#TrailDance @LoveTrails 2024
I was thrilled to lead a 10km trailrun aka “Traildance” at Love Trails Festival this year. Here’s how the idea was hatched and how it went down.
Nature + music + physical health + mental health = match made in heaven, and the perfect recipe for a Stornoway-topped festival bill. We were invited to headline the incredibly inspiring Love Trails Festival, joining an impressive list of artists including Afro Cluster, Aleighcia Scott, Gonora Sounds, Oscar Arroyo, and Gower locals The Worried Men! This festival has however, since its inception, gone well beyond the music, and I was excited to see featured on the bill numerous inspirational speakers, from professional ultrarunner Lucy Bartholomew to filmmaker Billy Yang.
I cannot recommend strongly enough that you urgently get your hands on 👉 tickets 👈 for the 2025 edition!
It was my privilege to lead a Traildance as part of the Friday schedule, just a couple of hours before my band were due to headline the main stage. This 10km test of physical & spiritual endurance was quite an undertaking but (read on to find out why) I’m a sucker for punishment and was far too excited to turn it down! Traildancing is a trailrunning format that I created in early 2023 as an experiment in how to fuse the four ingredients I find necessary to any meaningful day:
- Nature
- Music
- Physical health
- Mental health
Part of my inspiration for this was that I’d been a practicing mental health first aider for over 5 years, and helped a lot of people in a range of workplaces find a healthy way out of mental health crises. Almost always, their journey to better mental health has involved a reintroduction to nature & the great outdoors, as a reliable way to get treated and reconnect. This is also a topic that my band sings about in almost every one of its songs. I think it’s safe to say everybody at Love Trails was going to be there because they’d realised they get something special from running outdoors, and from music.
A recent study showed that the two most reliable & effective treatments for clinical depression are running and dancing. Personally trail dancing is my self medication when touring with the band, as I’m away from home for weeks at a time and still able to stay sane & upbeat if I make sure I get out for a morning outing, usually 10km.
How does Traildancing work?
Traildancing is fundamentally the alternating of running with dancing. We stop every 2–3 kilometers to hold a loosely organized dance, in a rough clearing ideally dancing in a circle — but just taking up whatever space each individual feels comfortable taking up, and doing whatever amount of dancing they feel comfortable doing. You don’t have to make up your own moves, as there’s be a recommended move for each of the dances, but if you’re having the time of your life and you’re feeling particularly creative then you can feel free to change them up, add in a new style that you fancy, and show off!
Why we Traildance, what songs we use, and why
We timed this traildance very carefully to coincide with the golden hour’s approach, so that we’d see the north gower coast in all its majesty as the sun sets over Llanmadoc to our West. And most importantly we set off from the festival arena at precisely 16:56 — low tide! This meant we were able to see the full marshy expanse of the landscape, with a chance of horses grazing out where only a few hours ago there was deep salt water. Our first track in the playlist was deliverately a song from my own band, which was created with this specific landscape in mind. It’s called Between The Saltmarsh And The Sea, and it uses the eternal tidal pulse of the Gower (where our singer lives) as an illustration of love. Once that’d warmed us up and opened our eyes to the expanse of wildlife before us, we upped the tempo. We enjoyed an energizing soundtrack fusing folk with funk and Mbaqanga from my home (South Africa). The point is to reconnect to nature, in a novel way that gives the joints a break from the relentless pounding; there’s no right way to do it or wrong way to do it, but if you’re dancing with some real spirit & commitment then you’ll definitely experience an easing of the tendons, muscles, and mind, so that the next bit of running feels easier than it otherwise would.
1. Kazeta at 2.6km
This is our first off-road segment and sees us turn fully south, away from the saltmarsh, across toward Oldwalls village. To give our joints & souls a boost before we start the steep ascent toward King Arthur’s Stone, here is a song from Mbaqanga band Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens… with whom my band Count Drachma once had the privilege of jamming at London’s Southbank Centre!
The move for this one is fundamentally a high kick to stretch out each hamstring in turn. Don’t overdo it! Start small and step in time, kicking the top of your leg-swing as the snare hits. Feel free to raise your arms to the sky and take a break from the kicking, whenever you hear the Mahotella Queens go “Ahh”.
2. Funny Bone at 4.75km
Here we’ve reached the summit and King Arthur’s Stone. Well done! It’s time to reward yourself with an epic dance as we appreciate the awesome views from up here. At any time of year on the Gower you can see some very special birdlife, and this one’s called Stormvogel which is the Dutch name for a bird from the petrel family.
At this location I’m encouraging a bit of all-out mad improvisation but try to incorporate a sashay with your arms pointing parallel to the ground.
3. Pluto (Remember You) at 7km
We’re about to turn north again and descend off the spine of the Gower. This is our last chance to appreciate the channel waters from such a height, and your last chance to compete for a place on the shortlist for Best Dancer.
The is another South African track but it’s from the city rather than the mountains. DJ Clock and Beatenberg have collaborated on a soaring remix that speaks of longing and fuses kwaito rhythms into jangly guitars. The kwaito style is a very free, eccentric, modern urban dance, with an endless menu of tricks & techniques, but the recommended core move for kwaito is this: twist your knee down toward the floor & brush it, twice, then repeat on the other knee, then elbow to knee as part of a knee up clsssic stretch, then start again.
4. Conscious Club at finish line
For the closing dance I’ve selected 3 dancers who outdid themselves, and they will dance at the front. Whilst watching them and deciding your favorite, please keep your own dance going too. We will take our vote at the end of this song, “Conscious Club” by Vulfpeck. This song can be summed up as “If You Know, You Know” and that’s what I’d like you all to appreciate today: you’ve gained access to a new club. We’ve discovered how to reconnect, and how to treat ourselves with kindness & love through the power of music & nature! You can use this song to truly break free and do whatever you like, but for those who prefer having some guidance I can recommend this handful of retro moves that work well with pretty much any beat from funk or disco:
- Running Man & Mashed Potato
- Hitch Hiker & Jerk
Competition time! How to dance, how to vote, what to vote for, and what was won
To give participants some extra motivation, there was a winner selected at the end of each dance, and an overall winner announced at the end of the race. The winner received Salomon merchandise including a hat, running tee, and wooden medal! The votes were cast for technique, commitment, and creativity.
What to do after today?
You are now all official traildancers!
Next time you’re on a run, in the city or on a trail, think about stopping for a minute boogie, put your phone on the side of the path, take a quick clip and post it somewhere using hashtag traildance! And as you progress on this journey, please get in touch via social media to let me know your favorite traildancing songs — what’s working for you and why did it particularly suit a certain location? We can get your selections added to the official Traildancing playlist that goes out every few weeks, and get you featured as a star traildancer.
Remember to dance like nobody’s watching! We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time!
