Bobak Walker (Choreographer)


I first became aware of this project when Damien and Lucy Suggate held a workshop on traditional dance for professional dancers at Yorkshire dance in early 2007. I’d worked with Lucy on a number of projects before but had never come across Morris or clog. I went along out of my respect for Lucy’s work mainly but also because of my natural curiosity. I enjoyed the workshop, and it raised a few questions that I’d never even thought of before, but it wasn’t until they asked me to work on the second pilot that I really began to become interested in what The Demon Barber Roadshow was up to.


When Damien asked me to be the choreographer for the full show, I was there! I’d been hoping that the


project would continue after the pilot as I thought some of the ideas that came from those two weeks showed seriouspotential.


During the R&D period for the full show there were some amazing moments where the similarities between the two styles became clearer and more overwhelmingly obvious than either groups of dancers had expected.


One of our tasks was to take an existing Morris dance, study it and by using the same foot patterns, tweaking the styling, use of levels and arm positions, morph it into something that looks like a street piece. We went into the task with very little expectation about the results but it turned out to be much easier than I had envisaged. The eye opener was when we then danced side by side with the folkers. Once we stripped away the music


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