CREPUSCULAR ACTIVITY

Part of Night Watch - a non-stop 24 hour festival of new performance at Cambridge Junction 2014.

Alongside displaying the Rambles with Nature - Ramble 1 installation at Night Watch Sheila also shared Crepuscular Activity - two off site twilight walks within some of the rural pockets of Cambridge City.

One was at dusk 9.22pm and the other at dawn on Sunday at 3.58.

Walkers were given some bumbags containing useful items for the walk:

• A pocket magnifier lens from india  (which they could keep and were asked to wear as a talisman)
• A map (in case they veered off course or wanted to walk alone), 
• A white and pink chocolate mouse (twilight is sometimes described as the 'sweet time'. Mice are the food of owls)
• A blue plastic poncho (the British weather is unpredictable).

Sheila led the walkers on a pre-determined route and during the activity read some text she had written about it and shared a short film by Lucy Cash on an IPAD. The walk - in Three Acts - was ghosted by Elizabeth Brightwen and Asnapper the owl (one of Brightwen's many companions).

Walking into dusk felt pretty incredible. As did experiencing the world twice at that time in 24 hours - both walks felt vastly different.

Abiding memories were:

• walking into Clare's College woods at around 10pm (how dark and unusual it was) walking into Clare College woods at dawn (how light and overwhelmingly 'shouty' the birdsong was)
• a very drunk un-shirted (and possibly high) man running past the group at around 4am
• seeing a small deer in the middle of the road in between some houses
• hearing some real owl calls in response the sound of the owl film. 
• the amount of slugs and snails out on the paths. 

Both walks felt like research and the beginning of a new more complex piece of work. Sheila is planning to return to Crepuscular Activity to finish making it at some point - this time with more focus on what the group are walking towards and from (a work-table in the woods? an animal encounter up close?) and also with the aim of learning more from experts about some of the insects and animals active at that time.

Ideas from Crepuscular Activity also informed Slow Story Slide Show (Sheila's piece On Light).

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