posted 06-04-2008 05:39 PM               

...a sparkling recreation of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Standing behind a large black clothed table, accompanied by a narrator and music from Shostakovich's 10th Symphony, we explore this surface and the spaces above it using only hands, arms and upper torso to create a constantly entrancing documentary of the entire mission. Andrew dextrously takes us from Houston to the Moon and back down to Earth again, conveying the colossal distances and risks involved simply through the arrangement of one hand in relation to the other, with the odd facial expression thrown in for good measure.

The moon landing was a tele-visual event. Space Panorama triggers the memories if those pictures, the massive rocket at launch, the moments before landing, the helicopters and aircraft carriers on their return to Earth. In Space Panorama we can also create the shots that no camera could ever see and together they convey a sense of the eternity of space, and the triviality of our exploration of it.

Created in 1998, Space Panorama was conceived as a miniature piece of theatre but over the last ten years it has toured worldwide.

posted 06-21-2010 11:15 AM               

Dawson has created "Space Panorama," a theatrical re-telling of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, using nothing more than his two hands and a single table clothed in black, and, OK, an occasional odd facial expression. And the music of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10.

Using just those things, he's able to portray not only the lunar module itself, but also the astronauts themselves, the bus that took them across the launching pad, the rocket that sent them into space, as well as the various dials and switches in the capsule.

He'll give you a sense of the weightlessness the astronauts experienced, and then, best of all, he'll exhibit what it felt like to be on the moon itself. And then it's back to Earth with you: the parachute and then the helicopter that picked the astronauts up.