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.