AN ACCOMMODATION – SEP 2011

An accommodation – SEP 2011

It’s been interesting to see how the climbing has been taken up by the dancers and other visitors to the project. Most people involved have none or little climbing experience. Several have extensive movement (dance, eastern movement arts etc.) experience. So the climbing at first presents the clunky challenge most people encounter – hard, effort, clumsy, rough, silly helmets etc. But after repeating routes a few times a new encounter seemed to be happening – more nuanced, a higher level of problem solving and lower use of brute effort – subtle and then radical changes in composure. I wonder how far these people can recognize climbing as an art form – or the need for high level creative considerations to enjoy climbing.

Over a few sessions the topophillia and topophobia theme became a clear topic – the slow and rapid shifts from nice to not nice, excitement to fear, confidence to panic.

Accommodation / Knowing: - finding out (phyisically and psychologically) more about what is possible – finding an accommodation with the place. By this I mean - taking time to explore ledges, cracks, resting positions, seeking holds, friction and cognitively applying body technique. This is on routes off the ground but also at ground level. This interesting because the more time you spend climbing in a place opens up a level of confidence not there at the beginning. This seems obvious – but is very tangible in action – fear of the unknown is what hampers most of my climbing. The more you know (through finding an accommodation with the situation and rock) about the place and especially a rock face at height the better you move and climb. BEING AT HEIGHT.

HAMNATARRUTTIBADGIEE - SEP 2011

HAMNATARRUTTIBADGIEE - SEP 2011

Two nights back at home.

Very tired – change of environment, shift in duties, catching up on back log of emails….planning for return to cove tomorrow.

Beautiful to see family – lots of love and then tantrums and tears…emotional creatures all of us. Even in a week the kids seem to have grown. Anna (2) seemed to have tons more words and Leo (3and1/20) more boyishness. It’s been tiring at the cove working long days in all weather – but Maggie has had a hard job too – working and having the kids – full time effort and no rest. I know that is really not easy and it doesn’t have the routine change being at the cove brings. I’d love for her to be at the cove too.

Wild creatures we saw:

Seals, Dolphins, Snails, Kestral, Cormorants, Gulls, Otter / Mink, Midges, Caterpillars, Slugs, Pollack, Whitebait…

Tunes that crept around my head:

A message to you Rudy = hamnatarruttibadgiee

Voodoo Chile

Motorbreath

Ice Ice baby

hamnatarruttibadgiee

hammataruttibagdie

hamaturuttibagie

hamma aggie tohruti

hama aggi torudie

ham asse heige twao hruti

hammas higgee twoa hrudi

ham ass higgee toa rhudi

amm ass higg toa hudi

ama saggie tooyoodee

amass higee toura hoodi

amass gge toorwa hudee

amass age toowa uddee

ama sage towyou rood ee

am essage too yoo roodee

amess sage too yoo roodee

a message toyoo Rudy

A message to you Rudy

NOT THE FIRST DANCE HERE - SEP 2011

Not The First To Come This Way To Dance

I found out some interesting stuff about the location. An older man was picking dulse and carrageen moss at low tide.

The flattish area just before our camp was the place where people would come to dance. They would come on good weather with a couple of musicians.

He told me about the rocks where the young people would come down to carve their names and to propose to each other.

We found names back to 1909. He told me to look out for M O’D... his carving

He told me that the stream near our tents is The Madmans Well. The place to drink from to cure madness. I climbed up a bit to find the source. It was very overgrown. He said “... ah well... no-one is bothered with those things any more”.

He asked what we were up to and as he was leaving suggested that “You wouldn’t want to be drinking to much from the well and go too far the other direction”.

Seal

In order to be there we need “civilisation”. We need our tents, our shopping, our “community”. We make effort. For the seals it is just home. We are outsiders. Perhaps it is the human condition to be outside.

Alpha and Climbing

Getting there. Top Dog. Being The Best. Succeeding. Conquering. Getting it over and done. Moving on to the next challenge

or

Taking the time to enjoy. Meandering. Postponing the end.

