The Worker Becomes Queen

The Queen Bee is a towering figure inspired by Carnival Queens, Cotton Queens, and the Catalan tradition of Gegants. She stands not as royalty by birth but as a symbol of collective strength and cultural pride.

Her costume is created through a community textile programme that brings together fabrics and embroidery from across Manchester’s global communities. Through this work, local makers and volunteers connect with international textile traditions, linking Greater Manchester’s industrial heritage with living cultural identities.

The Queen Bee is being created through an international exchange between artists from Greater Manchester and Catalonia. After months of remote design, they will come together for a creative residency at The Vale. This returns textile-making to a former cotton mill and completes a powerful circle of craft, culture, and place.

She is more than a puppet. She is the Queen Bee. A celebration of working people, community resilience, and the power of collective imagination.

Lead Artists: Dolors Sans , Emily Wood , Mel Roberts , Joaquin Campano, Lizzie Rigby , Pau Reig

The Worker Bee is a four-metre kinetic sculpture that honours the spirit of industry, labour, and transformation. Made from repurposed bicycle parts, gears, chains, and salvaged metal, she moves through the streets powered by human effort. Handles, pedals, and counterweights bring her to life, revealing the physical energy behind her every motion.

She is created as part of an international exchange between artists from Greater Manchester and Catalonia, through a collaborative design and making process rooted in shared industrial histories. Her form reflects both cities’ connections to engineering, innovation, and street-based sculpture.

Hand-painted silks are incased in clear resin, creating a stained-glass effect that links her visually to the Queen Bee. This textile detail brings the two structures into dialogue and evokes the cotton industry that shaped Greater Manchester’s identity. Cog motifs and layered textures reference the machinery and mills of the industrial revolution, shared across Manchester and Barcelona.

The Worker Bee is both machine and monument. A moving tribute to the people who powered these cities and a reminder that heritage and creativity continue to evolve through collective effort.

Lead Artists:Pau Reig , Dave Young,  Emily Wood , Mel Roberts ,  Lizzie Rigby , Dolors Sans , Joaquin Campano,

Dance is at the heart of this work. It brings people together across communities and generations, telling shared stories through movement.

Led by dancers from Oldham and Tameside, the project brings together Saddleworth Women’s Morris and the Indian Association Oldham. These groups represent a rich mix of English folk and South Asian traditions, from the rhythmic steps of clog and Morris to the circular patterns of Garba.

Through a process of co-creation, the groups are exploring their own cultural practices, sharing stories, and finding common threads. Rather than blending styles, they are building mutual understanding and developing choreography that reflects both distinct identities and shared values.

This dialogue also resonates with Catalonia’s own traditions, particularly Balls de Bastons. These are stick dances rooted in rural ritual and public celebration. While each form is culturally specific, the shared gestures of rhythm, repetition, and collective strength create powerful points of connection across borders.

These new works will feature in parades, around the sculptures, and in staged performances at La Mercè. At the centre of this vision is a maypole ritual formed from the Queen Bee’s gown. In these moments, dance becomes a living link between tradition, place, and people.

Music plays a central role, shaping the pace, mood, and structure of the performance. A newly commissioned live score brings together rhythmic and melodic traditions from Greater Manchester and Barcelona, reflecting Global Grooves’ commitment to intercultural exchange, community celebration, and artistic collaboration.

Rooted in carnival, the sound world is vibrant and expansive. It includes South Asian percussion, Afro-diasporic rhythm, Catalan street music, and industrial textures. These are layered with local brass band traditions, jazz influences, and the melodic instrumentation of North West Morris. This musical range reflects the diverse heritage of the communities involved and celebrates the cultural richness they bring to the project.

The score is being developed by Jack Tinker and Emma Marsh in close collaboration with the dancers and the wider creative team. Musical themes have emerged from movement, story, and shared dialogue, shaped by the lived experiences of participants. Drawing on Global Grooves’ carnival roots, including the energy of Brazilian bloco and the collective power of street music, the music invites audiences into a sound journey that is joyful, dynamic, and deeply connected to place and people.