Inspiration Conversation : Naturalist versus Artist

What do you 'see' when you look at a tree?

This event will consist of a podcast style conversation between one or more artists of various mediums and a naturalist from Chiltern Rangers exploring an urban tree in the incapsulated woodlands of High Wycombe. How do their responses converge, diverge and inform? Listeners will be encouraged to continue the conversation via the Festival Socials and create their own artistic response to a local tree.

Contributors

Dr. Kate Lawrence trained in dance at Thamesdown and Laban  and ran feminist dance company Nomads in the 1990s. She lectured in dance and performance at Bangor and Surrey Universities. At University of Surrey she pioneered a vertical dance module fusing her dance background with her long-standing passion for rock climbing. She has taught, performed and choreographed around Britain and in Canada, USA, France, Bali, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Croatia and Greenland.  Kate has collaborated with National Theatre Wales, 9 Bach, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, Marc Rees, Llawn Festival, Venue Cymru, Pontio and Pflasterspektalkl Linz and created performances in iconic sites such as Belfast City Hall, Mount Snowdon, Guildford Cathedral, Garuda Wishnu Kencana Bali, St Nazaire U-boat base, Haus der Geschichten Linz, Bristol dock cranes, Welsh Assembly Building and National Library of Wales. She writes about site-specific performance and in 2010 published the first scholarly article on vertical dance. In 2017 she was awarded a doctorate for her work in this field.

 In 2014, Kate established her own company, Vertical Dance Kate Lawrence. The company produces performance works, delivers workshops and training and provides consultation on projects. VDKL’s youth groups, Young Fliers, provide creative experiences off the ground, indoors and outdoors, for young people 11 – 16. Kate is passionate about working collaboratively and her current research project, In-visible Light, emerged from a collaboration with a photonics scientist. The project has evolved into an investigation on how dance can be conveyed through senses other than sight. Over the past 6 years, the company has undertaken creative work in trees in urban, parkland and rural locations.

You can follow Kate on:

Website: http://www.verticaldancekatelawrence.com/

Facebook: @verticaldancekatelawrence

Instagram: @vertical_kate

John Taylor : Ranger

I’ve now lived and worked in High Wycombe for over twenty years but grew up in the countryside of the Cambridgeshire Fens and then the slightly more hilly area of the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border. I’ve always had a love for nature and the outdoors and developed a real interest in the links between people and place and the arts and the environment. Having the Malvern Hills on one side of the village and the small orchards, fields and lanes of east Herefordshire on the other clearly made an impression!

My work with Chiltern Rangers revolves around helping to look after our local woodlands, chalk grasslands and chalk streams – it’s a very rewarding job made more so by the fact that we have a real emphasis on community engagement and work with a lot of volunteers with a wide variety of backgrounds and life experiences.

In my role as a Community Ranger in partnership with Marsh and Micklefield Big Local means I spend a large amount of time working with local housing estate residents, community groups and schools and I’m also a Forest School Leader which gives me the opportunity to engage many local children with their environment.

 You can follow Chiltern Rangers on social media @chilternrangers on their website https://chilternrangers.co.uk/what-we-do/