The Awakening: ‘It feels like a meditation with the pagan guardians of spring’
Pictures by Tom Arran Commercial Photography
This Place, a column by Vicky Foster
The Awakening 2023: Opening night review
I’m excited for at least three days before The Awakening begins. Last year was a joyous welcoming back of the light. We still talk about it, and I remember how busy it was, the surprise of the crowds that met us when we arrived. I’m so ready for it this year that I decide to get there early, beat the rush, so night has not quite fallen when we arrive, but nevertheless The Rose Bowl is buzzing.
It’s 6.22pm and already a thick queue of people snakes its way along one edge. The sounds of cello and birds tweeting drift out from Queens Gardens to mingle with the chatter, and we can glimpse smoke moving over the pond, the illuminated water lilies floating there.
It’s almost dark when we make it past the barriers and turn onto the long path that bisects the newly-bewitched gardens. The trees glow blue and green, foxes and hares hide amongst the giant stalks of flowers and bullrushes. All of them glowing in the gloaming.
We take a seat, deciding we want to wait out the last of the light to get the full effect. Cricket calls and music that sounds like the plinking of water rise around us. The stream of people moving past is constant. Excited kids who don’t want to stop to have their coats zipped up against the coming night. Toddlers in prams. Men and women in long coats and sturdy boots and scarves, clearly planning to be out for hours.
The music changes. Something more electronic, uplifting, enhancing the slight movements of the light and the smoke and it begins to feel like I’m in a kind of meditation. The kind of place your mind might visit when you’re just on the edge of consciousness. The kind of place I might have read about in a fairy-tale as a kid. No wonder all the little people passing are so excited.
When the sky turns a rich deep blue, we dive in, passing frogs floating on lily pads, butterflies rising up on stalks – pink and green and gold and orange and purple – like illustrations come to life. A pair of otters crouch, a fieldmouse lifts its nose to the people passing, an owl perches on a pile of branches, its tawny eyes watching over everything. Glowing fuchsias overhang the path like Chinese lanterns, deep reds and purples with glowing gold centres, and a pair of peacock puppets entertain the crowd, stalking its edges, performing.
Another giant picture-book hare is caught mid-flight. A trio of crows crouch in a tree, a giant crescent moon glowing beside them. There are hedgehogs and geraniums, snowdrops and badgers. Every animal exquisite, half-living, like they might turn their heads towards you or move a paw. As we leave I hear a little girl saying ‘if only this was here every day’ and I’m inclined to agree. I’d like to stay. But it’s time for us to move on.
The Rose Bowl is really busy now, the three-thick queue stretching its whole circumference, and at the centre, standing sentinel around the fountain, are three white, inflatable rabbits, tall as buildings, like another vision from a dream. Or an omen. Or pagan guardians, pointing the way towards springtime.
We head off towards Zebedee’s Yard, in search of Unfurl, and at the top of Whitefriargate we meet a cluster of white-clad women on stilts, their dresses threaded with lights, the stamens of flowers forming crowns. While they’re still leaning down to high-five the crowd and waving, the sound of drums begins to approach and pauses in Queen Victoria Square. There’s distant applause and flashes of glowing white hats over the heads of a dark crowd.
We move to join them, stepping in time with the beat they’re tapping out, trying to locate the source of the noise. Between the shoulders and arms and heads of people I see them: robotic toy soldiers, shimmering metallic, silver-sleeved, gathered, back-to-back, in a rotating circle. Their faces painted chalk-white with black flashes. Their volume increases, reverberating in my chest, as they spread out, towards the crowd, before throwing up their arms, a finale met with applause. A parting in the crowd through which they move off.
In Zebedee’s Yard an inflatable garden has sprung up. Waist-high mushroom-like sculptures, lit from inside. Structures that move like fronds of seaweed, curling over in response to touch. Soft-spiked archways whose protrusions move like tentacles. The arms of a Kraken. The whole scene is slightly eerie, set against the backdrop of Trinity House, like these white ghost-like structures, full of air, echoing the sea, have been carried back from an old maritime excursion.
We’ve got one final visit to pay before we call it a night. I loved Broken Orchestra’s Re:Score last year, when archive films were projected onto the staithes of High Street, so I want to see it again this year, in its new home at the Ferens Arts Gallery. It feels amazing to climb the steps and go in through the door of this place in the dark. It’s like Night at the Museum. It’s hushed. People moving around the rooms like they’re feeling the same way as me – a bit awed.
We ask where the films are showing and are directed through to the studio. We step into the dim space, where bodies are sprawled on the floor, or lounging on beanbags or making good use of the chairs around the edge of the room.
The film that’s already midway through shows young men in sailors’ uniforms, lining up in a school yard, and men on boats, smiling, fags in mouths, at the camera as it passes. The soundtrack has a voice that is speaking about being lost in the sea, ‘bereaved in the sand’. It’s beautiful. Compelling. You can’t take your eyes off the screen.
When that film ends, another begins, timelapse footage of Broken Orchestra and Tom Kay and Emily Render making the music that will accompany the next film. This one is from 1932 – Morn til Midnight in Hull. The buildings are gorgeous. The clothes are gorgeous. The cars are gorgeous. With the music, it’s like watching an epic, but it’s just a normal day. The building we’re sitting in flashes past on-screen.
Wai Wan in his studio appears next – another time-lapse of the music being made. Cables and synths and a talk about how he creates sounds. Then the film: the 50s in Hull. Half-bombed buildings. Kids playing amongst terraced houses. Pearson Park – kids floating boats on the lake, adults lounging on the grass.
From time to time I glance round at the audience, see how they sometimes tip their heads towards each other, to point out a place, or make a quiet comment. Back on the screen, my eyes are always half-searching – will one of the faces flashing by be my mum, or my uncle, my nanna or grandad?
When we step back outside, the streets have quieted a little. The smoke and coloured lights still hang over Queens Gardens, the excited buzz still hangs over the buildings – some of them are lit too, with projections or coloured lights, like they are every weekend. In the distance I see glowing figures lighting up Whitefriargate. Illuminated bikes playing faint music. As I walk away, I’m thinking about all the different ways I’ve seen the city tonight. Another set of transformations. Another set of echoes and interpretations. Another Awakening.
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