Join Roger Smith, artists Francis Augusto and Jordan Baseman, as well as Project Coordinators Ocean Farini and Jenna Eady to launch the Dancing Through Time: from Pop to Punk in the City of Derby exhibition.
About:
Dancing Through Time: from Pop to Punk in the City of Derby is an exciting heritage project, made possible thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project explored the social clubs, dance clubs, dance movements and music scenes in Derby from the 1960s to the late 1970s.
Many people of Derby/shire and further afield will have memories of Derby’s infamous venues such as the Locarno, Clouds (then Cleopatra’s) and the Ajanta cinema which unfortunately are now long gone, repurposed into things such as restaurants, or in some cases demolished, lost to time.
By covering the early 1960s to the late 1970s we were able to chart the social-economic history of Derby against the backdrop of great societal change in the UK – from the summer of love and a more permissive 1960s, through the dour 1970s – including the 3-day week, political unrest and blackouts, to the rise of Thatcher and the pending miner’s strike of 1984.
The springboard for this project was Roger Smith’s book ‘We Danced In Derby’ – Roger is a local writer and heritage researcher, whose exciting book wonderfully chronicles more than 40 Derby dance hall, discos, clubs and pubs and other social venues during this period.
We have engaged various community groups across Derby/shire in the heritage of this time – collecting memories and objects from people who were there and educating younger generations in the importance of securing these memories for future learning.
