Culture and sport have once again come hand in hand through the Birmingham 2022 Festival, with Sutton Coldfield’s Rectory Amateur Boxing Club creating music through boxing in their performance ‘Boxer Beat’. Boxer Beat has now been turned into a documentary film, with all musical tracks created available to watch online for free.
Rectory Amateur Boxing Club, set up by Phil Brennan in 2007 promotes amateur boxing as a healthy lifestyle choice to local people. The club is as much about community as it is about sport.
Inspired by the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, Phil Brennan explains how they saw the Games as the perfect way to show the world boxing as a community-led practice. He says: “The Commonwealth Games coming to Birmingham is an inspiring opportunity for our club to show the world how the power of sport, a community club and its members can be a really positive force in the world. I think art is a very powerful tool and being able to work with local artists to bring a creative dimension to what we do here at the club has been a fantastic experience. We can’t wait to share Boxer Beats with the world and we hope it will inspire others to take up the sport”
The performance consisted of five boxers from the club joining forces with local musicians, Joe Cook and Mr. Auden Allen in creating musical tracks based on each boxer’s style and pace. Each hook and jab added a unique layer to the composition, bringing to life the celebration of rhythm through intertwining music and boxing.
Joe Cook highlights the creative benefits of music for boxing: “There’s huge elements of creativity in boxing and rhythm is the cornerstone of it all. Using the rhythm of the boxers we’ve created personalised tunes synchronized to their individual tempo while training and boxing. It’s also allowed the boxers to collaborate and compose through their movement and has given them opportunity to learn new skills by taking part in the process of creating music.”
Source: BC2022
Frederick Marfo is a sportswriter and social worker well known for his advocacy for equal chances and rights for all athletes, especially those with disabilities.
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