Midweek - 01/07/2009

Lively and diverse conversation with Libby Purves and guests Dan Edwardes, Yussuf Dayo Saqawa, Claire Phillips and Michael Rosen. Dan Edwardes is a Freerunner. Also known as Parkour, it is the philosophy/physical fitness/urban art form which involves using the urban environment as a kind of gymnasium. A Cambridge graduate, he spent five years in Japan learning Katori Shinto Ryu, the oldest extant fighting art of Japan before training in Parkour in France. He now teaches it and established Parkour Generations and Parkour UK, the national governing body for the discipline in the UK. He is the author of The Parkour and Freerunning Handbook, published by Virgin Books. Yussuf Dayo Saqawa has been a member of the Kenyan Boys Choir for 11 years. The choir is made up of 40 boys from several different tribes throughout Kenya and they recently sang at President Obama's Inauguration. Dayo has also helped to set up the Musical Arts Academia of Nairobi, an umbrella organisation of the Kenyan Boys Choir and other girls choirs to encourage children's choirs to grow and nuture new talent. Their new CD, Spirit of Africa is available on Universal. Claire Phillips is a British artist and campaigner. She recently toured Death Rows across America, painting prisoners, their families, jurors and even an executioner in an attempt to humanise the death penalty. The exhibition The Human Face of Death Row is at the Oxo Gallery on London's Southbank, in association with the human rights charity Reprieve. Michael Rosen is the author of over 140 books, and enjoys a successful and diverse career as a writer, poet and broadcaster. He most recently served as the fifth Children's Poet Laureate from 2007 to 2009. His best-selling 1989 picture book We're Going on a Bear Hunt has been adapted for the stage and runs for a limited season at the West End's Duchess Theatre.