Spacedog Televisor
revolution - for clogs and video loops
I co-created this piece with performer Caroline Radcliffe after we talked about ways to bring Lancashire clog dancing, a fascinating and often overlooked English dance form, to a contemporary audience. The video here shows an excerpt of the 10-minute of our piece: Revolution.
The steps you're watiching are from a dance called The Machinery, originally created by the Lancashire clog dancer Pat Tracey for Camden Clog, using steps passed through her family, dating back to the 1820s. Here, it has been rechoreographed by Caroline as a solo dance.
Each step was developed by cotton mill workers to mimic the sounds and actions of the components of the industrial machinery that relentlessly marked out the pace and intensity of their work. Steps named after components of mill machinery, such as the shunt, the pick, the cog and over-the-tops, were danced to the rhythm of the machines they imitated. Dancing was one of the few ways in which workers (mainly female) could express themselves in the intense noise and repetitive work of the mill. Highly virtuosic versions of clog were also performed in the popular drinking holes and music halls - the 'Free and Easies', after work.
In many ways, the steps to the Machinery are a very early precursor of the robotic aesthetic embraced by electronic artists such as Kraftwerk. The dance is conceived as expressionless and machine-like as possible. Even the arms and head are meant to be held in a machine-like manner.
The sounds and videos are looped field recordings of working cottton machines. These were collected by us from Quarry Bank Mill. Thanks to everyone at Quarry Bank for their help with this project.
This tape shows the very first live performance of Revolution, demonstrated as work in progress to a group of theatre and media researchers at the Repeat Repeat Conference, Chester, April 2007. The videos and sounds were in a decidedly rough and ready state during this show - we'd made a rough cut of the final video an hour or so before the performance. Every aspect of the piece has been in development since this film. Later versions of the dance have been seen at the Plastic Cabaret, Komedia, Brighton, and Quake Contemporary Dance Festival, Derby, 2007.