AutoHoodening

MASHING THE MONSTROUS KENTISH MIDWINTER RITUAL OF HOODENING WITH THE HORRORS OF CONTEMPORARY AUTOMATED WORK

Join Post Workers Theatre for a department -wide end of term extravaganza: four days of collective creativity and co-production, kicking off with a talk event & screening on Monday 9th December 2-5pm in the Hexagon (room 211, Lockwood Building).

Hoodening is an ancient folk custom performed in East Kent for over 200 years. The Hoodeners were mainly agricultural labourers, working in ploughing teams who visited pubs, shops and houses during the fallow season of winter, entertaining their hosts with carnivalesque horseplay in return for ‘largesse’, beer and cake. The Hoodening team’s stock characters represented their working realities. From the ‘poor old’ hooden horse exhausted by the hard labour forced upon him to the whip carrying ‘Waggoner’ trying to keep the others in line.

AutoHoodening will reinterpret this historic folk custom for the age of automation and update its design and delivery. What if the hooden horses embodied artificial intelligence, drones and robots and the plough team became workers at an Amazon ‘fulfilment centre’? How might the singing, dancing and physical humour parody and draw attention to the horrifying working conditions hidden behind consumer-facing infrastructure and the ease of one-click delivery?

SCHEDULE: All activities will take place in the Hexagon (211)

Launch Event – Monday 9th December – 2-5pm

Talks & discussion with Folk Historian George Frampton, St Nicholas & Wade Hoodener, Ben Jones and journalist & writer James Bloodworth

Screening of Automat by Lab Ky Mo and Chi Thai

Tuesday 10th December

Character development & collective writing workshop – 10am – 4pm

Wednesday 11th December

Costume, prop and music production – 10am – 4pm

Thursday 12th December

Performance & delivery rehearsal – 10am – 4pm

Live performance from 6pm

All welcome! RSVP for places on the workshop: d.macdonald@gold.ac.uk / n.mortimer@gold.ac.uk