Ballardian

Phil Smith of the wonderful Wrights & Sites collective has sent me information on forthcoming ‘walk-orientated performances, events and objects’. While not explicitly linked to Ballard, various themes and preoccupations will be familiar to readers of this site:

First of all the show I have written based on my Easter 2007 walk following the route of acorn-planting Charles Hurst a hundred years before will be performed by New Perspectives from mid-February and the tour schedule is here:
http://www.newperspectives.co.uk/content/contentschedule.asp?area=2&areasub=
4&content=&contentsub=&idnews=&idproduction=37

Dee Heddon’s new book on ‘Autobiography and Performance’ is now out from Palgrave and has a section on Place and Self which includes material on ‘the art of walking’ including Crab Walks and you can order from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autobiography-Performance-Theatre-Practices/dp/0230537537/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200477857&sr=1-1

John Davies has published an instant book on his walk alongside and around the M62 at the end of last year called ‘Walking The M62′ and you can get that as a hard copy or a download here: http://www.lulu.com/content/1454947

Alyson Hallett, who has an ongoing project - the migration habits of stones - in which she carries stones around the world - has a new volume of mostly landscape poetry out ‘The Stone Library’ - I loved it and recommend it. You can get it at http://www.peterloopoets.com/html/StoneLibrary.htm or at all good libraries.

walkwalkwalk, based in London, are building up a network around ‘walking as art’ and are holding regular meetings and their website is: http://www.walkwalkwalk.org.uk/

There is a prospectus of lectures and workshops offered by Propeller including lectures on ‘Rain’ and ‘The Look of Things’ and a workshop on ‘Performing Landscapes’ - their website is www.propelleronline.org

Finally, MPA are holding a four day ‘Territories Re-Imagined’ festival of psychogeography in Manchester in June, details at:
http://trip2008.wordpress.com

Phil Smith