Quiet River of Dust Vol 1 / Vol 2
Richard Reed Parry
360º CINEMA
With both volumes of ‘Quiet River of Dust’, Richard Reed Parry creates an explorative musical and visual world that surrounds, soothes, gently disorients and asks us: where does the self end, and the world around us begin?
Join us for a special screening that presents for the first time the immersive film versions of both albums together; an experience where the 360º visuals go hand in hand with the music, transporting us to where the boundaries of self and world are permeable to the point of blissful disorientation.
Richard Reed Parry, the multi-instrumentalist at the heart of Arcade Fire, wrote both volumes following an eye-opening trip he took to Japan in 2008, at one point finding himself in a hot spring beside the “River of Death”, and a story started to form.
Each volume of Quiet River of Dust takes place on one side of an imagined metaphysical river.
In Vol.1: This Side of the River, we find ourselves deep in a mystical forest experiencing a great awakening, embarking on foot on a journey through a verdant world of moss, trees, spirits and creatures, then experiencing the moment when the particles of our body dissolve and merge with the fabric of the world around us.
In Vol.2: That Side of the River, we begin our journey somewhere across the great divide… in a mysterious watery place located in between the physical world, a floating dream world of memory and the subconscious, and the great beyond.
The actual locations featured in the 360º films include forests on the Isle of Mull in Scotland and Vermont, rivers in Germany and Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains, oceans in Cape Cod, Portugal and Norway and inside tree stumps in Japan – but all filmed to create one beautiful macro/microcosmic world that defies identification and which feels familiar and foreign simultaneously.
Conceived and Produced by: Richard Reed Parry & Ryhna Thompson.
Directed by: JF Lalonde & Richard Reed Parry.
Filmed by: Richard Reed Parry.
Motion Designer and Assistant Direction: Christelle Bellini.
Music by: Richard Reed Parry, Laurel Sprengelmeyer, Stefan Schneider, Corwin Fox & Jordy Walker.
Additional performers: Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Dallas Good, Yuka Honda, Caroline Shaw, Stuart Bogie, Nico Muhly, Amedeo Pace, Pietro Amato, The Friends of Fiddlers Green: Ian Robb, Grit Laskin, Alistair Brown, Laurence Stevenson, Geoff McClintock, Ian Bell, Adam Brown.
Producer: Ryhna Thompson.
This project received the support of the creation program of works from the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT).