The internationally acclaimed photographer Elaine Constantine’s images of the 1990s northern soul scene in London and Manchester are set to be exhibited at Martin Parr Foundation from July 11.
Taken between 1994 and 1997, the photographs in I’m Com’un Home In The Morn’un show revellers dancing at venues including London’s 100 Club, the Ritz Manchester and the Bretby Country Club, as well as more intimate spaces including ‘a young lad called Steve’s kitchen’.
Northern soul combines lesser-known, 1960s and 1970s up-tempo Motown and Black American soul records with sweat-inducing dance steps, from glides, to shuffles, spins and high kicks.
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The Ritz, Manchester, 1990s
Bretby, Derbyshire, 1990s
The heyday of the northern soul in the UK was the 1970s, and Constantine herself was involved in the underground scene a few years before she began to document it. As such, she was fascinated with how the movement continued to evolve.
“I remember going down those stairs into that dark basement and seeing those shadowy figures moving energetically in sync with each other; it all came back to me in an instant and made me slightly hesitant…” she recalls.
“It was obvious the scene had gone further underground, the crowd older, little new blood, the records more obscure and the attitude on the dancefloor as fierce as ever. Could I really take pictures in this place? As I suspected it would, the blast from my first flash altered the atmosphere. I braved it to shoot a few more from different angles but things felt worse with each blinding shot.
“The relief I felt when I heard the familiar opening bars of This Won’t Change by Lester Tipton, a fast, raw, jerky yet tender sound. I pushed the camera bag under a chair and got lost dancing in the shadows until morning.”
Ormonds, London, 1990s
100 Club, London, 1990s
Making the decision to focus instead on moving image to capture the heart and energy of the movement, Constantine went on to make the award-winning music documentary Northern Soul (2014), and many of her early photographs went unseen.
Rediscovering them, their raw and enduring appeal was undeniable. Former editor of The Face, Richard Benson, who commissioned those early images, has provided the photobook and exhibition text for I’m Com’un Home In The Morn’un. For him, the power in Constantine’s photos is revelatory.
“Classic tracks blend sadness, vulnerability, tenderness, and joy in ways that somehow demand a physical response,” he explains. “Northern Soul dancers mouth the lyrics as they dance more than people on other scenes do; their hand gestures relate to the lyrics as much as the rhythm; and many of the songs have a strange, melancholy-yet-euphoric yearning that seems captured in the spins and leaps and glissades out on the floor.
“Lots of the people in these photographs look as if the music has made them feel as if they could fly, and that’s as good a way as any to start thinking about it.”
The Ritz, Manchester, 1990s
Steve’s Kitchen, Manchester, 1990s
Elaine Constantine: I’m Com’un Home In The Morn’un is at Martin Parr Foundation from July 11-September 22 (gallery opening times are Thursday to Sunday, 10.30am-5.30pm; closed Monday to Wednesday. Entry to the exhibition is free. For more information, visit www.martinparrfoundation.org.
A photobook of the collection is published in July 2024 by RRB Photobooks; available for pre-order now.
All photos: © Elaine Constantine (main photo: 100 Club, London, 1990s)
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