Shovel Dance Collective

Shovel Dance Collective is a nine-member group whose music draws on traditional material, presented at Brudenell Social Club in Leeds. The concert is one of several dates on this visit to the city.

The nine members of Shovel Dance Collective share a commitment to traditional music, valuing both its beauty and its political force. Their work joins older material with group improvisations, recordings of sounds gathered in the field, and tape manipulation in the manner of musique concrète.

Their arrangements bring out the hopeful, human side of folk, and the joy and sorrow carried in words and melodies shaped collectively over time. Dense orchestration alternates with passages of great delicacy. The music is presented as carrying the voices of earlier generations, of people who were oppressed, and of workers whose labour created wealth.

The concert takes place at Brudenell Social Club, a live music venue on Queen's Road in Burley, Leeds. The club began as a working men's club and mainly hosts pop, rock and indie concerts.