The Parachute is a funny and mesmerising story about youth, love and confronting old age. Armed with Sebastian Castagna’s glorious music and an armful of white tipped wands, puppeteer Stephen Mottram magics up his characters from nowhere. He plays with the way our brains make sense of things we see and stealthily reels us into a world of movement, populated by captivating, non-existent actors.

In 1971, Gunnar Johansson attached white markers to 12 key points on a black-costumed actor’s body and then filmed the actor walking against a black background. When the film was played back, he was surprised to find that the 12 white spots seen moving relative to each other on the screen contained so much information that not only could the viewer immediately identify a human walking, but also the sex, age and mood of the person.
In The Parachute, Stephen Mottram exploits Johansson’s discoveries, to produce a sort of motion capture in reverse. The white tips of his multiple magic wands reveal ephemeral characters whose lives we end up caring about.

The Castle Museum – Katedralna 1 Street
03.10.2019 – 7.30 p.m.

Duration: 45 min
Age: 16+