Large Lace: A Choreography of People and Pattern
Year: 2012
Medium: Collaborative performance at Bunyan Hall. Commissioned by Bedford Creative Arts, with the production of a large piece of woven fabric.
Dimensions: 200cm x 150cm x 20cm
Location: Performed at Bunyan Hall, April 2012. Commissioned by Bedford Creative Arts.
Large Lace: A Choreography of People and Pattern is a collaborative performance to explore the challenging leap in physical scale of Lebrusan’s site specific installation in Bedford, Lace in Place. Large Lace used Lebrusan’s team of helpers who assisted with the production of Lace in Place as the pins and bobbins of the lace making process, and lengths of fabric instead of thread.
Participants moved around each other to cross and twist the fabric strips to make lace, under the direction of the artist. Lace can be seen as a sequence of repetitive, choreographic movements of hand and thread, and Lebrusan’s passion as a dancer came irresistibly to the surface here. One also thinks of lace tells in this context – the rhymes chanted by the child labourers of the early lace industry to help them build rhythm and speed, the metre of the poems marking time during the long hours of work.
Large Lace tested notions of co-learning and collaboration as the participants exchanged skills, knowledge and understanding. Although the panels were designed in segments for the helpers to work on it at home, much of the work was collaboratively executed at Bedford Creative Arts. Co-production and collaborative effort remained at the heart of Lebrusan’s project surrounding Bedfordshire lace.
