In 2012 the [collective], in association with ]performance s p a c e [, completed their year-long performance process staging a full-length production Run! City! Run! a site-specific, immersive piece of contemporary theatre at the borders of the Olympic Park and our studios in Hackney Wick, in east London.
Here is an excerpt from our program notes given to our audience for Run! City! Run! ;
...the performance remains in fragments...
...salvaged by the [collective] as the flotsam and jetsam...
...from the remains of a city washed away by an inevitable tidal wave...
...but what happens after The End... if it ever arrives..?
Since Autumn 2011, the [collective] embarked upon a year-long process, developing a series of performance works emerging out of Running as an Artistic Practice. Influenced by the border of the Olympic Park, the [collective] developed running in the urban context as a process to create contemporary performance.
Developed around the site of the last remaining wall of the former factory on the border between Hackney Wick and the Olympic Park, the [collective] were inspired by past, present and future of divisions in the city of London, the songs of Andy Williams, cities flooding due to climate change, the local, forgotten histories of the area such as Tic-Tac men, greyhound racing, demolished council estates and the stories of construction workers from the Olympic Park, and last but not least, the performance, competition and aesthetics of athletics, long-distance running and the London 2012 Olympic Games.
