After the fun of watching the gegants parade down
La Rambla earlier in the day (
see link below), I ran some errands then later that evening went to meet friends at
Parque de la Ciudadela to enjoy some of the other spectacles of
La Mercé.
I left my studio in the
Raval, crossed
La Rambla
into the
Barri Gòtic, then through it to Carrer Laietania on the other
side. When I got there, I was astounded to see it completely void of
traffic!
(click on any image for slideshow)
Normally
the street is jammed with traffic, no matter what time of the day it
is. I had to stop in the middle of the street and take a photo of it. I
found out the next day that it was for the
Correfoc, performances of many different fire exhibitions as well as fire works (
ummm . . . kinda like Burning Man). I'll catch it next time.
There were many events happening all over the city that day:
The
major spots were:
Placa de Sant Jaume,
Avinguda de la Catedral,
Placa de Catalunya,
Arc de Triomf and
Parc de la Ciutadella. But there were
things happening ALL over the city. I managed the first (Sant Jaume) and the last (Parc) but
that was really jamming it!
Google Maps
At the entrance to
Parque de la Ciudadela, there was a fantastic light installation. It was a painting on the sidewalk lit with a lighting effect similar to
black-light but different. Kids were dancing and jumping around on the painting and the effect was terrific!
I walked into the Parque
and was instantly transfixed. It was so incredibly beautiful it left me
breathless. The romantic and theatrical lighting was goosed up a
thousand times by the lush, full moon.
light sculptures
light sculptures
There
were performance of all kinds happening all over the city, music, art
performances, theatrical, and the list could go on and on, there were
hundreds to fulfill any taste.
I
was going to one of these performances, an aerial ballet by the
Voalá Project from
Argentina. a troop of
dancers. The installation consisted of a huge and beautiful structure
with an
enormous armature that suspended the dancers high above the crowd where
they did their performance.
The spinning of the dancers created beautiful and fascinating patterns that never repeated. It was spectacular!
I got some great shots
Although, the video shots I took (below) are way too short, it gives kind of an impressionist-like moving representation of what the performance looked like.
There
were several structures created for the event that were quite
entrancing; the light was pretty dim and the shot below is the best one I
got.
Then there was the laser-light show!
NICE!
After
the laser show, I walked back to El Barri Gòtic. When I got to Carrer
Laietania I found it was back to its normal self with tons of traffic
but I did notice the shadow cast by a statue in a plaza on a building.
It was pretty dramatic and totally cool.
I walked through
El Barri Gòtic until I got to
Plaça Sant Jaume,
the main plaza of Barcelona where all the government buildings are. I
had seen a projection installation there the night before on the facade
of
l`Ajuntament de Barcelona. But I had been in a bad position and the angle was crappy so I
hadn't gotten great shots (those shots below). This time I wanted to
video it.
photographer unknown
shots of the projection from the night before
I
had never seen anything like this and was totally blown away. Since
then I've seen others but, like many other things in life, your first time is always the one you
remember. I got my video shot of the projection from a better angle (
link below).
After the projection I wandered over to
Plaça Real. (I lived there for almost a month a few years back and fell in love with it (
what stories I have of that experience!). I discovered they had set up a huge stage in one end of the plaça and there were music performances there.
At the end of the day I realized that La Merce was a wonderfully extravagant celebration of fire, joy, light and life!
What a fantastic way to end this fantastic day!
Viewfinder La Merce links:
Main link to La Mercé articles:
Barcelona ~ La Mercé 2010 articles
Individual links:
Voalá Project, Argentina
Styrous® ~ September 20, 2013
