Still Walking festival, coming to Birmingham soon!

Last year artist/historian/typographer/tourguide Ben Waddington came to me with an invitation to be his partner in crime for making something rather exciting happening…

Ben Waddington makes you look up.

Frustrated at the lack of interesting walking tours (in a city that should really be able to do better), and at the lack of visibility for the stuff that is going on, Ben had resolved to do something about it and organise a festival of walking.

After sounding out various artists, historians, architects and enthusiasts, getting a hugely positive response from loads of people keen to share their perspectives of Birmingham, the result was inevitable and Still Walking was born.

Still Walking (a pilot festival for what we hope will be a regular annual celebration of all that walking is and might be) will take place from the 15th March – 1st April later this year. For those of you who like your Interesting Things, that’s sandwiched cosily between the Flatpack film festival and the Fierce festival of live-art-and-things-that-are-a-bit-difficult-to-categorise, both of which we’re partnering with to bring you a great big chunk of amazinteresting this Spring!

We’re awaiting funding decisions before we can finalise the programme and unleash a full website on you but, whatever the outcome, there will be a selection of guided tours, expeditions, instigations and processions offering you the opportunity to see Birmingham in a fresh light.

Our provisional programme spans film, TV, health, history, art, science, fact and fiction. What more do you want?!

Oh, ok then, expect an afternoon of lurve, too…

It’s going to be ace.

We have a holding page up at http://www.stillwalking.org/ where you can sign up to one or both of the mailing lists; Ben’s on the other end of the @StillWalkers Twitter, ready to talk the walk; and there’s a StillWalkers Flickr Group that we’d like to fill with walking goodness…

You’re cordially invited to plug yourself into any or all of those channels and to join us in becoming Still Walkers.

Whilst we’re waiting to be able to announce the programme, we’d love to hear from you if you’d like to volunteer for the upcoming festival or to offer an event for next year’s shindig. We’re also asking which Brum celebrities you’d like to see leading a guided tour of Birmingham.

In the meantime, spread the word: Still Walking is coming soon!

oshio matsuri

As far as I could make out…

Everyone from the local area gathers together in and around a shrine conveniently located next to a large open area (and the hospital…) and has a bit of a jolly in the still-quite-hot autumn afternoon: food, music, games, more food.

Each neighbourhood has a team of young gents that limber up during the afternoon…

…in preparation for all hell breaking loose once it gets dark.

Each team has a large omikoshi carriage thing (but no wheels and no horses!) that weighs about 2 tonnes and must be carried out of the shrine, out into the large open and then used to try and nudge an opposing team into submission.

As you can see from this video clip, the crowd is right in there supporting their team, so it gets a bit hairy when the omikoshi suddenly launches itself in a particular direction: people have to try and scatter out of the way. It gets really interesting when you find yourself trapped between three of them all converging towards you!

and then the next day you’re back to seeing men with flashing beacons emplyed to safely guide you around completely fenced off road-workings…