What Does Dance Out Sound Like?
Curated by painter David Remfry and art historian James Russell, Dance Out is a summer exhibition that explores dance as an important, everyday human activity. The exhibition spans decades of dance culture, moving from 20th-century London and New York to the contemporary nightlife of Bristol.
As part of the exhibition, we wanted to explore ways to bridge the gap between the artworks on the walls and the rhythmic movement of dancing. To do this, we commissioned Bristol-based DJ and psychologist d4rling/darling FM (Myles-Jay Linton) to curate a musical response to the works.
The outcome, You Can Dance If You Want To, features a soundtrack mixed by d4rling/darling FM, Josephine Gyasi, and DJ Devolicious. It is played within the gallery through an innovative haptic dancefloor, BEAT BLOCKS, which transforms sound frequencies into powerful vibrations so that visitors can hear and experience the music with their whole body.
But how do you go about responding to a creative challenge like this? We asked Myles and Josephine how they approached turning visual art into a shared sound experience.
“My first thought when I heard about Dance Out was - with nightclubs fighting harder than ever to remain open, how might unexpected locations create space for dancefloors. I think being a good DJ is about responding to the world, often that means reading the dancefloor, but for this project we had to ‘read’ the artwork,” shares Myles.
“We wanted to bring the work to life at the same time as bringing the space to life. This was about honoring the artwork but also honoring a city that has dance at its core.”
He soon reached out to Bristol-based DJs Josephine Gyasi and DJ Devolicious to take part in the project. Both are part of Bristol’s thriving grassroots nightlife scene. The former DJs in every corner of the city, from Trinity, to Jam Jar and St Paul’s Carnival, and the latter is notably core to the Global Majority-led and queer focussed collective Booty Bass.
Josephine ‘immersed’ herself in the exhibition, finding an old projector and setting up a slideshow of the artworks. “I sat there for maybe two or three hours initially,” she shared, “just feeling the artwork and then noticing what sounds came from that.”
Myles started by looking at the images through the lens of his “own history” and how he has “seen dance and the power of dance play out” in his life, sharing that Denzil Forrester’s work in particular reminded him of his childhood: “making mixtapes for my mum’s hair salon, listening to Lovers Rock and rare grooves, and my dad’s nightclub.”
The people involved in the project were as important as the curation of the music itself. “I wanted the soundscape to feel by Bristol, for Bristol,” shared Myles.
Myles goes on to say that “as DJs, we very rarely get opportunities to play and create sounds outside of club spaces. I love playing in clubs, but we are holistic, 24/7 beings, and I’m listening to music all day long. It’s really nice to be able to think about the kind of music that might play in a gallery at 11am or 2pm, not just at 7pm.”
Together, their soundscape offers visitors a new way to experience Dance Out - not just through looking, but through listening, movement and feeling.
You Can Dance If You Want To, features as part of Dance Out which is open until 9 Aug at the RWA
Image credit: d4rling/darling FM (Myles-Jay Linton) at the Private View of Dance Out. Photographer Alastair Brookes /KoLAB Studios