Once again I return you to the beginning of summer, to June, boiling with activities. Once again I remember the wonderful LUMINATO
It is really hard to forget and I will return to it more than once.
And today I want to tell you about the magical event that took place on Dundas Square on June 8, the last day of this event.
I’ll start with the fact that I was out of town, 4 hours away from Toronto, and I was late for my shift. I had to give the car to my son, run into the subway on a line that was being repaired, put on a volunteer tennis shirt right in the subway car, and be right in front of the group captain at the square on time. I made it. I remember it well.
When I arrived at my shift, the acrobat’s performance was already underway. A large crane was hanging over the square, with an ice floe attached to it. This is a real ice floe from Antarctica, which was cut out of an iceberg or a large ice floe and delivered to this performance in a special container.
The weather was wonderful, no one except my husband said that rain was coming. But my husband was at home. And the atmosphere in the square was wonderful. There were a lot of people. Everyone was looking at the acrobat dancing on the ice floe and taking pictures of her. She was wonderful.
Although the auxiliary safety ropes held her, it seemed that she was sliding boldly and freely on this ice floe without fear or stress.
But the ice floe was still slippery.
And cold. It was a natural ice floe.
Water was constantly dripping from it, it was melting.
But the skill and experience of the organizers was that they took into account the volume of the ice floe, so that it would be more than enough for the entire performance.
Toronto is very busy with tourists at this time. A double-decker tour bus was dropping people off and on, curious about what was going on in the square. This is the most popular square in Toronto with tourists, and there are events every week during the summer.
The performance was reflected through a huge screen located on the side of the square. This helped to see what was happening from any corner of the square. People watched what was happening, sitting on benches and chairs located in the park. Children jumped, played and repeated the dances of the acrobat.
She was given a very warm send-off at the end of her performance. And indeed, flying under the arches of Dundas Square on a real ice floe is super.
And how many emotions she had when she finished her performance and came down to square.
Here I want to note that this is a group of acrobats from Australia who specially flew to the LUMINATO festival. And this was the last day, Sunday, the last day of their performances.
This group did their first such performance in 2022 at the Sydney Festival and Sydney Opera House in January 2022.
Created by Joshua Thomson with an original score by Alaskan composer Mattew Burther.
2.7 tonne ice block transforms under summer sun as a monumental call to action about climate change.
Three times each day, the artists take to the ice to perform their show in front of an audience and make their contribution to the fight against climate change.
We are experiencing signs of global warming everywhere, Europe is experiencing heat waves, heavy rains with hail, here in Toronto this year we have unprecedented heat for our region. And all this speaks of global warming.
I had to work with the last of the performers.
She was the youngest member of this group.
A very young 16 year old girl.
I captured her as she climbed up on a crane, sitting timidly on a cold ice floe. Her performance was extraordinary.
The little girl hesitantly began to show her number. It seemed that she was a little constrained and afraid. But it only seemed that way to us.
Thaw means ice,snow,frozen substance become liquid or soft as a result of warming.
The girl seemed to be collecting droplets of water from the ice with her hands. She was collecting the immensity.
And then the extraordinary began. That is, the usual for my husband’s forecast, that it would rain. But rain can be different. And no one among the organizers foresaw the rain, since it interfered with the performance and was even dangerous. They did not foresee it.
And then, during the performance of this little girl, the youngest artist, from nowhere, the wind blew in. Clouds, the sky turned black and it did not rain, but real hail. In one minute, an avalanche of water poured out of the sky.
The square emptied, everyone ran for shelter, and they began to ask the poor girl to go down, since the weather did not allow the performance to continue. It was very dangerous.
But she refused. She refused to go down and finish the performance and in the rain on a very slippery ice floe she continued the performance. It’s so brave and so sensitive. We all watched her without taking our eyes off her. The girl seemed to come to life. She, all wet, on the cold ice floe, continued to show her performance and express her fight against global warming.
NO TIME TO WASTE is written on her poster.
We stood in the tents, holding our breath, looking at this brave girl.
The weather changed again and the final part of this artist’s performance was again light and a lot of people came running to the square to see how this tiny girl boldly flies under the arch of the park, lifted by a crane above the square, regardless of the weather, the evening, or us, the spectators.
This is the video, it is very memorable to me. It is how she is on a slippery ice floe, wet, after more than an hour of performance, at great speed, at the end of her performance, flying over our heads. This remains in my memory.
I think it’s not just me who remembers it. Everyone who was on that square that day, and all the organizers of the show.
The fight against global warming is our responsibility to the next generation. What will win – money or wisdom – is up to us to decide. Until now, wisdom has won.
That’s why we live on this planet today.