Some People Climb Up – the App

A brand new App offering a captivating and playful audio-walk through Leigh Woods, exploring our connectivity with the woodland around us.

 

After the popular sell-out audio walk Some People Climb Up which engaged live audiences in autumn 2019, I am now immensely proud and also a bit apprehensive as I look forward to the launch of the App Some People Climb Up. Equipped with smartphone and headphones, audiences will be able to download the geo-located walk and be guided through Leigh Woods, Bristol. Listening to my voice and an evocative soundscape, they will experience the woodland through all the senses. The work taps into climate emergency, grief and notions of care beyond the human species.

Based on an original concept created with Cat Jones.

Dates: 06 Nov 2021 – 06 Nov 2022

Where: Leigh Woods Forestry England car park off the Abbots Leigh Road, North Somerset, Sat Nav Postcode: BS83QB 

Prices: Pay What You Can from £2.50

Duration: approx. 1 hour

Booking: please click HERE 

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Further support by In Between Time and their Artist Seed Fund, Forestry England and Residence.

Some People Climb Up – showings in Leigh Woods, Bristol

A wilderness of tranquility, the lungs of the city, a home, a refuge, a playground. Woodlands evoke senses, memories and emotions for all of us.

Sylvia Rimat takes us on a playful, thought-provoking and deeply human audio-walk through Leigh Woods, exploring our connectivity with the woodland around us. Equipped with audio devices and headphones, you will be guided through Leigh Woods to experience the woodland through all your senses.

Some People Climb Up is also an encounter with the metaphorical forest in our brain. It draws on neuroscience, the intricate fungal networks between trees, plant signaling, symbology and our own personal stories related to the woods to create an original performance with a pinch of the surreal.

Based on an original concept created with Cat Jones.

Watch a short VIDEO TRAILER about the audio-walk.

DATES: 28 & 29 Sep and 4, 5 & 6 Oct 2019 

TIMES: 10am, 11.30am, 1pm, 2.30pm & 4pm 

Starting point is the Leigh Woods Forestry England Car Park. 

BOOKING: please click HERE

Tickets £5/£3

Ages 15+

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Further support by Forestry England, We The Curious and Residence.

Map to Leigh Woods car park:

Residency at We The Curious, Bristol

In September/ October 2018 I embarked on a 2-week residency at the buzzing We The Curious science centre in Bristol. My mission was to explore the metaphorical forests in our brains, made up of pyramidal neurons that look like tree structures. I also wanted to find out more about the forests in our minds, the ones we remember and imagine, the personal stories. The process was informed by research on visual imagination in Neuroscience, on plant signaling as well as the symbology of forests.

I offered workshops for families/ children of various ages and for grown-ups. During these workshops, participants were approached to share the unique images in their minds to do with trees and forests. Through visualisation exercises, a great wealth of personal drawings and notes were collected that turned out to be poetic, captivating and sometimes quite unexpected… one participant came up with a giant snow drop as a tree!

As part of the residency I was also exhibiting objects that are of significance for the project. A board on the wall encouraged visitors to engage in the project through a brief and simple exercise: to imagine a tree and to draw and describe it on cards. Here an example of an endearing one that a child must have drawn:

I liked this visitor card so much that it inspired me to change the title for the project, that started out under the name ‘Tree’ (based on an original concept created with Cat Jones) and had continued as ‘Dendrites’. So the new title now reads ‘Some People Climb Up’. The next stage will see me develop an audio walk through a forest. I’m not sure if people will actually climb up the trees but let’s see.

Residency at Internationales Waldkunst Zentrum in Darmstadt, Germany

The project Tree has just had a second development phase at Internationales Waldkunst Zentrum (International Forest Art Centre), as part of KunstTREFFpunkt, a programme presenting performance projects in public space in Darmstadt, Germany. For this residency in Darmstadt, I worked with Sydney based artist and collaborator Cat Jones remotely, through electrical signaling processes via e-mail, skype and dropbox.

Apart from carrying out site-specific research in the local forest ‘An der Ludwigshöhe’, including tree species, mycelium and local stories related to the woodland, Cat and I gave a talk about our respective artistic practice and our collaboration on Tree. We facilitated a workshop with local participants who use the forest ‘An der Ludwigshöhe’ recreationally, to collect their personal stories related to the forest and to explore the unique (visual) imagery in our minds.

We also tested a 20min long work-in-progress version of the audio walk Tree, still in its very early stages. It was exciting to see how the actual forest around us, perceived with all the senses, could be matched with research on visual imagination in Neuroscience, explored through entering the metaphorical ‘forest in our brain’ made up of pyramidal neurons that resemble tree structures. During the test walk, participants also found out about plant signaling processes amongst tree species and personal stories related to the forest, whilst encountering mysterious sounds from a forest in a very different, far away geographic location.

 

 

Early development of TREE and residency in the Blue Mountains, Australia

A few weeks ago in March, Sydney-based artist Cat Jones and I embarked on a 2-week residency at Big Ci in Bilpin, New South Wales, Australia to explore our working collaboration and make a start on our brand new project Tree. I’m really excited about Tree! The project delves into the depths of our imagination, drawing on Neuroscience, plant signaling, the symbology of forests and on our very personal imagined stories, related to the woods. Once finished, it will take the form of a site-specific audio walk through a forest and lead to a book project published alongside.