Intimacy

I begin to know the cove. I can see it smell it. Hear it. Lots and lots of detail. The climbing gives an extra dimension to the memory. I think if I just climbed without the other activities I would remember less clearly. The focus would be on the effort, the routes, the achievement. The sound recording, the building, the dancing, the videoing and photographing are given a new perspective by the ascents. The vertical becomes just another dimension with it’s own qualities and potentials. Not the object of the excercise which can happen when visiting a place just to climb. This vertical dimension gives a wider frame. For some reason the memory of the sound of the pebbles is very linked to this.

Sound

The sound environment is very contained. In the cove it is intense even when it isn’t so loud. When you step out from the cove, through the arch, there is a release, a peacefulness. Twice I sat for over an hour in the middle of the dark night... stars disappearing gradually behind rain clouds, as I recorded the time of the high tide in the cove.

Climbing

My fear becomes a little more balanced but I still like to downclimb after climbing up. Remembering the accident I saw several years ago, every time I sit back into my harness. Pleasure in climbing returns to being as strong as the fear. It is a gift to get this back. The topophilia rises and the topophobia recedes, always in movement, like the tide or the breath. No longer sudden overwhelming floods of topophobia.

Home

Back home. Pleasure. The bath feels very very hot. A nice easy meal. Tonya says I am slow. She thinks this is a good thing. I am tired.

Stresses begin to return. The afterburn of the cove sustains but fades. I gather ante-burn material to take back to the camp with me on Wednesday.

My perspective. My evaluation process is unstable. What is important? What do I like? What do I want? The patterns, the “logic” of the Derry life takes hold of me. Work, money, responsibilities. I find my attitude swings from re-attachment to dismissal.... where is the balancing place between... do I want a balancing place? If you stay too long in one place as you climb you get tired and it gets more difficult to move on. If you rush you miss the pleasures and learn nothing....

VNB Project Flyer

September 2011

Vertical. Nature. Base. is a project produced by Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company as part of the Into Contact programme. It is a collaboration between Echo Echo Artistic Director Steve Batts and Belfast based artist Dan Shipsides.

V.N.B is a residential exploratory and experimental climbing / art / dance project based at a coastal climbing location in Donegal and a city base in Derry-Londonderry. Interested folk can join the residency during a programmed phase in September 2011.

Background

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 related more to ideas about landscape and environment .

Public phase 1: 55.2°N, 6.9°W
Port-a-Doris coastal climbing location, County Donegal
Dates: 2nd - 4th & 9th - 11th September 2011

During these two weekends V.N.B. invites interested and intrepid people to join the camp. There will be an introduction to the ideas behind it and the parameters of the project with a programme of creative and movement activities. Visitors will be free to decide what they want to contribute to the process practically and artistically. Overnight camping is optional (please be self-sufficient). Rain is not guaranteed.

Public phase 2: 54.9°N, 7°W
Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company, 13 Bishop Street, Derry-Londonderry
Dates: 24th (Opening night 6pm) -1st October 2011

V.N.B. relocates to Bishop Street presenting an installation, with associated performance events, using concepts, material and documentation developed during first phase of the project.

Public programme available to download (word. doc)

The project is part of Echo Echo's Into Contact programme and is funded by Legacy Trust UK's Connections programme in Northern Ireland. Legacy Trust UK is an independent charity set up to help build a cultural and sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Connections is managed by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

ANTEBURN and AFTERBURN - JUNE 2011

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
NAMING SOME THINGS (1) – MAY 2011
NAMING SOME THINGS (2) – MAY 2011
SOPHORIFIC RAIN - JUNE 2011

ANTEBURN and AFTERBURN - JUNE 2011

Hi Steve,

Anteburn Afterburn:

what you bring with you and what you take away?

We were discussing thoughts about what “content” might be generated at the cove.

