Category: Creative

Painting, Drawing, Knitting, Writing, Playwriting, it all goes here.

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Nightwalked

couple walk through York hand in hand

And so another piece gets rolled over into the past tense. Nightwalk, York reached the end of its official life-span last Saturday with the close of the Illuminating York and Take Over Festivals. The offical site (http://nightwalkyork.tumblr.com/) has been amended and appended with some of the lovely feedback I got over twitter.

The picture above was taken by Katherine as she walked around the streets where it was happening. She took this picture of a couple who did the whole piece whilst holding hands.

It was a very odd feeling not to have been there while it was going on, but time was short, and the 5 1/2 hour round trips to York wearing so I didn’t make it up after the main testing/re-edit. Huge thanks to @Katherine_ann for being around to check people were OK, an wave those off as wanted it. She thinks she saw off roughly 100 people over the couple of days she was there, and other people were doing it in the days between the 27th and 30th as well, so all in all, a larger audience than I expected. There was growing coverage for it too – as before (with Rain Reminds) people didn’t really know what to expect, but after the first outing, word got out, people invited other people (I saw a surge in facebook invitees) and it eventually made it onto local radio and papers, as well as the Love York and Science City websites.

A brilliant reception, too, so much so the York tourist board have showed preliminary interest in a slightly modded one that will work for a bit longer, so perhaps Dark York may even become a fixture of the city. Like the moonstone books, where you could slip between the stones at night into a slightly different world.

I’ve left the download link up for any curious ears, certain parts of it wont work in situe now – the park where it begins will be shut, and references to bonfire night will stall a bit – but if you are interested in some the stories and sounds that could be found in Dark York, do have a listen. Headphones if you please. And go breathe in some cold Autumn air.

Thanks to Katherine for all her hard work, to the festivals for having me, and also to the brilliant Lantern Music for their musical contribution to the piece – a very happy first collaboration, here’s to many more.

Where next?

I hear whisperings over at @umbrellaproject, both of past soundwalks, and also something… bigger.

Pitter patter, pitter patter.

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Teasers and Talks

The first edit of the full soundwalk which is happening in York on the 27th and 30th of October is done, and I thought I’d try and tempt a bit more interest. So for your delectation (listen through headphones, and click through to the HD version for the best sound) the Nightwalk, York teaser trail:

Available on the Youtubes here.

The writing was (as usual) pretty hard until I clicked with a main through-line, something which is hard to find until you actually get writing (I find). So I kicked myself off by writing five stories about different kinds of dark and light; A story about mistaking planes for stars, a story about sitting on a bench under a tree in the streetlight with a stranger, a story of a power cut and light and dark from your childhood, a story about bonfires, and a story about walking at night and being able to breathe better. Then I set out finding out what connected them all. I think this has more clearly become the idea of reclaiming our dark cities – something which I’ve thought about a bit since Reclaim the Night, and the Vampires pervasive game that I played last year. So after testing for timing etc., I shall also tighten the connection up with some additional pieces of writing.

Working with Genuine Musicians this time has been a mix of total awesome and middling daunting. It was so good to have something entirely new and bespoke, but at the same time it’s so beautiful in places that I struggled to believe that I could do it justice. Hopefully I have. How will you find out? By adding yourself or inviting a nearby friend to the facebook event, and checking the website for more info. That’s how.

Finally, in upcoming shenanigans, I shall be speaking at a Pecha Kucha in Coventry this Tuesday on Theatre and the Age of the First Person (which I’m beginning to think should be called the Renaissance of the First Person). You can buy tickets and see who else is speaking here. I’m particularly intrigued by ‘safe sex with robots’. Good title.