Industrial dance at the Festival of Making

Posted on April 27, 2017

Staff at an industrial bakery will create a new piece of contemporary dance for the Festival of Making, held from May 6 to 7 in Blackburn, Lancashire. The new dance work is part of a series of artist residencies called Art in Manufacturing.

Cherry Tree Bakery, an organisation that researches physical movement and repetitive stress, has partnered with choreographer Ruth Jones on a “Movement Choir”, inspired by the work of Rudolph von Laban. A professional dance work inspired by the factory will also be performed during the festival weekend. In the 1930s, Laban was a committed advocate of sharing artistic experience with workers.

Traysway, part of the Art In Manufacturing project. A collaboration between choreographer, Ruth Jones and Cherrytree Bakery. Photograph: Richard Tymon.

Other projects in the festival include a collaboration between embroidery artist and Bella May Leonard with Silentnight Beds and between artist Michelle Wren, who has a background in set building, with wallpaper company Graham and Brown.

Elena Gifford, co-director of the National Festival of Making, said: “The manufacturing heritage of Lancashire needs little introduction, but it isn’t a region that rests on its history as the heart of the industrial revolution, it continues to innovate and move forward. Through Art in Manufacturing we’re creating an unprecedented link between successful, modern industrialists, the communities that surround them and big-thinking artists.”

Visit festivalofmaking.co.uk for the full festival programme.

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.