Dancing Through Time

‘It changed everything in an instant. It changed everything’ – Mick ‘Shelly’ Shelton 

Derby, furthest point from the sea, the UK’s passing through place. But just beneath this city’s surface is a rich history of worn-in sprung dance floors; one of change, of firsts and of energy. 

The ‘Dancing Through Time’ archive brings together over 650 photographs, ticket stubs and ephemera as well as over 30 hours of oral histories. Exhibiting as part of FORMAT25, it explores, celebrates and preserves the social history of the music, club and dance scenes in Derby – from the 1960s through to the late 1970s and creeping into the mid 1980s (there was too much good stuff to leave out).  

A Heritage Lottery funded project undertaken by a team of us at Derby QUAD from 2023 – 25, had us asking the people of the city to delve deep into their memories, photo albums and lofts. We sought to bring together threads of the fondly remembered nights out, weaving a tapestry of this often-unwritten part of Derby’s social history – an archive created by the people ‘who were there’. 

Archives, at their best, serve as a place in which collective memory can be accessed, understood and re-examined.  These crowd-sourced stories that reflect on the past as well as providing an opportunity for present understanding of our collective identity.  Over our sharing events and a huge number of highly caffeinated meetings – a jigsaw of the different angles of memory have come together to create a full-fat, full-colour version of the city I thought I knew well.  

Today I’m walking across the marketplace chatting with Lidia, first gen Derby punk, still donning her signature black eye make-up. She tells me she used to first buy it from Alf James’ Joke Shop on Green Lane (it was the best stuff – waxy, high pigment; for clowns). Last Friday, sat in QUAD’s artist studio overlooking the council house, Steve told me about the time he was sat in the Blue Note on Sadler Gate (the place to be seen) and heard John Peel on the radio for the first time. And back in October, a group of women stood in front of a map of the city, animatedly pinning the venues on and telling me about the first time they stepped into the earth-shaking boom of the Havana Club (Derby’s first West Indies club).  

‘Firsts’ are formative and transformative. Be it hearing that record, playing that gig or moving in that dancehall, we can often feel as though there was life before it and life, well, after. No going back!  Music, dance and fashion bring together the potent ingredients to create these electric moments, often, in ways that we don’t realise the gravity of at the time.  

From all the stories that have built this archive, there feels a common theme – a kind of DIY spirit across the decades, the courage to go out and be part of something. The Derby of the 60s through to the 80s was a patchwork of tastes and subcultures, but whatever the width of your trousers or length of your hair, it was the people of Derby that created their own scene. Often, anonymous or empty buildings were transformed into popular venues. Pub back rooms became your home from home and the marketplace was your own back yard. Cities without people are just buildings.  

The archive is a celebration of this crash cymbal in Derby’s social history. It also functions as present-day call to action; for more music, more movement and more stories. To re-examine our relationship to our city in a way that creates shared experiences, rather than individuals passing through. To continue, in our own way, the energy of what came before. (Just don’t miss the last bus home from town). 

Dancing Through Time – Pop to Punk in the City of Derby is a heritage project inspired into life through the writings and research of Roger Smith’s book, ‘We Danced in Derby. The archive and oral histories will be made available through a publicly accessible website. This project has been made possible thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, with thanks to the National Lottery players.