Green Grass: A Rolling Project

Great Exhibition of the North FRINGE

Green Green: A Rolling Project was an ongoing practice throughout the Great Exhibition of the North 2018 leading to a final culminating event on Friday 7th September 2018.

Key learning from this project included experiencing just how different artificial grass is compared to actual grass and how willing people were to engage with this practice.

A folio reflecting on this practice is available here.

Project Description: The North is where we are.  It is the earth beneath our feet and the air we breathe.  Throughout the Great Exhibition of the North, Green Grass will utilise the physical activities of rolling, reclining and resting to investigate our relationship to the ground below us, specifically in this case the winding slope of artificial grass outside Student Central, Northumbria University City Campus.  The ability to roll over from lying face/body up to face/body down or vice versa is fundamental to child movement development yet as adults we tend not to use this opportunity to experience our world from ground level.  In Green Grass rolling will open up space to move and think through questions of ecology, care, status and freedom.  Rolling up and/or down the slope, Liz Pavey will develop a regular practice of rolling and resting alone or with others, rolling with/over/under, rolling in silence and in conversation.  She will be inviting people to join her.

Project Aims

• Personally engage in a regular and developmental physical practice of movement (rolling) and stillness (reclining and resting)
• Work with sensory awareness and attention noting the influence of the practice on my wider embodied living and wellbeing
• Share this practice with others: culminating in a group performance
• Challenge personal habits and cultural norms
• Engage in focused conversations with invited participants during the practice
• Reflect on the practical and philosophical implications of engaging with and experiencing the world from ground level
• Foster personal knowledge and understanding of debates in ecology (e.g. relating to real/fake grass)

“Through our education in our homes, in schools, in our travels, and in our spiritual communities, we have developed a relationship to ourselves and to the environment….  The body is the medium through which we experience ourselves and the environment.  The ways we gather and interpret sensory information affect both how we monitor our internal workings and how we construct our views of the world.” Andrea Olsen Body and Earth

Dancers: Karen Rann, Claire Pençak and Liz Pavey