THE BIRMINGHAM COUNTY FINALS
2022 / Off-duty Irish dancing medals for The Birmingham County Finals 1997: an imagined souvenir series exploring my former child-dancer days through sculpture and metalwork / funded by Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice grant / published in Left Cultures Magazine
‘I remember how the kids in the shows wore ringlets in their hair and rainbow Celtic dresses. How I competed next to them in a scraped back bun and a plain polo shirt. There were leg stretches and friends in class, slip jigs and hop jigs and soft shoe recitals. There was Maria. Cross and bend and 1, 2, 3. Squares with numbers on them. 90s mums gossiping in the audience and 90s dads smoking outside. There were VHS camcorders peering out from the crowd. A table of judges. Trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, medals for everyone else. I practiced at home to Irish jigs blasted from a CD player. I practiced all night, practiced so hard I started walking on my toes wherever I went. Tiptoeing to the bathroom to brush my teeth, tiptoeing down food aisles and alleyways, to shops where older kids hung out by doors like bouncers. On the way to school, in between lessons, out on the playground to Spice Girls tribute acts. We couldn’t afford The Birmingham County Finals, so I stopped dancing. I went to see a physiotherapist. My mum had both my legs put in plaster casts for the whole of the summer holidays, just before starting Year 7. I remember not being able to go on my Auntie’s trampoline with my Lego man limbs, my mum performing certified stretches on me, trying to get my feet back on the ground. And I don’t remember any of the dances, but I still walk on my toes. I am an off-duty Irish dancer wherever I go.’
- Extract from ‘Dancin with Digger’ in Left Cultures Magazine