Bass 2010 | Beyond The Ballroom – Mac Arts Centre, Birmingham

As part of the Bass Festival 2010, Beyond the Ballroom celebrated UK Jazz Dance heritage and it’s impact on club culture. To be fair, I knew a little about some of the main players like Dick Jewell who screened his film ‘The Jazz Room’ and  Mark ‘Snowboy’ Cotgrove, who was also signing his new book ‘From Jazz Funk & Fusion to Acid jazz: The History of the UK Jazz Dance Scene’ and certain links/ties to other forms of dancing such as breaking which is a lot closer to my own heritage, but it was a pretty cool event to be asked to photograph and meeting the guys on this scene, some still dancing hard at 52+ years of age, made for a decent sunday afternoon at the new Mac Arts centre in Birmingham. The traditional soaking wet British Summer didn’t help but check out some of the moves these guys pulled off for us…