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.
Bandstand, Uncategorized post by katie.