Into the Mountain with Simone Kenyon

In this episode Jonathan Pitches and Jason König interview Simone Kenyon about her work as a practice researcher, performer, artist and producer.We focus especially on her work as the choreographer and artistic creator of the place-sensitive performance piece Into the Mountain, inspired and informed by the lyrical and embodied prose of Nan Shepherd’s 1974 book, The Living Mountain.  Building on six years of preparatory work Into the Mountain drew on the input of nearly 100 women, many of whom reside in the Cairngorm area, and merged guided walking practices with choreography, and a 22-piece choir singing a newly composed piece. The episode begins with some discussion of Simone’s early experiences of walking and mountains growing up in Bradford, West Yorkshire and then in the Lake District.We then discuss some of Simone’s earlier work on a range of outdoor walking art projects, for example her project in 2006 The Pennine Way: The Legs that Make Us with Tamara Ashley, and the way in which that helped to shape her conceptions of walking as an aesthetic practice.The bulk of the episode then focuses on the Into the Mountain project. Simone talks about the influence of Nan Shepherd on the project and about her engagement with the bodily routines of climbing and mountaineering in her choreography. We discuss some of the practices and methodologies that lie at the heart of the project, for example the dance practice of ‘Body Weather’ and the way in which it helps to challenge conceptions of the separation between body and environment. Simone also talks about some of the practical challenges of the project: for example, negotiations with landowners in the Cairngorms.Finally we look ahead to some possible future projects, and future prospects for rethinking human relationships with mountain landscapes and engaging with mountain communities in Scotland and beyond.This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin.You can follow the project on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.socialTo learn more about the Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website here (https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk)