WALKING STORIES
A performance through headphones for parks
You don’t come to watch Walking Stories: you live it, breathe it, build and dismantle it. Supplied with mp3 players and headphones, a walk in the park becomes an interactive and completely immersive audio experience. Moving between watching, listening, and following instructions, Walking Stories takes you on a journey with yourself and your companions.
The headphones remove you from the clutter of the rest of your life, and gradually you sink into a spacious place to share with others and explore for yourself.
Running Time: 60 mins
Ages: 4+
Audience Capacity: 20
Available in English, French and Portuguese
Available for programming: Contact us for more information
Photo: Kimbal Bumstead
CREDITS:
Concept and Direction: Charlotte Spencer
Music and Sound Design: Tristan Shorr, Tom Spencer
Text, Dramaturgy: Charlotte Spencer, Jennifer-Lynn Crawford, Bruno Humberto
Narration: Tristan Shorr
French translation and narration: Anne-Gaëlle Thiriot
Portuguese translation and narration: Bruno Humberto
Additional Artists: Rohanna Eade, Janine Harrington, Alex Moran, David McCormick, Simon Pascoe, Anne-Gaëlle Thiriot, David McCormick
Filmmaker (Cycle Stories): David McCormick
Photography: Kimbal Bumstead, Alex Moran, Pari Naderi
Producer: Keren Kossow (original production with Morton Bates Arts Services)
Cook, bike and people fixer: Alex Moran
PARTNERS:
Walking Stories was originally created in 2013, co-commissioned by Greenwich Dance, Patrons of Charlotte Spencer Projects, The Point and CCN Caen/Basse-Normandie through DanSCe Dialogues 2 funded by Interreg IVA. Developed with the support from South East Dance, Stour Valley Arts and Le Pacifique|CDC Grenoble. Supported using funding from Arts Council England through the National Lottery. Research and development was supported by The Space programme at Dartington and Greenwich Dance. 2014 touring was supported through funding from Sound and Music and DanSCe Dialogues 2. Walking Stories in Dance Umbrella 2015 is further supported by Greenwich Dance.
Generous individual commissioning donations from: Rolande Anderson, Helen Janecek, Paul and Susee Mason, Jane Gow, Jane and Mike Blatt, Kelvin Mottram, Mary Ann and Stefan Bown, Caroline and Jonathan Spencer.
Walking Stories was created through Cycle Stories - a series of artist residencies across England and France linked together by bicycle. It was an expansive journey across a landscape. Find out more about it:
Press
“This walk in the park was hands-down, feet-down the most magical dance event of my year”
— David Jays, Dancing Times
“A treasure hunt danced through the trees”
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— The Guardian
“This is a excellent way to spend some time differently in the city, or to see a place you know well anew.”
— The Evening Standard
“Contemplative and profound, Charlotte Spencer Project’s audio walk is one of the most calming, quietly beautiful and evocative outdoor pieces I have ever experienced.”
— Fringe Review - Brighton International Festival
“a rich and mindful experience, as well as being fun and inclusive and genuinely transformative. Here deconstructed and re-presented in an inventive form, this of course is just what great theatre should be!”
— Total Theatre
“..an all-embracing sensurround happening that totally captured the joyous, exhilarating, occasionally giddy, and sometimes unsettling power of simply being there, in the moment. ”