Footsteps Marking Time (2014)

'Going out was really going in'. John Muir, Scottish naturalist.

Footsteps Marking Time is the result of a year-long collaboration between choreographer Joan Clevillé and Glasgow-based composer Matilda Brown. The work is inspired by two parallel endurance experiences: Matilda's solo walk of the Cape Wrath Trail (238 miles across the Scottish Highlands), and Joan’s voluntary ‘confinement’ in a studio in the remote peninsula of Scoraig. Both journeys happened simultaneously during three weeks in spring 2014. After the walk, Matilda and Joan shared their findings and stories – their trials and tribulations, the people they met, the trees, the birds, the solitude. Together they worked in various locations across Scotland – Dundee, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Loch Tay- in a series of residencies organised with the support of Citymoves, Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, Scottish Dance Theatre and Forestry Commission Scotland. The final performance took place at The Macphail Centre in Ullapool, a town in the middle point of the Cape Wrath Trail, featuring live music by Matilda's chamber ensemble and visuals by Edinburgh-based artist Ger O’Brien.