PROJECT UPDATE - April 2011

Great to see the blog up and running.

We've retrospectively archived email conversations which happened over the months of development since 2009 - so you can follow the topics of discussion below and in the archive links on the right.

TOPOPHILIA AND TOPOPHOBIA – JUNE 2009

DANCE NOT DANCE CLIMB NOT CLIMB – AUG 2009

SENSING. FEELING. DOING – OCT 2009

CIVILITY AND ALTITUDE – OCT 2009

UNPREDICTABLE SPACES – NOV 2009

TEXTURES IMPRINTS FRAMEWORKS – JUNE 2010

EMBODYING LANDSCAPE AND VERTICAL LEVELS – Sep 2010

THE DAY SNOW CAME - Dec 2010

MEANING AND LOCATION – Jan 2011

THE LOCATION IS WHERE IT SHOULD BE – Jan 2011

IDEA BASE CAMP – Jan 2011

THE COVE – Mar 2011

Here's the outline we drew up at this stage (of course everything is provisional)

Dan’s work has often rooted itself in, and reflected on, his practice as a rock climber and he has consistently linked his artistic research and production to the tradition of landscape painting and environmental, site specific, art. Climbing can be seen partly as a way of engaging directly with the landscape and offering opportunities to relate and create through this direct engagement.

Steve has been creating work with a process that he calls “Embodying Landscape” in various forms since the 1980’s. The process is a refined way of creating “movement poetry” from direct sensory and bodily experience. It involves relatively complex processes of mediation which are controlled and technical as well as intuitive. He has also been interested for a number of years, at a novice level, in climbing.

This project brings this shared interest into sharp focus. It raises questions about the degree to which climbing is really a sportif activity and in what ways it might be seen more as a spiritual or creative endeavour.

The project consists of two parts.

Part one

Dan and Steve will create a “base camp” at Port-a-Doris, Shroove, near Greencastle, Inishowen Donegal. Near to a beautiful and magical cove with an entrance through a natural rock arch. The cove is intimate and yet it has a very wild ambience. It offers a range of rock climbing possibilities and a huge variety of micro-environments where the details of the landscape differ radically from each other. For two weeks, from 27^th August to 11^th September, Dan and Steve will establish their practice here. Climbing, reflecting, writing, developing movement processes, videoing, photographing, creating art objects in relation to and with materials in the environment. A major part of this process will be an invitation for other people to join them in this process. They will invite specific artist colleagues to came to the “camp” at particular times to engage with them and the environment and there will be a open invitation for anyone interested in the work to join it over two long weekends Friday 2^nd – Sunday 4^th September and Friday 9^th – Sunday 12^th September. During these weekends there will be a programme of participation events including climbing, (Dan Shipsides is a qualified climbing instructor) discussion, art-making processes, photography, video making, movement based processes, shared food, and film/video projection.

During this period there will be the opportunity for visitors/participants to camp in the environment. We will provide the basic neccessities to make this public engagement possible while preserving the “wild” nature of the project. The wildness of the environment will be respected and the principle of “leave no trace” will be respected. Any “left overs” of our camp will be fully organic and degradable.

Part 2

Part two of the project involves creating an installation exhibition in a gallery or similar space in Derry/Londonderry as a response to the “base camp” experience and an imaginitive transformation of it. It will involve video, writing, photographic and organic “environmental art” elements created in and collected from the site specific processes. It will also involve the collecting and organising of the “detritus” of the “base camp” materials. Perhaps these might be things such as ropes, tents, cooking equipment, the burnt left overs of a cooking fire. The installation will be a layered creation consisting of objective creations produced as a reflection on the site specific experience, things created in the site specific circumstance and transferred to the “gallery” environment, and objects that echo the practical necessities essential to human engagement with landscape in this way. The installation process will take one week and it will be open to the public for one week.

Background

Vertical. Nature. Base. is a climbing/ art/ dance project produced by Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company as part of its Into Contact programme funded by the Legacy Trust UK Connections programme. The Connections programme has been set up to help build a cultural and sporting legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and is managed by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

As a lead partner of the Connections programme, Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company's Into Contact with Dance and Sport programme has been running since 2010 in the build up to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The mission of this project is to deliver an innovative public programme of arts and sport events that will bring people into contact, create and develop cultural partnerships, demonstrate excellence in contemporary dance and sport, and leave a lasting legacy for people in Northern Ireland.

The Into Contact programme consists of a wide range of education, performance and production elements. They are linked by a concern with taking a side-on point of view in relation to sport. We have produced The Chess Piece in 2010 (to be recreated in summer 2011) which was a large scale professional production with large community involvement and we will be creating a “suite” of performance, installation and video works in 2012 in collaboration with a number of local artists. 

This year we will be producing Vertical. Nature. Base.

V.N.B. is a collaboration between Echo Echo Artistic Director Steve Batts and Belfast based artist Dan Shipsides.

Dan’s work has often rooted itself in, and reflected on, his practice as a rock climber and he has consistently linked his artistic research and production to the tradition of landscape painting and environmental, site specific, art. Climbing can be seen partly as a way of engaging directly with the landscape and offering opportunities to relate and create through this direct engagement.

Steve has been creating work with a process that he calls “Embodying Landscape” in various forms since the 1980’s. The process is a refined way of creating “movement poetry” from direct sensory and bodily experience. It involves relatively complex processes of mediation which are controlled and technical as well as intuitive. He has also been interested for a number of years, at a novice level, in climbing.

This project brings this shared interest into sharp focus. It raises questions about the degree to which climbing is really a sportif activity and in what ways it might be seen more as a spiritual or creative endeavour.

This blog will follow the creative, research and thought processes of the project including images, email exchanges and more. It is hoped that people with engage with this blog and be encouraged to attend the VNB event in September 2011.