I walked wherever I could but heard the sounds of water everywhere, thought I was going nowhere. The gates by the canal were shut, my eyes were open. Walking away from the tunnel all I heard was singing. And then I saw everything, the lights at the end of the tunnel.
’Total darkness gradually shifted to light, light shifted to vague detail, vague detail shifted to absolute magic. Breathtaking’
‘…mesmerising’ @Bettlylawless
‘Head to the dark arches in Leeds the wkend and see Leeds as you’ve never seen it before – the finale is spectacular’ @ace_yorkshire
The bells themselves are called underwater
Rhyming two fabulous spaces
The bridge is broken at both ends, that’s why I love it
‘Would do it all again at the drop of a rusty hat’ @Awkward_2011
And then we looked up, and a chain of events whirred into action, irreversibly changing our experience, and the Leeds I thought I knew, forever…
‘Something quite eerie about 50 kids pointing at you and singing in German’ @CultureLEEDS
Rhyming two fabulous spaces
A singer disappearing down the river
The bridge is broken at both ends, that’s why I love it
People walk beneath it, not across. And birds fly straight through the bridge as if its bricks were made of air.
The sky is in the river, the earth is in the clouds
A mythic river casts its spell, bringing the Aire from the Dark Arches into County Arcade with songs of unearthly beauty.
Happy in both the light and the dark
Their mouths in the earth but their eyes like glass tipped up to catch the light
They slip to the source where there is no one
There’s a bridge I know that’s very strange water flows above it not below
One day it snowed and the bridge disappeared, the locks were all frozen, and when I tried to sail my boat there it skidding like a tray down a mountainside
and the wind is nowehere
UnderWorlds erupt into the everyday, the imaginary becomes real and the real imagined.
@ptw86 ‘Somebody made a mess on briggate in Leeds’
‘Word on the street is there’s gonna be a brass band off (like a dance off with err brass bands)’ (@leedsinspired)
It is the most beautiful bridge,
over which no man has yet walked,
but it is a curious thing,
that over it the waters hang.
Water carriers are a warm people, their task his hard and long but they go about it with a generosity of spirit, cheerfully resigned to what they do
Carefully choreographed chaos – an idea that is always moving
The city as a vast screen and backdrop
Water flow river canal fountain energies people
To be a water carrier is to perform an essential and important task done with the carefulness and gentleness such a precious commodity deserves
I am new in this city, I don’t know these people, someone asked if we brought the sounds
‘Beautiful, haunting, eerie place – the chimes sound on in my head’ @risingdream
I went back later, down the roads where I must have lost it, but it must have been washed away, there’s no sign of it now
‘…the utilisation of the Dark Arches brings a whole new dimension to the city! For most probably undiscovered until now.’ @thecorporatedj
‘…never thought I’d get the boy to watch ballet!’ @rlparker81
You can’t escape the river, there is no way you can ignore it
The mud is a lonely, thick soup mumbling at the edge of the canal, it takes in and gives out, clinging to anything, anybody, wanting you to stay here with me
the alcoves like an old dark cathedral where you get a feeling of the other world
constant movement, constant relation to life, conception, death, afterlife
A foggy feel, water on it all the time
‘we loved it, felt like we were in an underwater limbo. The dancers immersed you in their world..’ @OtherAnimals
‘Completely transfixed by the underworlds…too engrossed to tweet.’ @cafe164
Water pools in the machine and there is the smell of trout caught in a muddy river
Transfixed by the fish cabaret
Her body hairless like a baby, but her eyes not like the eyes of a baby
When she sucks on the metal her mouth is full of bitterness, she loves the taste of lost love
Their world is a lost world but if you look around our cities you find it
‘…impressive – atmospheric & slightly unsettling in parts…’ @Kayelle5
‘…beautiful, strong and very otherwordly.’ @Nickyleedavies
Their mouths in the earth but their eyes like glass tipped up to catch the light
Waiting rooms for the River Styx. We are all interlopers here
…an amazing event….(Dark Arches were’…creepy,eerie and gorgeous’ @ladylugosi
an unexpected marriage between forms, visual art as much as choreography
Come back tomorrow, next week, next year, come back whenever, we will still be here
Lost to the light, they slip to the source, where there is no one
We keep coming back to the same place, keep coming back to see if we are different, keep coming back looking for a way out, keep
The locks were all frozen and when I tried to sail my boat there it skidded like a tray down a mountainside
Dogs at the farm on long steel chains catch a whiff in the wind of their sweat and heat
From a far city I keep that place on for my dream-life, a home to home in on when I am asleep or at the brow of it
We keep coming back looking
Waiting rooms for the River Styx. We are all interlopers down here. Now cross the river.
