May 23, 2013 by katie
The Other Way Works and Black Country Touring would like to invite you to the launch of our brand new Bandstand App.
Bandstands invite an audience. Lonely, empty stages standing ready at the centre of parks and squares. They seem resonant with what has happened there, and ripe with possibility. Our Bandstand Audio Theatre Experiences invite you to inhabit these spaces afresh creating a new performance event which places you at the centre of the action. Listen to the stories unfurl as you take a trip around the bandstand with these exclusive, intimate performances designed just for you.
The Bandstand App will be available to download from the Apple AppStore and Google Play store from early June 2013.
We are celebrating the launch of the App with events at the two Black Country Bandstands that feature in the App:
10th July 2013, 3-7pm – West Park Bandstand, Wolverhampton (come and find us in the cafe by the bandstand)
11th July 2013, 3-7pm – Lightwoods Park Bandstand, Bearwood, Sandwell (we will be on the grass next to the bandstand)
Drop in and join us in the afternoon or after work, enjoy some light refreshments, try out the audio experiences on the Bandstand App for yourself, and meet the artists behind the App.
If the summer is kind to us and the weather is nice, why not bring a rug and a picnic along and enjoy the park for a little longer.
The Bandstand App contains recorded audio theatre experiences written specially for each bandstand. The pieces for West Park can be experienced by a solo listener or a pair and last 20 minutes. The piece for Lightwoods Park is for a solo listener and lasts 40 minutes.
The Bandstand Audio Theatre Experiences were created by artists from The Other Way Works and influenced by local history research and conversations with park users and local groups. The final pieces are like short radio plays that tell a new fictional story that is inspired by each bandstand and park, to be experienced in the environment in which they’re set.
We would be grateful if you could RSVP to info@theotherwayworks.co.uk before 28th June to let us know that you are joining us. You are welcome to join us at West Park, Lightwoods Park, or both!
Please bring your iPhone or Android phone along if you have one (or can borrow one), and a pair of headphones. If you get a chance, download the Bandstand App in advance. We will have some MP3 players and headphones available to allow people without smartphones to listen to the audio experiences on the day. The events will be mostly outdoors, so dress appropriately for the weather.
You can find more information about the Bandstand App at
www.bandstandaudio.net
www.bctouring.co.uk
www.theotherwayworks.co.uk
We look forward to seeing you on the 10th and/or 11th July,
Katie Day, Artistic Director, The Other Way Works
and
All at Black Country Touring
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Call for Research Participants from Pamela McQueen
Are you attending the launch performances of Bandstand? Are you willing to be involved in an audience research project? Do you have two hours to commit to a pre-show questionnaire and post show interview with a researcher?
I am conducting a PhD research project comparing and contrasting audience experiences of several city promenade performances. The study aims to explore your experience of attending this site specific event in Lightwoods and/or West Park. I am interested in how participation affects your understanding of the place and the play.
If you are willing to participate in the audience research of Bandstand, please indicate your interest in your RSVP to Black Country Touring/The Other Way Works. Alternatively you can email me directly at pamela.mcqueen@yorksj.ac.uk
Bandstand is produced by The Other Way Works, commissioned by Black Country Touring and
supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
January 27, 2012 by katie
Bandstand is a collection of digital audio performances for Bandstands from The Other Way Works.
The audio performances are located in the landscape, and can be discovered and experienced using your smartphone’s GPS in conjunction with our Bandstand App.
We are currently developing this platform, and will be creating three new pieces of site-specific content for Bandstands in the Black Country, West Midlands in collaboration with Black Country Touring. We will publish the App through the Apple and Android App Stores along with this new content in Summer 2013.
We are seeking further commissioning partnerships with Festivals, Venues and Promoters to extend and develop this digital platform in 2013-2015, through the commissioning of site-specific content for Bandstands around the UK and beyond.
WHAT
The Bandstand App represents a new way to experience Theatre.
With the App running on a smartphone (iPhone/Android), users will discover interactive content when they come within a short distance of real-world Bandstands in parks across the country. These well-loved historic features once centres of music and live performance are now often empty and deserted. This App reinvigorates these spaces, filling them with memories and images, in the form of new performances.
Bandstand is a location-based app that feeds off inbuilt maps and uses the built-in GPS sensor and compass in iPhone and Android smartphones. Bandstand locations will be logged in a database and integrated with Google maps.
