Intimacy & Distance

Live act V
London – Caudeval(FR) - Alicante(ES), 7th of June (weather permitting), 13.00 cet, Chris Weaver (UK) / Ed Baxter (UK)

archive: live act V

Suspension of Belief (Sunday 7 June at noon) combines live rock-climbing with text and sound (both musical and incidental) in a specifically radiophonic work made for the pan-European series “Intimacy and Distance”. Conceived and produced by Ed Baxter and Chris Weaver, it features leading British professional climber Gaz Parry and writer Jim Perrin (legendary climber, author “The Climbing Essays, “The Villain,” etc.)

Suspension of Belief is not intended as a sports broadcast so much as
a meditation on extremity. On the one hand, the listener can follow it
as a straightforward ascent of a rock face, with all the tension and
drama that involves – broadcast live. On the other hand, Perrin and
Parry are not in touch with one another but are each speaking in
isolation to the radio audience. They share common ground in their
experience of a terrain and situation known only to a small number of
climbers. The themes of intimacy and distance are explored from many
angles, with Perrin’s supremely elegant writing providing a commentary
on the climb and the sounds of Gaz’s ascent providing a physically
palpable counterpoint to Jim’s ruminations. Suspension of Belief is an
open-ended broadcast. It will end when the participants reach some
sort of plateau or obstruction.