Arachne

By Arachne

I met a friend who volunteers at the Wardrobe Theatre and we saw a Paper Cinema show there. Paper Cinema tell short stories through manipulating cut-out drawings of characters and scenery in real time and projecting them onto a screen. They have fantastic reviews but for me the narratives got lost in the skilled intricacy of their timings and movements. Nor did I enjoy the many skeletons, corpses, starving people and malevolent witches, nor the menace of the repetitive music. But there were lots of children in the audience and they seemed to hold up better than I did.

It was great to catch up with V afterwards, though, and as it grew dark I took advantage of the coincidence of Bristol's Light Festival happening while I'm here.

RobBris50 took a better version of the picture I'd have posted if he hadn't. High above the nave of St Stephen's church a spaceship appears and a tiny space-suited human is cut adrift.
We hear the heartbeat and laboured breathing gradually fade.
blue flames flicker
butterflies and voices
the music of strings
then piano
red flames, then papers cast into them and writing fades
The floating body, gently rotating, is surrounded by flowers as it slowly vanishes into the darkness.

I know I'd spent the day umbilically sad but I wasn't expecting the tears streaming down my face.

Mine include the best of the rest of the installations, mercifully less emotional: globes outside the cathedral and (extra) arches in the main shopping centre.

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