Practitioner report: Calton Hill Constellations

Abstract

Artist and choreographer Siriol Joyner (Aberystwyth, Cymru) and writer and mythogeographer Phil Smith (Exeter, England) worked together with overlaps and collisions of place, dance, description, objects and narratives as part of a series of Opening Line events by Artlink. They combined description, history and storytelling in response to locations around Edinburgh in performances for sighted, partially sighted and blind audiences. Working for three days in Cramond, Siriol and Phil explored an edge-place, drawing both on research about it and on their physical and emotional encounters with it. Playing at the edges of overlapping senses and spaces, they explored the meeting place of sacred and non-sacred space; searching for what is there and what is changing there; for what can be told, performed, what can be felt and touched; reaching for what eludes, listening and waiting for what might emerge. They next took a group on an exploratory journey around the grounds of the Old City Observatory on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill. This descriptive performance, designed for sighted, non-sighted and blind audiences, responded to the historic and evocative site of Calton Hill by overlapping and colliding place, dance, description, objects and narratives. Phil and Siriol invited the group to experience the site in different ways, challenging our perception of the space through a series of actions, moments and stories. This is their report on the two events.