Soundwalk Into Wellbeing Canalside

Soundwalk Into Wellbeing goes to Canalside Heritage Centre, Beeston Lock

…..exploring inspirational healing places in Nottinghamshire……..

9th Oct 13.00 and 16^th October 2018 13.0 – 13.45 and 15.00 – 15.45

Central to the Beeston Lock sound score, developed by composer / soundartist Isabel Jones, we hear music, location recording and live singing alongside stories of wellbeing and resilience, working with seldom heard carers and canalside people who have drawn on challenging lived experience to let nature, breathe space into their daily lives.

The Canalside project follows several months of soundart research, connecting to nature and the people who live, work and visit the canal and river. As part of a programme of soundart, yoga and wellbeing work Salamanda Tandem is developing across Nottingham.

“Once out there, the performance begins; the sound of birds, the wind in the trees, children at play, the rain, whatever we find, be it soft warm grass, the cold crisp earth of winter, a discarded ball or the common grey squirrel ferreting around. Responding to what the season and each day brings, and the moment. As such resources come into relief, individuals are enveloped in a world of sound and nature.

Invited to be absorbed in total concentration for 45 minutes – 1hr duration, audiences move from passive recipients, to ‘actors’ and ‘inventors’ as senses are awakened to the environment unfolding. The work utilizes local free resources; the sound and presence of nature, walking, movement, air and breath. Drones, loops, and sine waves are generated live from these natural resources, together with live tabla, and a singer/audio describer who guides audiences to become generators of the performance itself.

The soundwalks are designed to lift energies, through cultivating a sense of curiosity, as seldom heard carers, loved ones and friends, tune into the sound, movement and touch of nature, through the healing power of the breath.

Salamanda Tandem’s ‘Soundwalk into Wellbeing’, is an outdoor site specific performance experience, with radio headphones, designed by soundartists, wellbeing practitioners and seldom heard carers, who collaborate together to develop and understand how to grow ones own wellbeing, and that of others, to address the challenges of isolation, stress, disability and poor health”

Our first Soundwalks into wellbeing were designed for our local city park, right opposite Salamanda Tandem’s home studio in West Bridgford, Nottingham, where we ran 4 outdoor soundwalks in autumn 2016, spring 2017, summer 2017 and winter 2018.

Soundwalks Into Wellbeing are tailor-made for each season and location; local parks, canalsides, city squares, disused quarry’s, campus’s, nature reserves, fields and walking tracks, in fact any haven for insects, birds, plants, weeds, grasses, water, mammals, bulbs, seeds, and the soil where things grow. As we observe how every part of nature harmoniously responds to the whole; temperature, tides, winds, light, seasonal food, and the movement of the earth, we connect and plug back into the source from which we all come and all depend; learn to breathe, observe, delight in, reflect upon, and give more than we take. This live headphone participatory experience gives a sense of being on one’s own and simultaneously within a group, where unique and valuable individuals form part of an interdependent whole. Universal connectivity, equally valuable; the mouse, the leaf, the worm, the diverse human being, we are part of, come from and eventually return to the same stuff.

This project is part of ‘White Cane’, a series of touring sensory art works developed by a team of blind, visually impaired and sighted musicians who lead audiences into a fascinating world of sonic vision. Supported by Nottinghamshire County Council & Arts Council with G4A funding.