I Love West Leeds and Bramley Baths have done it again! The showing of Ghostbusters in the pool at Bramley Baths was fantastic fun. Jane Earnshaw (from I Love West Leeds) said that when she heard the whole pool of people shouting out ‘GHOST BUSTERS!’ in reply to the question ‘who you gonna call?’ ( this is the theme song in the opening credits of the film if you havn’t seen this movie) – that ‘her job was done’. Now this is not the first time Bramley Baths and I love West Leeds have teamed up to put on events in the pool – there has also been an orchestra in the middle of the pool (Water Music), an underwater photography exhibition (Submerged) and a swim-along screening of Jaws and Finding Nemo. I have enjoyed all these events. One of the draw backs about the previous swim-along screening was the sound. The audio on the original film of Jaws is poor, so then hearing that sound in the acoustics of a swimming pool – well it was a bit tricky to hear. For Ghostbusters, these issues have been resolved, as the sound quality was great above and below the water. To be honest, if I had my own ‘gills’ I would have stayed under the water to listen. The sound was engineered by Hazel Plummer (Anything Audio) who collaborates regularly with I Love West Leeds and worked on Water Music with them.
What was also interesting was that there was a natural separation in the pool, which was possible because of the extra sets of speakers around the space: at the front were all the people who wanted to seriously watch the film, and then at the back was the rest of us – families, kids ( big and little) cavorting around the pool. This meant that people could choose their experience and how intently they wanted to watch the film, without disturbing anyone else. As one young person said:
” I’m really enjoying it because I can talk with my friends and swim about while watching the film, which is so much fun. Usually you have to be really quiet in the cinema.”
Ghostbusters ‘swimema’ had lots of the bits that the previous swim-along had used – like seats to sit on in the water, underwater speakers and floats. There was a little inflatable ghost and pumpkin floating around, and spiders hanging down. I loved the slime green lighting in the lobby, pool and balconies – designed, of course, by the wizardry of Hazel Plummer. It really is the attention to detail that I love West Leeds and Bramley Baths bring to these events that is so inspiring. The spooky additions that made the event fit the Halloween theme so well yet keeping that element of fun and individuality. Like knives and other possible weapons dangling above our heads in the entrance to the pool – yet you could still go to the ‘tuck shop’ and get hot chocolate, ginger bread men and popcorn to sweeten up the experience.
There was a chilling scream sound that randomly played into the steam room. Every time I heard it, I ran out to see where it was coming from – what greeted me was, well, ‘nothing’, just an empty changing room. Spooky stories that had been collected on the Bramley Baths facebook group were scrawled all over the walls – dripping off through the evening. These were fragments of ghost stories – like the ghost that whistled and walked around the balcony of Bramley baths but only in the month of October, and the female laughter coming from the cellar of a pub, something about a dog going missing and a sentence about people being their own devil. These stories appeared to have been written in blood and slime – maybe ghost ectoplasm? In the sauna, we were actually talking about real life spooky stories, partly inspired by our environment, but also because the weather was so crazy on Sunday. I mentioned that when I had been cycling earlier that day, the wind had been so strong that I had almost been blown upward. People then shared some very eery real-life stories about natural disasters. Like the precautions one lady had taken to weight down her household furniture in preparation for the storm that day. That seemed extreme until we heard the reason why she had done this – last year her glass window had been blown right off the frame, so that her house possibly resembled that of one of the ‘excorcised’ or ‘ghost busted’ rooms in the ‘Ghostbusters’ film.
There was also an on-site ghostbusting team, boiler suits and all, who were vigilantly manning the poolside – ready to jump in, rescue and resusitate at a moments notice. That was a fabulous thing to witness – as one regular baths user said
“It was so nice to see so many of the staff who I see every time I swim getting in on the fun!”
I agree. You just have to love Danny Whiteley and his team – total commitment to the swimmers safety. What also stood out was that real sense of community. Families, couples, friends – all having fun and enjoying time together. I couldn’t have been in better company, spending quite a bit of my time with a rather talented little ‘mermaid’. And for anyone who was around at the end and saw Howard Bradley from I Love West Leeds bustin’ his moves!!! Who knew he was such a groovy dancer? New career path? Now I will let Lizzie Coombe‘s fabulous pictures speak for themselves! Thanks so much to I Love West leeds and Bramley Baths for putting on a great night – we had a blast!
Zoe Parker (@Zoe_Parker) is a choreographer and performance coach writing about dance and culture. She is co-director of Yorkshire Life Aquatic and delivers training for professional dancers and dance leaders. Zoe will be running an Injury prevention training at Barnsley Civic in January 2014.