Sounds from the Ground: Limpe Fuchs at Treak Cliff Cavern

19:00 - 22/7/2023 #Peak District #Performance

Buxton Rd, Castleton, Hope Valley S33 8WP

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Arts Catalyst presented a very special event as part of our ongoing Sounds from the Ground series of workshops and performances that explore landscapes and ecologies through sound.

In the extraordinary setting of Treak Cliff Cavern in Castleton, famous for its unique Blue John stone and some of the most beautiful cave formations in the UK, we hosted a performance by legendary experimental sound artist Limpe Fuchs.

Limpe is a percussionist, composer, sculptor and instrument builder who experiments in sound and movement, hand-making unusual instruments and sound sculptures using metal, stone and wood. Some of her self-built instruments include pendulum strings, a four metre steel constructed lithophone, bronze drums and hardwood and granite stone rows.

Limpe Fuchs performing in an underground cave lit by warm white and purple lighting casting shadows on the rocks.
Limpe Fuchs performing at Treak Cliff Cavern (2023). Image Credit: Ai Narapol

Collecting and arranging materials, tapping on stones, or throwing wood pieces to create melodies and interferences, Limpe’s improvised performances are exciting and engaging, as she moves through the performance space, transforming organic matter and objects into natural soundscapes.

This event follows our ongoing research into sonic ecologies and is part of Arts Catalyst’s Emergent Ecologies programme. Emergent Ecologies is a series of artist projects across South Yorkshire that explore how our experiences of place — from wetlands and waterways to city centre streets — and of ourselves within them, are shaped with and by other beings such as humans, plants, animals, insects, organisms, chemicals, rivers, etc.

A crowd of people watch Limpe Fuchs performing in an underground cave lit by warm white and purple lighting casting shadows on the rocks.
Limpe Fuchs performing at Treak Cliff Cavern (2023). Image Credit: Ai Narapol

If you attended this event and would like to feedback on your experience, you can do so via this quick online form. If you leave your email we’ll enter you into a prize draw to win 2 tickets to our next Sounds from the Ground event (dates TBC). Form closes 7 August.

About the artist 

Limpe Fuchs (Germany) has been one of the most imaginative sound artists on the international experimental music scene for decades. She has studied piano, violin and percussion in Munich. A professional percussionist, she plays her extraordinary sound installation that uses bronze, granite and hardwood material to create surprising interactions and spontaneous, immersive soundscapes.

Limpe studied classical piano and violin in Munich and percussion with Hans Holzl, citing avant-garde composers such as Murray Schaefer and John Cage as her early musical influences. She prefers to call herself a percussionist in the tradition of sound-scape artists yet it is also clear that the visual aspect of her work has always been given the same attention as the acoustic. Over her forty-year career she has continued experimenting with “no formalism” improvisational sound and visual performance using handmade instruments and sound sculptures. 

Limpe Fuchs has been accredited as a seminal influence on the “Krautrock” scene of the late ‘60s and ‘70s and later became an inspiration for the experimental psychedelic underground of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s (HNAS, Nurse with Wound, etc.) and for generations after. Limpe started her career in the late sixties with Anima Musica along with her then partner, the sculptor Paul Fuchs, and in 1971 they recorded their first album called Stuermischer Himmel. The next release was an unofficial release of the three-day Ossiach Festival recorded live including performances by Weather Report and Tangerine Dream among others. It was here that they met with the organiser, the famed pianist Friedrich Gulda, who soon joined Limpe and Paul to create Anima. Subsequently the albums entitled Anima and Musik Fur Alle were both released in 1972. From 1969 till 1989 the duo continued performing, recording, touring (most notoriously on a tractor travelling at 30km/h which pulled the stage) often adding new members including their son, Zoro.

She then started on her solo career and continues to perform live, also collaborating with many musicians and she has even ventured into theatre performance. Most recent collaborators include Flamingo Creatures, the organ player Matthias Ank, Christoph Reiserer, Julia Scholzel, Christoph Heemann, Timo van Luijk.

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