(**This project is currently being developed as part of the Orchard Project Greenhouse.)

TRAILOFF is a transmedial walking performance created by Swim Pony in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC). Central to the project are 10 original audio stories, inspired by paths within the region’s expansive Circuit Trail network. Each trail features an original narrative drama, crafted specifically for the landmarks at that site, that unfolds over a roughly 2 mile route. Stories have been written by local authors who demonstrate both rigorous artistic practice and connections to communities traditionally underserved by environmental programming. Audiences experience these intimate journeys through the free-to-download mobile phone app, which uses GPS triggering to link specific audio points to physical attributes along the mapped route. Each path features narration of the text along with underscored music and atmospheric sound design, all synced to the movement of an audience member as they travel along the trail. Using additional sensor data (weather, date, time of day, walking pace) the narratives also contain subtle variations heightening the app’s awareness of what the listener does, giving them a magical experience of real-time response. Each of the ten stories act like a personalized site-specific performance, a fiction unfolding in live time and in response to the user’s movements. The effect we aim for is the immediacy and embodiment of interactive site-based theater, but on a scale that is infinitely more accessible, without the culture, cost and knowledge barriers that can prohibit many from taking part.