WHY
It’s so sad to see these spaces empty and deserted, when once they were the hubs of entertainment, music and dancing.
They are also irresistible empty stages, in almost every park up and down the country, and beyond. Its exciting to start filling them with memories, images, and new performances.
THE EXPERIENCE
Immerse yourself in a site-specific theatre experience every time you visit a Bandstand in your local park. With a solo or two-person option, just plug in your headphones and get ready to experience a new way of seeing. Ideal to be experienced alone on a quiet Saturday, or with the buzz of other participants as part of a festival or event.
Solo version: The beautifully scored soundtrack will draw you into an imagined world filled with ghosts of the past and chance meetings yet to happen. Let your imagination be led by the meeting of the real location and the stories and sounds that you hear in your headphones. And if you’re feeling brave, accept the invitation to take to the stage and breathe new life into this forgotten performance site.
Two-person version: Make your own piece of theatre for each other on and around the Bandstand. Its a lyrical story of love and loss, with a few laughs thrown in, and a sprinkling of old-time dancing. You are cast as both actor and audience member. The soundtrack will prompt you to make small actions. In turn your partner will perform their own part, augmented by the soundtrack in your headphones which will make sense of their actions and create drama, tension and hilarity for the two of you.
ARTISTS INVOLVED
Katie Day – Will lead the project as concept designer and director
Katherine Maxwell-Cook – Writer and researcher
Mark Day – Composer and sound designer/engineer
App Developer – We are working with Bristol-based Calvium’s locative media design tools AppFurnace to develop the iPhone/Android Application, and as technical designers to publish the App through the Apple and Android App stores.
by katie
We have created a proto-type Bandstand App, which can be downloaded for iPhones below (iOS4 or above).
The App is designed to be used on location at the Bandstand in Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham (the story strongly references the actual location), but the audio can be experienced anywhere by pressing the ‘EXPERIENCE NOW’ button if you’d like to try it out.
How to get the Bandstand Non Geographic App on your iPhone
Get with QR Code (Barcode)
The easiest way to get your Test Version is with its QR code, below.
Step 1: Download & Install Calvium Player. It’s a free app.
Step 2: Load Calvium Player, and click the + icon.
Step 3: Click ‘Scan & Add’ and scan the QR code. Your Test Version will start downloading automatically.
Step 4: When it has downloaded, tap the entry in the list and press PLAY.
Get with URL
Step 1: Download & Install Calvium Player. It’s a free app.
Step 2: Load Calvium Player, and click the + icon.
Step 3: Type in the URL http://the.appfurnace.com/test/gG1BD/ and hit download.
Step 4: When it has downloaded, tap the entry in the list and press PLAY.
No iPhone?
If you don’t have an iPhone, you can listen to or download the mp3:
Download the audio
iPod users can download the podcast:
iTunes
by katie
Bandstand is a new project by The Other Way Works.
The Other Way Works is a Birmingham, UK based theatre company formed in 2001. We create highly interactive performance experiences, frequently for an audience of one at a time. Our theatre is playful and draws the audience into the very heart of the experience.
We create our work in a deeply collaborative style, and constantly push these collaborations in new ways. Our work often responds to ’site’, and we find it stimulating and rewarding to create and perform our work in non-traditional spaces.
Our previous productions include the acclaimed Black Tonic, a hotel-based interactive thriller that was performed in hotels in Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and London; and I am waiting for the opportunity to save someone’s life, a performance and installation in the Mailbox Shopping Centre, Birmingham.
The Other Way Works is made up of a group of talented artists (performers, composer, film-maker, writer, scenographer) brought together under the artistic direction of Katie Day, who directs all of the company’s productions. The company was largely dormant throughout 2010 while Katie took up an invaluable Cultural Leadership Programme Peach Placement secondment to iShed/Watershed in Bristol, where she produced the pioneering Theatre Sandbox (http://theatresandbox.co.uk) scheme in collaboration with six national venues.
The Other Way Works returned to producing new work in Spring and Summer of 2011 with the successful creation and premiere of Avon Calling.
October 14, 2010 by katie
Laura Taflinger from Creative Choices films came to Bristol last week to film me for the Creative Choices website. The interview focused on what I’ve been up to this year on my Peach Placement at Watershed, but The Other Way Works also got a decent name check! Watch the short video here.
