And from the moment The Big Man emerged from his magic pod beside the High Street fountain and straightened up to his full 8 metres tall, Dumfries was an enchanted place.

…The Big Man stepped forward and looked down at the crowds, and blinked huge, wise green eyes, his lips curved in a gentle smile.  Crowds of people stood open-mouthed.  Then puppeteers with giant feather dusters tickled the Big Man’s hands.  He shut his eyes and shook very softly.  Babies held high on shoulders burst out laughing.

Across the High Street stood the willowy form of Devorgilla, a 6m tall maiden created by the people of Dumfries, in countless workshops, and led by artist Susan McKay. Devorgilla was a show-stopper in flowing skirts painted with the glorious landscapes of Dumfries and Galloway: fields and hills and woods flowed down to the golden beaches, and a blue sea lapped around her mighty ankles.   She read aloud a love poem composed specially for The Big Man’s visit.

A crowd of 10,000 turned out on a cool wet day at the end of May to take the Big Man to their hearts.

In April Oceanallover’s Tide Machine Show played to around 400 people who stood and sat on the levee by Kingholm Quay, Dumfries, to see a vivid and dramatic performance.  The bright scarlet, blue and gold Tide Machine perched on the side of the dock, with its stage extended out over the brimming high tide.  A boom of deep watery sound from dancers wearing tall organ pipes on their backs, and operating them by means of pale-painted bellows under their arms, announced the start of the performance.

Strange anemone creatures danced and shuffled alongside the dock under a weird wailing roar from the tide-driven organ pipes of the Tide Machine.  A group of exotic, fierce-faced crab-dancers rose each on a single vast claw to stand frozen through the ebb and flow and face-off of further groups of dancers, who wore complex pleats and gills reminiscent of nameless aggressive crustaceans. Musicians floated around the dock in a laden little boat, playing their hearts out.  For thirty strange, absorbing minutes the crowd watched a re-enactment of the pull of the moon and the draw and ebb of the tides and the lives of the creatures of the sea.

The performance was repeated for an audience of 140 at midnight, in a dramatic atmosphere lit by fire.  Public Art Manager for dg arts, Dr Jan Hogarth said, “The eerie booming of the Tide Machine’s organ pipes and the spectacular costumes made for the most amazing experience.  This has been a very challenging and ambitious pilot project but the artists and dancers have made something really special, really unusual.”

The Tide Machine will appear in Glasgow for the Conflux Festival in July, when it will perform on the Clyde, and then its creators hope to attract further funding to allow the project to expand in the future.