as squeezing the very term ‘Northern Soul’ into their online name, like a square peg into a round hole. Or, perhaps more like an imperialist power claiming to have discovered a new land that had, prior to their heroic arrival, no former inhabitants, no history and no soul.’
‘Not just art but life itself should be instagramable, that is, free of rough edges, of conflicts or contradictions that could cause pain. What has been forgotten is that pain purifies. It has a cathartic effect. The culture of the likable and the agreeable lacks any opportunities for catharsis. We are thus suffocated by the residues of positivity which accumulate beneath the surface of the culture of likes.
Han, The Palliative Society (2021)’
‘The space of Insta(nt) soulebutante dance teachers is one of insta(nt) gratification. No time and no connection or soul is demanded from them or the gullible punters who believe the manufactured hype. Just turn up online, or in a village hall, arts centre, theatre or kitchen, and step about to some cynically conceived product that has nothing to do with dancing to Northern Soul music. More often than not, it bears an uncanny likeness to a fitness class…’
‘The concept of Northern Soul dance lessons is a new space that has been manufactured to meet a market that never previously existed. The proponents have gaslighted people into feeling that they need to have lessons to attend a Northern Soul event, which is a totally disingenuous lie. For decades before these marketeers emerged, no lessons were demanded, needed or offered. So why now? Well, it’s a market that, like all capitalist markets, responds to the needs and desires that it creates. It is a self-perpetuating model. The soulebutantes bombard the online space(s) with carefully curated films that attempt to define their soulfulness in order to market a product.’
About the Author
Paul has been active on the Northern Soul scene since 1976 as a dancer and a record collector.
He commissioned the writing of, and was the director and producer of the original stage play Once Upon A Time in Wigan (2003-2005). He was the movement director for Elaine Constantine’s BAFTA nominated feature film Northern Soul (2014). He was the movement director for the groundbreaking Gucci Soul Scene campaign (2017). Paul is an ‘outsider’ academic scholar who specialises in how vernacular dance culture is gentrified, legitimised, and corporatised for financialisation. His doctoral work focussed on the co-optation of hip hop dance culture within the space(s) of elite contemporary dance institutions in the UK and the resulting commodified and legitimised Hip Hop Dance Theatre products that emerged from that context. He has written for Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies as well as contributing a chapter about Northern Soul dance culture for the Equinox Northern Soul Scene book. Paul works globally as a Movement Director for fashion, cinema, dance and theatre. He is a Capoeira Professor.
Some readers might say he is a pretentious Cunt! But, as Marion Black sang so soulfully, “Who Knows.” Read the book and make up your own mind!
Publishing date expected November 2025. Join the mailing list to keep up to date
