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Video: When sword dancing met hip-hop
A sword dancing group from Yorkshire is helping to carve a new image for English folk dance.
The Demon Barbers bring traditional rapper sword dancing bang up to date by mixing it with a hip hop and techno soundtrack.
Now the group has just been awarded a 35,000 grant from the Arts Council to create a brand new show in the spring.
Fronted by sword dancer and singer Damien Barber, from Howarth, who has worked as a professional musician for 20 years, the folk group formed eight years ago and has received critical acclaim for the Demon Barber Road Show. It mixes traditional English sword and morris dancing with modern music and ultraviolet painted swords to bring traditional dance to a younger audience.
"The idea is to raise the profile of traditional English dance," said Mr Barber, adding he was really "chuffed" that the group has been awarded the grant.
The money will be used to produce a full length theatre show based on an experimental performance last year at York Theatre Royal.
"We did a 10-minute pilot to bring in street dancers and contemporary choreographers to inject new life into traditional dance and fuse it with street and contemporary music," Mr Barber explained. "We'll definitely incorporate some modern moves into the sword dancing, quite possibly hip hop, we'll just have to wait and see."
The aim is to rekindle interest in the much derided traditional English folk scene by making it hip once more.
"We hope for it not to be ridiculed in the way that it has been in the past," Mr Barber said. "We're asking for people to respect it and identify with it. People generally mock anything old and anything our forefathers have done before us. What we all want is to have our traditions respected in the same way other cultures do."
Mr Barber is already helping to bring sword dancing to a whole new generation through his work with schools. He currently teaches traditional rapper sword dancing in four schools, including a lunchtime club in Barnsley and an after-school club in Sheffield. He also runs workshops at the Northern Dance Centre in Ilkley.
"We've got more schools than we can deal with but it's always down to funding," he said. "There is a real shortage of sword dance teachers.
"We should be teaching traditional dancing in schools as Irish dancing is taught in Ireland. I think it would be good to get it into the curriculum."
The rapper dance dates back 150 years and originated in the coalfields of the north of England. It is performed by five people connected by two-handled flexible swords made out of sprung steel.
Without breaking the chain the dancers form figure by weaving in and out of one another twisting the swords to form locks. Jumping and somersaulting over the swords, the Demon Barbers follow traditional figures mixed with their own choreography.
Earlier this year the group scooped the Best Live Act 2009 title at the BBC Folk Awards in London.
The 14-strong group which includes five sword dancers and six clog dancers are now much in demand with headline bookings at folk festivals and arts venues.
They were also invited to play at the Yangtze River Arts Festival in China in April, which according to Mr Barber "went down a storm".
Their next date in Yorkshire will be in Holmfirth on October 31, though they will also be putting in festival appearances up and down the country over the next couple of months.
They are also working on a new album which they hope to bring out this autumn.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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