Obvious ones were those which were a direct response to what is there – the natural environment, and activities people do there (climbing, camping, easting looking, moving, sleeping etc). This would seem to be the core “content” – but then idea came up which to me is important as it connect this place to everyplace we inhabit in our lives – and makes it especially resonant and relevant. It also helps this place not to be over revered or something – too otherworldly. This idea was about what you might bring to the place – not just physical (body, clothes, equipment, food etc) but also in terms of the thoughts, emotions, concerns and predilections of your daily life – routines, relationships and beliefs. Also culture – songs, music, poems etc. The question then was how to incorporate this – what might be interesting and also how long do these things remain (e.g. thoughts, concerns, worries related to work. So this is a bit about how long things take to dissolve into the background or disappear when you are in such a different place – what remains, what stays important. Lets call this the “Anteburn”.

The following flip side of this is when you leave the cove – how long does the experience take to subside – as you go about your daily activity? What could be done to extend this, continue this or even help it subside? There’s a kind of half-life effect – when the experience is slowly degrading away from being a foreground to a background then just a memory. For me there’s a physical memory and mental memory going on as well both having an emotional connection and both fading –physical memory quite quickly the mental memory stays and modulates and probably changes significantly from the actual events. This sounds very sad – but it needn’t be – it resonates (good word) the need and value of these kinds of experience as an integrated element of life patterns and routines. It also makes it connected to the office the home the studio and any other place we habit. So I’d call this the “Afterburn”.

I guess the obvious and usual modes of extending the half-life is photography (holiday snaps), writing and other artforms, collecting materials – all these are in some way souvenirs. But is this the real effect or mode of art? I think that’s a secondary (tho very important) function – the art primary result should (and always does – the challenge is to develop this) offer something different – a new experience (related maybe to the source) but new and fundamentally different. – tho we still could see it as extending the experience – but must accept it will not offer that related potential for people who didn’t have the experience…..

So anyway enough noodling. Can we think of ways to work with both these ideas – Anteburn and Afterburn. Exercises to explore or focus on this?

Dan

SCALE / EDGE / THRESHOLDS - JUNE 2011

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
NAMING SOME THINGS (1) – MAY 2011
NAMING SOME THINGS (2) – MAY 2011
SOPHORIFIC RAIN - JUNE 2011

SCALE / EDGE / THRESHOLDS

Immediate thoughts after two nights at the Cove.

Hi Dan,

I am also digesting... many thoughts and feelings. I really enjoyed to just be there and wander around... scramble... sit... enjoying being wet... I think a lot about the scale issue... that really at the "big" scale there is no impetus to "do" anything much... just eat... sit... clean.. wander... think... so the small scale details become the scale of creativity... of dynamic engagement... already I started to get deeper and deeper into the incredible amount of variation in the textures, colours, formations, sounds, smells, in what is a comparatively small area... noticing my affective responses to the variations... the topophilia/topophobia.... I like the rounded, dolphin rocks at the edge of the sea near the archway... they make me happy... the rock at the top of the slope on the west side, the big block seems perched ready to fall, it makes me nervous... the grey wall on the west side? I don't trust it... it beckons me but feel it may betray... I feel the relief coming out of the cove into the east side every time... the sound is less intense, the light more welcoming. There is an intensity in the cove itself... it doesn't feel like a peaceful place. I don't feel like meditating there. Dancing on the pebbles, rolling sliding, jumping.. the texture is very playful... on the edge of discomfort but the sound is a joy. The crunching, gentle grinding, the crispness of the sound... mmm. Going over the wee bridge feels like entering another world... "The Peninsula"... the feeling you could just keep going walking into the sea beyond the perched cormorants. I watched you go along there from high up above... you seemed very very far away... further than the real distance. I liked to scramble to feel myself slowly getting to know my way on rock. My feet gradually more keen and my rhythm more practical... one extremity moving at a time... taking time in a balanced place to appreciate, enjoy and consider...

let's skype Wednesday night around 9...

I enjoyed spending time with you. I feel I'm learning a lot. Thanks

Steve

Hi Steve,

Scale:

The cove has a scale which isn't massive but because of it's aspect is quite daunting somehow - it carries an anxiety and edge. So I don't fully feel the draw of small scale as a space of activity - or the main attraction in terms of activity.

