Fissure
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Fissure was a site-specific performance in which 120 participants made a journey by train then on foot, covering a twenty-mile route that circumnavigated, descended-beneath, and finally ascended Ingleborough. On this journey they heard poetry by Elizabeth Burns set to music by Jocelyn Pook, and saw dance choreographed by Nigel Stewart.
Fissure was Louise’s response to the illness and death, aged 29, of her sister due to a brain tumour and the grief caused by her loss. The shape of the piece was informed by key moments of her sister’s illness, death and the ensuing grief; oncology and treatment notes, but equally the liturgical structure of the Easter Tridium and narratives drawn from Greco-Roman myth. Accordingly, the work explored the diagnosis of a terminal illness and its consequences, but also transformed this personal experience into an art work that resonated with others on both individual and universal levels.
In planning the route and the places in the landscape for creative and scientific interventions, Louise chose fissured locations such as limestone pavements, shake-holes, cairns, scars, subterranean rivers, caves, and mountain tops. These choices were underpinned with neuro-scientific knowledge of the brains structure and its function and dysfunction which that landscape came to symbolise.
In May, in the poignant promenade piece Fissure, the audience literally climbed a windswept peak, as well as wandering through subterranean caves. Devised by Louise Ann Wilson, in memory of her late sister, this hike in the Yorkshire Dales became a pilgrimage through death and bereavement, haunting figures emerging and vanishing through rock crevices and mournful songs by composer Jocelyn Pook echoing from the crags.
Kate Basett, Independent Review of 2011
Creator, scenographer and director: Louise Ann Wilson
Writer: Elizabeth Burns
Composer: Jocelyn Pook
Choreographer: Nigel Stewart.
Experts: Professor Michael Brada (neuro-oncologist), Andrew McEvoy (neuro-surgeon), Dr Chris Clark (neuro-imager), Dr Mike Kelly (geologist), Colin Newlands (conservationist), Duncan Morrison (caver), and mountain leaders.
Dancers: Fania Grigoriou, Jennifer Essex, Julia Griffin, Luisa Lazzaro, Noora Kela, Sonja Perreten.
Musicians: Alice Grant, Martina Schwarz, Mikhail Karikis, Olivia Chaney, Sally Davies, Vivien Ellis.
Choir: Alisun Pawley, Jeff Wallcook, Cara Curran, Sarah Wallcock.
Bellringers: The Kirby Lonsdale Handbell Ringers and the bell ringers of St. James Church, Clapham.
Producers: Art Events in association with Louise Ann Wilson Company, as part of The Re-enchantment.
Funders: ACE, PRSF, Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Supported by: Yorkshire Dales National Park, Ingleborough Nature Reserve, Natural England, Ingleborough Estates, Ingleborough Cave, Above and Below and Settle to Carlisle Railway.
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Take this thread
This thread will lead you
through the darkness
to a place where there is only rock and water
no grass no sky
no trees no stars
no moon no sun
only rock and water
This thread will disappear
inside the earth
the way a river disappears in limestone
This thread will travel
where you cannot follow
only rock and water
no grass no sky
no trees no stars
no moon no sun
only rock and water
Take this thread
This thread will lead you
through the darkness
to a place where there is only rock and water
no grass no sky
no trees no stars
no moon no sun
only rock and water
This thread will disappear
inside the earth
the way a river disappears in limestone
This thread will travel
where you cannot follow
only rock and water
no grass no sky
no trees no stars
no moon no sun
only rock and water
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This was not performance art for the timid [...].Clinging to boulders, I asked myself whether a theatre critic being literally blown away by a show could be considered an artistic triumph. Unforgettable.
Kate Bassett, Independent on Sunday, 29 May 2011.
This was not performance art for the timid [...].Clinging to boulders, I asked myself whether a theatre critic being literally blown away by a show could be considered an artistic triumph. Unforgettable.
Kate Bassett, Independent on Sunday, 29 May 2011.
Audience / Participant Responses
[..] the piece tested my body's limits and on that climb on day three I could not help wondering what it must be like to be so ill that your body is tested to the limit and to the end.
Fissure has haunted me. As we walked across this place, I found myself shaken by its vastness and velocity [...]. My sense of scale [...] shifted when I began to learn more about the mapping and […] dysfunction of the brain. This was punctuated by bells, song, wind, cries, conversation, exchange, memories [...]. And loss. How loss can seep into every part of you and the landscape. [...] How walking through this ‘place’ can lead you somewhere you never thought possible.
[..] the space provided by the music, the pauses and the walking across the three days was an invaluable part of the experience and allowed me to reflect on, and digest it. The beauty was nurturing, […] the music and dance powerful, the use of the landscape and architecture fascinating – and beyond words. I'm a person who usually expresses myself in a strictly factual style, I feel the event helped unleash in me different ways of expressing my experience.
The integration of geological features and the body, made real through the intervention of the experts.
Audience / Participant Responses
[..] the piece tested my body's limits and on that climb on day three I could not help wondering what it must be like to be so ill that your body is tested to the limit and to the end.
Fissure has haunted me. As we walked across this place, I found myself shaken by its vastness and velocity [...]. My sense of scale [...] shifted when I began to learn more about the mapping and […] dysfunction of the brain. This was punctuated by bells, song, wind, cries, conversation, exchange, memories [...]. And loss. How loss can seep into every part of you and the landscape. [...] How walking through this ‘place’ can lead you somewhere you never thought possible.
[..] the space provided by the music, the pauses and the walking across the three days was an invaluable part of the experience and allowed me to reflect on, and digest it. The beauty was nurturing, […] the music and dance powerful, the use of the landscape and architecture fascinating – and beyond words. I'm a person who usually expresses myself in a strictly factual style, I feel the event helped unleash in me different ways of expressing my experience.
The integration of geological features and the body, made real through the intervention of the experts.
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Production Photographs by Bethany Clarke. Copyright: Art Events.
Research
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Exhibition
Fissure at World Stage Design
October 2013 - Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama, Cardiff, Wales
Exhibition of a selection of production photographs taken by Bethany Clarke alongside poems by Elizabeth Burns and other texts from the production of Fissure (2011) as part of the prestegious World Stage Design 2013 event where Louise was nominated for a Production Design Award.
Fissure at World Stage Design
October 2013 - Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama, Cardiff, Wales
Exhibition of a selection of production photographs taken by Bethany Clarke alongside poems by Elizabeth Burns and other texts from the production of Fissure (2011) as part of the prestegious World Stage Design 2013 event where Louise was nominated for a Production Design Award.
