Transcript of an interview with Red Group dancer Jackie

Kevin: So what’s the first thing you think about when you head the word ‘football’?

Jackie: Football is…when you play football

Kevin: And what do you think about when you hear the word ‘goal’?

Jackie: Goal is when you score a goal.

Kevin: And what about when you hear the word ‘dance’?

Jackie: Dance means, when you’re dancing, when you’re happy

Rehearsal photo by Gigi Giannella

Kevin: So dancing makes you feel happy? What’s your connection to football? What’s your opinion on it?

Jackie: It’s interesting for people who don’t play football and it’s good to learn to put football into dance, and it’s really good.

Kevin: Do you think there are some similarities between football and dance?

Jackie: Yeah

Kevin: So what are those similarities?

Jackie: Similarities are body language, and the way they express their selves, and the way you put your body into a dance, and the way you express your face expression, and the way that you are in slow motion or not in slow motion.

Kevin: Lovely, and what skills do you think a footballer has?

Jackie: Skills is where they do a lot of training and a lot of hard work, they have to do commitments, if you want to be a footballer, you have to be a commitment to do that

Rehearsal photo by Gigi Giannella

Kevin: Have you ever been to a football match?

Jackie: No

Kevin: If you had been, how do you imagine the atmosphere to be? What do you think it might feel like?

Jackie: Imagine if you’re in a football pitch, or you’re in a different world or a different bubble. And you ain’t got no one and you don’t know anyone, and you wanna shout and you don’t care how people feel how you are feeling, you don’t care about what they think, just let it all out.

Kevin: So you think you might get lost in the match?

Jackie: Yeah

Kevin: Do you think that might happen on stage when you were dancing as well?

Jackie: No, because you know where you’re gonna be