Output details

Louphole : A site-specific public performance exploring how a public performance might embody ideas of disappearance and species extinction and how participatory performance might bring an audience into an embodied relationship to a place and contribute towards an empathetic ecological awareness

Medium: site-specific public performance. Status: Oriel Davies Gallery (Newtown, Powys) off-site commission, combining commissioned musical work for Newtown Silver Band and a directed walk to Bryn Bank above Newtown, culminating in a performance of a public ‘howl’, March 4, 2010. Research Questions: How might a public performance embody ideas of disappearance and species extinction? How might a participatory performance bring an audience into an embodied relationship to a place and contribute towards an empathetic ecological awareness? Process and Reflection: Louphole forms part of a larger multi-media project and retrospective of my work, curated by Oriel Davies Afield (October 2009- April, 2010). The performance was the culmination of a long-term enquiry into the behaviours and survival of the wolf and its extinction from Wales. The project examined ways in which the memory of this animal may still reside in embodied or folk idiom and how participatory performance might evoke what I term environmental recollection. The musicians of Newtown Silver Band converged on the High Street playing wolf calls transcribed from field recordings, and a composition by collaborator Barnaby Oliver, then developed into a march to accompany the public to Bryn Bank, where 100+ people participated in the performance intended to create an ecological empathy for a lost animal. Drawing on the eco-cosmopolitan ideas of U. K. Heise and N. Clark, Louphole attempted to link a town in Wales to other places where the wolf has been contested and has survived. The research trajectory sits within a body of enquiry shared by performance practitioners and scholars (D. Williams, J. Monson, M. Coates, W. Heim), whose work examines ideas of animal- human relations and environment through embodied practices. My objective was to think about how site-based performance can develop an expanded ecology, moving beyond purely human concerns.