Guest blog by Hannah Nicklin
It started like this: I was in London for a coupe of weeks, sometime just before Spring…. sprung. It was tipping it down, quite late at night, I was walking under one of the arches near London Bridge, on Bermondsey Street. It must have been a Friday night, because there were a lot of people dressed up going places. I saw a girl, she was shivering and wet and doing her level best to shelter her hair and makeup from the rain. I wished I had a second umbrella to give her. I wished I had given her mine. I then began to think about umbrellas. About sharing things. And about passing them on, and a link began to spring up in my mind between things passed between hands, and a way of telling stories that’s becoming a little forgotten. Peer to peer, the way it used to happen.
What it looks like now: The Umbrella project is collecting the stories of the people of York using umbrellas available to anyone who needs them. These umbrellas will act like York’s own ‘Boris Bike’ system; you will be able to pick one up, and drop them off at one of many places all over the centre of York. You may also see me, at certain times, on certain days, standing in front of a big inflatable thingy, ready to offer you a biscuit, a cup of tea, and a listening ear.
Why: an act of kindness, of shelter, of exchange. Each umbrella will invite the user to leave a story. A phone number will be on each one, and in exchange for an umbrella, people are invited to call that number, and answer a question. The umbrellas are around as long as people continue to use and return them, the phone line collecting the stories is open until the 12th of November. Leave a story, any story, in response, and over the 5 weeks I will be producing 3 x 20-30 minute soundwalks to be listened to/done in certain parts of the city inspired by them. Free to download, or to pick up a ready-loaded mp3 player from York Theatre Royal or the Central Library.
A what now? A soundwalk is kind of like a radio drama that you listen to outside. They are sometimes gently interactive, ask you to make small movements, walk places, nothing that makes you stand out. It’s like overlaying real life with a play, that puts you at the centre, casts passersby as performers, the city as backdrop.
Who? The Umbrella project will be written and directed by theatre-maker Hannah Nicklin (me) (Zero Hour, The Smell of Rain Reminds me of You, Nightwalk, York) and Musician Simon Ralph Goff (Hope and Social, a Hawk in the Rain) in association with Pilot theatre and Loughborough University, and supported by Future Everything and Arts Council England. The messaging service is being provided by the brilliant Leo Brown at Netfuse. Thanks should also go to the umbrella hosts and the loads of other brilliant people, too many to list here, who helped me nurture and grow the idea.
How can I take part? One of three ways; 1) pick up an umbrella, leaflet or go on the site (where there are also maps to umbrella pick up/drop off points), and call the number, answer the question with a story 2) follow the project on Twitter and Facebook to find out what days we’re going to ‘pop up’ on the streets of York and come and talk to us directly, 3) Follow Twitter/Facebookor the site for announcements about the soundwalk releases and one off events. (Though I will let you into a secret, the first one is going to be on the 28th of October.)
And most of all, pass it on.