The larger scale and it's edge for me brings that element which we avoid in manageable and nice experiences - but something I crave for and get through climbing and sometimes art. It maybe goes back to those thresholds you have talked about before - moving from one level to the next from lying to kneeling, from crouching to standing(vertical levels)- it takes a commitment decision to cross a threshold. In away this is my reading of the potential resonance of the threshold concept - but it works for me. The cove demands something from you to encounter it - and it's something that isn't necessarily gentle and might not be nice... So this in a way is not about small scale (although it's the attention to small scale that might enable you to tackle the big scale). I should say at this point in terms of climbing the cove is tiny - but even so it has something intimidating - especially in wild or wet weather as we have mostly encountered it. I also felt the scale is something to negotiate - as it is complex and has various elements.

The peninsula drew me because of it's scale - a thin strip of rock leading out into the Atlantic ocean. On the thinest part the sea seemed massive and swelling and about to swallow me up. I was quite anxious there but felt logically I was ok - I know a bit about waves and could gauge things - but no the less the further i dared myself to go the further i needed to go until sensibleness decided enough was enough....

On a much smaller scale then the scrambling we did was gentle, warm, playful - but still had a sense of space and scale which for me wasn't about looking it was about moving, holding touching, sensing and negotiating - not a lot about deep looking - it had a focus which probably closed out the deeper observation you talked about.

So scale is relative - the range of scales is amazing and fascinating however beyond fascination I'm drawn to the spatial excitment of the spaces, things and relationships that are bigger than me or that encompass me....Freud would have field day! Time, height, weight, swell, light, weather, rock, sky. These are things that manifest the edge and the thresholds that presents. The cracks, legdes and corners I climbed in the wet in boots offered some thresholds but mostly I avoided facing anything too challenging. But that's the nature of climbing inthe wet - you avoid the risks (thresholds) you might more readily take in the dry because of better friction and grip. Also a threshold I didn't really get to was being properly warmed up to climb - this for me is important - until I'm warmed up i usually feel and climb like a sack of spuds.

For me two words seemed to resonate: the edge and the threshold.

I agree outside the cove has a totally different sense - softer, lighter, quieter. Much better for camping and existing in a happy state - even in the rain. No anxiety there. I loved that. Here there was a different set of questions in terms of the project. These seemed to do with accommodating others that might join us - so we started to talk about simple ideas based around people's pleasure and own directions (and responsibilities) - "we expect you to do what you want".

The discussion around video was useful - we don't make faithful narratives of experience - it's impossible - but then this is a state of lens based artworks - especially in relation to a lived or real experience. I think the emphasis should be on thinking and accepting the limitations of this technology - rather than somehow believing they can capture and represent the whole. So the video offers a fragment shaped by the means, techniques or mode of its making. So then how to embody the viewer? - or share, committ them to an experience that carries them somehow beyond the visual? This is not a question purely for video art - all audience, spectator based art models i guess have this issue to differing degrees. i think installed video can do something, as can the editing in terms of visual stimulus. How can you transfer something non visual through the visual? empathy? tapping into others lived experience? hypnotics? power of aesthetics? Poetics?... I like to keep it simple and accept the idea of something either works for me or it doesn't......I can't predict that confidently.

But it's got to be funky.

for now,

dan

SOPORIFIC RAIN - June 2011

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
NAMING SOME THINGS (1) – MAY 2011
NAMING SOME THINGS (2) – MAY 2011

SOPORIFIC RAIN - June 2011

Steve and i spent two nights at the cove.

We camped outside the cove on the softer flat grassy banks by the small rocky beach. It was dry when we arrived Saturday aft. we explored bouldered and scambled about like young kids thinking we had forever there.

Then it started to rain....

It rained all day sunday. It became an event to be dry as apposed to getting wet being the event. It didn't matter - we were there to spend time no matter what the weather. We needed to see if it was ok.

It was ok. No actually it was brilliant.

My face was still tingling from the rain two days later.

When do you get to sit in a tent and do nothing.

The pitter patter on the tent fabric was soporific - SOPORIFIC RAIN. Beautiful.

We saw and did so much but that's perhaps another post.

mostly we scrambled about, made hot food and drinks and slept.