electric pedals

ELECTRIC PEDALS

The dynamic future of community cinema

Images by Colin Tonks

Words by Zoe Howes-Wiles

The lazy weekend sun is setting over Telegraph Hill, south east London, as the local community flocks to an unusual outdoor screening of Grease. They bring their children and their camping chairs, their vintage glad rags and woolly jumpers, their sparklers, flasks and bottle-openers. And of course, they bring their bikes – for tonight’s screening is powered purely by legs.

The atmosphere is charged. Children play on bikes as Pink Ladies gather, swirling around with champagne flutes and blond curls, unpacking picnic hampers to celebrate the night in style. Couples pedal side-by-side as the T-Birds arrive. In grunge black leather they ready themselves with beers and blankets. Fathers and sons discuss gear-changes as the BBQ smokes-up, the city lights up, cameras flash and movers and shakers dance to Motown. All around, cyclists pedal away on bicycle generators; tonight, they are the stars. They are the batteries generating the electricity to power our Saturday night entertainment. Welcome to Electric Pedals.

Electric Pedals was founded by Colin Flash Tonks as a way of harnessing human power to generate energy from cycling. Since then, the possibilities of bicycle power have radically developed. In Malawi, a young man sets up a backpack cinema in his village, surrounded by fascinated faces. In Berlin, the lights dim in Katie Mitchell’s pedal-powered production of Atmen as the actors momentarily pause to wipe the sweat from their brows. While back in London, it is

break time at Horniman Primary School and in the Radio Station Shed young eco-DJs mix with renewable energy. Electric Pedals has become the forefront of bicycle power innovation.

But it’s more than that, Electric Pedals is about communication. It’s about connecting people. Whether through outdoor entertainment or classroom education, the focus is on community. Electric Pedals’ collaboration with New Cross and Deptford Free Film Festival meant that more than 700 people came together to sing-along to ‘Greased Lightning’ and swoon over John Travolta. As Jacqui Shimidzu, Community Volunteer and Founder of NXDFFF explains, ‘we could have just had a generator powering this outdoor performance, but Electric Pedals brings added value. People don’t quite believe that cinema can be completely powered by themselves; it’s a spectacle.’ The how of cinema is redefining the extent of what cinema can now be. Dynamic and communal, active participation transforms cinema into an immersive and unpredictable performance where escapism becomes a team-effort - a shared experience - rather than the solitary silence of a dark auditorium. As Tonks makes his last directorial adjustments to the 20 bicycles that will power tonight’s screening, he admits the everpresent ‘fear of jeopardy’ in producing this kind of live cinema: ‘It could all still go wrong.’

Relying solely on constant, real-time pedal power throughout the screening meant that when the human batteries stopped pedalling, the film stopped reeling. Blackout. There was no back-up. With adrenaline surging to resolve the situation, the atmosphere was suitably electrified. The boundaries between picnicking neighbours broke down; red-lipsticked enthusiasts carried on singing regardless, sending a wave of encouragement back to the cyclists with a bawdy rendition of Summer Nights. Suddenly, the screen lit up and the music returned. Cheers rang out for the cyclists; the stars of the show were back on their bikes.

‘This is healthy cinema’, says one Goldsmiths graduate. ‘It’s like a little festival’, says another, ‘There’s a beauty to it’. There is. When something this positive brings people together, there is always beauty - and a world away from South East London, Electric Pedals uses bicycle-powered cinema to bring African communities together in just the same way.

Back in 2009, in association with The Great Apes Film Initiative, Tonks engineered a basic pedalpowered cinema for a hilltop village on the edge of Mgahinga National Park, Uganda, consisting of just two mountain bikes that turned bicycle generators and powered a projector and guitar amp sound system. This conservation project needed to bring greater awareness to the local communities of the endangered mountain gorillas that lived alongside them. Through Electric Pedals’ lightweight and eco-friendly innovation,

Similarly, last year Electric Pedals developed a pedalpowered cinema backpack kit trialled in Malawi. Malawi is 80% rural, and so while film is recognised as a powerful social tool, it is only applicable if it can reach (be carried to) the inaccessible communities. Being able to cross rivers and walk long distances through dense undergrowth, Electric Pedals provided a portable answer with their 20kg backpack cinema. The effect can hardly be overstated. The backpack kit brought the outside world to some of the country’s most farremoved places, raising aspirations, igniting ideas and stirring debate through the luxury of film. For most, it was a miracle.

When Grease’s finale song, We Go Together, rang out across Telegraph Hill, it seemed like the most natural thing to do to stand up and dance. Within moments, the entire audience was laughing and dancing, together. Without the constraints of auditorium seats, the cinema became a moonlit disco and Saturday Night Fever began. There is a beauty to it; how often do we cut loose and share a moment like that with our neighbours? Film can bring any community together to have fun and be inspired. And whether in the UK, where doors so often remain closed, or in the depths of rural Africa, where technology is minimal, Electric Pedals is pedalling the dynamic future of community cinema.

Julian Sayarer rode around the world, beating the record as he did so. Five years on, he looks back at the way the journey changed him, and the book, Life Cycles, in which he's gathered his thoughts from the road.

Words: Julian Sayarer

Illustrations: Paul Heredia