Dramatic Dales get key role in a moving epitaph

Not so for 150 intrepid souls, who next Friday will arrive by train in a secret location somewhere near the Yorkshire Dales and spend the weekend walking miles across the landscape.

As they traverse the area around Ingleborough, trekking waterways, mountain peaks and valleys, as well as entering the caves in the area, the audience will be met by singers, musicians, dancers and actors in a performance piece called Fissure that will last from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.

The theatrical experience has been created by director Louise Ann Wilson as a tribute performance to her sister, Denise, who died 10 years ago following a five-year battle with a brain tumour.

Denise, 18 years her sister’s junior, was 24 when she was first diagnosed with a brain tumour and died just over a decade ago in April 2001.

The title of the piece, Fissure, can mean a crack in a rock, the split between the two hemispheres of the brain or the separation of two people.

Ms Wilson said: “The piece started as a way of me talking about the grief of dealing with Denny’s death, but it has become something that says much wider, more universal things.

“It begins by telling the story of a woman with a brain tumour, and grows to become about a relationship between two sisters and then about relationships, how we deal with grief and much more universal themes.” Ms Wilson first had the idea of creating the piece over three years ago. The initial idea for Ms Wilson, who specialises in “site specific” work – performances created for and influenced by unusual spaces – was to create a piece of theatre that involved walking and dealt with the issue of grief.

The theatre director, who grew up in Harrogate and now lives in Lancaster, was familiar with the landscape around Ingleborough with its caves and limestone paving as it was an area she often visited with her sister and her father when growing up. She said that, while the Yorkshire Dales might seem an unlikely place for a piece of theatre, in many ways it is ideal.

“There is something about walking in the landscape that makes you really engage with what’s around you,” said Ms Wilson.

“Normally when you see a piece of theatre you’re out for the evening, you might have a drink, sit in a nice seat in an auditorium – it’s possible for you to choose to be engaged or disengaged and you can easily be distracted. When you are in a landscape and a piece of theatre performance is happening around you, you have to engage with it. Somehow, being out in the landscape, with the performers around you, the audience completely invests in what is happening.”

Ms Wilson has been preparing the show with the performers for several weeks. Come rain or shine – the performers have prepared for all eventualities – the show will go on, although this being the Yorkshire Dales with nature all around, there are plenty of elements that will remain out of the control of the organisers.

Ms Wilson, 41, said that incidental occurrences would add to the special nature of a performance taking place out in the countryside.

She said: “There are around 30 people who will be working behind the scenes, with stop watches and maps and all manner of equipment to make sure everything runs smoothly.

“But the whole point of being out in this landscape is that the performance happens in it and there is a lot we simply can’t control. There may be instances where cavers might pop up out of the ground, or birds start singing, that will be totally unplanned. What I have found with other similar work I have created is that it is these incidental happenings that really add to the special nature of the work.”

As well as the 30 people working behind the scenes during the weekend, Ms Wilson has collaborated with a huge number of people to make the piece of work happen, from the local police, to farmers who own some of the land, to the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

Creatively she has also collaborated with several high profile artists including award-winning playwright Elisabeth Burns, choreographer Nigel Stewart and composer Jocelyn Pook, who has won Olivier and Golden Globe awards and been nominated for a BAFTA.

The director has also worked closely with leading neuroscientists Dr Michael Brada and Chris Clark, along with earth and environmental scientists to create the piece.

She said: “When Denny was ill, I wanted to understand what was happening and it struck me the way doctors and brain surgeons spoke about the illness was in terms of caverns and streamlines and canals inside the brain.

“When I was researching the show, I spoke to geologists and a lot of the language used is similar. It makes the Dales the perfect place for this piece. I think it will be very special.”

Tickets and information for Fissure, which will run from May 20 to 22, are on www.artevents.info and 0207 012 1731.