The Happenings artist development commission
TRACOBAND is a site-specific performance commissioned for The Happenings 2021 by artist Lola Adodo. The work premiered at Keele University on 30 September 2021, then further developed and performed at All Saints Community Garden, Knutton on 16 October 2021.
Rooted in community, rhythm and history, TRACOBAND was choreographed and performed alongside live percussion by Adrian Waters and Danny Shaw. At All Saints Community Garden the performance invited local community-volunteers and dancer Rebecca Harvey to join the movement, creating a seated outdoor dance work that honoured site, circumstance and collective agency.
Inspired by the story of Cathay Williams — the only documented African-American woman to serve as a soldier in the U.S. 19th-century army — the performance connects notions of courage, movement and boundary-crossing with local landscape and collective action. The physical presence of the performers on open ground invited audiences to re-engage with overlooked corners of the city, where expectation, memory and landscape converge.
TRACOBAND’s minimal staging and reliance on percussion, movement and public space reflect The Happenings’ commitment to hyper-local, intimate public art — transforming the everyday into a site of encounter, rhythm and story. By enlisting community participants alongside an established artist, the work emphasised collaboration, wellbeing and access — becoming both a reflection on movement through space and a celebration of shared creativity.