Oceanallover Return for the Orkney Science Festival with Orographic

By theorkneynews on September 1, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

Oceanallover who had an extremely successful tour in Orkney last year with Sea Hames are returning with another exceptional work: Orographic , and will be performing it as part of the Orkney Science Festival.

An outdoor performance from Oceanallover will fuse together otherworldy theatre, live music and sculptural costume design inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s landscape paintings and humankind’s relationship to mountains.

2018 marks 150 years since the birth of the founding father of the ‘Glasgow Style’. Oceanallover’s Artistic Director, Alex Rigg, has a long time interest in the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and in particular his lesser known landscape paintings. By the early 1920s, Mackintosh had abandoned his architectural practice entirely and moved to the south of France where he indulged his passion for watercolour landscape painting around the Vermilion coast and river valleys snaking into the high Pyrenees. The starting point for this project can be found in the abstract lines, shapes and cartography that Mackintosh used to communicate the orography of mountains and hillsides.

Orographic is a performance work inspired by radical landscape and in particular inspirational landforms. The term itself was coined to describe the study of the formation and geographic features of mountains. The piece will take direct inspiration from spectacular land masses in Scotland such as Rackwick, Criffel, Cathkin Braes, Merrick, Ben Nevis, Ben Lomond, Arrochar Alps and the Campsie Fells.

Thematically Orographic will consider the awe we experience when faced with a mountainous structure and the human desire throughout history to conquer such edifices.

Join Oceanallover for a mesmerising promenade performance that blends surreal choreography, sonic invention and carnival couture design.

Accompanying the performances will be conversation with be a talk by the Artistic Director of Oceanallover, Alex Rigg about the inspiration of the mountains for the performance.

Where can you see Orographic ?

Friday 7th September – Hoy

6.15-7pm: Walk and Oceanallover Performance, Hoy
A mesmerising promenade performance that blends surreal choreography, sonic
invention and carnival couture design. Part of Orkney International Science Festival.

FREE – no prior booking required. Friday evening ferry from Stromness 5.45pm, back from Moaness in Hoy 10pm, book from Orkney
Ferries 01856 872044.

Saturday 8th September – Stromness

11am-11.45 Walk and Oceanallover Performance, Stromness.
A performance work/walk up Brinkie’s Brae about landscape and our response to it, inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s landscape paintings, our awe of mountains, our desire to ascend. With music both earthy and ethereal.

No charge. Wear waterproofs and good shoes!

5pm – 6pm: Inspiration of the Mountains Talk with Alex Rigg (Artistic Director), Stromness Academy

Oceanallover director Alex Rigg describes the development of the ideas behind the group’s new performance, Orographic, from the landscape paintings of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, into music and costumes and choreography.