Walden is a collaboration between Sans façon and Magnetic North's Theatre Director Nick Bone on the adaptation of Henry David Thoreau's famous book.
«Walden is one of the most extraordinary and unclassifiable books ever written. This adaptation reflects the book's defining characteristics - a mixture of homely conversation and sharp observations of the human character, together with its charm, quality of meditative reflection, and central notion of self-sufficiency - in an event that is part performance art, part philosophy class and part biography but wholly vivid, invigorating and theatrical.»
It was performed in Stills Gallery in Edinburgh to sell-out houses and fantastic reviews.
The collaboration developed over many months and, as stated in Magnetic North's blog describing the evolution of Walden, "it was that unusual thing a genuine collaboration: the boundaries between our prescribed roles blurred heavily, but with no preciousness on anyone's part".
The discussion on Walden started during Rough Mix, a unique inter-disciplinary creative development programme organised by Magnetic North, where we worked for two weeks with a theatre director, a composer, a choreographer and two playwright on our own embryonic ideas with a continuous discussion and feed back. A fascinating process where we realised how close in their thinking processes different creative practice are, and where the initial Walden collaboration started.
Walden was nominated for Best Design by Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland in June 2008.
In October 2008 Walden was selected for Scotland live 2008 , an international showcase to highlight the work of Scottish theatre and dance artists.
The production was subsequently adapted for touring - after playing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it toured in Scotland and England in Autumn 2009. It did a further tour of Scotland and Wales in Autumn 2010. The production has now been performed more than 70 times.