Big Ci was a perfect location for making a start on this work, tucked away in the scenic Blue Mountains, surrounded by bushland. We were taken on an introductory walk, to get to know the local landscape and tree species and worked alongside other (inter)national artists in a spacious studio.

Before and after the residency, I travelled to Sydney, to Melbourne and to Launceston and Hobart in Tasmania, to meet up with festival and venue producers and peer artists.  Cat and I have already been invited for the next 2 -weeks residency in March 2018, to develop Tree further. This residency will take place at Arts House in Melbourne and is funded through a Culture Lab commission. I can’t wait to return to Australia!

The trip was kindly supported through the Arts Council’s and British Council’s Artist International Development Fund.

This Moment Now – spring 2017 tour

Over January and February 2017 I’ll tour my performance This Moment Now to a few places in Britain.
We’ll start off with a run of five shows as part of The Yard Theatre’s NOW17 Festival in London. The festival will also feature Greg Wohead and Rachel Mars, Deborah Pearson, Mamoru Iriguchi and Rachael Young amongst other. I’ll be double billing with emerging artist Richard Dodwell and his evocative performance PLANES.
Later in February we’ll travel to Colchester Arts Centre and to Theatre Fest West at Salisbury Playhouse.

This Moment Now is a playful exploration of how we perceive time, as individuals, as audiences in a performance and on a wider scale, considering various concepts of time. Inspired by conversations with specialists from mathematics/ physics, philosophy and people of different ages.

‘PLAYFUL, PHILOSOPHICAL, POETIC’  Exeunt magazine

DATES:

31 Jan – 4 Feb 2017 
The Yard Theatre London/ NOW17

8 Feb 2017
Colchester Arts Centre

16 Feb 2017
Theatre Fest West/ Salisbury Playhouse

Watch a trailer on vimeo

The tour will be accompanied by a number of workshops for elderly and young people, with a focus on time and ageing.

So far we’ve been on tour to ICIA Bath, Chelsea Theatre London, Chichester Showroom and Cambridge Junction.


Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Commissioned by ICIA University of Bath. Further support by Joe Allard Commission, Institute of Physics, Cambridge Junction, Chelsea Theatre, Bristol Old Vic Ferment, Arnolfini and Residence.

This Moment Now – PREMIERE!!

I am very happy to announce that my brand new performance This Moment Now will premiere on Thurs, 30 April 2015, at the Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts at University of Bath.

In this show I set out to playfully explore how we perceive time, as individuals, as audiences in a performance and on a wider scale, considering various concepts on time. A drummer, a stage manager and a secret guest become the protagonists of the show, which focuses on rhythm, movement, video interviews and the liveness of facetime. A woman in her nineties dances to the camera, a young girl of eight talks about being fast at doing the splits and cups of teas help the audience to overcome a pause.

This Moment Now is inspired by conversations with specialists from mathematics/ physics, philosophy and people of different ages.

Thu 30 APR, 7:30pm

To find out more and to book tickets please click HERE

 

Concept and performance: Sylvia Rimat

Drummer: Chris Langton

Stage manager: Luke Emery

Video- and sound design: Sam Halmarack

Choreography: Laura Dannequin

Dramaturgy: Tanya Steinhauser

 

Commissioned by ICIA University of Bath. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Further support by Cambridge Junction, Chelsea Theatre, Bristol Old Vic Ferment, Arnolfini and Residence.

Proximity Festival, Perth

I am very delighted to take part in Proximity Festival in Perth, Australia in autumn this year. Taking place at Fremantle Arts Centre from Wednesday 22 October – Saturday 1 November, the 2014 program will present twelve unique intimate experiences for one audience member at a time, created by artists from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. I will develop the one on one performance Dance With Meworking with voices via headphones and drawing on Fremantle’s history as a ‘Lunatic Asylum’ in the late 19th/ early 20th century. More info about the festival can be found here. Tickets and program details will be released in August.

(Photo: Emily Parsons-Lord, WA Australia)

THANK YOU for your kind support

 

I want to say a huge THANK YOU to all the lovely people who have been donating money towards my crowd funding campaign on Sponsume.com. Without all of you I wouldn’t be able to bring my performance I guess if the stage exploded… to Edinburgh this year. You are brilliant and I can’t express my gratitude enough. So this is for you… drum rolls… the people who stepped in… drum rolls getting louder…. and here they ARE:

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Crowd-funding campaign for ‘I guess if the stage exploded…’

It’s now less than three weeks until I will be performing as part of the British Council Edinburgh Showcase at Summerhall and I am starting to get really excited!!

To support my showings up in Edinburgh I’ve started a crowd-funding campaign. In order to perform six times, I will have to pay for a stage manager, a technician, space hire, travel expenses and accommodation, technical equipment, marketing, fees for external performers live via skype connection and for FRAGGLE, the Scottish Eagle Owl which will be performing alongside me. And FRAGGLE will be lovely for sure but he doesn’t come cheap….

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