Dispatches From the Dancefloor. More from the MIND women's group at Lock In Live

 Sue and sound recordist Josh confer before our latest session at the Lock In in Barrow.

 We got our usual warm welcome at the studio, the kettle was located in the debris from Lock In's (marvellous) Coastal Roads Festival, and the serious fun of recording began. The written and recorded work from the MIND In Furness women's group has been composed into a script, with additional bits from Kate Davis and me, and the result is a slice across time and place, reflecting shifts in the nature of  preparations for nights out, and the role of music in our social and private 
worlds. 

Sue writes about the buzz  she can find in a near-empty venue in the hours before a gig, and about the peace she finds in contemplative, enveloping sound.  In Nicola's account of a day out at the Radio One Road Show we hear the fizzing adrenaline of teenage fandom. In Louise's pieces, read by Nicole who we know from her work with Theatre Factory, we hear a contemporary anxiety worm its way onto the dancefloor, hollowing out the buzz of  release and abandon, and then we hear that anxiety justified as an  unthinkable act  takes place in the darkness between dancers,  a particular darkness that  the light show can't reach.

In some ways, the work here is about shared experiences across decades. The conversations around it revealed parallels between very different lives. Discussions around technique with Kate sharpened the focus and placed the work within both the personal and the universal.  In another way, the work is about confidence; in ourselves, in our social skills and in the environments we move within. Confidence and security, and the right we all have to it.  

This is probably the last of these diary posts.  Next time we'll have something to listen to. There are 6 pieces in all; roughly 30 mins, conversations and moments of reflection, bits of music, new writing, jokes and anecdotes, people taking pleasure in a shared history with music, and in each others company.

Watch this space.

Thank you, to all our writers, readers and interviewees for your company and your words, to workshoppers Geoff and Kate, Glenn from MIND, Phill for the tune, and to Robbie (get well soon mate), Josh and Damo at the Lock In. 

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