Maho visits Roubaix!

Us, Olivier and the chimney of the non-place Roubaix. The artists of Roubaix are proud of their chimney and they inspired pride in us! 

Our tres brief visit to Roubaix to meet the artists of le non-lieu was very very inspiring. The similarities between their city and ours are pretty amazing - hopefully we plan to collaborate with them in the next year. We will keep you informed of our plans. 

Above: Chemaine being stuck on top of a massive dyeing tank in le non-lieu, one of Roubaix's many beautiful decommissioned mills. 

This mill which once weaved woollen suit  cloth, was saved from demolition, preserved, and re-opened as a creative social centre. It now houses as much weaving machinery, artefacts and memorabilia as the artists there can manage to incorporate into their space. Le non-lieu is a tribute and an archive that feels very much alive with open and independent art-making and performance. 

A huge thank you to Karen and John from East Street Arts for supporting us to take this trip. It inspired us in unexpected ways, which we will give more detail of soon.

Excuse me, do you love Roubaix?

We are super excited to be heading to France in 2 sleeps! Maho get to visit Roubaix (twin town of our beloved Bradford) thanks to our Euro Heroes at East Street Arts. On this trip we will get to know a flying visit version of Roubaix, and meet a group of artists who have their own independent art space in a renovated mill called le non-lieu. They have a disused chimney and they aren't afraid to decorate it!

 Très magnifique! 

Celestial gardening at Shambala!

The wonderful Brick Box Ladies invited us to join Gypsy Rosie Rosie Rosie Lee's Rose Garden residence in the beautiful woods of Shambala Festival. The call of the woodland is powerful and we had an enchanting time with our womenfolk, as 'Green Enablers'.

The birth of Maho

Conceived and born in Shipley and currently in development at various Bradford locations, Maho's founding principle is 'Never any rush' as demonstrated here by co-founder Ms. Chemaine Cooke, at one of our early thought shower sessions.

Pictured here, collaborator and Bradford person, Michael 'Qi' Metcalfe in a cube made of bamboo, masking tape and string in our Shipley loft space.

Inspired by our 3 month woodland creature retreat in this beautiful free space made available to us by East Street Arts, we decided to form Maho, a dance company born in and dedicated to promoting dance and contemporary performance and art in Bradford, made with Bradford people. 

Photography: Hope Musgrave

In true 'Never any rush' fashion, we talked about being a dance company for a long time but have now actually begun to use our bodies as well as our mouths! We have been having gentle introductions with our lovely Bradford based arty friends. Last week Yvonne Carmichael made us look like ladies and filmed our hands and feet with delicious results. You can see them at her exhibition Fri 28th June - Thurs 4th July 11-6 (except Sunday). If you like you can have a look here www.yvonnecarmichael.com at a previous retail aesthetics project we helped her with. She is ace and clever and we look funny.

There was also a great gig this week with the super Suzy Russell, Lorna de Lorna and friends. As part of the Bradford Festival we interfered with the routine of Bradford's commuters by laying a lawn in the middle of the bus station and wrestling on it, amongst other things. We were beautifully accompanied by the best of Bradford-based improvising string musicians, via Sheffield, Seth Bennett on double bass, via Hull, Abi Vulliamy on viola, and via New York, Seth Woods on cello.