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woman wearing a blue hat, and waistcoat is kneeling and holding a chair. in the background is a marquee and a garden with seating

Seated Stories

Come on a journey with us as we discover and interpret, together with Wycombe Museum, all things Wycombe chairs through dance

a woman wearing a drewss in an old house with lots of woodwork is dancing and placing her foot on a chair

This event is part of Buckinghamshire Culture's Open Weekend and the Chilterns Chairs Festival, running through July in celebration of the unique chairmaking heritage of Wycombe and the local area. The Chiltern’s Chairs Festival is being organised by Wycombe Museum and is funded by the Chalk, Cherries & Chairs Landscape Partnership. Open Weekend is coordinated by Buckinghamshire Culture with contributing organisations across the county. It was established in 2021 and continues to grow each year with more organisations taking part and attracting greater numbers of people to events and activities.

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More about Seated Stories 

Join us on an exciting adventure that brings High Wycombe's famous chairmaking history to life through a fun and engaging dance performance. In collaboration with Wycombe Museum, we’ve created a 10-minute solo contemporary dance which we performed as part of Wycombe Museum’s Chair Festival earlier this month.

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To create this piece, we did research based on text and stories from Wycombe Library and the Wycombe Museum, went on a tour of the William Hands chair factory and used prompts relating to chairs and chairmaking.

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An example of a prompt we used was "A swift, slicing motion saws through the beechwood, shaping the elegant legs of a new chair." Can you find where in the dance we might have used this?

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We also looked at many pictures of chairs and tried to mimic shapes based on the different parts of chairs. Some chairs are rigid and angular whilst others are curvy and have intricate details carved into their wooden elements. 

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We had a lot of fun coming up with tricks we could do using the chair and also thought of how we could make movements with the chair as if it was a dance partner. 

Little Dancer's Challenge

Can you come up with your own chair dance moves? Think about how you would build a chair with your dance steps! Share your moves online and tag us @dewdanceuk with #myseatedstory

We'd love your feedback!

As part of our evaluation for OpenWeekend and to ensure we keep making dance that is thought provoking and enjoyed by our audiences, please take 1 minute to complete some valuable feedback for us (all anonymous).

How would you rate the piece and performance? 5 stars being exceptional and 1 star being poor

Credits 
 

Dance and Choreography: Liezl de Wouters d’Oplinter
Spoken Word: Lin Instone

Audio Description: Tony McBride

 

Music:

  1. Meadow Waltz by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/​

  2. With thanks to Wycombe Museum for the use of ‘The Caning Girls’ Song

  3. Jig of Slurs. Dublin Reel – Merry Blacksmith. The Mountain Road by Sláinte | https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Slinte Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

  4. Countryside Sound Effects from https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

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