We should be used to arts events being cancelled by now, but in Melbourne it still stings
The Rivers Sing is one of the few remnants of Rising festival to survive the city’s fourth lockdown. It’s bittersweet to experience it through a screen
It’s quiet. More quiet than you’d expect from the Melbourne CBD just after 5pm. Occasionally there’s the sounds of birds and at one point I hear children laughing and playing. I think, fleetingly, I can hear the water of the Yarra River gently rippling, but it’s probably just my mind filling in the sounds it expects. Then, suddenly, a voice rings out clear and haunting – and even though it’s starting exactly on time it comes as a shock.
For a moment I am completely immersed; in the music, in watching the water gently move in the breeze, in seeing the sky slowly darken. But then the camera pans, ever so slightly, to get a better shot, and my attention is once again brought back to the computer screen, the split between the view of the Yarra, and the accompanying window showing me the ebb and flow of people logging on to the Instagram stream.
Read the original article at The Guardian