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BBC Four

BBC 4

Charles Hazlewood

Harry Beney

Holly Challinor

Come Clog Dancing: Treasures of English Folk Dance

Documentaries

Music: Folk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

11/12/2010

BBC Four - Come Clog Dancing: Treasures of English Folk Dance

Charles Hazlewood plans to stage a mass flashmob clog dance in Newcastle city centre.

Charles Hazlewood has just two weeks to get Newcastle city centre clog dancing, on a one-man mission to bring a community together through a region's lost heritage of dance.

At the height of the industrial revolution in the last decades of the 19th century there was a dance, now rarely seen, that resounded through the collieries and pit villages of the north east of England - the clog dance.

For conductor and musician Charles Hazlewood, clog dance has become an obsession and he plans to put it firmly back on the map by staging a mass flashmob clog dance.

Helped by a team of local enthusiasts led by expert clog dancer Laura Connolly, Charles recruits and trains 140 men and women from across the north east, and one sunny Saturday in a busy square in central Newcastle they ambush the public with a six-minute performance.

Along the way, Charles delves into the history of this fascinating folk dance, learns and performs a few steps himself, and meets and works with some of the key characters keeping this ancient dance alive.

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