Alan in Belfast: Music For Domes – a midsummer melding together myth, memory and music from Ireland and Cambodia (Armagh Planetarium until Friday 27 June) #docsireland7

Melding together myth, memory and music from Ireland and Cambodia, Music For Domes creates a meditative and an almost hypnotic experience with its poetic on-screen narrative (Paul Doran) in English, Irish, Khmer and French with a soundtrack by Irish folk artist RÓIS and Barry Cullen that weaves together different cultural techniques, and visuals that evoke oppression and shared (cosmic) space.

The immersive documentary by Dawn Richardson leverages NI Screen archive footage is projected onto Armagh Planetarium’s star dome, utilising 360-degree footage and the powerful sound system that normally only gets turned up for rocket launches.

Much of the 45-minute film is therapeutic and poignant (the rendition of Bread and Roses) though there are also surreal scenes of RÓIS floating in a giant pink flamingo and an unforgettable moment from the UTV archive when Gerry’s People visited the Armagh Planetarium in November 1988. (Host Gerry Kelly welcomes viewers to the outside broadcast and introduces the show’s opening number, three dancers from X Appeal shaking their ‘heavenly’ bodies to a remix of the Doctor Who theme. I doubt that so much buttock and thigh has been broadcast on local TV since. Hopefully the dance troupe were able to attend the premiere screening on Friday evening!)

It’s a shame that the documentary’s captions don’t linger on screen to allow the three translations to be appreciated: there are fascinating glimpses at familiar spellings and sometimes enormously long French translations to encapsulate what can be expressed in short phrases in the other languages.

Music For Domes demonstrates how creative work can take advantage of the wrap around screen in a planetarium that almost hugs the viewer, with its carefully controlled environment designed to lift people out of the busy world and into far flung places. In this case, a fusion of the cosmos around us, the history of conflict that we carry with us, and music that can inspire. Hats off to Hosta Projects, Docs Ireland, NI Screen and the archives for making it possible.

You can catch the final two screenings of Music For Domes in the planetarium on Sunday 22 at 4pm and Friday 27 at 3pm.

And there’s lots more to look forward to when the main programme of Docs Ireland festival of international documentary film begins officially on Monday 23 June.