RISK (Audio Only) Panel Discussion: Victoria Robinson and Stephen Venables Chair: Professor Jonathan Pitches What is it that drives people to take risks? How are risk and identity caught up in one another? What characterises the experience of risk beyond the physical? Can it be understood at a social, emotional, cultural or cognitive level (O’Grady 2017) What meeting points are there between risk-taking in mountain environments and risk-taking in cultural contexts? And has extremity begun to define both fields? Stephen Venables, one of the UK’s most celebrated mountaineers and the first Briton to climb Everest without the aid of oxygen, is launching a new series of public talks as part of Professor Jonathan Pitches’ AHRC fellowship, Performing Landscapes: Mountains. Stephen will be in conversation with York Professor and specialist in the culture of extreme sports, Victoria Robinson on the theme of Risk. Mountainsides What shared languages are there between climbing and performing and what gets in the way of a good conversation? How are terms such as, risk, composition, line, narrative, movement and training understood in the two domains? How far is it true to say that climbing is a form of performance and can learn from the languages of theatre and performance studies? And what are the key ideas in hiking and climbing that resonate with the live art of performance? As part of the AHRC funded fellowship: Performing Landscapes: Mountains, we are delighted to announce a series of public conversations between prominent mountaineers, climbers and hikers and academics of theatre, performance and cultural studies. Each event will be introduced by a concise ‘micro-lecture’ on the theme, followed by contributions from each speaker. The majority of the time will be given over to animated conversation, robust debate and productive interjections from the floor. performing-mountains.leeds.ac.uk