BARE by Cutting Clouds Company (James Harris, Alex Kaniewski, Imogen Sutherland). Cutting Clouds investigates the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of its effects and its limits as well as its impact on our experience.
BARE sweeps through nature, and aims to cut up the landscape by layering the life, death and work of the writer Virginia Woolf. On 28th March 1941 Virginia Woolf filled her overcoat with stones and entered the River Ouse, Sussex. She bared all to nature and it took her life. As part of our process for BARE we travelled to Horton-in-Ribblesdale in order to respond to its surrounding landscape– a landscape that is dominated by steep fells, and bubbling streams that feed the river Ribble.
For our performance we took our audience on a journey through Fulford Ings, a small patch of wild on the edge of York. BARE explored this environment in relation to walking, waiting and wading. Our endeavour was to better understand what it is to bare all to the environment we are in. BARE invites the audience to reconsider their relationship with the outside world, the public and the non-privately owned space. Throughout the day our environment changed affecting us personally as performers and the atmosphere of the experience. The performance aimed to connect to the environment on a very human level, giving the audience time to reflect and on their individual lives as they shared nature with a group.
Text by James Harris and Alex Kaniewski