• A BEATING

• (2020)

Rough Band • Death Walk • Ipswich • Bounds

A Beating was a Mayday Death Walk from the Rough Band, shedding the old to ring in the new. Made for May 2020, unfortunately the event was cancelled due to lockdown.

A Beating would have seen the Rough Band introduce Greasy Jack, a stinking trickster entity who can pass through members of the congregation at will. A possession of sorts. With his whipping sticks in hand and a greedy eye for bare arses, Greasy Jack was set to lead us all in an updated beating of the bounds - a shared walk around some hidden edges of Ipswich town, raising energy en-route through verbal silence and the strong physical action of beating with canes. Delineating a shape for possible collective transformation.

• ‘Pinch Punch it’s the first of the Month,

• a turning around, a top to toe.

• An upside down and a bang on the head

• and so on and so forth and off we go -

• through various shuttered portals:

• A blocked up door, some blackened bricks,

• reflecting glass, a hacked off stump,

• The Halberd stone, Temptation Gate,

• closed County Hall, sealed letterbox,

• Blank Co-op graves, the car park roof,

• Black Friars wall, another gate,

• A head of clay, a mouth of chalk,

• a whipping branch, a greasy fox…’