The Traipse

This blog has been set up to archive and share my creative practice and collaborative experiences. As a son of Sheffield with a family trade history in the steel industry, brightfurnace seemed a fitting company name. Born in brightside, as a child I remember with awe the now iconic thumping sound of the ton hammers working through the night, New York wasn't the only city that never slept! The alchemic associations and transformations of the fiery furnace seem to echo the grind and relationship I have with uncertainty and change, a metaphor for the creative process.

Brightfurnace's first project the traipse has been in development with partners imove over the past eight months. What began as an idea for a choreographic investigation based upon the interpretation of tradition, in this case English rapper sword dance (with it's origins around the Tyneside coalface) new strands and developments have been forged through what has been a long period of picking the project up and putting it down again, interspersed with procrastination and vigorous bouts of new energy and refined approach! Key to this process has been the continued support and development of ideas from Tessa and imove which has helped this initial period of defining the project feel a less isolated one and more collaborative.

The traipse will be a walked performance event that has it's roots in trespassing or arriving uninvited within a variety of social spaces and surprising unsuspecting groups of people with our show, like that of the pub, greasy spoon cafe and working mens club (I know there's a few left somewhere?) these dances are designed for small spaces. We'll process along and perform in a number of considered, pre arranged venues leaving room for spontaneity in between and along the daily timeline within five locations over five days in Yorkshire.

The final destination of the traipse, the trespass inn is a fictional fantastical performers club that will host a medley of folksy cum cabaret performance and dance. The idea is to partner up with local folk and cabaret clubs, like Cabaret Boom Boom in Walkley, Sheffield and promote local artists. One theory of the origin of the word traipse is from the french word trespass and so the trespass inn and traipsing are synonymous.

The three strands that form the body of the work are as follows:

• Interpreting Tradition

• The Traipse

• The Trespass Inn