Shadowing Silence: A Spatial Rewriting of Myths and Fairytales

Abstract

Fragments of a city appear and disappear in the pitch dark. At one point, there is a sea of roofs and windows, and then a labyrinth of underground vaults and wells. Colors and lights flicker and move around behind the curtain (Figure 1). Sounds of rustling, crunching, swishing, and scratching are heard from time to time behind the storytellers’ voices. While the shadow figures on sticks play on the screen, behind them are a tangling of arms and rushing bodies that try to move from one side of the hexagonal platform to the other throughout the performance (Figure 2). This transformation story of a city and its inhabitants subversively adopts well-known characters, places, and events in myths, fairytales, and history without prioritizing any. Traces of everyday urban experience materialize on the screen and in the darkness surrounding it: the flow of crowds in urban squares, the sound of water within the fountains and wells, and the textures of stone walls and underground caves.